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The whole of this part of Africa is practically without any stretch of desert country, being on the whole favoured with an abundant rainfall. The nearest approach to a desert is the rather dry land to the east and north-east of Lake Mweru. Here, and in parts of the lower Shiré district, the annual rainfall probably does not exceed an average of 35 in. Elsewhere, in the vicinity of the highest mountains, the rainfall may attain an average of 75 in., in parts of Mount Mlanje possibly often reaching to 100 in. in the year. The average may be put at 50 in. per annum, which is also about the average rainfall of the Shiré Highlands, that part of British Central Africa which at present attracts the greatest number of European settlers.
Geology.?The whole formation is Archean and Primary (with a few modern plutonic outbursts), and chiefly consists of granite, felspar, quartz, gneiss, schists, amphibolite and other Archean rocks, with Primary sandstones and limestones in the basin of Lake Nyasa (a great rift depression), the river Shiré, and the regions within the northern watershed of the Zambezi river. Sandstones of Karroo age occur in the basin of the Luangwa (N.E. Rhodesia). There are evidences of recent volcanic activity on the summit of the small Mlanje plateau (S.E. corner of the protectorate: here there are two extinct craters with a basaltic outflow), and at the north end of Lake Nyasa and the eastern edge of the Tanganyika plateau. Here there are many craters and much basalt, or even lava; also hot springs.
Metals and Minerals.?Gold has been found in the Shiré Highlands, in the hills along the Nyasa-Zambezi waterparting, and in the mountainous region west of Lake Nyasa; silver (galena, silver-lead) in the hills of the Nyasa-Zambezi waterparting; lead in the same district; graphite in the western basin of Lake Nyasa; copper (pyrites and pure ore) in the west Nyasa region and in the hills of North Western and North Eastern Rhodesia; iron ore almost universally; mica almost universally; coal occurs in the north and west Nyasa districts (especially in the Karroo sandstones of the Rukuru valley), and perhaps along the Zambezi-Nyasa waterparting; limestone in the Shiré basin; malachite in south-west Angoniland and North Western Rhodesia; and perhaps petroleum in places along the Nyasa-Zambezi waterparting. (See also Rhodesia.)
