NATURE PREPARING NEW VARIATION OF VICTORIA FALLS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6803, 5 January 1929, Page 11

NATURE PREPARING NEW VARIATION OF VICTORIA FALLS

AT.-p.TAT, PHOTOGRAPHS VIEW TREND OF LAND AND RIVER WITH PROPHETIC EVE. BULAWAYO, South Africa. A new Victoria Falls is in the making. While examining a moasic map of the falls recently Manor R. A. Logan, of the Aircraft Operating Company, kail his attention drawn to what looked like a fissure running right across the Zambesi river bed just before the Great Drop. TUe mosaic map is comprised, of hundreds of aerial photographs joined together in such a way that every tree and every physical feature is clearly shown. On the map the actual drop of the falls forms a part of a clearly visible line which continues ou each side of it and into the veldt for many miles. Just above it there is another distinct lino running through the bush on each side of the river, and it is where the water intercepts this line that the apparent fissuro occurs. D. W. Bishop, geologist to the Bulawayo Museum, discussing the discovery said: "Where the line crosses the* river the rock is actually softer than that in its neighbourhood and so more easily eaten away by the force of water and sand. Gradually this force cats back into the basalt until a new watercourse is made. It has evidently happened in centuries gone by, as a glance at tho zigzag path of the river after it leaves the falls will prove. In the course of centuries the continual action of the water along this apparently new fissure will cause the river to eat its wav out at one corner. The fissure will become tbe new falls, and another bend will be added to Jhe zigzag, while the old face will become another tongue of land.” In other words, a fresh gorge is being created above Livingstone .-' Island and the other small islands above tbe present falls, and one day this pressure will result in a new. path heinn- cut by the waters. Livingstone's Island will then be part of a small peninsula jutting out below instead of above the falls. Further surveys aud soundings may indicate how far nature’s operation has progressed and possibly give an idea of how long it will be before tho wonderful scene at which thousands of visitors have marvelled will undergo a radical change.