1856.] Magnificent Project— An Artificial Sea. 899 



iHgiuficrnt Drojett-aii Jlrttficial Bn. 



Capt. William Allen, of the British Xavy, has published a book 

 advocating the conversion of the Arabian desert into an ocean. The 

 author believes that the great valley, extending from the southern de- 

 pression of the Lebanon range to tlie head of the gulf of Akaba, the 

 eastern branch of the head of the Red sea, has been once an ocean.' It 

 is, in many places, thirteen hundred feet below the level of the Dead 

 sea and the sea of Tiberias. He believes that this ocean, being cut 

 off from the Red sea by the rise of the land at the southern extremity, 

 and being only fed by small streams, gradually became dried by solar 

 evaporation. Pie proposes to cut a canal of adequate size from the head 

 of the gulf of Akaba to the Dead sea, and another from the Mediter- 

 ranean near Mt. Carmel, across the plain Esdraelon, to the fissure in the 

 mountain range of Lebanon. By this means the Mediterranean would 

 rush in, with a fall of thirteen hundred feet, fill up the valley, and 

 substitute an ocean of two thousand miles square in extent for a 

 barren, useless desert; thus making the navigation to India as short 

 as the overland route, spreading fertility over a now arid country, 

 and opening up the fertile regions of Palestine to settlement and 

 cultivation. The conception is a magnificent one; but no sufficient 

 survey has been made to determine its practicability or its cost.— 

 Exchange. 



There are some evident errors in this statement. The " two thousand 

 miles square'' could not be contained in the valley mentioned, any more 

 than lake Michigan could lie in a sap trough. The wh^)le valley is 

 only about half as large as lake Erie, and the article evidently should 

 read two thousand square miles, instead of two thousand miles square. 

 It is, therefore, slightly ludicrous to speak of it as an ocean, even were 

 it brim-full of water. It is true, however, that the surface of the Dead 

 sea IS about thirteen hundred feet below the Mediterranean and Red 

 seas, and if sufficiently large canals were cut, the valley might be filled. 

 If it were done, it is likely that the eastern shore might be connected 

 with the Persian gulf either by canal or railroad. If this were done, 

 Palestine would be exactly in the track of the commerce of India and 

 China, and would again become as rich and populous as it was in the 

 days of Solomon. — Prairie Farmer. 



