Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1875 — The Desert of Sahara. [ARTICLE]

The Desert of Sahara.

Now that the idea of turning the Desert of Sahara into an inland sea has been broached some geologists are remonstrating against the plan; urging that it would tend to reduce the temperature of the climate of Europe and bring on another glacial period. Within a few weeks Mr. Kinahan, of the Geological Survey of Ireland, has written to the London Timet “ that it is well known that the hot south winds from Africa have a material effect on the snow and ice of South Europe, and in those years that there is a continuation of winds from this-quarter the snow-line is raised, while the glaciers retreat further up the valleys than ordinanr. From this it appears probable, as has befen suggested by an eminent geologist, that the retreat of the ice and the snow into the higher portions of the European mountains followed the drying up of the sea that A once occupied the Sahara Desert. The hot winds generated on the large expanse of sand thus exposed have altogether changed the climate of Europe. If the suggestion above-mentioned is correct it would appear that the inundation of the Sahara, if practicable, would affect not only Africa but also Europe. It should, therefore, be inquired: Would the climate of South Europe be sochanged that eventually the snow-line would descend tp its ancient limits; that considerable portions of Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, etc., would be enveloped in perpetual snow; while the Rhine, Danube, and other rivers would he changed into great glaciers?” Geologists are more ready nowadays than formerly to perceive the slight changes in the contour and physiognomy of a country, and varying portions between masses of land and water may bring about important changes in climate ancl the distribution of animals and plants. It strikes us, however, that the notion expressed in the above quotation is based on a too narrow view of the subject. There are probably few geologists who could be induced to say that the glacial period in Europe was brought on by changes in Northern Africa. They rather look to Northern and Arctic Europe and Asia. On the other hand, we believe, if the matter was canvassed among leading European geologists, few would be willing to acknowledge that a partial glacial epoch, such as is indicated above, could be brought back by turning the Sahara into an inland sea. ' The wind that blows over the Sahara is tempered by the Mediterranean, and greatly lowered in temperature by the time it reaches the Apennines and Alps. We have felt tlie hot breath of the sirocco on the slopes of Vesuvius. As this same wind sweeps over the Apennines and Alps, it undoubtedly tends to produce the heavy annual rainfall of the southern slopes-of the Alps, which amounts from sixty to ninety inches a year; and the great precipitation of snow which feeds the Alpine glaciers may be largely owing to the influence of this/e/m, as the sirocco is called, in the form it appears in Swiss valleys. Possibly the change of the Sahara into an inland sea might so reduce the rainfall of the Italian and Swiss Alps that the glaciers would actually diminish. At all events the climate of Northern Europe and of the plains about Vienne would not be much affected by the change. Here th&lowering of the climate would be due to a change in tlie climate of Northern Europe and Asia. Probably while the Sahara was in times a Bea, the rhinoceros, mammoth and cave bear and other quaternary animals lived about the foot of the Alps, and in summer were fanned by the moist and temperate, not hot and dry, south winds blowing over the well-watered basin of the Sahara, and tlie Mediterranean Sed, and the Italian lakes.— AT. Y. Tribune.