A DESERT CONTINENT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4897, 30 October 1925, Page 3

A DESERT CONTINENT.

FUTURE OF AFRICA. ATTEMPT AT TRANSFORMATION. The transformation of over 100,000 square miles of barren Waste alnd into fertile garden country by the simple gesture of a hand that holds the notebook of a scientist conjures up thoughts of some dark art. That illusion is easily dispelled by the hard, cold factis that Professor Schwartz, of Rhodes’ University College, Grahamstown, South Africa, brings forward in his scheme to convert a howling wilderness, in which a handful of natives are facing starvation, into pasture land suitable for settlement by 3,000,000 whites. The sheer ’ magnitude of the scheme makes the fact that it would cost only a few thousand pounds to put into operation sound amazing. A very large tract of country in the interior of South Africa, the Kalahari, is branded with the opprobrious title deisert. Desert, it is—mile upon mile of thirsty sunscorched land stretching away to the horizon, desolate and damned, under the all-consuming African sun. with -the monotony billy broken by the stony kopjes and an occasional glimpse of a stunted bush or the hardy prickly pear'. What desolation ! Yet, lesjs than 200 years ago hippo and rhino were shot in the swamps of its rivers, and the forestis along 7 the banks were the happy playground of every kind of wild game. That, was before 1820', when the last of the lakes of the Kalahari dried up as .the result of the change in course of the principal rivers that fed them. Professor Schwarz produces abundant proof that the process of retrogression in the Kalahari dates from 1880. He goes further, and with logical argument asserts that with the passage of years most of the interior of South Africa will become as desolate as the great Sahara. The reasons he furnishes are obvious to the student of South African conditions. The water that, accumulates in the central districts is running away to the coastal rivers, and is being carried to. the sea. Consequently, what little moisture is retained by the soil acting in co- operation with the water-laden winds from the sea is insufficient to produce rain.

The evaporation is equal to three, times the rainfall* and the dampness of the land is borne away to 'ertilise other regions. With the lots.t lakes of the Kalahari restored: and filled, the large surface Of water would attract an abundant rainfall throughput the length and breadth of tlie thirsty area. Professor Schwarz preaches the simple doctrine that by the diversion of the course of two rivers, the Cunene in the north-west and the Chobe in the north-east, the lakes, of Kalahari can be filled. These streams are both tributaries of the. Zambesi, and it is through these, he asserts, that the Kalahari is being robbed of its heritage. The professor proposes to build a weir at a point on each of these rivers, and he considers that the water will then follow a natural downward course to the existing depressions in the Kalahari. The chaiw nels which led the water in the past still exist, although they are at present blocked up. The very simplicity and inexpensivencss of the scheme is disarming, but Professor Sqhwarz maintains that .he can restore the barren district of to-day. to the garden it was two hundred years ago, and produce out of the top -hat of science a wonderful legacy for .the Empire and prosperity for millions. For, seven years he has, with quiet insistancy, put forward the claims of his theory, and for seven years his has been a voice crying out in a wilderness of scepticism and apathy. Now, however, the Union Goverment. has sent out an expedition to investigate its possibilities. Whether the wilderness of to-day becomes the paradise of tomorrow lies in the result of its findings, .and South Africa is waiting in impatience for the verdict. South Africa is a land of vivid contrasts, and this project brings to mind one of the most vivid of them all. Two scenes—both essentially African, but how 1 different. The first where a mighty river goes forth majestically to meet the Indian Ocean and the wealth of. a- nation pours put to sea. The second a world of thirst-land, where the air rises hot and stifling from the parched earth and the sun and desolation reign supreme.-r-Mel-bourne “Age.”