Index :: 1877 Sahara

Coldwater Semi-Weekly Republican May 25, 1877

Manufacturing a Climate.

Changes in North Africa—Influence of Tree Planting in Egypt.

North Africa, which seems to become surely, but slowly engulfed by the by the sand drifts of the Sahara, was once equal to Mexico in fertility, and far surpassed it in cultivation, as well in regard to the soil as to the minds of the inhabitants. As late as 670, a good while after the rise of the Mohammedan power, the country now known as Tripoli, and distinct from the Sahara only through the elevation of its mountains, was the seat of 85 Christian Bishops, and had a population of 6,000,000, of which number three quarters of a per cent, are now left.  The climate which, according to authentic description, must once have resembled that of our Southern Alleghenies, is now so nearly intolerable that even the inhumanity of an African despot forbears to exact open-air labor from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Steamboats that pass near the Tripolitan coast in summer, on the way from Genoa to Cairo, have to keep up a continual shower of artificial rain to save their deck-hand from being overcome by the furnace air that breathes from the barren hills on the opposite coast.

All this change is due to the insane destruction of forests.  An animal flayed or a tree stripped of its bark does not perish more surely than a land deprived of its trees.  The Mediterranean, once a forest lake of paradise, is now a dead sea, surrounded by dusty and burning coasts, often for hundreds of miles without a vestige of organic life.  The Turks and Spaniards especially have made themselves guilty of unpardonable outrages on the fertility of their subject countries.  What a dreary waste they have made of the mountain gardens of Syria, the paradise of the Guadalquivir and the country that once was the promised land!  Regions that formerly were equal to our Tennessee and Western Virginia in fertility are now more barren than the Staked Plains, or the pays del muerto, the land of death, in Southern Arizona.

By destruction of woods alone the general value of earth to mankind has been reduced at least one-third.  Lands that now entail only misery on their cultivators were once the garden spot of our planet.  On the plateau of Sidi Belbez, in the very center of Sahara, Nieguhr traced the course of former rivers and creeks by the depressions in the soil and the shape of the smooth-washed pebbles.  He also found tree stumps now almost petrified, and covered by a six foot stratum of burning sand .

"And so the astounding truth bursts upon us," he says, "that this desert may have once been a region of groves and fountains, and the abode of happy millions.  Is there any other crime against the physical laws of God which calls down a more terrible vengeance than that of stripping out Mother Earth of her sylvan covering? The hand of man has produced this desert, and, I verily believe, every other desert on this globe.  Earth was Eden once, and we have converted the garden into a sand waste. The burning sun of the desert is the angel with the flaming sword, who stands between us and paradise."

It seems certain, then, that climate can be manufactured.  Here and there the hand of man has reversed the process, and turned a sand waste into a garden in Utah and Upper Egypt, for instance.  According to Baker Pashaw, F. R.S., the region between Karnak and Soudan enjoys now a yearly rainfall of 16 inches, where 9 inches were the maximum before 1820, the change being due to the persistent tree culture of the Khedives, who have planted 6,000,000 of palm trees and 1,500,000 of willows on the table land of Wadda Halfa alone.  Not only these tree plantations, but also the adjoining districts have been benefited, currant-bushes and wild mulberries have sprung up where they never grew before, and the summer heat in the upper valley of the Nile is not nearly as oppressive as it was within the memory of men now living.  Utah, too, has been metamorphosed by the same means.  Uintah Mountains are now full of springs, where 50 years ago only  an occasional cloud-burst furnished water to the parched canons, and Green River did not deserve the name till the disciples of Joe Smith lined its banks with peach trees and sycamores.  The hospital steward of Fort Bridger reports that during the last 15 years the annual rainfall has more than doubled; 20 inches now where the observations of a scientific lieutenant of cavalry showed over 9 ½ inches in 1858. The great Salt Lake is slowly rising, and old Mormons speak of mirages, formerly produced by the extreme dryness of the air, which are now never seen.

Our country is in need of such Mormons, for the commercial value of the great Southwest could be enhanced much quicker by reconstructing the climate than by any other reconstructions whatever.  Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Nevada do not produce the agricultural equivalent of the single State of Kentucky, merely from want of a moist atmosphere.  Even California can compete with the East only in the Valley of the San Joaquin and on the narrow strip of soil between the Contra Costa range and the Pacific. All her east, southeast and south is as barren as New Mexico; whether thro’ an original oversight of the Creator, or through the crimes of prehistoric nations, quien sabe?  Certain it is that only one-third of North America at the time of its discovery was fit by favor of climate for the production of paying crops and healthy men; the other two-thirds were either too cold or too dry.  America above the 50th degree of northern latitude is too cold even for the Icelanders and Norwegians, and between California and the Missouri too dry even for barley culture.  The better we get acquainted with the "Great West" the more it becomes evident that America was discovered and settled right side first.  The region between the Mississippi and the Atlantic, though only one-third of the United States territory, is now at least 50 times more valuable than the country west of the great river.  Timber and climate make the difference.  In Ohio we have an annual average of 42 inches of rain to 18 in California and 7 in Arizona.  The valley of the Ohio and its tributaries contains a population equal to that of all British North America, and more than equal to the nine great Western States from Colorado to the Pacific.