An Inland Sen

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2036, 25 July 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

An Inland Sen

Land and water, astronomers nay, are much better distributed in our outside neighboring planet, Mars, than on our own native sphere, Torra. Although their land-surface is a trifle in excess of tbeir seas, the Mattians have the wet and the dry, the fat and lean of their globe, like first-rate banon, so pleasantly and fairly interlarded, that they would not believe either in our oceans or in Asiatic and African deserts, unless they saw them with tbeir own eyes, of course through extrapowerful telescopes. Instead of islands here and there, emerging with a struggle above the waters, their continents Beera rather to reduce their oceans to the condition of inland seas — voritnblo Mediterraneans. They need no Cotambus to discover their America, for, having neither an Atlantic nor a Paoifio, they might almost walk drjshod round their little world, whoso eeas nre cut up into long-drawn gulfs, like our own Ited Sea or Adiiatio. Of their supposed canals, not less than one hundred miles bi-oad, all we can cay at present is, that if they really are the results of manual labor, they beat Ferdinand do Lessens and all his works— all his projects too — hollow. We Terrestrials, on the contrary, with threa times as much water as land, have not always the water where we want it. True, Europe itself is co environed by seas that it mfty almost be considered as an overgrown peninsula, while its numerous inland lakes, smAll and great, must have & beneficial effect on its climate. The tame may be said, to a certain extent, of the muoh vaster area of North America. But take the great Asiatio continent. Would it not be an exoellent thing it wo could cut out a good pieco of its sterile oentrc — which^might bo utilised as an island somewhere oft its south coast — and fill up the hole with water, salt or fresh ? This is what it is proposed to do for North Africa— except that the whole is riady made, and only requires filling. The matter would be made dearer if the reader had before him a good map of Algeria and Tunis, on tho east coast of which latter provinco he will note a large bay called tho Gulf of Eabes, or Gabes, and westwards, in Algeria, tho province of Constantino. Now, south of the provinces of Gonstantine and Tunis, there exist vast depressions in the noil which extend from the meridian of Biskra to tho Gulf of Gabcs— namely, about two hundred and fifty English miles. The bottom of these depressions— called by the native "ohotta" is occupied by surfaces which have been levelled by the action of water, and are now covered with a crust of crystallised salt of various thickness. There are three principal ohotts ; the cbotfc Melrir, the chott kharna, and tho chott Djerid, which last is the nearcßt to the Gulf of Gabes, A most important fact is that the altitude of these is at present known with great preoieion. From 1873 to 1883, one

thousand eevon hundred and twenty kilott>iS'tv« {cn\e thousand and seventy-five tmU") of i^omutncal levelling have been executed, in ff«tions of from Roni a thuig more thun one hucuktd to ono hundred and fifty yard.-) each. Tno ], vel of the pen at low water in the ftjlf of ftnodi was taken a< the point of daptrluro for these surveys, whose ab*olute exactitude hat bsen admitted by the Acadtfuie dm fcj.iienoea. If Hny doubts about the question ncta still rntPrUined, fchoy would he <iispolled by the survny rocently made for a line of railway from Biskra to Toupnourt. The level of the Mediterranean at Pnilippeville was taken as the starting-point for the levels obtained on that occasion. On reaching Mraier, on the western end of the chott Molrir, the level was found to ooincide, within a very few inches, with that resulting from taking the Gulf of Gabes as the startingpoint. Tiro out of the throe above-mentioned chott*, namely, Molrir and Rbarsa, are below tho lovel of the sea. If therefore they were put in communication with the Gulf of Gabes by means of a suflioiently broad canal, its waters wonld rush in and form an inland sea whose level would be practically the same as that of tho Mediterranean. The new eea resulting from inundating these two ohotts would havo a total surface of eight thousand two hundred equare kilomutres, or from fourteen to fifteen times the sizo of the Lake of Gsneva, which covers only five hundred and seventy-seven square kilometres. And as the bottom of the ohotts is fiat and horizontal, (he inland sea would have nearly the same depth throughout its extent, namely, an average depth of water of twenty-four metres, or seventy-eight English feet and a fraction. Were this hercalean objeot once executed, there is little doubt that not a few oonsequenoes would ensue from it which at present are unexpected and unforeseen. But there are also not a few desirable results whioh may very fairly be reckoned upon. For instanoe, the ohotts, in their actual condition, are no better than muddy, saline, swampy hollows, which, kt certain times of the year, under an African sun, become centres of every form of marsh disease. Thus, in the northern part of the chott Melrir, the streams known as thi Oued Djeddi and the Oued el Arab wM-t into broad deltas and spread their wauntf over the swamps called Farfaria, covering a surface of about one thousand square Kilometres. This vast region, inaccessible in winter, overgrown with reeds and rashes, becomes partially dried in summer, and is thereby oonverted into a source of pestilence. As soon as the month of Maroh arrives, the natives avoid its neighborhood. Tho ohotts Melrir and Rharsa are the receptacles of the waters of an immense basin which, by the valley of the Igharghar, reaches as far as the Djebel Hogghar, situated nearly one thousand kilometres to the south, and, by tho valley of the Oued Djeddi, to the Djebel Amour, four hundred kilometres to the west. What possibility is there of draining these fanny depressions? How oan the waters that run into them be got rid of, either superficially or underground ? If they were above the level of the sea, the problem would be capable of solution ; but in consequence of of their inferior altitude, they must remain for ever in the state of pestiferous bogs, unless they oan be again covered with a deep stratum of water ; that is, unless they oan be restored to tho previous condition whioh haa been changed by some natural accident ; in fact, unless they can become once more an inland arm or gulf of the Mediterranean. The ohott Djerid, like the ehotts Melrir and Rharsa, is a depression enolosed by higher ground in all directions, and oontinually kept m a muddy state by a considerable mass of stagnant wator. But this ohott, being above the level of (lie sea, oan easily be drained and made wholesome to dwell in. All that ii needed, is to put it in communication either with the Mediterranean or with the ohott Rharsa, by opening oneor two efficient cuttings or trenches. The stagnant water will thus be carried away ; the soil will rapidly be drained and dried ; the salt which saturates it will be gradually washed* out; and the grounds of the ohott Djerid, whioh consist of exceedingly fertile mud, will not only oease to be dangerously unhealthy, but, after thorough drainage, will be all that the cultivator can desire. Visions of ootton, sugarcanes, and other valuable tropical crops, will at once present themselves as future probabilities. And historical faoti confirm thow expectations. In the time of the Romans, when tho ehotts were full of water, Tunis and tho louth of Algeria were incomparably more fertile than at present. The sterility of the adjoining regions baa been the oonsequenoe of the drying-up of the ohotti. If, therefore, contrary to first expectations, the ohott Djerid oannot be inundated— if the surface of the inland sea will be less extensive than had been hoped — still, the completion of the project will result in restoring to cultivation one million twe hundred and thirty-five thousand aorea of excellent earth, which at present is in suoh a permanently swampy condition that it is impossible to venture upon it without danger. An additional important oiroumstanoa is that the sea-water, once introduced into the basin of the ohotts, will exert bo considerable a pressure on the bottom of those immense cavities, that the fresh water, whioh now oozet into them, will be stemmed and driven back, and will consequently inorease the yield, and even the number, of the wells and springs which give fertility to the neighbouring oasea. The engineering details of this gigantio project— how many years it will take to fill the inland sea by means of a oanal of given breadth and depth, conducting to it the waters of the Mediterranean ; the nature of the difficulties to be surmounted, and other practical speculations — may be learned from a pamphlet of great ability and completrness* by Le Commandant Roudaire, with Hlustrative maps, and s preface by M. Ferdinand do Lsasops. It gives the reader, who takes any interest in the soheme, a mass of information which evidently cannot be more than alluded to here. The realisation of the new inland sea will cost, of course, a considerable sum, whioh is estimated at six millions sterling ; but it will be infinitely better spent money than the thousands of pounds wasted on Arctio expeditions for instance, with scarcely any other end or objeot to'boast of than the danger, almost the certainty, incurred of condemning successive crows of brave and able mon to cruelly prolongod torture and miserable death. It will bo worth paying a trifle of oaah (if an invitation is not to be had) for a tioket to the grand-stand, whioh ought to bo erected at the point where tho water from the Mediterranean first gushes and pours into the chott^ Rbarsa, and gradually floods it, if only to witness tho surprise (and consternation caused amopgst the unsten. and perhaps unsuspected, inhabitants of the swamp. The salt, to which they are acclimatised, will not kill many of tbe oreaturca belonging and peculiar to tho fauna of the ehotts, but a continuous deluge of water most certainly will, unless they speedily shift their quarters. It will be everyone for himself, and a ducking take the hindmost. What a capital opportunity it will offer to zoological collectors I Only those spectators who are afraid of creepy-orawlies, or snakes and lizards, frogs and toads — nay, of rats, mice, and unknown wee beasties— will be wise to seoure a seat well raised above the path of the startled emigrants ; for there will be such a scampering " eauvo gui peut " as is not often seen at a sitting, But tho true zoologist is afraid of nothing. He will handle a porcupine as coolly as if it wore an eider-down pillow, and face a laughing hyena with a de&ant smile. And when tho sea is filled up to high-water mark, what a capital fish-pond, winter sanitarium, and yachting station it will make I Too far distant from its parent, the greater Boa, to be resorted to as a harbor of refuge, it is sure, nevertheless, to be frequented by trading vessels to carry off the produce of its banks, wbioh will eventually be dotted with groves of dato and cocoa-nut palms, dumps

of olive trpos, patches of banana*, and other tropical {cuUs, Hotels, perhaps towns, will nprini* up on picturesque and eligible Bites ; luxurious house-boats will float in its most sheltered and shady creeks. The inflowing Htreim will rapidly stock it with shoals of fiah, mariuo crustaccftns, mollu°eß, sea-weeds, and t.his.r ijfrnw, on which a host of creataccs (i)".K i'urbot, tunny, sjles, mullet, gurnards, fnhing-froßs or anglers, and such like plsoino dainties, will increase and multiply. With saflron and onions from the garden-plot at hand, oil from the tree, and a haul or two in the live fish-box, the Marseillais epicure, out for a holiday, will come and eat as good a bouillabaisse as he oould get at home. Then come the fisheries of the inland sea, whose rioh yield may be absolutely oountad on, from the example of the Bitter Lakei along the course of the Suez Canal. Thoie lakoß, coinplotely dry before the opening of the canal, have beoome exceedingly fall of fish, in spite of their extra briny water oonspquout on the dissolution of the crystallised Bale whioh lay at the bottom of their bed. It would seem that this excess of salt has even an attraction for many fish, for they abandon Lake Tims&h, which receives the overflow of the freshwater oanal, and is consequently less salt, and migrate in mass to the Bitter Lakes, which are distant sixty miles from the Mediterranean, and only eighteen from the Bed Sea. But it is remwrkable that nearly all those fish are Mediterranean species. The length, therefore, of the oanal from the Gulf of Gabes will prove no hindrance to the stocking of the inland sea with fish. As an estimate of thfl probable profits of the fisheries, it may be stated that the fiihing of Lake Mensaleh, whose surfaoe is relatively small, is let for eighty thousand pounds a year. The tenant, a native Egyptian, gets a good deal of money out of it, although the work is very badly done. Certain apecies of fish, after their roe has been extracted to make a sort of caviare called " bourtargue," ate thrown away, and so yield absolutely nothing, whereas oil at least might be obtained from them, and afterwards manure possessing the qualities of guano. Besides whioh, the chott Djerid is covered at oertain points with layers of crystallised salt, whioh render it a vast natural salt mine. The railway whioh the company will lay down alongside the oanal of supply, as soon as the works are fairly commenced, will permit the immediate working, almost without expense, of these immense quantities of salt, whose whiteneis and purity are quite exceptional. The new inland Afrioan Sea would also give to Algeria, and thereby to Franoe, a secure frontier of the greatest politioal and military importance. One thing, however, is clear — namely, that this sea, if realised, will benefit very many persons besides its projectors and its exeoutors.