The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1882-05-25
The Great Sahara.

- The Great Sahara --
In the interior Of every continent, far
from the moisture furnished by the
ocean, there exists a great desert al
most destitute of useful vegetation and
sparsely inhabited by a wandering and
I Impoverished people. Such is the Des-
ert of Sahara, in Northern Africa, which
stretches from the Atlantic almost to
the Indian Ocean, ands from the Atlas
7 Mountains to the fertile regions of the
/ Niger, covering an irregular area which
! is from 500 to l 600 miles in width and
about 2, 800 miles in length, or nearly as
large as the United States. A desert is
by no means made up of plains OF sand.
In the eastern part of the Sahara there
are numerous fertile spots called Gases,
and from north to south about midway
OF the continent runs a chain of barren
mountains, which rise here and there
into peaks some of which are from o. 900
to 10000 feet in height. North of the
| desert and not far from the Mediterra-
mean are the Atlas Mountains, which
! begin in Morocco, and, extending east
ward, lose themselves in sandy hills not
far from the delta of the Nile. In the
narrow strip north Of the Atlas range
/ there is a great deal of fertile and we'll
watered territory, especially in Algiers
and Tunis, which have been appropriated
| by the French. The streams which
flow from the southern slopes of these
mountains soon lose themselves in a
| sandy region roamed over by Bedouins
and having for its chief product the date
! palm
| 1t is no wonder that the French, who
first settled in AlgierS and Tunis, and
1 then gradually appropriated the terri
I tory, as they claim in self-defense,
should become impatient of the broad
| waste south of their rich districts, which
/ shelters their enemies, separates them
/ from the SOudan, whose products they
/ wish to purchase, and produces nothing
except salt which is of use to COM
merce. 1t is only natural that they
should try to render it available for
/ safety and commerce by every means
| that science can suggest. Hitherto the
cities of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and
/ TripOli have maintained communication
with the Niger, Timbuctoo, Lake Tchad,
Darfur and the Upper Nile by means OF
caravans, which are compelled to carry
water and provisions enough to supply
them during several weeks of travel,
and at the best are able to lay down ON
the shores of the Mediterranean small
and very expensive supplies of goods
| The French have contemplated two
railroads into the Soudan, one of them
I from St louis, on the western coast,
! which is intended to follow up the
Senegal to a point in the interior,
whence it will diverge for a few
| hundred miles to the navigable waters
of the Niger, and SO give access to
| TimbuctOo by steamboat. The length
of this road will scarcely exceed a
thousand miles. A more difficult and
expensive project, which French en-
gineers have deemed feasible, and
which the French Government has
/ favored, has been the building of
railroad s0uthwestward to the Niger
near TimbuctOO an entire distance of
1900, miles. The murder of an engi-
neering party on the proposed route by
the Arabs and the troubles in Tunis
have caused the consideration of this
scheme to be postponed for the present,
but it will be revived again within q
few years. Slaves, gold dust, ivory,
guns, dates and ostrich feathers are at
present the chief products of the Sou
dan, which might, it is thought, be
greatly increased in quantity and vari-
ETY.. The greatest want in the interior
of Africa at present is salt, but the needs
of the inhabitants would be infinite
when brought into direct contact with
civilization. Even the Arabs of the
desert would be a source of profit to a
railroad, which would supply them with
grain from Algiers and in time with
other articles, the want of which would
come with knowledge of their use.
While the railroads await their oppor-
tunity, the French are forming other
and grapder plans, which involve the
turning of the Sahara into a series of
vast inland seas. That which they have
in immediate view is, by means of
canal, to turn the Mediterranean into
the marshy region of Southern Algiers,
and Southwestern Tunis, which is far
below the level of the ocean. They
have two motives, the one being the
hope of modifying the dry climate of
Algiers, and the other to flood the
haunts of the barbarOus Arabs, and to
separate themselves from TripOh, where
the influence of Italy is paramount and
there are prospective dangers. The
proposed sea would extend southwark
to the base of the Asgard Mountains,
which is the beginning of the central
Saharan chain, and westward along the
southern base of the Atlas, OVerhOwing
all the . shOtts, or "sinks, into which
the rivers from that region flow and dis
appear. The size of it is not stated,
and is probably not yet exactly known
by French engineers, but it is expected
to be several hundred miles in length,
and to be navigable for ocean vessels.
The cost of the canal is estimated at
20, 900, 900 francs, by no means large
expenditure, when the great results
which are to be achieved are taken into
consideration.
The western part of Sahara is called
Sahel. A caravan route from Morocco
to Timbuctoo runs through it. A little
grass grows here and there in it, and
Scattering tribes of the million and
half inhabitants which are said to peo-
pie the vast arid waste between Egypt
and the Atlantic roam over it. Its
basin has a general direction southwest
from Algiers to the neighborhood of the
Senegal, and is said to be 1000 miles
long by 300 miles wide. and to be in all
parts entirely below the level of the sea.
In 1873 French engineers conceived the
idea of cutting through the narrow
dyke of sand that separates it from the
Atlantic, but the project was vast, it
was uncertain how much territory would
be overlooked, and the matter was
temporarily abandoned. There is still
another portion of the Sahara in
which even the GASES are said to
be $50 feet below the level of the
sea. This extends southeastward from
the Gulf of Sidra, in Tripoli, to Middle
Egypt, distance of five or six hundred
miles, forming a basin which could be
flooded from the Mediterranean at COM
paratively little expense, were any Eu-
ropean nation sufficiently interested to
undertake it. These three basins com
prise about one-third of the Sahara
We're they turned into inland seas the
remainder of the desert would probably
be fortified by the evaporation from so