XVIII.] LAND AND WATER. 309 



the surrounding area. This lake, has long been known. 

 But, within the last twenty years, some enormous sheets 

 of fresh water have been discovered in the eastern part 

 of Central Africa. These include Lakes Tanganyika and 

 Nyassa, and the Victoria Nyanza, the Albert Nyanza, and 

 the Alexandra Nyanza. The noble sheet of water which is 

 called the Victoria Nyanza is about 3,800 feet above sea- 

 level, and is probably the largest known body of fresh-water 

 at this altitude ; one of its islands is described as having an 

 area of about 700 miles. In this great region of lakes are 

 the head-waters of two of the most remarkable rivers of 

 Africa — the Nile which flows to the north, and the Congo 

 which runs to the west. The Nile, which takes its course 

 through Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt, is especially notable 

 for the fact that it runs for more than a thousand miles 

 without receiving a single tributary. 



The eastern coast of Eurasia, as we have seen, is washed 

 by the Pacific ocean. Lying off its whole length, in some- 

 what the same fashion as Iceland and the British islands he 

 off its west coast, and as the Canaries and the Cape de 

 Verd islands lie off the west coast of Africa, is a long series 

 of outlying isolated masses of land of various sizes, termed 

 the Kuriles, the Japanese islands, Formosa, and the Philip- 

 pine Islands ; and these are continued, southwards and 

 eastwards, by the islands of Celebes and New Guinea. On 

 the other hand, the general direction of the southernmost 

 prolongation of the eastern end of Eurasia, the Malay 

 Peninsula, is continued to the south and to the east, by 

 Sumatra and Borneo, and by other smaller islands. They 

 trise from an Asiatic submarine plain, just as Britain rises 

 [from the European submarine plain (Fig. 90, p. 302). 

 jBorneo has twice the area of Britain, while Sumatra is 

 (also very large. These Asiatic islands, which constitute the 



