f78 
The  Manna  oj  Scripture. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
March,  1020. 
the  five  thousand;  but  that  the  manna  itself  was  a  vegetable  product, 
possibly  of  rare  occurrence  but  miraculously  increased  in  quantity, 
just  as  the  quails  were  in  this  case  driven  by  a  particular  wind,  seems 
probable.  That  a  plant  occurring  in  Central  Africa  should  also  occur 
in  Arabia  is  not  at  all  improbable,  since  we  know  that  plants  often 
extend  great  distances  along  river  basins,  or  occur  on  mountains 
at  immense  distances  apart  when  the  conditions  are  similar,  al- 
though the  plant  may  present  slight  variations,  as  in  the  Guide's 
Flower  {Leontopodium  alpinum),  which  occurs  from  Mont  Blanc  in 
the  Swiss  Alps  to  the  Himalayas. 
It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  a  deep  valley  runs  for  nearly  4000 
miles  from  Arabia  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  known  as  the  Great 
Rift  Valley,  and  along  its  sides  there  occur  several  forms  of  a  plant 
of  the  genus  Acokanthera,  Nat.  Ord.  Apocynaceoe,  from  one  end  of  the 
valley  to  the  other;  Acokanthera  Defter sii  in  Arabia,  A.  Schimperi 
in  Northeast  and  Central  Africa,  and  A.  spectabilis  and  A.  venenata 
in  South  Africa.  It  need  not  be  surprising,  therefore,  if  a  crypto- 
gamic  plant  like  manna  were  found  along  the  sides  of  this  immense 
valley,  extending  from  the  Lebanons  almost  to  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  wherever  the  conditions  were  suitable  for  its  development, 
since  the  spores  of  fungi  are  easily  carried  on  the  feet  of  birds.  There 
is,  therefore,  apparently  no  reason  why  the  manna  of  Tanganyika 
should  not  be  identical  with  that  of  Arabia.  Gregory,  in  "The 
Great  Rift  Valley"  (p.  5),  states  that  a  series  of  thirty  lakes  occur 
along  its  course,  only  one  of  which  communicates  with  the  sea,  thus 
indicating  that  it  was  an  ancient  river  bed,  and  giving  some  support 
to  the  theory  that  this  was  the  bed  of  the  ancient  river  Gihon  (Gen- 
esis ii,  13),  which  "compasseth  the  whole  land  of  Cush."  The  land 
of  Cush,  according  to  Smith's  "Dictionary  of  the  Bible"  (1865,  p. 
223),  evidently  included  both  Arabia  and  the  country  south  of  the 
western  coast  of  the  Red  Sea. 
According  to  Gregory  ("The  Great  Rift  Valley,"  p.  51),  the 
Arabs  told  him  that  the  Red  Sea  is  simply  water  that  did  not  dry 
up  after  Noah's  deluge;  and  the  SomaU  say  that  when  their  ances- 
tors crossed  from  Arabia  to  Africa  there  was  a  land  communication 
between  the  two  across  the  Straits  of  Babel  Mendeb.  There  is 
geological  evidence  to  show  that  great  earth  movements  have  hap- 
pened along  the  Great  Rift  Valley  at  a  recent  geological  date.  There 
^eems  to  be  nothing  improbable,  therefore,  in  the  possible  occurrence 
of  the  scriptural  manna  plant  in  Central  Africa  as  well  as  in  Arabia. 
