As Mount St. Elias is approximately in longitude 140° 55' 30" west from Greenwich, as already shown, it is therefore only 4' and 30" of longitude or 2½ statute miles east of the boundary of the main portion of Alaska. Its distance from the nearest point on the coast is 33 statute miles. There is no coast range in southeastern Alaska parallel with the coast within the limits specified by the treaty, and the boundary must therefore be considered as a line parallel with the coast and ten marine leagues, or 34½ statute miles, inland. The mountain is thus one and one-half miles south of the boundary and within the territory of the United States. Its position is so near the junction of the boundary separating southeastern Alaska from the Northwest Territory with the 141st meridian that it is practically a corner monument of our national domain.
THE HEART OF AFRICA.
BY
E. C. HORE.
(Abstracts of two Lectures presented before the Society March 6 and March 13, 1891.)
I.
The subject of Africa and its people has recently become a most interesting and popular one. We are but now beginning to realize the size and importance of Africa, as we are reminded that it contains nearly one-fourth part of the land area of the world; that it has mountains at least 1,000 feet higher than the most lofty American peaks; that the known extent of the Nile and the Congo now make them the rivals of the Yang-tse-Kiang and the Mississippi as the longest rivers in the world; that its central regions, instead of the great desert blank so long shown on our maps, is a rich and beautiful elevated region, having upon its heights a splendid collection of fresh-water lakes or inland seas, fertilizing by their outflowing streams the whole continent; and that it is known to contain over 250,000,000 people, or about one-seventh part of the world's population. It is called the "dark continent:" rather should it be called the "new world," in which our interest and responsibility—political, commercial and social—is rapidly growing.
For purposes of general description, there are three great divisions of the African continent and its peoples and affairs: