Q: The Sahara (Arabic: , as-sahra al-kubra, 'the Greatest Desert') is the largest hot desert in the world. It is the third largest desert after Antarctica and the Arctic. Its surface area of 9,400,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi)[citation needed]including the Libyan Desertis comparable to the respective land areas of China or the United States. The desert comprises much of the land found within North Africa, excluding the fertile coastal region situated against the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley of Egypt and Sudan. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north, to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually transitions to a coastal plain. To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and Sudan Region of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Air Mountains, the Tenere desert, and the Libyan Desert. Its name is derived from the plural Arabic language word for desert ( sahara [sr]).

Answer the following questions:
1. What is the passage about?
2. Is it a Gaelic word?
3. What is it known for being?
4. How many areas can it be classifieded into?
5. Does it include any fertile ground?
6. Is it 10,000,000 sq km?
7. How large is it?
8. What is it's ranking among all the world's deserts?
9. What are the other 2?
10. Are they considered hot?
11. What mass is the hot one considered comparable to?
12. How far east does it reach?
13. Are there any other notable borders?
A: 1. The Sahara
2. unknown
3. the largest hot desert in the world
4. several regions
5. No
6. No
7. 9,400,000 square kilometres
8. third largest
9. Antarctica and the Arctic
10. No
11. the respective land area of China
12. from the Red Sea
13. Yes
Q: In August 1836, two real estate entrepreneursAugustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allenfrom New York, purchased 6,642 acres (26.88 km2) of land along Buffalo Bayou with the intent of founding a city. The Allen brothers decided to name the city after Sam Houston, the popular general at the Battle of San Jacinto, who was elected President of Texas in September 1836. The great majority of slaves in Texas came with their owners from the older slave states. Sizable numbers, however, came through the domestic slave trade. New Orleans was the center of this trade in the Deep South, but there were slave dealers in Houston. Thousands of enslaved African-Americans lived near the city before the Civil War. Many of them near the city worked on sugar and cotton plantations, while most of those in the city limits had domestic and artisan jobs. In 1860 forty-nine percent of the city's population was enslaved. A few slaves, perhaps as many as 2,000 between 1835 and 1865, came through the illegal African trade. Post-war Texas grew rapidly as migrants poured into the cotton lands of the state. They also brought or purchased enslaved African Americans, whose numbers nearly tripled in the state from 1850 to 1860, from 58,000 to 182,566.

Answer the following questions:
1. Who was Sam Houston?
2. What else was important in his life?
3. In 1860 what percent of Houston's population was comprised by slaves?
4. Where did most of them come from?
5. Was there a slave trade in Houston?
6. Before the Civil War were there plantations near Houston?
7. What kind?
8. Were there slaves working on them?
9. What kind of work did slaves in the city do?
10. Were there a lot of slaves from African trade?
11. In 1860 what was the slave population?
12. Who founded the city?
13. Where did they come from?
14. What was their profession?
15. Was African slave trade legal?
A: 1. a general at the Battle of San Jacinto
2. he was elected president of Texas
3. forty-nine
4. the older slave states
5. yes
6. yes
7. sugar and cotton plantations
8. yes
9. domestic and artisan jobs
10. a few
11. 182,566
12. Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen
13. New York
14. real estate
15. no
Q: CHAPTER I

SOMETHING ABOUT THE ROVER BOYS

"Luff up a little, Sam, or the _Spray_ will run on the rocks."

"All right, Dick. I haven't got sailing down quite as fine as you yet. How far do you suppose we are from Albany?"

"Not over eight or nine miles. If this wind holds out we'll make that city by six o'clock. I'll tell you what, sailing on the Hudson suits me first-rate."

"And it suits me, too," put in Tom Rover, addressing both of his brothers. "I like it ten times better than staying on Uncle Randolph's farm."

"But I can't say that I like it better than life at Putnam Hall," smiled Sam Rover, as he threw over the tiller of the little yacht. "I'm quite anxious to meet Captain Putnam and Fred, Frank, and Larry again."

"Oh, so am I," answered Tom Rover. "But an outing on the Hudson is just the best of a vacation. By the way, I wonder if all of our old friends will be back?"

"Most of them will be."

"And our enemies?"

"Dan Baxter won't come back," answered Dick seriously. "He ran away to Chicago with two hundred dollars belonging to his father, and I guess that's the end of him--so far as Putnam Hall and we are concerned. What a bully he was!"

"I feel it in my bones, Dick, that we'll meet Dan Baxter again," came from Sam Rover.

"Don't you remember that in that note he left when he ran away he said he would take pains to get square with us some day?"

Answer the following questions:
1. How far were the men from Albany?
2. By what time were they to get there?
3. If what holds?
4. What river were they sailing on?
5. Were the men on the ship siblings?
6. On whose farm had Tom stayed on?
7. What hall did Sam like a lot?
8. Sam was looking forward to meeting how many people?
9. Did one of the men have a title?
10. Who?
11. Who were the other three men?
12. Who did Dick say would not return?
13. Where did he flee to?
14. With how much money?
15. Whose money was it?
16. Did Sam think they would encounter Dan again?
17. What did Dan leave before he left?
18. What did he say in it?
19. What is the title of this chapter?
20. And the number of it?
A:
1. eight or nine miles
2. by six o'clock
3. The wind
4. Hudson
5. yes
6. Uncle Randolph
7. Putnam Hall
8. Four
9. yes
10. Putnam
11. Fred, Frank, and Larry
12. Dan Baxter
13. Chicago
14. two hundred dollars
15. his fathers
16. Yes
17. A note
18. he said he would take pains
19. SOMETHING ABOUT THE ROVER BOYS
20. CHAPTER I