FORESTRY OF WEST AFRICA. 33 



III. 



Although I have so far given definitions of the 

 vai'ious Possessions in West Africa, yet much more 

 may be expected in the direction of affording forestry 

 statistics. True, on the one side, those Possessions 

 have a marked and fixed water boundary to the west 

 or south, according to the course of the Atlantic ; but 

 otherwise inland, to the north, to the east, and again 

 to the south, boundaries can be compared to the rings 

 of concentric circles as observed when a stone is 

 thrown into water — they are ever moving outwards, 

 never inwards. 



This may in a measure account for the want of 

 territorial definiteness, and, I may say, somewhat in 

 consequence, for the entire absence of information on 

 the forested or deforested portion of the colonised 

 countries in West Africa, and on their grand prolific 

 interior which must still be looked upon as scienti- 

 fically and commercially unexplored. 



I endeavoured in vain to gather some forestry 

 statistics as regards the French Possessions, hoping to 

 find that, among those comparatively much more 

 advanced Colonies, data existed not procurable cer- 



D 



