245 
of Guinea, it is manifest, that, not finding a declivity in 
the territory, they would spread and lose themselves 
in lakes, without arriving at the gulf. 
The great rivers, Formoso and Rey, as well as others 
which fall into the Gulf of Guinea, receive their water 
from an extensive surface, by which they are raised to 
the rank of the greatest rivers. Thus, from the south- 
ern declivity of the mountains Kong and Komri to the 
ocean, a surface of 180,000 square miles is more than 
sufficient to receive all these rivers, in a country where 
a territory of less than half the extent produces the great 
rivers of Senegal, Gambia, Rio Grande, Missurata, and 
many others. There are formed near the Cape Roxo 
and the islands ofBissagos a multitude of large channels 
and lakes, which may be compared with those which are 
formed by the Rio Formoso and the Rio de Rey on the 
Gulf of Guinea. The general map of the north of Africa, 
which is here subjoined, represents the particulars of 
this system; and as it has been copied from that pub- 
lished by Major Rennel, it also shows, without deranging 
any point in the known geography, that the existence 
of the supposed interior sea gives a solution of the prob- 
lem concerning the issue of the interior rivers of Africa. 
Having thus shown, as much as the matter admits, 
that the immense quantity of water in the interior part 
of Africa, accumulated from rain, and carried by the 
Niger and other rivers near the centre of this continent, 
cannot be evaporated in small lake s, and still less in the 
marshes of Wangara, and that it cannot arrive at the 
ocean by way of the Gull of Guinea, we infer from this 
the necessity of the existence of a large lake or interior 
set*. Into this sea the surplus of ail the waters, left by 
