Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1876 — Restoring the Caspian Sea. [ARTICLE]

Restoring the Caspian Sea.

Max is making the world over a good deal faster than Is generally supposed. The Suez Canal, which is beginning to have a marked influence on commerce in Europe and Asia, is only one of a aeries of works which is practically readjusting the globe to the needs and ambitions of civilized man. The change in the course of the Chicago River, turning its waters downward to' flic Mississippi and the Gulf, is another of these reconstructive enterprises. A few months ago a French commission recommended ihe construction of an inland sea in Algeria by turning the waters of the Mediterranean into a comparatively barren basin; and the possibility of flooding the great desert of Sahara through the Suez Canal has been asserted by English engineers. The latest ana most striking prolect of this kind has been started by Mr. Spaulding, an American engineer, who has planned a method for arresting the process which Is filling and drying up the Caspian Sea, and consequently impairing the fertility and productiveness of a vast region of Central Asia by cutting off - the rain supply and draining the moisture out of tlie air. The Volga and Ural and other rivers have poured their earth deposits into this great sea for ages, until portions of it are no longer navigable and its area is largely reducod, and the surrounding district is becoming little other than a desert from drought. But this sea is considerably lower than the Black and the Mediterranean, and by cutting a broad, deep channel from the Black to the Caspian the flow of water can be reversed and the Caspian raised to its former level. The advantages of the proposed work, both commercial and agricultural, would be very great, and-the enterprising engineer maintains that in twenty years the volume of water flowing through the artificial channel would widen it to such an extent that it would make it of the greatest commercial value, while a commercial city of great importance would soon be built on the shores of the Caspian. It is only necessary to study the geography of Western Asia to see the magnitude of the interests involved in the proposed plan; and, considering what lias already been done in the way of physical improvement, it is not too much to anticipate that even this enterprise may be undertaken. It is almost painful to reflect that the whole gigantic work could be completed fbr two-thirds of the money wasted on the worse than useless and wicked Crimean war.— N. T. Graphic.