United States or Norway ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A popular belief exists all over Europe that the late M. Roudaire that De Lesseps who never quite 'came off' proposed to cut a canal from the Mediterranean into the heart of Africa, which was intended, in the stereotyped phrase of journalism, to 'flood Sahara, and convert the desert into an inland sea.
Men of middle years will still remember the excitement produced by this scheme which originated with Tissot, though another name will for ever be associated with it, that of Roudaire, a man of science dominated by an obsession, who clung to this project with the blind faith of a martyr, his enthusiasm growing keener in proportion as the plan was proved to be futile, fantastic, fatuous.
These three lakes, shrunken remnants of much larger sheets, lie below the level of the Mediterranean, but they are separated from it, and from one another, by upland ranges which rise considerably above the sea line. What M. Roudaire proposed to do was to cut canals through these three barriers, and flood the basins of the salt lakes.
Word Of The Day