SAHARA SEA.--Much of the great desert of Sahara is below the level
of the Atlantic. It is proposed that the water be let in. The space
covered would be big enough to warrant us in speaking of it as an
ocean. There would be islands in it, as there are places that are of
considerable elevation.
So much water would make a difference in climate in all directions from
the present desert. It is thought the vineyards of southern Europe
would be injured, as they are dependent on the dry winds that come
across the Mediterranean from the great desert. The rainfall in at
least one-third of the inhabited parts of the globe would be affected
by this great change in the amount of water on the surface. Ships would
be able to sail to ports at the south of Morocco and Algiers where now
are shifting sands and few people, and new cities would spring into
being far to the south where the new coast line would be formed.
There are other low and barren spots on the earth's surface that are
below sea level. They would form useful basins of water if the proper
canals were dug. A company has been formed to let water into the Yuma
desert in southern California, where 13,000 square miles of land with
no inhabitants, lies below the sea level, some of it as much as 1,000
feet. A great desert in the middle of Australia is also low. If it were
flooded it would make of Australia a great rim of continent reaching
round an immense sea.
One scientist has advocated the making of the Red Sea into a great
fresh water lake by changing the course of the Nile so as to make that
sea its outlet instead of the Mediterranean. By preventing the flow
of salt water from the north through the Suez canal, and building an
embankment at the south, it has been estimated that the Red Sea would
become fresh in the course of time.
The Red Sea project is not at all likely to be carried out, but those
for California and the Sahara may soon be made effective. When the
world of commerce comes to realize what the Sahara Sea will mean for
its enterprise, there will be a lively prospect of much digging and
plenty of fighting over the damages done to existing interests and the
rights of the various European nations to the new seaboard that will be
formed.
FEEDING.--One of the duties of the teamster is to see that his horses
are well fed. Where the team must be on the road at five in the morning
it is the business of the man who feeds them to get up at four to give
them time to eat. Incidentally he rubs them down and gets his own
breakfast in a leisurely manner. An Ohio man has an electric device
which will give the teamster a chance to lie a little longer in the
morning. He has arranged an alarm clock which may be set for any
hour so that instead of striking the hour it will make an electric
connection. This connection lets fall a bag that is placed the night
before over the manger of the horse to be fed at that hour in the
morning. The first sound that greets the ear of the horse is not the
teamster coming to open the stable, but the rattle of oats into his
feed-box, and he has ample time to eat and begin the operation of
digestion before he sees the man who used to be so welcome. Possibly he
will not greet the man so affectionately in the future when his coming
means not food for a hungry stomach but a hard day's work. But those
who know the horse best are inclined to believe that the horse will
always greet his master affectionately in the morning regardless of the
state of his stomach.
RUBBER.--The use of rubber has grown wonderfully in the last ten
years. Every year a rubber famine is predicted, and every year someone
announces that a substitute has been found that is just as good as the
real article. The facts seems to indicate that neither the famine nor
the substitute is really at hand. Rubber plantations are being extended
in Mexico to meet the demands of the growing trade, but the bulk of
our rubber still comes from the Amazon country in South America, and
that country is almost limitless in its supplies of this article. It
is true that the trees along the banks of the rivers have been tapped
until their product is much inferior to what it once was, but this
condition exists only for a distance of two or three miles along the
river banks. There are plenty of magnificent trees standing untouched
a little farther back. All that is needed to get more rubber is to get
more men into these forests gathering it. The real difficulty is to get
the men to do the work. The finest rubber forests remaining near the
river fronts are along the Purus, one of the large rivers flowing into
the Amazon from the south.
SUNSHINE CAUGHT.--For thousands of years men have tried to use the
heat of the sun's rays in the place of fire. It is now claimed that Dr.
William Calver of Washington has finished an invention which will bring
into the space of a few inches all the rays of heat from the sun that
would naturally fall upon one acre of ground. By bringing so many rays
to a focus he gets such a powerful heat that iron and steel melt in it
like icicles.
A magnifying glass or lens of almost any sort held in the sunshine
makes a bright, warm spot. Dr. Calver's machine gets the same effect,
only more powerfully. He has secured a temperature of several thousand
degrees Fahrenheit. To make his machine useful for heating houses and
making steam for factories he has invented a reservoir to store the
heat gathered while the sun is shining, so that it may be used at
night or on dark days. Men of science have been looking for such a
machine for a long time, and if Dr. Calver and his friends are not much
mistaken his invention will be as great a help to civilization as the
harnessing of Niagara Falls for electric work. His laboratory is in the
outskirts of Washington, D. C.