Annual report on the social and economic progress of the people of Nigeria.

Date:
[1936]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on the social and economic progress of the people of Nigeria. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/110
    ANNUAL REPORT ON THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE PEOPLE OF NIGERIA FOR 1936. CHAPTER I. GEOGRAPHY, INCLUDING CLIMATE, AND HISTORY. 1. The Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria is situated on the northern shore of the Gulf of Guinea. It is bounded on the west and north by French Territory and on the east by the former German Colony of the Cameroons. Great Britain has received a Mandate over a small portion of the Cameroons (34,08.1 square miles) which for purposes of administration has been placed under the Nigerian Government. As the remainder of the Cameroons is administered by the French also under a Mandate, for practical purposes all the Nigerian frontiers march with the French. 2. The area of Nigeria including the mandated area of the Cameroons, is approximately 372,674 square miles (the Southern Provinces and the Colony covering 90,896, and the Northern Provinces 281,778 square miles). With the exception of the Mandated Tanganyika Territo^ it is the largest British Dependency in Africa. Along the entire coast line runs a belt, from ten to sixty miles in width of mangrove swamp forest intersected by the branches of the Niger Delta and other rivers which are interconnected by innumerable creeks. The whole constitutes a continuous waterway from beyond the western boundary of Nigeria almost to the Cameroons. This region is succeeded by a belt from 50 to 100 miles wide of tropical “ rain forest ’ ’ and oil palm bush which covers the greater part of the central and eastern provinces of the South. Beyond this the vegetation passes, as the elevation rises, from open woodland to grass savannah interspersed with scrubby fire-resisting trees which covers the greater part of the Northern Provinces until desert conditions are reached in the extreme north. Nigeria possesses few mountains except along the eastern boundary, though points on the central Plateau are over 6,000 feet above sea level. In addition to the Niger and Benue wThich during the rainy season are navigable by steamers as far as Jebba and Yola respectively, there are a number of important rivers of wrhich the Cross lliver is the largest. Except for Lake Chad in the extreme north-east there are no large lakes.