The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1885-05-20
w. &C. of the Word.


/ The Russian explorer Preievalsky
said after his recent journey ia northern
Ihloet that an enormous amount OF ami
NAL lie was supported by the scanty
/ herbage growing on these bleak, half
sterile plains that form the highest
. plateau IN the world, some 1900 feet
above the sea. He said the wild vaks
there must number millions. and that 4
+ tuli-grown yak weighs from 1900 to l.
500 pounds. Natures chemistry
evolves these great masses OF flesh
from the poor heritage Of a region so
lofty that its lakes are frozen over un-
II. nearly June. though they are Coz
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 desoIate parts
of the globe. II IS a mistake to sup
pose that the Sahara Desert is merely
a useless sandy waste. Much of it
lacks not so much cultivable land as
industrious hands to make the vast ex-
panse OF withered 0ases blossom again.
The AIussuIman sect known as the SEN
ousians has for years been digging
wells, irrigatiug the land, and turning
many hundreds Of barren acres into
planted its headquarters in the desert
near the western border Of Egypt, built
reservoirs, began plantations, erected
converts, and now q population of
elght thousand people live at Jarabub,
Where the soil has been restored TO fer
tilIty by their labors. There are large
areas in the Sahara that need only rain
or irrigation to cover them with YER
dure. Through these regions pass the
caravan routes, along which the fifty
thousand camels engaged in the Saba
ran commerce bear their burdens.
MIR. Anderson, the civil engineer who
last year completed sixteen Years of ex-
ploratious in South Africa, between the
Orange and Lambesi rivers. SAYS that
the rain that falls for few weeks every
year IN the great region known as the
kalahara desert covers the blackened,
yerdureless plain with splendid vegeta-
ton. Game is abundant there, espe-
cially lions, leOpards, and ostriches,
and he has counted in this desert twen-
ty-tWo lions in a troop, and has seen
two hundred ostriches in one flock
Beasts and birds find sustenaucein this
region where only a few bushman hunt
ers live. Far northeast of them on the
semi-arid steppes of Kordofan and Oar
fur millions OF sheep and camels exist
on the scanty pasturage of that desert
region.
The earliest Arctic explorers found in
the little SpitzDergcn archipelago
where, il is believed, no human being
had ever lived-herds of reindeer up
turning the snow with their hoofs and
noses to get at the lichens on which
they fed. Many reindeer live as far
north as Littleton island, and several
scores 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
limits 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 liehens.
OF all parts of the earth the Antarc-
tic regions alone are comparatively
destitute of life. Few species of living
things in the vegetable or animal king
dom can endure the rigor of the South
polar region. No terrestrial quadruped
inhabits the land within the Antarctic
circle, and whales and seals are the on
ly mammals that enter its area. Sum
mer in the arctic regions, with its
abundant life on land and in the air
and sea, presents an animated and
cheerful scene compared with the utter
desolation that reigns perpetually in
Antarctic waters.-Ae10 York San.