The southern basin of Chad is described under the Shari, which empties its waters into the lake about the middle of the southern shore, forming a delta of considerable extent. Beyond the south-east corner of the lake is a depression known as the Bahr-el-Ghazal (not to be confounded with the Nile affluent of the same name). This depression is the termination of what is in all probability the bed of one of the dried-up Saharan rivers. Coming from the Tibesti highlands the Bahr-el-Ghazal has a south-westerly trend to Lake Chad. Near the lake the valley was formerly swampy, and at high-water the lake overflowed into it. There was also at one time communication between the Shari and the Bahr-el-Ghazal, so that the water of the first-named stream reached Chad by way of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. There is now neither inlet nor outlet to the lake in this direction, the mouth of the Ghazal having become a fertile millet field. There is still, however, a distinct current from the Shari delta to the east end of the lake—known to the natives, like the depression beyond, as the Bahr-el-Ghazal—indicative of the former overflow outlet.
Besides the Shari, the only important stream entering Lake Chad is the Waube or Yo (otherwise the Komadugu Yobe), which rises near Kano, and flowing eastward enters the lake on its western side 40 m. north of Kuka. In the rains the Waube carries down a considerable body of water to the lake.
Lake Chad is supposed to have been known by report to Ptolemy, and is identified by some writers with the Kura lake of the middle ages. It was first seen by white men in 1823 when it was reached by way of Tripoli by the British expedition under Dr Walter Oudney, R.N., the other members being Captain Hugh Clapperton and Major (afterwards Lieut.-Colonel) Dixon Denham. By them the lake was named Waterloo. In 1850 James Richardson, accompanied by Heinrich Barth and Adolf Overweg, reached the lake, also via Tripoli, and Overweg was the first European to navigate its waters (1851). The lake was visited by Eduard Vogel (1855) and by Gustav Nachtigal (1870), the last-named investigating its hydrography in some detail. In 1890-1893 its shores were divided by treaty between Great Britain, France and Germany. The first of these nations to make good its footing in the region was France. A small steamer, brought from the Congo by Emile Gentil, was in 1897 launched on the Shari, and reaching the Chad, navigated the southern part of the lake. Communication between Algeria and Lake Chad by way of the Sahara was opened, after repeated failures, by the French explorer F. Foureau in 1899-1900. At the same time a French officer, Lieut. Joalland, reached the lake from the middle Niger, continuing his journey round the north end to Kanem. A British force under Colonel T.L.N. Morland visited the lake at the beginning of 1902, and in May of the same year the Germans first reached it from Cameroon. In 1902-1903 French officers under Colonel Destenave made detailed surveys of the south-eastern and eastern shores and the adjacent islands. In 1903 Captain E. Lenfant, also a French officer, succeeded in reaching the lake (which he circumnavigated) via the Benue, proving the existence of water communication between the Shari and the Niger. In 1905 Lieut. Boyd Alexander, a British officer, further explored the lake, which then contained few stretches of open water. The lake is bordered W. and S.W. by Bornu, which is partly in the British protectorate of Nigeria and partly in the German protectorate of Cameroon. Bagirmi to the S.E. of the lake and Kanem to the N.E. are both French possessions. The north and north-west shores also belong to France. One of the ancient trade routes across the Sahara—that from Tripoli to Kuka in Bornu—strikes the lake at its north-west corner, but this has lost much of its former importance.
See the works of Denham, Clapperton, Barth and Nachtigal cited in the biographical notices; Geog. Journal, vol. xxiv. (1904); Capt. Tilho in La Géographie (March 1906); Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, vol. i. (London, 1907); A. Chevalier, Mission Chari-Lac Tchad 1902-1904 (Paris 1908); E. Lenfant, La Grande Route du Tchad (Paris, 1905); H. Freydenberg, Étude sur le Tchad et le bassin du Chari (Paris, 1908).
CHADDERTON, an urban district of Lancashire, England, within the parliamentary borough of Oldham (q.v.). Pop. (1901) 24,892. Cotton and chemical works, and the coal-mines of the neighbourhood, employ the large industrial population.
CHADERTON, LAURENCE (?1536-1640), Puritan divine, was born at Lees Hall, in the parish of Oldham, Lancashire, probably in September 1536, being the second son of Edmund Chaderton, a gentleman of an ancient and wealthy family, and a zealous Catholic. Under the tuition of Laurence Vaux, a priest, he became an able scholar. In 1564 he entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, where, after a short time, he formally adopted the reformed doctrines and was in consequence disinherited by his father. In 1567 he was elected a fellow of his college, and subsequently was chosen lecturer of St Clement’s church, Cambridge, where he preached to admiring audiences for many years. He was a man of moderate views, though numbering among his friends extremists like Cartwright and Perkins. So great was his reputation that when Sir Walter Mildmay founded Emmanuel College in 1584 he chose Chaderton for the first master, and on his expressing some reluctance, declared that if he would not accept the office the foundation should not go on. In 1604 Chaderton was appointed one of the four divines for managing the cause of the Puritans at the Hampton Court conference; and he was also one of the translators of the Bible. In 1578 he had taken the degree of B.D., and in 1613 he was created D.D. At this period he made provision for twelve fellows and above forty scholars in Emmanuel College. Fearing that he might have a successor who held Arminian doctrines, he resigned the mastership in favour of John Preston, but survived him, and lived also to see the college presided over successively by William Sancroft (or Sandcroft) and Richard Holdsworth. He died on the 13th of November 1640 at the age of about 103, preserving his bodily and mental faculties to the end.
Chaderton published a sermon preached at St Paul’s Cross about 1580, and a treatise of his On Justification was printed by Anthony Thysius, professor of divinity at Leiden. Some other works by him on theological subjects remain in manuscript.