Special Problems in Transportation 233 
39. Which is the largest of the interior cities? How does it compare with 
the largest of the seaports? 
Study the map of the Nile River to account for the location of Cairo. 
What three kinds of transportation routes meet at this point? 
41. How does primary production combine with transportation to cause the 
growth of Cairo? Give another reason for its growth. 
How does Khartum communicate with its hinterland and with the lower 
Nile ? 
Johannesburg, the great gold-mining center on the Witwaters- 
rand in South Africa, is also a railroad center. 
13. Is this chiefly because its products must be carried out to distant markets, 
or because machinery, laborers, food, and clothing must be brought to 
it? Explain. 
14. If the great Witwaters gold deposits had been located in Central Africa, 
would the growth of a city have taken place more or less rapidly than at 
Johannesburg? Why? 
Fez and Morocco, or Marakesh, like many other great overgrown 
villages near the borders of the Sahara, are the collecting points for 
wheat, barley, wool, hides, and other local products, and are meet- 
ing points of caravan routes from the desert. They also, in a primi- 
tive way, carry on manufacturing, such as tanning leather, making 
leather goods, and weaving cotton and woolen cloths. 
Other centers, such as Kano and Ibadan in Nigeria, are even larger 
than Fez, but are not listed among the African cities because they are 
unimportant commercially. Their size is due not so much to transpor- 
tation routes and primary products as to the desire of the natives to 
be within the protection of a powerful chief and behind the thick mud 
walls that surround the town. The houses are usually one story high 
and are made of sun-dried mud. 
£5. In developing communication between Algiers and interior towns, as 
Timbuktu, what are the advantages or disadvantages of employing 
(a) railways; (b) automobiles; (c) airplanes? 
Map exercise, continued. Add to your map of African ports the impor- 
tant interior centers of population. Put in parentheses under each the 
name of the country in which it is. and the European nation that is in 
control. 
Under each of the names on your map write the approximate length of 
(a) the largest railroad running out of or through it, and (b) the internal 
waterway on which it is located. 
Sum up your conclusions as to transportation and primary production 
in Africa compared with North America. 
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