KONGO, or CONGO RIVER, Africa, a large river in southwest Africa. flowink into the Atlantic Ocean in lat. 6° S.; long. 12° 40' E. Its estuary was discovered by the Portuguese, Diego Cam, in 1482; and the lower part of its course was first explored by Captain Tuckey in 1816. The upper part of the river remained unknown until Stanley, by descending from Nyangwe on the Lualaba to the mouth of the Kongo (1876-77), proved the two rivers to be identical. The Kongo is formed by the junc tion of the Luapula and the Lualaba in about the same latitude as the mouth. Of these the former issues from the south end of Lake Bangweolo, bends northward and flows into Lake Moero, on leaving which it pursues a northwesterly course. The chief inflowing river of Bangweolo is the Chambezi, which enters the lake on the east after flowing south west from the mountains of northeastern Rhodesia. The Lualaba rises by several head streams in the south of Kongo Free State and flows north and north-northeast through a series of lakes to its junction with the Luapula. The river thence flows north and slightly west to Nyangwe, receiving •the Lukuga on the right from Lake Tanganyika, thus being connected immediately with the great lake system of cen tral Africa. It then follows a northerly course for about four degrees, near the equator turns to the northwest and holds that direction till it reaches about lat. 1° 45' N., when it turns first west and then gradually southwest. About the place where the river first crosses the equator there are seven falls, called Stanley Falls, and about long. 17° E. and lat. 2° 30' S. there be gins a series of cataracts and rapids. In this part of its course it receives some very large tributaries, the most important of which are the Aruwuni, the Rubi, the Mongalla and the Mobangi (or Ubangi), which join it on the right, and the Boloko, Lopori, Ikelemba, Ruki and Kwa, which join it from the left, the latter representing the collected waters of the Kas sai, the Kwango, Sankuru, etc. Below the Liv ingstone Falls, near Stanley Pool, the course of the river, which is there contracted, again ex pands, till at its mouth it attains a breadth of 10 miles. It is navigable for about 110 miles from its mouth up to the cataracts, and above Stanley Pool steamers ply about for about 1,200 miles. The amount of water which the river discharges is greater than that discharged by the Mississippi, the volume of water being next to the Amazon. The length of the river
is estimated at 3,000 miles, the entire navigable system of 6,000 miles and the area of its basin about 1,600,000 square miles. The Kongo ex pedition of the American Museum of Natural History, financed by a group of public-spirited members and friends of the museum, and led by Herbert Lang and James Chopin, left Stan leyville on 4 Sept. 1909 and plunged into the great forests and swamps of the Kongo. After six years in the African jungle, during which time the expedition had been many times given up as lost, it returned in 1915, with some 45 tons of scientific specimens, the most valuable collection ever brought out of Africa. Water and rail communications lead from the mouth of the Kongo to Lake Tanganyika, and from thence southward to the Cape-to-Cairo Rail way. Consult Stanley, 'Through the Dark Con tinent' (1878).
one of the slender am phibians of the family , which take an intermediate place between the ccecilians and the salamanders as the lowest family of the tailed (urodelous) amphibians. Several genera occur in Asia and North America. The giant "salamander" (Cryptobranchus maximus) of the mountain streams of Japan, sometimes more than five feet long, and the American hellbender (q.v.) are of the same family. The term 'Kongo-snake," however, belongs spe cifically to the typical genus and species, Am phiuma means, which inhabits suitable localities in all the warmer parts of the United States, where it receives its name from the negroes of the Southern States. It is an eel-like creature, with very small, three-toed and almost useless limbs, one .pair near the head and the other almost at the caudal extremity, which haunts shallow stagnant waters, is numerous in the Southern rice-fields and is superstitiously feared by many persons although perfectly harmless. It feeds on small fishes, snails, crayfish, insects, etc., which it darts upon in the water or roots out of the mud. It reproduces by eggs, de posited at the end of the summer in a damp place, as under a rotting log, which, provided with shells, are connected by a gelatinous cord, and are protected by the female who coils her body about them and afterward takes care of the young. The embryos have well-developed external gills, but these disappear with growth, and even gill-clefts are greatly reduced in adults. Consult Cope, of North America' (1889) ; Gadow, 'Amphibia and Rep tiles> (New York 1901).