Identifier: narrativeofexped01livi (find matches)
Title: Narrative of an expedition to the Zambesi and its tributaries; and of the discovery of the lakes Shirwa and Nyassa. 1858-1864
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Livingstone, David, 1813-1873 Livingstone, Charles, 1821-1873, (from old catalog) joint author
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Publisher: New York, Harper & brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ery conceivable position, afford a picture ofdislocation or unconformability which would gladden a geo-logical lecturers heart; but at high flood this rough chan-nel is all smoothed over, and it then conforms well withthe river below it, which is half a mile wide. In the dryseason the stream runs at the bottom of a narrow and deepgroove, whose sides are polished and fluted by the boilingaction of the water in flood, like the rims of ancient Easternwells by the draw-ropes. The breadth of the groove isoften not more than forty to sixty yards, and it has somesharp turnings, double channels, and little cataracts in it,As we steamed up, the masts of the Ma Eobert, thoughsome thirty feet high, did not reach the level of the floodedchannel above, and the man in the chains sung out, Nobottom at ten fathoms. Huge pot-holes, as large as draw-wells, had been worn in the sides, and were so deep that insome instances, when protected from the sun by overhang- ~^_~ _ ;( :. ■ ■ ■ ■-; Tr^i gj;
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Illllll Chap. II. EXAMINATION OF THE EAPIDS. 68 ing boulders, the water in them was quite cool. Some ofthese holes had been worn right through, and only the sidenext the rock remained, while the sides of the groove ofthe flood-channel were polished as smooth as if they hadgone through the granite mills of Aberdeen. The pressureof the water must be enormous to produce this polish. Ithad wedged round pebbles into chinks and crannies of therocks so firmly that, though they looked quite loose, theycould not be moved except with a hammer. The mightypower of the water here seen gave us an idea of what isgoing on in thousands of cataracts in the world. All theinformation we had been able to obtain from our Portu-guese friends amounted to this, that some three or four de-tached rocks jutted out of the river in Kebrabasa, which,though dangerous to the cumbersome native canoes, couldbe easily passed by a steamer, and that if one or two ofthese obstructions were blasted away with gunpowder, nodi

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