Newport daily independent., 1905-10-14
OCEANS TO ORDER.
What Engineers Propose Doing
 with the Worlds Deserts.
The Sahara Could Be Quickly Made an Inland sea-PrOject to Divide Ireland with
 Canal.

late years the surface aspect or thlS 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 her savage sister running wild in pestilen- tial woods. As art has transformed the one, so has it the other.
 Only the Mime. Rachel" who has made the earth. if not exactly 'beauti- ful for ever" at least pleasant and healthful place wherein to dwell, is no charlatan with a dray load of cos metics and 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 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 of the new Sahara ocean.
 What would be the results that would snsue upon this stupendous transfor- nation? Some would be good and some bad. Among the latter may be 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 similar manner the greater DOT ton of the central Australian desert, covering an area of fully 100000 square miles, might be flooded. The is- land continent would then be recon yerted 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 Co1 ot present proposed, Is carried out, tract of absolutely bles territorye comprising nearly 13,00o square miles. and the grea ter portion ofwhich lies between 5o0 and l ,0oG feet Fbelow sea level, will De submerged.
 \ few Englishmen-known as little EsnglandersY- still blame tue govern srnent for insisting upon the reconquest of the Soudan. "A useless acquisition" say they. Perhaps. a.ss.vusa. .as.... ...s.,
 But capable iudges believe that it would have been little less tha n suicidal 10 have allowed these regions to fall into the hands of France; for the sim ole reason that her engineers, by divert- i..g the course of the Nile at Abu Hamed or Berber-no very difficult task <cauld at any time turn all upper Egypt into d desert.
 IL has even been suggested that it might be possibIe-by turning it's wa .ers into one of the many lateral .3vines which run at right angles to ne present course of the river-to find new outlet for it into the Red sea, and thereby to transform, in process Of time, that sheet Of water into great fresh water lake.
 To accomplish this, 1t would of course be necessary to build a. giant dam across it's southern meek" near Perrin, md to regulate, or rather stop alto- -a+har. the inward flow of the Mediter- ranean through the Suez canal--a big task, but one not entirely impossible of accomplishment.
 The above are examples of big schemes. There are many others that enipht be mentioned, including, ot course, the Panama and Nicaraguan canals, and the French war canal'' be- tween the mouths of the Loire and the 2hone, which, when completed, will .,aable their iyonclads to dodge round behind Gibraltar when passing from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean or ! vice versa.
 But it is she comparatively little en- gineering feats which have slowly but surely altered in the past and will alter jn the future the face of the earth. Even SO small a matter. for instance, as the proposed seawall at Southcnd will cer- -ainly deepen the estuary of the Thames, and may conccivably do away with the Goodwin sands.
 ,v,Oc+a1 tO ont