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AFGHANISTAN. (New York, 1885); Rodenbough, Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute (New York, 1885), which contains a list of authorities; Curzon, Russia in Central Asia (London, 1899), which contains a bibliography; Colquhoun, Russia Against India (New York, 1900). Consult also: MacMahon, The Southern Borderlands of Afghanistan (London, 1897); Gray, At the Court of the Ameer (London, 1895); and Gore, Lights and Shades of Hill Life in the Afghan and Hindu Highlands of the Punjab (London, 1896).  AFINGER,, (1813-82). A German sculptor, born at Nuremberg, Bavaria. He studied the works of old German sculpture there, was for a time a silversmith, and in 1840 began instruction under Rauch at Berlin. In portrait medallions and works of a religious character he was particularly successful. There is an Arndt memorial by him at Bonn, a university memorial at Greifswald, and a statue of Newton in the National Museum, Pesth.  AFIUN-KARA-HISSAR, (Turk., Opium Black Castle). A city of Anatolia, Asiatic Turkey, 170 miles northeast of Smyrna (Map: in Asia, D 3). It is surrounded by rocky hills, on one of which are found the ruins of a castle. The town contains several mosques and Armenian churches. It manufactures woolen carpets and opium, the latter being one of the chief articles of commerce, from which the town derives its name. The trade is considerable. The town is connected by rail with Smyrna, Constantinople, and Konieh. Pop., about 20,000.  AFRAGOLA,. A city in south Italy, five miles northeast of Naples, noted for the manufacture of straw goods. Pop., 1881, 19,000.  AFRA′NIUS,. A Roman poet and playwright, who lived about 100 He was praised by Cicero and Quintilian for the excellence of his plays, only the titles and a few fragments of which survive. They are collected by Ribbeck, Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1898).  AF′RICA (Lat. Africa, from Afer, inhabitant of Africa; of uncertain derivation, possibly of Phœnician origin. It seems to have been originally the designation of Carthage, as the colony of Tyre, and later extended to the whole continent. It is certain that the name Africa was first applied to the neighborhood of Carthage—the part first known to the Romans—and Afrygah, or Afrikiyah, is still applied by the Arabs to the land of Tunis). A continent of the eastern hemisphere, and in point of size the second of the great land divisions of the globe, with an area of about 11,230,000 square miles, exclusive of islands. The continent ranks third in size only by virtue of an unwarranted composite naming of the American continents. Africa is an independent continent in even less degree than is either of the two Americas, for it forms the southwesterly extension of the Old World land-mass, and it lies in close proximity to Asia and Europe, with both of which continents it has, during long periods of past geological time, been intimately united by broad isthmuses. In form Africa consists of two parts, a northern ellipsoid, with an east and west longitudinal axis, comprising the

Sahara-Sudan region, and a southern triangular limb attached to the southern side of the eastern half of the northern portion, and consisting of the Congo region and the South African highlands. Somewhat north of the middle point of the eastern side of the continent, a massive triangular projection, the Somali Peninsula, extends almost 1000 miles toward the Indian Peninsula of Asia. The extreme length of Africa from Cape Blanco in Tunis (lat. 37° 20′ N. ), its most northerly point, to its southern termination. Cape Agulhas (lat. 34° 51′ S.), is about 5000 miles in an almost north and south direction; and its greatest width from its western outpost, Cape Verde (long. 17° 30′ W.), to its eastern apex, Ras Hafun, on Cape Guardafui (long. 51° 28′ E.), is about 4500 miles in an almost west and east direction. The northern and southern points of the continent are almost equidistant from the equator; so that Africa, compared with South America, has a greater proportion of its area situated in the torrid zone.

At its northeast corner, by the Isthmus of Suez, Africa has a geographic union ninety miles wide with Asia. Until a comparatively recent period it had a much closer union, for the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden now occupy the deep, narrow basin of a rift valley that has been formed since Pliocene time. On the north, the Mediterranean Sea separates Africa from Europe by a wide and deep basin that is restricted at its western end, so that the shores of Spain and Morocco approach to within about nine miles of each other. This northern Mediterranean coast is broken only by the broad and shallow embayment that holds the gulfs of Cabes and Sidra. The western extension, from Gibraltar to Cape Palmas, projects into the Atlantic Ocean with a regularly rounded coast line that is almost unbroken by bays or peninsulas, capes Blanco and Verde being inconspicuous projections. From Cape Palmas the coast runs eastward along the north shore of the Gulf of Guinea for about 1200 miles to Kamerun and thence in an undulating line, slightly east of south, for nearly 3000 miles to Cape Agulhas at the southern extremity of the continent, where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. The eastern coast of the southern limb, washed by the Indian Ocean, extends from Cape Agulhas with gentle curves for 3600 miles to Cape Guardafui at the apex of the Somali Peninsula.

The coast line of Africa is peculiar in that it presents a remarkably even front, almost unbroken by bays and peninsulas, contrasting strongly in this respect with the coast lines of Europe, Asia, and North America, but resembling that of South America. The length of the coast line of Africa, 18,400 miles, bears a smaller proportion to the shortest possible periphery of a regular figure of its own area (the proportion is 1.8 to 1) than does that of any other continent. The only irregular portion of the coast line is on the northern edge, where the Atlas Mountains send spurs into the Mediterranean Sea. This regularity of the shore line is undoubtedly due to the plateau character and the stability of the larger part of the continent, which during great periods of geological time has stood emerged at approximately the same level above the ocean.

. In connection with the regularity of the coast line, it is of interest to note the small number of islands adjacent to this continent, and also the small proportion of these that have any physical relations with the mainland.