Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-10-09
A COLOSSAL IRRIGATION PRO.
JECT.

AS far back as De Lesseps time a
French engineer, Colonel Roudaire,
preached the project of letting the
waters of the Mediterranean into the
Desert of Sahara and forming two
lakes in central and southern Algeria.
The protector of the Suez Canal APP
proved that design, just as engineers
and statesmen have since Endorsed
the less ambitious plan to form Sc
ries of GASES in the Sahara by sinking
artesian wells. Now, however. comes
Professor Etchegoyen of Paris with
more striking scheme, that of con-
verting the whole vast desert into an
inland sea. The work would present
no great mechanical difficulties, he
says, because the coast land is COM
posed of sand and soft rock forma-
tions. The consequences of this piece
of engineering would be gigantic.
The first result would be to add a
great new colony to the possessions of
France. Millions of human beings
could support themselves therein in
comfort. since. with the lack of water
supplied the desert soil would become
as fertile as that of Europe. Fleets of
steamships would navigate the Sea OF
Sahara, a sea varying in depth from
ten to sixty fathoms, and build up q
fiourishing trade between Algeria and
French West Africa. And the most
remarkable result of all would be the
alteration of the climate of all north
ern Africa from equatorial extremes
of heat TO the pleasing temperature of
Natal.
Professor Etchegoyen's scheme is
provoking much comment, and objec
lions are not wanting. Certain me-
neurological experts cry out in horror
that any tampering with weather con-
ditionS in Africa would transform the
climate of Europe; that, if tropical
Africa should become temperate, Eu-
rope would become arctic, and an
alarming picture is drawn of England,
Belgium and Denmark lying under
several feet of perpetual snow and
their inhabitants either emigrating in
haste to milder countries or leading
thenceforth the lives of Eskimos. A
still more striking reason for leaving
the great desert alone is presented in
the argument that, by the displace-
ment of so many billions of tons of
water, the equilibrium of the earth
would actually be affected, and the
engineer who had undertaken the task
of adding new sea to the map of the
world would forever afterward be
cursed by humanity for having alter
ed the axis of the globe.
Some of these objections are clearly
illusory, but they may have weight
with a public which is prepared to
credit almost anything about this last
| Of the unexplored places" There is
| no more interesting region on the
earth than the great desert of Africa,
nor one about which so little is gener-
| ally known, nor concerning which so
many fascinating myths are told and
| believed. Since the earliest records OF
history it has been a place of mystery.
of weird terrors, Of strange and i'm
| possible happenings. From the pyra-
mids all the way across the continent
to the Atlantic Ocean it reaches-and
what is it like, what fearful secrets
does it hide? Though it has been
| traversed from time immemorial by
native tribes carrying fruits and silks
| and costly woods and ivory for barter
from centre to coast settlements, and
| still Is crossed at certain points by
| important caravan routes, If is even
| today almost entirely uncharted Sir
Lambert Playfair, DR.. Erwin Won
Bary, De LEM and few others have
partially explored certain portions of
| it during the past twenty-nine years.
yet there still remain large tracts Of
| the territory that have never been
viewed by the eyes Of any white man.