The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1899-09-02
OCEANS OF DESERTS


weazened old globe of ours has been al
tered and improved.
The world to-day, in fact, differs
from the world of our ancestors, much
as society lady, in all the glory of fold
and frill and furbelow, differs from hel
savage sister running wild in pestilen.
tial woods. AS art has transformed the
one, SO has it the other.
Only the "Mme. Rachel" who has
made the earth, if not exactly .'beauti-
full for ever" at least pleasant and
healthful place wherein to dwell, is no
charlatan with dray load of cos
metics and a glib tongue, but civil en-
gineer, owning nothing more harmful
than few mysterious-looking instru-
ments and measuring tape.
And the marvel of it all is this-that
what has been done is but an infinites-
imal fraction of that which may, and
doubtless will, be done. Who can doubt,
for instance, that the great Sahara
desert = that mole upon the world
face-will one day be but memory
1t was an inland sea once. 1t would not
be a very difficult matter to convert it
into one again.
A canal go miles long, connecting
with the Atlantic the vast depression
which runs close up to the coast nearly
midway between the twentieth and
thirtieth parallels of latitude, would do
the business beautifully. The water
would not, of course, cover the eltire
surface of the desert. Here and there
are portions lying above sea level.
These would become the islands OF the
new Sahara ocean.
What would be the results that would
ensue upon this stupendous transfor-
nation? Some would be good and some
bad. Among the latter may be men,
toned the probable destruction of the
vineyards of southern Europe, which
depend for their existence upon the
warm dry winds from the great African
desert.
AS some compensation for this. how
ever, the mercantile marines of the ma
tons affected would be enabled to gain
immediate and easy access to vast re-
gions now given over to barbarism, and
a series of more or less flourishing sea-
port towns would spring up all along
the southern borders of Morocco and
Algeria, where the western watershed
of the Nile sinks into the desert, and on
the northern frontier of the Congo
Free State.
In similar manner the greater por-
ton of the central Australian desert.
covering an'area of fully 1000, 900
square miles, might be flooded. The is
land continent would then be recon-
verified into gigantic atoll, and would
resemble, roughly, an oval dish of
which the depressed central portion
would be covered with water and only
the rim" inhabited. In this connec-
ton it may be interesting to note that
company has actually been formed
for submerging the Yuma desert in
southern California. If the plan, as at
present proposed, is carried out, a tract
of absolutely uninhabitable territory,
comprising nearly $4,000 square miles,
and the greater portion of which lies
between 500 and 1000 feet below sea
level, will be submerged.
A few Englishmen-known as ''little
Englanders"-still blame the govern
ment for insisting upon the reconquest
OF the Soudan. "A useless acquisition"
say they. Perhaps!
But capable judges believe that il
would have been little less than suicidal
to have allowed these regions to fall
into the hands of France; for the SIM
pie reason that her engineers, by divert
ing the course of the Nile at Abu Hamed
or Berber-no very difficult task
could at any time turn all upper Egypt
into desert.
1t has even been sug sted that it
might be possible-by turning its wa
tiers into one of the many lateral
ravines which run at right angles to
the present course of the river-to find
a new outlet for it into the Red sea, and
thereby to transform, in process of
time, that sheet of water into a great
fresh water lake.
To accomplish this, it would of course
be necessary to build giant dam
across its southern meek" near Perrin,
and to regulate, or rather stop alto
gether, the inward flow of the Mediter-
ranean through the Suez canal-a big
ask, but one not entirely impossible of |
accomplishment.
The above are examples of big
schemes. There are many others that
night be mentioned, including, of
course, the Panama and Nicaraguan
annals, and the French 'war canal be-
tween the mouths of the Loire and the
Rhone, which, when completed, will
'nable their ironclads to dodge round
behind Gibraltar when passing from
he Atlantic to the Mediterranean or
ice versa.
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