Chap. XXV. THE OLDEST CONTINENT. 535 



1856, and now, in 1863, in the sand on the shores of Lake 

 Nyassa, pottery was found, with buffalo and other large 

 bones; but in no case have we found a specimen of the 

 weapons with which these animals may have been killed for 

 human food. 



In attempting to decipher the testimony of the rocks 

 in the Lake and other regions of southern Africa, it had 

 always been a sore puzzle, that few or none of the regular 

 geological series, as described in books, could be made 

 out. The absence of marine limestone, and the evidences of 

 the oscillations of land and sea, which are so common in 

 other countries, baffled our unaided inquiries. No chalk nor 

 flints were ever met with. The nearest resemblance to the 

 cretaceous strata, were immense flat masses of calcareous 

 tufa, and this, from the impressions of reeds and leaves of the 

 same kind as those now growing in the vicinity, was evidently 

 a dejjosit from land springs, which formerly flowed much more 

 copiously than at the present day. In association with these 

 tufaceous deposits, ferruginous masses, with gravel imbedded, 

 were observed, having all the appearance of the same origin 

 as the tufa. Coal was discovered in sandstone, and that had 

 been disturbed only by the undulations of local igneous 

 irruptions. It was only when our far-seeing and sagacious 

 countryman, Sir Eoderick I. Murchison, collected all the 

 rays of light on the subject, from various sources, into the 

 focus of his mind, that what we had before but dimly guessed, 

 at length became apparent. Those great submarine depres- 

 sions and elevations which have so largely affected Europe, 

 Asia, and America, during the secondary, tertiary, and quasi- 

 modern, periods, have not affected Africa. In fact, Africa is 

 the oldest continent in the world. " It is unquestionably a 

 grand type of a region which has preserved its ancient ter- 

 restrial conditions during a very long period, unaffected by 



