AFRICAN DISCOVERY.

North Otago Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 6138, 26 August 1886, Page 4

AFRICAN DISCOVERY.

A discovery, announced from Brussels! promises to be of signal importance to the future of Africa, if it proves to rest on good foundation. It has been held that the courses of all tbe principal rivers at least in 'heir general lints are sufficiently well known by ik-w to leave no scope for anything liko a revolutionary discovery According 'o tie news in qms'ion, however, an ngen' ot the Congo stae, Dr Wolf, has just followed, by steamer, the course of the river Sankourou, one of the right f ffltientfl of the Kas»ai, and finds it, with its branches, navagable for steamers d»6 east, opening a new rrute into thf heart of the continent. Tbe Congo leads no further th*n Stanley Falls; i< » claimed for the new route that it is not only more direc, but goes tight into the district of the copper mintß of Kalanga, and into Mangema, a territory unsurpassable for fcrtiliy. Dr Wolf had travelled 430 miles irom the confluence of the Sankourou and the Congo when hie further progress was temporarily stayed by an accident to his steamer. Naturnlly, on the strength of this announcement, additionally sanguine expectations are formed with regard to the vast basin o< navigable rivers leading from the Eastern Coast of Africa in the centre ; and it may well be that the voyage o( Dr Wolf will prove to be an exploration of the first order. Already the united le> gth of these streams', for practical purposes, and to only the extent actually explored, is eeti icated at nearly 5000 miles representing a corresponding territory that cannot fail to have a great colonial fu'ure as the rest of the world grows narrower. It wsb proposed recently to conneot the falls on the Congo wiih Leopoldville by a railway Of 280 miles; and it is possible that the expense and aitendnnt difficulties consequent on this exceedingly doub ful scheme may now be rendered unnecessary by the new water way. In any case, if only a moderate portion of what is claimed be true, the infant Congo State seems to have made a signal step torward.