Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/248

 200 WEST ATEICA. circumnavigation of the peninsula, which has an area of 290 square miles, and is mostly occupied with a range of gently rounded hills, culminating in a cloud- capped sugarloaf 2,300 feet high. The peninsular mass terminates northwest- wards in Cape Sierra-Leone, and southwards in Cape Shilling, or False Cape, con- tinued seawards by the Banana Islands and a few other islets. The Sierra-Leone hills are often stated to be of igneous origin, and to the still pent-up gases have been attributed the earthquakes that have here taken place, notably those of the years 1858 and 1862. But this hypothesis is not justified by the nature of the rocks occurring in the neighbourhood of the town, which are sandstones like those of the mainland. According to Matthews, there are numerous symptoms of subsidence on the coast, where some islands in the estuary of the Scarcies have been converted into sandbanks, covered by 13 feet of water. The site of a fort erected by the Portuguese at the mouth of the Rio Gallinas would also appear to be now submerged in 40 feet of water, six miles from the shore. But these statements would require to be verified by a careful series of contemporary observations. Along the Sierra-Leone coast, as everywhere on the Senegambian seaboard, the argillaceous soil overlies a subsoil of coarse and ferrugineous sandstone, which is easil}^ cut with a hatchet, but which rapidly hardens in the air, thus forming an excellent building material. On the surface are strewn boulders of blue granite and other crystalline rocks, nearly all rounded and blackened by the action of the sun and atmosphere. The presence of these erratic blocks, brought from distant mountains, seems to suggest that even these equatorial regions may have also had their glacial period, so that the fjord-like form of the coast between Capes Roxo and St. Ann might itself be due' to the action of glaciers formerly descending from the Futa-Jallon highlands. Numerous streams, fed by a copious rainfall, flow' from the hilly watershed across the Sierra- Leone territory. The Rokelle, the first large watercourse occurring south of the Scarcies, mingles its headstreams with those of the Upper Niger, and after a south-westerly course trends westwards to a broad and winding estuary, forming the eastern branch of the Gulf of Sierra-Leone. South of the Rokelle, -the Bansakolo, an equally copious stream, rises within a few miles of the sources of the Niger, and after escaping through deep gorges westwards pursues a still unexplored course to the coast, either falling into Yawry Bay as the Kamaranka, or more probably merging as the Bagran or Barguru in a funnel-shaped estuary to the east of Sherbro Island. Climate. Although Freetown, capital of the British possessions, is 270 miles nearer the equator than Sedhiu on the Casamanza, its mean temperature is not more elevated, and is even rather lower than that of Boke, on the Rio Nunez. This is due to its position on the coast, where it is completely exposed to the marine breezes. The cli- mate is extremely equable, with no alternations of seasons, except such as are due to the succession of dry and rainy periods, the glass varying scarcely more than seven