The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-28

Copyright, 1907, by Frank G. Carpenter)
 Colomb- -Bechar, Desert of Sahara. ENEW people appreciate the extent of
 the fertile spots of the Desert of 4 Sahara. The French have been exploring their territories in these sandy wastes. They are mapping them and are making a kind of a census of their pop ulation. They are now policing a great part of the desert and, for the first time, travel in the central Sahara is compar- atively safe.
 This is not so in the western part of the desert, where l now am. l can go no- where unless accompanied by soldiers, and many of the cases about here are now fearing an invasion from the Taflet brigands, who live across the mountains in Morocco. Only a day or so ago a camel caravan coming north into the French Sahara from the Soudan was robbed not far from Lake Chad, many of it's people were killed and the French soldiers tell me that they apprehend trouble here in the near future.
 Gases, of the Sahara.
 But l want to tell you something about the oases of this mighty desert. have visited a number of them. and through conversation with explorers and tray elers of this part of the world I have learned much about others. The oases are scattered at wide distances apart throughout the Sahara. Often there will be none for miles and miles, and again they will pepper the rocky wastes as though the Lord had sown patches of green from out the sky. 1t is estimated that there are altogether something like S0,000 square miles of such garden spots scattered here and there upon this ocean of sand
 Eighty thousand square miles,
 That means q territory twice as large as the state of Ohio, and one infinitely ricner. Suppose that you could pick out of our country enough of it's richest hot beds to cover Virginia and Kentucky and patch them together. That will give you some idea of the extent of the oases To appreciate them, however, you must imagine them lying in the midst of a re- zion larger than the United States, the rest of which is absolutely sterile. You must have them surrounded by sand rocks, bouders and all sorts of arid for nations You must have no green of any kinu for miles about, but a vast waste of blazing white, dazzling yellow or eye aching red. Off in the distance the moun- tains may be blue and may change to a warm rose tint at the time of the setting sun, but elsewhere all is arid and bare.
 Desert Islands.
 Sometimes the oases will form string or rather a chain of green islands mark ing the route of some dry gulf stream flowing through the ocean of sand At others, there may be many in one place showing the site of a subterranean lake, or of springs or wells far off from any other aparent water supply.
 The desert has been described as vast ocean. and the oases as it's islands These Sahara islands, however, lie below rather thal above. the level of their sandy sea- They are always found in depressons, where the scanty waters have drained in and formed reservoirs
 Much of the desert has bed of stiff clay under it. The water may sink down through a hundred or more feet of gravel and rock. but when it comes to this clay bed it flows on until 1t strikes a hollow and If this hollow be high enough and deep enough the result is an oasis. In the district known as Fl Erg depres- sons of this kind furnish wells which can irrigate eight millions of date palms, and where I am now is the Wady Saoora. a great underground stream which flows far below the surface for several hundred