TODAY, WE WENT TO SEE VICTORIA FALLS AND LEARNED ALL ABOUT DR. LIVINGSTONE
Dr. Livingstone was the first European to discover Victoria Falls. He discovered Victoria Falls in 1855. Dr. Livingstone named Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria, but it’s Indigenous name was, Mosi-Oa-Tunya which means ‘the smoke that thunders.’ Dr. Livingstone came to Africa as a missionary. Dr. Livingstone had three different goals for his treks in Africa:
- Find a source of water route to get to his mission camp
- See if the Zambizi River is navigable to get steamboats in for trade
- Find the source of the Nile river
While Livingstone was out and about in Africa, H. M. Stanley, who was a Welsh explorer and journalist, was sent out to find Dr. Livingstone and when he finally found the one white guy living among the millions of Africans, he asked the famous quote, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Dr. Livingstone is not known for discovering Victoria Falls, but for documenting all the slavery on the East coast of Africa.
Victoria Falls is the largest waterfall in the world, not by length or height but by the sheet of water falling over edge of the large cliff drop. Did you know that during the high season the water that falls over the edge of Victoria Falls in three days is the same amount of water that the Big Apple (New York City) uses in one whole year? In three days! Can you believe it!?
Do you know how the falls formed? You’re about to find out! The way the falls were formed is from molten rock like comes up in a volcano. Instead of making a volcano, the magma created a dome-like structure and while it was cooling it cracked all over (like a cake that comes out of a hot oven that can crack on top). Then, the cracks were filled over time with sand that became sandstone. Later, the whole area then became the largest lake in the early history of Earth. Thousands of years later, the Zambezi River burst it’s banks and started to flow over the sandstone, which created erosion of the sandstone which then created the waterfalls where the cracks in the basalt rock had formed. The waterfalls were amazing! The sight was so beautiful. It looked like it was in slow motion the whole way down! The sound was breathtaking. It would be great to fall asleep to that sound.
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