Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/20

 Pacific Oceans from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn, and forming a vast semicircle of 24,000 miles, equal to the circumference of the globe.

Although not yet thoroughly explored, Africa is already sufficiently known at least in the main features of its general relief. More compact and less indented than the other divisions of the globe, it also remains less accessible through the

work of erosion. Its mean elevation exceeds that of Europe and Asia, although there are scarcely any mountains equal to the Alps and Caucasus, none comparable to the Himalayas. Considered as a solid mass with vertical scarps and horizontal surface, its altitude, according to Chevanne, is at least 1,900, possibly 2,200, feet. An oblique line drawn from Loanda on the Atlantic to a point on the Red Sea between Suakin and Massawah marks off a region which forms an almost continuous