GREAT DAM SUGGESTED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 82, 16 August 1948, Page 8

GREAT DAM SUGGESTED

BRIDGING TWO CONTINENTS IRRIGATION .OF SAHARA Bavarian engineer Hermann Soergel has-offered the United States a scheme to irrigate the Sahara, enlarge. Europe, create undreamedof power and assure world peace, all by bottling up the Mediterranean Sea, with a colossal dam bridging the two continents, qt Gibraltar. Experts say it is practicable, but would take 50 years and cost millions of pounds to build, 0 { The scheme, claims • Soergel, would create thousands of square miles of new land, because, with the present insurge from the Atlantic cut to a comparative trickle, the level of the Mediterranean sink. This would involve the wholesale shifting of cities, jports, railways and highways, but the new soil would provide dwelling space and livelihood' for millions now jammed into southern Europe. , . Master hydro-electric stations would exploit the controlled flow of water from, the Atlantic and provide cheap electric power .for south-western Europe and northwestern Africa. Sea water would be pumped through huge desalters to irrigate the Sahara, and vast new industries would grow up as North Africa’s untapped mineral resources become available. Soergel calls his plan Atlantropa, and says he would place it under the supervision of UNO. There would be a check on the military freedom of the countries of Atlantropa, because, should any member attack another, a flip of a master switch would cut off its electricity and power.