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

the Volta.

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 Winnebah to 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.

Soil of Accra

and Christiansborg.

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.

of the Gold

Cultivation is carried on to a very limited extent in the Cultivation Gold Coast, especially in the sea-board towns, and this is prin- Coast. cipally owing to the limited supply of rain and the barrenness of the coast lands. In the interior, however, the natives work well; but their mode of cultivating the soil is as unscientific as in the other parts of the coast already described. There are no extensive plantations to be seen anywhere near the seacoast towns, except, perhaps, in the plains of Winnebah. At Accra, through the exertions of the Basle missionaries and Mr Freeman, systematic plantations are in existence, which serve as models to those parts of the coast. Several thousand coffee trees are at present under proper cultivation. Mr Freeman has got vines, pine apples, cotton, coffee, cabbage, &c., under skilful and civilised management in his plantation at Beula, which supplies Accra plentifully with green vegetables.

Of the green vegetables used on the Gold Coast by the natives, an anonymous writer in the African Times* gives the following:-"First, though not foremost, there is the wild cabbage (called by the Fantees Empompo'), the leaves of which make a capital salad, or, dressed as greens, make a good substitute for the savoy. It is to be had in perfection from the end of May to the end of February, i. e., nine months in the year. Second, the wild cucumber, little inferior, indeed, to the cultivated one; it makes a good salad, and eats well also stewed with a little melted butter. Then we have the samphire, the sea-kale, or mirenchie, growing even down to the very beach. Purslane is also very abundant, and very wholesome, and grows everywhere and anywhere. Spinach, also, which the natives call kotú betlow; and the love apple (tomato), or enkrooma, for seasoning soups, or making stews, roasting, frying, &c. The green papaws, served with boiled mutton and dressed as turnips, are by no means a bad substitute for that excellent vegetable, garden mallows, or vegetable marrow. Cabbages of very fair quality, from the tree cabbage, to be had at most of the native farms. Sweet potatoes, green corn, or

*Vol. iv. No. 37, p. 22.

young corn dished up as green peas, makes a very respectable appearance. Beans, calavanças, mazagan, and haricot; these are to be seen daily in the market at Cape Coast, dressed up in some native dish, but the European can get the raw article and dress it as he pleases. The leaves of the Capsicum annuum, or pepper plant, make a good salad; and when boiled and served up as spinach, they make a very palatable dish. Palm cabbage, which is the top or head of the palm tree; it makes a very choice and delicious vegetable, and eats well with fish, flesh, or fowl. There are several kinds of yams, with as great a difference between the varieties as between the haricot and the Windsor bean. There is the kökóé (cocoe of the West Indies), or yam cabbage; the leaves make a good cabbage, and are used as such by the Africans; the root resembles the yam, but is more spherical, the yam being oblong; the flavour partakes something of a nice mealy potato, or a roasted chestnut. The cassada, when its meal is mixed in equal proportions of flour, makes a pastry, light, wholesome, and easy of digestion, and well adapted for invalids. Plantains, roasted, fried, or boiled, make a very good vegetable. Bananas, when just full grown, but not yet turned to ripening, make a passable imitation of carrot. There are mushroom, shallots, chicory, and pumpkins, all good vegetables,” and can be obtained in various quantities and quality.

The population of the Protectorate Territory of the Gold Coast has been laid down at 400,000 souls, but there has not been any census taken. The inhabitants occupy small towns or villages, numbering from 40 to about 8000. In no one town, croon, or village, so far as my experience extends, can we find over 10,000 persons. The native huts are huddled together, pell-mell, without any plan; there are scarcely any streets or proper lanes, but, as a whole, only crooked by-paths. Cape Coast presents but a poor exception to this rule, where a few streets properly so-called are discernible; but that confused system of building, as seen in purely native towns, is conspicuous even here.

and sewage.

There is no regular system of drainage on the Gold Coast; Drainage the country being hilly, and the quantity of rain falling in the rainy season being small, the soil is generally dry. The native population are very primitive in their style; they go out in the fields, or on the sandy beach, to answer the calls of nature, and these fæcal matters go to fertilise the soil, or are washed away by the booming waves of the sea. The effluvia from these ochletic poisons are extremely disagreeable, and in many cases blow to the teeth of the town. Colonel Conran has prevented these nuisances from being done indiscriminately in every part of the town, and has made several public privies in the various suitable localities in the outskirts of the town. Among the higher classes, the use of privy cesspools, made by digging deep into the earth, such as are found in the houses and premises at Sierra Leone, is unknown; they use closed chambers, which are emptied into the sea once or twice every day, and are consequently free from the reeking poison which is constantly generated from that source. At Accra and its neighbourhood, where there are low-lying lands, a plentiful accumulation of water, in stagnant pools during and after the rains, always occurs. There are no proper drains here, and the country very much requires them.

LAGOS AND THE BIGHTS.

the Bights,

The several stations in the Bights of Biafra and Benin are Lagos and composed principally of alluvium intermixed with sand. The soil of. strip of land which runs from between the lagoon and the sea, extending from the Volta to the Niger, and including Lagos, had its origin primarily from immense quantities of coral forming their beds on the border of the ocean, and gradually raising that portion until it forms extensive reefs or breakers; these, by being constantly filled up with sand, debris, and deposits from the river, and washings from the soil during the rains, ultimately becomes rescued from the ocean. The sand is porous and white, and allows the accumulation of surface water, and during the rains forms beds for the swamps.

"The