The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-06-08
Northern Thibet-The Sahara Desert
Arctic and Antarctic Regions.
TNyaxv Vorlr

Arctic and Antarctic Regions.
New York SUM-
The Russian explorer Preievalsky said
after his recent journey in northern
Thibet that an enormous amount of ami
NAL life was supported by the scanty
heritage growing on these bleak, half
sterile plains that form the highest plateau
in the world, some 5000 feet above the
sea- He said the wild yaks there must
number millions, and that a full-grOwn
yak weighs from 1000 to 1900 pounds.
Natures chemistry evolves these great
masses of flesh from the poor heritage OF
region so lofty that its lakes are frozen
over until nearly June though they are
600 miles nearer the equator than we are
Explorers tell us that not only does
animal life abound. but that man can live
in some of the most desolate parts of the
globe 1t is mistake to suppose that the
Sahara desert is merely a useless sandy
waste Much of it lacks not so much
cultiVable land as industrious hands tc
make the vast eXpanse of withered GASES
blossom again The Mussulman sect
known as Z q Senouslans has for years
been Dig wells, irrigating the land,
and to fromfny hundreds OF barren
2creebark rs Twenty-four years
ago it pantetf ais. headauarters in The
desert near the western border Of Egypt,
built reservoirs, began plantations, erected
converts, and now population of 5000 |
people live at Jarabub, where the soil has /
been restored to fertility by their labors.
There are large areas in the Sahara that |
need only rain or irrigation to cover them
with verdure. Through these regions |
pass the caravan routes, along which the |
so. 900 camels engaged in the Saharan |
commerce bear their burdens.
Mr. Anderson the civil engineer who |
last year completed sixteen years of ex-
vibrations in South Africa, between the |
-, / hos rix hat
rain that falls for a few weeks every year
in the great region known as the Kala-
hara desert covers the blackened, verdure |
less plain with splendid vegetation.
Game is abundant there, especially lions, |
leopards, and ostriches, and he has |
counted in this desert twenty two lions in |
a troop, and has seen 200 ostriches in one
flock. Beasts and birds find sustenance !
in this region where only few bushman |
hunters live. Far northeast of them on |
the semi-arid steppes of Kordofan and |
Darfur millions of sheep and camels exist |
on the scanty pasturage OF that desert |
region.
The earliest Arctic explorers found in |
the little Spitzbergen archipelago |
it is believII, no human being had ever |
lived-herds of reindeer upturning the |
snow with their hoof and noses to get at |
the lichens on which they fed. Many rein |
deer live as far north as Littleton island, |
and several score of them were killed by |
the Hayes and POlaris expeditions. Musk |
oxen, or their traces, have been found
along the shores of the great frozen sea as
far north as explorers have attained.
Lockwood, far north of the supposed linn
its of animal life, found traces of this |
wonderful quadruped, which grows fat on
the tender shoots of the ArctIc willow,
and ploughs up the snow for moss and
lichens.
OF all parts of the earth the Antarctic
regions alone are comparatively destitute
of life. Few species of living things in
the vegetable or animal kingdom can en-
dure the rigor of the south polar region
No terrestrial quadruped inhabits the
land within the Antarctic circle, and
whales and seals are the only mammals
that enter its area. Summer in the Arc
tic regions, with its abundant life on land
and in the air and sea, presents an ami
mated and cheerful scene compared with
the utter desolation that reigns perpetu-
ally in Antarctic waters.