Morning journal and courier., 1883-05-05

area in the world, and thus giving Europe
 8 much milder temperature than it could
 otherwise possibly have
 Third: It acts as great storm barrier tc I Europe, especially in the case of simoons and | tornadoes-those stimulating water -spouts, ] and becoming the most destructive of all l winds that blow. In proof of this, when 8 | tornado, on it's way from the Tropics to the \ North, strikes this immense sand plain, if ! laps up hundreds if not thousands of tons of | sand hurling it into the air and so loading 1 itself down with gravity that it is soon l broken up and becomes innocuous of harm I Like drunken man, made insane and furi- 1 ous by liquor, it has taken on too big 8 ! ''load'' for it to carry, and soon lies prone | with the dust Had the tornado which visi- | ted Wallingford in this State few years ago | with such terrific force and violence first ] run it's head into the shifting sand-banks a mile or two south of the village, instead of striking the large sheet of water it did, it would have gone on it's way with comparative harmlessness.
 Fourth In the same way, it acts as the great absorbent of the malaria of the trop- ics, and keeps back the fatal diseases of Af- rica from Europe. For malaria travels with the winds, and the more rapidly they pass , thruzsa Intervening regions the more speed fly is it at yoof door. There is absolutely no malaria in this desert, and no cause for ma laria so far as IS now known. All this dread ed source of disease comes from the equato- rial regions of Africa south of the desert, and not from that treeless region itself and converting it into an inland sea would only precipitate this malaria upon Europe, ss the passage of these southern winds over this sheet of water would be much more rapid than over sandy desert.
 Fifth: It would if inundated (and here comes in the greatest objection to the pro posed scheme), result in converting the des- art jOt0 Qla0fbar Dpp6 Sao 0r fsSaQ nf Sn-
 dom," as that remarkable body of water was | anciently called. All seas are effectually dead seas which have no natural outlets to their waters, and this sea will have no natural out let, but only an artificial inlet-not of fresh water, like the Sweet waters of Jordan, :" but of the already salt waters of the Medi- l terranean. The present watershed of Afr ca would admit of no fresh water streams flowing into the new sea, and hence there would be no natural outflow of it's waters | through the Tunisian inlet, but a constant evaporation, demanding an equally constant supply of salt water flowing into the pro posed sea. As there are immense salt depos-
 it's in the lower portions of this desert, the
 inevitable effect will be to convert it into an
 other, and, if possible, deader sea than that
 of "Sodom," encompassed, as 1t will be- by
 dreary wastes and surrounding salt hills and
 marshes.
 Now M. de Lesseps proposes to create this
 O6dU O6d, dGStEOy lu15 RTGdL TAOlALOE Ol ucdb,
 wipe out this natural sponge, obliterate this
 storm-barrier and precipitate African malaria
 upon Europe at cost of millions of meney.
 He wants 100 machines of not less working
 power than 100, GOO men to start with, not
 stating whether they shall be effete Turks
 or Arabs or intelligent Europeans.
 If M. de Lesseps really desires to amelio-
 rate the condition of the Barbary States and
 the wild Arab tribes of the desert south of
 these States, he will drop his scheme of del
 uging Africa and dig few thousand artesian
 wells in the Sahara, thus creating as many
 oases therein, at proper intervals apart as
 he digs wells. One thousand such wells will
 not cost one-tenth the money of his pro-
 posed sand cut through Tunis, and every
 new oasis in the desert will be 8 blessing to
 the wild Arab tribes therein, not curse.
 No land holds water when once received
 upon it's surface with greater tenacity than
 sand, and none admits of wider or more
 profitable irrigation. And if these wells are
 dug deep enough to bring the water to the
 surface, this irrigation will be far more feasi-
 ble than that from the Nile in it's palmiest
 days of irrigation by the ancient Egyptians
 The fact that the French Academy of Sci ence approves of M. de Lssseps' scheme adds nothing of special scientific value to.it in my judgment. I know and agree with the agnostics and materialists of this academy that M de Lesseps cannot make water run
 up hill, and I know equally as well, If they do not, that it Is not in the power of human engineering to always prevent water from running down hill, especially when building on sandy foundations, as M. de Lesseps re- ports his foundations to be. In boring for his levels he says he finds sand everywhere, as if that were fortunate circumstance. To my mind it is most dangerous one, as the reader will see.
 The highest lands in the African desert are about l, 300 feet above the level of the Medi- terranean, the lowest about that depth below ts level, so that the waters taken from that natural reservoir, the largest in the world, and constantly receiving two-thirds the water shed of Europe, a large part Of west ern Asia, and one third of central Africa must have fall of not less than 1000 feet to reach their proper level. And they will not stop their mad rush, when once broken CT it consists of one 'schott" (dry basin) or a hundred of them, is filled to the level of the Mediterranean reservoir. Those who visited the Williamsburg dam disaster few years ago, where the water had less than 100 feet fall in the first few miles, will have some small conception of what the destruc- ton will be in Africa when M. de Lesseps comes to tap his vast reservoir north of the Barbary States and south of Europe.
 Bear in mind that ship canals can only be built between seas having the same water level without powerful and indestructible LOCKS between them, ana that these JOckS are nowhere needed when both seas have the same natural inlet and outlet. Remember also that, according to Mitchells maps of the Sahara desert. and those of A. von Stein Rehr, it's geographical area makes it nearly as large as the whole United States, 1t being no less than three thousand miles long, as l on the Tropic of Cancer, and about | eight hundred miles wide. If not more | than half the desert is filled with water taken | from the Mediterranean as Q natural reser- voir there would be such Q shock, not to say i 'schott,'' from this mad agnostic scheme, as I he world has never seen since the supposed | reign of Titans, not manly gods on the | earth
 There is much remarkable imagery and | not little prophetic language in Isaiah as I ouching the deserts the highways to be I made therein, the wells to be dug, the trees | o be planted, etc., but no possible reference o inundating them, or turning them into lead-sea marshes, where ''the cry of the | wild bittern shall be heard" There are in imations concerning the deserts, such as I will plant therein the cedar, the shittah l rec, the myrtle and the olive tree :" q will ! et in the desert the fir tree and the pine and he boxtre together,'' etc, with 8 spretty tout intimation that ''the Lord will have his I Eay in the whirlwhirds and in the storms nd the clouds and the dust of his feet
 This is a little out of the way, agree, in cientifc communication, but Isaiah is not 'ad book to read for splendid imagery, if l ot for valuable scientific hints and sugges- ions k. w. WRIGHT
 West Cheshire Ct March 10