HINTS TO TRAVELLERS. 
307 
self, who explored the country from 1865 to 1870, 
and which he published in 1871, is by far the most 
accurate general map of the island produced up 
to that date. It is a rough lithograph, but it 
has already done good work in clearing up many 
doubts, and in sweeping away a number of tra¬ 
ditional errors as to some great facts in the 
physical geography of the island. 
The central mountain-chain, a once familiar 
idea with reference to the country, is now known 
to be a mere notion of the map-makers. There 
appears, however, to be an elevated region occu¬ 
pying the greater portion of the central and 
interior provinces, but not reaching the west 
coast, and leaving the whole of the southern 
portion of the island below the 22d parallel of 
S. latitude. In this southern district, occupied 
by extensive plains of the secondary geological 
formation, M. Grandidier found the fossil remains 
of hippopotami, of two species of Epyornis, of 
gigantic tortoises, and of other long extinct ani¬ 
mals. M. Grandidier has established also the 
existence of a ring or belt of forest, extending 
completely round the island, except in one place 
on the north coast, where the wood-lines overlap 
each other about one hundred miles, leaving a 
passage of seventy miles between them. 
An azimuth .compass is a very necessary article 
in Madagascar, and no traveller should be with- 
