On The ages of African land-surfaces

The conclusion is reached that the land-surfaces of central and southern Africa are older than has generally been supposed. The primitive surface of the southern lobe of Africa, hitherto termed “Miocene”, is regarded as a modified “Gondwanaland” surface; the erstwhile “end-Tertiary” surface as having been initiated following the break-up of Gondwanaland; and later surfaces only as having been carved by new cycles following uplift of continental dimensions in the mid-Tertiary and later. The “uplift of Africa” is thus considered not to have been much more than 2000 feet (other than locally) since the margins of the continent were roughed out. Local deformation is assigned a more active role than it has been given in literature : African landscape development involves not a static mass occasionally uplifted but a mobile surface undergoing intermittent or rhythmic minor or local modification.