ii.] GEOGRAPHY. 61 



Geography. 



"The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." Psalm xxiv. r. 



In this science henceforth the map of Africa is greatly 

 altered; the immense sandy plains of some philosophers spe- 

 culating at home, in which rivers were asserted to be lost, 

 and no life, animate or inanimate, was declared to flourish, 

 are proved by our traveller to exist only in the fertile brains 

 of those worthies; while facts replace these plains with peopled 

 and productive regions. 



The following theories propounded by celebrated men, will, 

 when compared with Dr Livingstone's revelations, prove the 

 undoubted superiority of fact over theory. 



Buffon imagined that central Africa consists of great lon- 

 gitudinal chains of mountains. 



Lacepede so far refined on this idea, as to lay down these 

 chains; and gravely to belt them with fiery girdles of sand. 



Malte-Bnm doubted these assertions. 



Professor Ritter advanced a theory singularly in accord- 

 ance with the facts evolved by Sir R. I. Murchison, from 

 geological data, and proved by Dr Livingstone from actual 

 observation. We will now discuss these facts. 



This is one of the most interesting features of 



South Afri- Dr Livingstone's discoveries. Sir R. I. Mur- 

 ca an oblong , . , l . . , . „ . . . , 



basin with de- chison s great inductive teat in connexion with 



pressed centre this fact puts one in mind as an inductive effort, 

 of Mr Adams' celebrated a priori demonstration 

 of the position of the planet Neptune. The for- 

 mer gentleman, in a presidential address to the members of 

 the Royal Geographical Society, in 1852, stated his convic- 

 tion that central South Africa is a depressed plateau, having 

 elevated ridges running down the eastern and western coasts 1 . 



1 The following is the passage occurring in thi-i address : — " Such is 

 South Africa is now, such have been her main features during countless 

 past ages, anterior to the creation of the human race. For the old rocks 



