CHAPTER VII. 
AFRICA—A SKETCH. II. 
CiviMATE—^M inkraIv and Vegktabde: Productions—Animats— 
PeoptE—Explorations—Livingstone's Brilliant Work— 
Stanley's Discoveries. 
HE climate of Africa is mainly influenced by the fact that it 
^ lies almost entirely within the tropics. In the equatorial belt, 
both north and south, rain is abundant and vegetation very 
luxuriant, dense tropical forests prevailing for about lo degrees 
on either side of the line. 
To the north and south of the equatorial belt the rainfall 
diminishes, and the forest region is succeeded by an open pastoral 
and agricultural country. This is followed by the rainless regions 
of the Sahara on the north and the Kalahari Desert on the south, 
extending beyond the tropics, and bordering on the agricultural 
and pastoral countries of the north and south coasts, which lie 
entirely in the temperate zone. The low coast regions of Africa 
are almost everywhere unhealthy, the Atlantic coast within the 
tropics being the most fatal region to Europeans. 
Among mineral productions may be mentioned gold, which is 
found in the rivers of West Africa, (hence the name Gold Coast), 
and in Southern Africa, but rarely in much abundance; diamonds 
have been found in large numbers in recent years in the south; iron, 
copper, lead, tin and coal are also found. 
Among the plants are the baobab, the datepalm (important as 
a food in the north), the doum-palm, the oil-palm, the wax-palm, 
the shea-butter tree, trees yielding caoutchouc, the papyrus, the 
castor-oil plant, indigo, the coffee-plant, heaths with beautiful 
flowers, aloes, etc. 
Among cultivated plants are wheat, maize, millet, and other 
grains, cotton, coffee, cassava, ground-nut, yam, banana, tobacco, 
various plants, etc. 
