There can be no question of the ability of Europeans to sustain themselves in the greater part of the interior-certainly on all the higher plateaus-nor of the possibility of building up in Central Africa a great civilized empire. Nature offers every facility, and the native population seem to be well fitted for productive industry. In every respect they are physically and morally superior to the negroes of the coast, and only need protection and the encouragement of legitimate commerce to weld them into a great nation. Already they stand on the borders of civilization. They are intelligent, industrious, and not unskillful in the manufacture of iron and copper ornaments, utensils, and weapons. The arts of tanning, spinning, weaving, dyeing, mat-making, etc., are widely diffused among them, and many of their products are remarkable for their fineness and strength. They carry on agriculture with considerable success; and, notwithstanding the chronic state of insecurity incident to slave-hunting, their wealth in cattle is very great. As soon as the disturbing and impoverishing influence of the slave traffic is abated, and a market provided for the products of peace, the advancement of the people in civilization is likely to go on with great rapidity. As the source of raw materials which we need, and as a market for the surplus manufactures of Europe and America, the country offers, to say the least, many attractions; and it will not be surprising if, within fifty years, thriving commercial stations will be founded on all its great lakes and rivers, and connected with the outer world by telegraphy, railways, and steamship lines. * * * * * ADDRESS OF CLARENCE KING ON CATASTROPHISM. Mr. Clarence King lately delivered an interesting address before the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College, New Haven, Conn., under the title of "Catastrophism, or the Evolution of Environment," which promises to evoke considerable discussion. We subjoin an abstract of the principal features of the address, which is quite lengthy. The full text will be found in our SUPPLEMENTS, Nos. 80, 81. Mr. King refuted the doctrine of slow evolution as taught by Huxley and Darwin, and declared that the surface of the earth and climate had been subject to sudden and catastrophic mutation, which included in its environment all types of life. He reasoned that marine fossils are found entombed in rocky beds far remote from present seas; and that these beds were once sea bottoms that have been upheaved by convulsions of Nature. The earliest history of mankind is pregnant with catastrophe, and we have historic story and biblical record of its sudden and destructive energy. He called to mind the vast and massive eruptions of the Pliocene basalt as seen upon our own continent.