MINERAL RESOURCES. 791 



quite one-fifth of its entire production, and from this vast store- 

 house there has been for many years but little contribution made 

 to the commerce of the world. 



But the soil which produces such marvellous forest wealth is 

 also remarkably adapted to the most enlightened forms of 

 agriculture. The cotton planter will find in Africa, in various 

 sections, his favorite growing wild, and exhibiting a luxuriance 

 and excellence of quality which will rival that grown in any 

 land. Indian corn is also cultivated with remarkable success ; 

 also rice, manioc, and various other grains. Gum, beeswax, 

 palm oil, India-rubber, etc., swell the list, while tobacco, coffee, 

 indigo, sugar-cane, and all the tropical fruits grow luxuriantly. 



The mineral resources are also worthy of special attention. 

 Gold is found in various parts of the continent; the most 

 promising of which fields are probably those near the junction 

 of the Limpopo and Zambesi rivers. But these, as are all the 

 regions where the world at various times has located the long- 

 sought Ophir, are entirely undeveloped, and there is certainly 

 no contradiction yet furnished of the reported wealth of Africa 

 in this glittering treasure. Coal, iron, and copper, all have 

 their place. Iron is manufactured quite extensively in many 

 districts, and we have seen the wholi lake country covered with 

 the rude forges of the natives. The most notorious copper 

 mines are those of Hofrat-el-Nahaho, which are said to be situ- 

 ated on the southern frontier of Darfoor, but about whose exact 

 location there is some dispute among the doctors. The copper 

 from these mines is brought into market, either in the shape of 

 clumsily formed rings, full of angles, varying in weight from 

 five to fifty pounds, or in long oval cakes of imperfect casting. 

 Dr. Schweinfurth obtained a specimen of this copper, which he 

 deposited in the Mineralogical Museum at Berlin. This speci- 

 men consisted of " copper-pyrite and quartz, with an earthy 

 touch of malachite, commonly called green carbonate of copper, 

 but containing a very small quantity of the real metal." 



No systematic mining seems to be carried on in the Hofrat-el- 

 Nahaho, and the man from whom the doctor obtained his sam- 

 ple said that the ore was found lying like loose rubble in the 

 dry bed of a khor. " It may be presumed that by boring gal- 

 leries, or even by hewing out quarries, a large supply of metal 



