Water supply.

Water

closets.

mics, presenting the very conditions which are necessary for the nursery epidemics of fever, &c.; but the local Government have not thought it time to have a well-organised sanitary administration, and well-organised sanitary police: the climate, therefore, must be the scape-goat for the neglect, and we must say, like Sir Charles Napier, that "the effects of man's imprudence are attributed to climate; if a man gets drunk, the sun has given him a headache, and so on." As in Delhi, so must we say of Freetown, "every garden, if not kept clean, becomes a morass, weeds flourish, filth runs riot, and the grandest city in India [sic Africa] has the name of being insalubrious, although there is nothing evil about it that does not appear to be of man's own creation."

Water, in the form of springs, is abundant in various parts of Freetown, and the quality is pure and excellent. It is the best to be obtained in all the West Coast, but there are no waterpipes to conduct it into the various public places where it is mostly required. It is not conducted into the buildings of the town, nor is it used for any sanitary purpose. The people cannot do these things, but the local Government can do them. Freetown requires good water supply, drainage, paving, and thorough cleansing, proper and approved healthy plans of building; and, as Miss Nightingale says of India, so I say of Freetown-the work is urgent. Every day it is left undone adds its quota of inefficiency and death-rate to the Europeans and its thousands of native population. The danger is common. to Europeans and to natives. Many of the best men Sierra Leone ever had have fallen victims to the same causes of disease which have destroyed the native population. And so it will be till the local Government has fulfilled its vast responsibilities towards the population, who are no longer strangers and foreigners, but subjects of Her Majesty the Queen.

There are no public water-closets, as we find in the Gambia, and the private ones, as we have seen, are never, or very seldom, emptied; and during the drying process, after the

rains, they become the most pernicious source of disease. It is about the commencement of the south-western monsoon, when the drying process has been continued for some time, and the mountains prevent the wind from removing from the town the noxious vapour that is exhaled from sewers and other fever-producing sources, which now become intensified in their operation, and become so many foci for pernicious development, that in March and April the cry of epidemic visitation, as evidenced by the number of deaths amongst Europeans and native population, rings yearly from one corner of the town to the other.

THE GOLD COAST.

The soil of the coast from Cape Palmas to Winnebah con- Gold Coast. sists principally of the decomposition of granite and felspathic rocks. There are here and there to be found volcanic scoriæ

undergoing various degrees of decomposition.

"There is very little difference in the soil along the coast," says Dr Tedlie, " from Cape Palmas to the River Volta. Within four or five miles from the shore it is of a silicious nature; the clumps of hills, which are to be met with in every direction, are composed of gneiss and granite; mica is found to enter into the composition of some. The rocks, from containing large proportions of felspar and mica, are rapidly passing into decomposition; such, more especially, as are exposed to the influence of the air, rain, and water. The result of this decomposition is the foundation of the argillaceous clay. On receding from the sandy shore the soil is silicious, mixed only with some decayed animal and vegetable matter, where no granite or micaceous rocks intervene. It is in the valleys that the rich alluvial soils are to be found, formed of decomposed materials of the surrounding hills, washed down by the heavy torrents of rain, which are deposited with the matter of vegetable decomposition, and afford great richness to the original mould."

In some of the hills the soil is composed of red earth containing, in minute subdivision, ferruginous hornblende; the

Igneous rocks.

rate sandstones.

hills rise from abrupt bases, and are in a great many cases conical above; in other places the soil consists of a dark rich loam, highly charged with organic materials as well as the disintegration of the felspathic rocks which form the principal strata. In Ahanta, and in all the Gold Coast to as far as Winnebah, the principal varieties of rocks are decidedly of igneous origin, being chiefly made up of trappean and metamorphic rocks, interspersed amongst which are rocks of the Silurian and Devonian systems.

"The trappean rocks occur in connection with the stratified formation in disruptive masses; they are principally compact hard basalt, augitic in composition, and impregnated with a small quantity of iron; amongst them are also a good number of rocks which are felspathic in character, viz., the diorites. These, from their composition, viz., of augite and felspar, present a brighter appearance than the black basalt.

"The metamorphic rocks, which have undergone a very striking metamorphosis in the original sedimentary character of thin strata, are chiefly quartzose rocks and gneiss. The latter is very common in Ahanta and Fantee. They are tough, hard, and crystalline, and composed of quartz, mica, felspar, and hornblende, having curved and flexured lines of stratification. The quartzose rocks are granular, and present a more determined stratification than the gneiss; they sometimes have bands of conglomerate structure and beds of mica flakes. The gneiss and quartzose rocks are hypothetically believed to be the product of the disintegration of granite rocks.”*

Interspersed and lying in close proximity with the beds of these quartzes, especially at Anamaboe and Cape Coast, are fine Conglome- conglomerate sandstones, which are used for building by the natives; these lie in layers of considerable depth, and are stratified. Some of the layers are very soft, and easily crumble under the pressure of the finger, leaving a residue composed of sand and small mica schist. These are perfectly black, specimens of which are now to be seen on the water edge of Ana"Geological Constitution of Ahanta, Gold Coast," by the Author.

maboe.

The hard variety of sandstone is black, spotted white, which consists of varieties of composite silicates.

The quartz rocks found in this locality differ in many cases materially from those found in Ahanta. Some are conglomerates composed of gravelly silicates, which must have been fused together under very great pressure; each gravel can with ease be distinguished, and, if necessary, separated by the use of force; they are united together by silicious stroma or cement. The next variety is the common quartz, where the original particles are not very distinct. These have undergone a greater degree of fusion under intense heat, but not sufficient to destroy or fuse the original particles. The third variety is conglomerate in structure, but possesses a large quantity of broad sheets of mica and felspar, which are easily divided into thin semitransparent plates. This variety is very common at Anamaboe. These flakes, which contain a large quantity of peroxide of iron, are undergoing rapid disintegration and decomposition through the effect of the sun, the air, and the rain. The quadrilateral space at this station is covered with the disintegrated particles, and during the dry season the ground seems to be all brilliant shiny flakes, which reflect the rays of the sun, and produce an unpleasant glare. They attract heat a great deal, and at midday, before the south-west sea breeze blows, the radiation from the earth is excessive.

lava.

In the argillaceous covering of the volcanic hillocks which surround Cape Coast, lava is here and there scattered in broken volcanic masses. They still maintain their brilliant shiny appearance. They prove, without a doubt, that these formations were volcanic, and that one or more craters were in the neighbourhood, from which these molten rocks must have had their origin. These fragmentary lavæ are scattered in the valleys, and are undergoing rapid disintegration by trituration and by the action of climatic influences.

In the interior other rocks are discovered, consisting of sandstones with a large proportion of clay in their composition;

Water supply.

Soil from

Winnebah to

the Volta.

Soil of Accra and Chris

tiansborg.

they are extremely hard, especially those found in the interior of Ahanta and Axim, and contain much oxide of iron. Some of the rocks on the sea-shore are hard limestones, which are characteristic of the Silurian and Devonian systems.

As is characteristic of stations where clayey and metamorphic rocks are greatly found, there are numerous water-courses which present no water during the dry season, but in the rains are filled with water, and swell into rivulets. Water is difficult to be obtained; wells a few feet deep give brackish water. The inhabitants live principally on tank water collected during the rains, or obtained from swampy spots.

From Winnebah to the Volta the soil is composed of alluvial deposit, which consists chiefly of silicious matter, oxide of iron, and alumina. From Pram Pram to Shai, in fact all the plains in those regions, are stiffer and harder than those near to Accra and Christiansborg, from being mixed with a large quantity of clay. During the rainy season the alluvium is covered with vegetation, but during the dry the vegetation is burnt down, and the soil, being exposed to the rays of the sun, becomes very hard. At the foot of Shai Mountain the alluvium contains a large quantity of iron in its composition, and during the dry season so compact is it when broken, that it resembles a vast sheet of lava. It must be the product of disintegration of the micaceous rocks, which are the volcanic blocks composing the almost perpendicular mountain, washed down every season by torrents of rain.

Between Accra and Christiansborg the soil consists of a barren red clay. The rocks are-1st, A fine white sandstone, which makes excellent drip or millstone grit, situated just under the fort—James Fort; extensively used both for dripstone and millstone by the inhabitants of the Gold Coast; they use it also for grinding beads. 2d, Several layers of clayslate, of very soft texture, with distinctly marked cleavage; the out-crops are very irregular, but they run from N.E. to S.W. 3d, Along the beach there are freestone, placed pell-mell in huge disruptive masses.