12 



DATE VAEIETIES AND DATE CULTURE IN TUNIS. 



arated one from another by several miles of barren, sandy, or stony 

 desert. They lie at the northern edge of the Sahara Desert, nestling 

 at the foot of a line of cliffs that forms the north bank of the Shott 

 Jerid. The Shott, which is about 68 miles long from west to east, is 

 in winter a large, shallow salt lake, and in summer a mud flat, covered 

 toward its center with a shining white crust of salt, much resembling, 

 therefore, the Salton Sink in southeastern California. Its mean ele- 

 vation is about TO feet above sea level. Toward the northwest it 

 opens into the Shott Gharsa. continued still farther westward as the 



Fig. 1.— Map showing the location of the Tunis oases with respect to other localities in Algeria 



and Tunis. 



Shott Melrhirh, which borders the Oued Rirh oases of Algeria." 

 Beyond the easternmost of the Jerid oases the Shott Jerid contracts 

 into a strait, which connects it with the much narrower Shott-el- 

 Fejej. The latter extends eastward to within a few miles of the sea, 

 near Gabes. 



Near its western end the Shott Jerid is bordered on the north by a 

 barren, rocky line of bluffs of the pliocene formation, which farther 



a See Bui. 80, Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1905, 

 p. 18. 

 92 



