Newport daily independent., 1905-11-04
OCEANS TO ORDER.
What Engineers Propose Doing
 with the Worlds Deserts.
The sahara Could Re Quickly Maas a iu ia q Sea-PrOJect to Divide Ireland with
 Canal,

Few people realize how completely of tate years the surface aspect of this weszened 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 a society lady, in all the glory of fold and friil and furbelow, differs from her savage sister running wild in pestilen- tizl 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- ful for eyer," at least a pleasant and healthful place wherein to dwell, is no charlstan with dray load of cos metics and glib tongue. but civil en- gineer, owning nothing more harmful than a few mysterious-looking instru- ments and a measuring tape.
 And the marvel of it all is this-that what has been done is but an infinites- final fraction of that which may, and doubtless will. be done. Who can doubt, for instance, that the great Sahara desert that mole unpn the worlds face-will one day be but memory? It was an inland sea once. It would not be very difficult matter to convert it Into one again.
 A canal 50 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 entire surface of the desert. Here and there are portions lying above sea level. These would become the islands sf tho 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 he men, tioned the probable destruction of the vineyards of southern Europe. which depend for their existence upon the warm dry winds from the great African desert.
 In Q similar manRer the greater DOT ton of the central Australiau desert, covering an area of fully 100000 square miles, might be flooded. The is- land continent would then be recon verted into c 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 1t may be interesting to note that a company has actually been formed for submerging the Yuma desert in southern California. If the plau. as at present proposed, Is carried out. tract of absolutely uniahabitable territory, comprising nearly fs,ooo squarc 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 ment for insisting upon the reconquest of the Soudan. "A useless acquisition" say they. Perhapsl
 But capable judges believe that it would have been little less than suicidal to have allowed these regions to fall into the hands of France; for the aim pie reason that her engineers, by divert
  or Berber-no very difficult task could at any time turn all upper Egypt into Q desert.
 It has even been suggested that it might be possible-by turning it's wa ters 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. t would of course be necessary to build a giant dsm across its southern ''neck," near Perrin. and to regulate, or rather stop alto gether, the inward flow of the Mediter- rauean through the Suez canal--a big task, but one not entirely impossible of accomplishment.
 The above are examples of big schemes. There arc many others that might be mentioned, including. Of course, the Panama and Nicaraguan canals, and the French war canal" be- tween the mouths of the Loire and the Rhone, which, when completed, will enable their ironclads to dodge round behind Gibraltar when passing from the Atlantic to the Mediterrsensn or vice versa.
 But it is the comparatively little en' gineering feats which have slowly but surely altered in the past and will alter in the future the face of the earth. Even so small a matter, for instance. as the proposed seawsll at Southend will cer- tainlJ deepen the estuary Of the Thames, and may eonceiyobly do away with the Goodwin sands.
 A scheme was recently mooted 10 cut a ship canal through the center of Ire land. beginning al Dublin and finish ing at Galway. [, would be no very difficult feat to accomplish. for most of the country through which it would pass is flat and boegy .-''hicsso Chron- icle.