ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW. 



BULLETIN library 



NEW YORK 

 0F BOTANICAL 



-GARDEN. 



MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION 



ADDITIONAL SERIES IX. 



THE USEFUL PLANTS OF NIGERIA. 



J. H. Holland. 



Nigeria comprises the two colonies of Southern Nigeria 

 and Northern Nigeria. The combined territories lie approxi- 

 mately between the parallels 4° to 14° N. and the meridians 2°.30 / 

 to 14° E. and cover in all an area of 335,000 square miles. The 

 main boundaries are : on the North, the French Sudan ; on the 

 South, the Atlantic Ocean ; on the East, Lake Chad and the 

 German Cameroons ; and on the West, the Colony and Hinterland 

 of French Dahomey. 



This area was formerly divided into the Colony of Lagos, the 

 Niger Coast Protectorate (also known as the Oil Rivers Protectorate, 

 1884-1893), and the territory administered by the Royal Niger 

 Company under a Royal Charter. Lagos was proclaimed a West 

 African Settlement, under the control of the Governor of Sierra 

 Leone, in 1866 ; it became part of the Gold Coast Colony in 1874, 

 and a separate colony in 1886. In 1906 it was made the Western 

 Province of Southern Nigei ia. 



The Niger Coast Protectorate was formed in May, 1893, and 

 included the land lying between the Lagos Colony and the 

 Cameroons. The coast line extended from Ogbo at the south-east 

 corner of the Lagos Colony to the Forcados river, and again from 

 the Nun mouth of the Niger, near Akassa to the Rio del Rey ; the 

 northern boundary extended from Akure (80 miles or so inland 

 from Ogbo) through Idah on the Niger (about 200 miles from the 

 mouth of the river) to the German boundary. The Protectorate 

 was renamed Southern Nigeria on January 1st, 1900. 



The territories of the Royal Niger Company included what is now 

 Northern Nigeria and the river Niger with a certain stretch of land 

 on each side, divided approximately by the coast line from Forcados 

 river to the Nun mouth of the Niger. The Charter of the Company 

 was granted on July 10th, 1886, and the territories were governed 



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