My references in the Spectator a week or two since
to the fact that France is more and more looking Sahara- wards is borne out by an interesting article in Lc Quotidien, in which M. Destree recommends his countrymen to study what Australia has clone in the matter of reclaiming arid lands by irrigation from artesian wells. The first artesian well was sunk in Queensland in 1888, and to-day there are 4,426 borings. The writer believes that between the Barbary plateau, the Atlantic Ocean, the Sudan and • Senegambia, part of this vast desert region might be developed by a definite plan of sinking artesian wells. Till more is known of the geology of the region it would be well not to be sanguine. At the same time the French Government would be well advised to study Australian irrigation methods and also those employed in the arid regions of Arizona, Southern California and New Mexico. M. Destree concludes his article : " So we shall perhaps ;cc some day the Sahara, that inhospitable and abandoned :egion, wake to life, fertility and riches."
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