The Colorado statesman., 1923-02-24

prepared by the National Geographic So
clety. Washington ID. CD
Its ground traversed since our his
tory began only by camels the Sahara
desert has Just been conquered by au-
tomobiles which crossed the 1000 miles
from Algiers to Timbuktu in twenty
nine days-a third of the time camels
would have required. The feat serves
to bring into bold relief some of the
misconceptions we have been harbor-
ing about the worlds greatest desert.
The chief and most persistent fal-
lazy about the Sahara is that it is
'sea of sand" AS matter of fact,
while there is much sand, the desert
is predominantly land of rocky
plateaus and mountains.
There is the idea, too, that the
Sahara is tremendously hot. 1t is-by
Gay. But at night the temperature
falls, often to below freezing in few
hours. So well does this night cool
ness balance the extreme heat of day
ihat the mean annual temperature of
the Sahara is no higher than that of
regions much farther north.
This great desert Is used as
synonym for dryness. Except for
few tiny oases it is ordinarily thought
OF as "bone dry" throughout its entire
area. But in reality the mountains of
the interior receive considerable pre-
cipitation and are even said by some
travellers to be capped with snow dur
Ing a part of every year. Further
more, area after area, formerly con-
y te hnf oh n
to have water available from artesian
-eservoirs in the earth below
There are good enough reasons for
he prevalent misconceptions and the
general lack of knowledge about the
Sahara. 1t was known first from Its
northeastern corner, where it stretches
westward from the Nile, and there 1t
is In truth a "sea of sand" The vast
bIllowy, shifting dunes of the Libyan
desert, then, inspired a striking word
picture which came to be applied by
the world to the Sahara. The fact
that a band of sand dunes also extends
pretty much along the entire northern
edge of the great desert for hundred
or more miles inland from the Mediter-
ranean coast, furnished further circum-
stantIal evidence to convict the Sahara
of being "sea of sand"
Not Easy for Explorers.
The desolate sand dunes were enough
In themselves to discourage most
would-be travellers who might have
found the truth to the south. Add to
tbs thar the people who came out of
the sands were fierce, fanatical war
,a1 a tinnS
for massacring strangers first and Won
dering about their errands afterwards,
and 1t is small wonder that the Eu-
ropean world went on century after
century without knowing anything
about the Sahara.
Behind the bulwarks of sand that
stretch in a semicircle from the Nile
south of the Mediterranean, below the
Atlas mountains and to the Atlantic,
lies the real, and until recently the
unknown, Sahara. Recent estimates
are tat loose sands make up between
only one-tenth or one-ninth the area
of the Sahara. South of Algeria the
northern sands give way to rising,
rocky ground, which leads to an exten-
sive plateau of massive rock, pebbles
and boulders, and finally 900 miles
from the coast are crags of the Hogsar
mountains, 5000 to 5000 feet high.
This roof-peak of the Sahara Is almost
exactly midway between the Mediter-
ranean and the Gulf of Guinea, and
not far from the halfway point be
tween the Nile and the Atlantic. From
II plateaus slope in every direction;
but to the southeast the descent Is only
temporary, for further in that direc-
tlon lie other ranges, eliminating In
the Tlbestis with a peak 10000 feet
high.
1t is the highland portions Of the