1971 Wildlife In Volcano Country Arusha National Park Tanzania - 2-Page Article for Sale

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1971 Wildlife In Volcano Country Arusha National Park Tanzania - 2-Page Article For Sale

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1971 Wildlife In Volcano Country Arusha National Park Tanzania - 2-Page Article:
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1971 Wildlife In Volcano Country Arusha National Park Tanzania - 2-Page Article
Original, vintage magazine articlePage Size:Approx 9\" x 12 1/2\" (23 cm x 31 cm)Condition: Good
WILDLIFE IN VOLCANO COUNTRYARUSHA NATIONAL PARK, TANZANIA o By WILLIAM CONDRYTHE most famous nationalparks and game areas ofEast Africa are also thebiggest. Tsavo, Serengeti, Murchi-son, Queen Elizabeth, Luangwa:these and other vast, uninhabited,animal-rich wildernesses aremeasured in hundreds, some inthousands, of square miles. Butthere are smaller parks andreserves that are little knowneven though they have qualitiesand features that are unique.One such fascinating region closeto the Kenya border in northernTanzania is Arusha NationalPark, which thousands pass butdo not visit on the road betweenTsavo and Serengeti. Speedingalong the wide tarmac highway,they see a shapely mountain closeon the north. Their guide tellsthem its name is Meru, but,probably because he has neverbeen there, he fails to mentionthat up on Meru’s slopes is anational park which, though itcovers only about 50 squaremiles, contains more variety ofscenery, habitat and wildlifethan many a much vaster park.From the lowest levels of thepark at 5,000 ft. you look up theface of dense forests to great barecrumbling cliffs that rise verticallyfor 3,000 ft. to the jagged, snow-touchedsummit of Meru 10,000 ft, above you. Andif you turn to face the other direction youlook across a volcanic landscape to where thegreat snowy dome of Kilimanjaro gleams lessthan 30 miles away.To grasp the essential features of thissteeply tilted park it is best to start from thetop. Meru, first of all, is one of the world’slargest volcanoes (it has erupted within thelast hundred years), and it is a classic volcanoin the sense that it exhibits so many of theeffects of vulcanicity. It was born about theend of the Cretaceous Period when, contem-poraneously with the splitting open of theGreat Rift Valley, volcanoes (now mostlyextinct) began to bulge up as huge masses oflava and ash and so changed the face of EastAfrica.2.—THE APPROACH OF EVENING: THE OUTLINE OF KILIMANJ ARO SOME 30 MILES EASTOF THE PARK. The Momela Lakes arc in the foregroundl._THE CRATER OF MOUNT MERU, IN TANZANIA, ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGESTVOLCANOES. Arusha National Park is on the slopes of MeruOf all these volcanoes Meru has had themost sensational career. Through manyeruptions it piled up to a splendid height,probably towering above even Kilimanjarountil an almighty cataclysm blew manythousands of feet off the summit and left it asthe wrecked and hollow mountain it is today.This super-explosion could have come from abuild-up of steam pressure when water froma massive snowcap or crater lake droppedinto the volcano’s vent during an eruption.Thousands of feet of the mountain burstaway on the eastern side and went sliding downthe slope as an avalanche of rock, rubble, ashand mud, spreading over the country for 15miles towards Kilimanjaro. As it flowed itcame up against rises and ridges in the ancientsurface rocks, and against these obstaclesmany hills of debris were built up with valleysbetween them. Today these hillocksand hollows(some water-filled) form the hummockylake-scattered landscape peculiar to the lowerlevels of the park.Subsequent volcanic activity has addeda spectacular feature to Mount Meru: withinthe shattered crater (more properly it is acaldera) a forceful eruption has thrown upa massive cone of ash from the caldera floor, amagnificent pyramid surrounded on threesides by the great horseshoe of caldera wallsthat survived the original catastrophe. This3,000 ft. ash cone, a volcano within a volcano,has its own crater with sides 200 ft. deep,which are loose and powdery and difficultto climb.Wind, cold, lack of soil: these are theenemies to life on the top 2,000 ft. of Meru,and the terrain is barren. But below thatheight there is vegetation that des-cends through differing bands suchas are described from MountKenya and other East Africanheights. There is, for instance,the strange zone of the giantgroundsels and outsize lobelias,both exciting to botanists becauseeach mountain (Meru included)has its own peculiar form of theseplants. Growing almost on theEquator, but at over 9,000 ft., allspecies have to cope with a hugedaily temperature range: hotsummer by day, cold winter bynight, every 24 hours round theyear.The vegetation down on thecaldera floor at 8,500 ft. is veryfine. Here ends the zone of thetree heather; here begins themountain evergreen forest—asmagnificent a forest of Juniperusprocera (known as “cedar”)and Podocarpus gracilior (usuallycalled “podo”) as perhaps sur-vives anywhere in Africa. Forthese two great montane conifershave been terribly exploited else-where for many decades andsurvive on heights such as Merusolely because of their remoteness.This high-level forest has...14079-AL-710930-72