RAILWAY TO THE DEAD SEA.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 89, 14 June 1879, Page 2

RAILWAY TO THE DEAD SEA.

Tt turns out that France gains something by the Berlin Treaty alter all, ami timt her protectorate of Syria, supposed to be a nominal concession, will prove of substantial value. French capitalists have secured a grant for a railway linefroin Jatfa to the interior of PalestibiJ,, which will open up the Jordan Valley and the whole region north of tho Suez canal. In certain contingencies, this road might become of great military usefulness, but it appears further that tho productive resources of, tho country are considerable, and, vhfltis.mcu'e surprising, that the Dead Sea itself can be turned tu commercial account.

The whole valley of the Jordan, from Jerusalem to Damascus, is extremely fertile, and well adapted to the oulture of olive and the vine. The climate is dry and bracing, and well suited to northern races,, as. is attested by the fact that the European emigrants now residing in Palestine, and engaged in agriculture, already number some fifty thousand. Were. Jerusalem and Damascus linked by an iron road to the Egyptian railway system or merely to tho coast of the Levant, they would become for Egypt what the slopes of the Himalayas, and other public resorts; are for the British denizens of In-. dio. The well-to-do inhabitants, of. Cairo and Alexandra would go thitljpt:- in, considerable numbers to restore their health, and escape this prostrating effects of sum-. mer in the Nile laud.. Moreover, the fast increasing European colony in Egypt would look to the same quarter for their food staples. If we except grain, whose production is fast being curtailed owing to the greater profit derived from cotton and sugar cane, the banks of the JNilo produce almost nothing fit for tho nourishment of emigrants from the north. On the other hand, the uplands, of Palestine and Syria offer in abundance the cattle, the fowls, the game, the wines, and the fruits of the temperate zone. Indeed, it may bo said that Egypt will only become habitable on a large scalofor Europeans when the opening of swift and economical communication shall relieve them from bringing at high cost from Trieste or Marseilles not only meats, fruit, and wine but brick, stone and plaster for buildings, and combustible for their manufactures. All these proare plentiful and cheap on the northern sido of the Suez canal, and only await some miles of roils to supply the Nile, land abundantly, as well as all the desolato stations of the lied Sea, where at present all articles f European consumption mast be imported from Great Britain.

It is as a purvoyor, however, of fuel, rather than of food, that the region to. be opened by the new railway deserves particular attention, Hitherto tho main obstacle to the dovolopment of steam traffic in tho Levant has boon the total absence of combustible material Not only Egypt, hut tho shores of Syria and the Red .Sea, are completely stripped of wood, and tho coal imported from the west eoramaudti a price ranging from £2 8s to £4 10s a ton. Now tho masse* of asplialt ooutiuually thrown up by the Dead Sea attest tho piescnce of vast subterranean layers of fossil vegetable matter, and these eigns wore Dot long overlooked by tho onterprising men attiacted to Suw by tho opening of the oaual and tho movement of oomiuorcu in that direction. Recently numerous soundings have boon made between Jalfa and the liead Sea, which, sq far, have not dieclosod any deposits of coal proper, but, an the othor huud, have laid bare inexhaustible beds of liguito—a mineral wo need not say, wuioh is coming into goni'ral UM in Kuropo for tho smelting of Iron oie, and is in groat request as a combustible for many othor uiilljom.

Of Itself this store of lignite is likely to prove an inestimable coin to the industries and commerce of the Levant; but wo should add that the juxtaposition of asphalt in great quantities furnishes the 'elements of a mixture of lignite ami asphaltlim in the form of bricks, which is equal in heating capacity to the richest ii it us cod whilo its cost on the . :■ ton, It is known . made up of coal-dust bris >:■ m w rks ter by French railways, sineo, '■■ sides their they greatly fauiliate stowage, owing to their regular shape. Of course tlie bitumen of lower Palestine bus been known from immemorial time, and was used to impartsolidity tothestruotures of unbaked clay in Assyria and Egypt; hut it may be said thot tho discovery of the subterranean combustible has lifted, once for all, the curse which has so long rested upon Sodom and Oommorrah, and will transform tbo wasted shores of the Dead Sea into a focus of industry anil a magazine of wealth.