Popper.] ^" ' [March 6, 



and sustaining numerous flocks of sheep and camels ; also sparsely in- 

 habited. 



Finally the northern zone, or coast region, El Tell, is generally culti- 

 vated and much better watered and wooded, and has both plains and 

 valleys, hills and mountains. Here the European population of thi'ee 

 or four hundred thousand only slowly increases by birth as well as by 

 immigration, among three or four million more prolific lowland Arabs 

 and Kabyle mountaineers. 



The Algerian and Tunisian year has but two sea- 



The year lias sons : the dry and the wet. The former or summer 

 but two seasons. comprising three rainless months, July-October, and 

 the latter or winter months, October-March, ofiering 

 generally short and frequently heavy showers and rains, and four 

 months of showers lighter and fewer as the season draws to its close. 

 The transition between these seasons is often sudden, an almost vertical 

 sun radiating great heat over the land as soon as the cloud-screens have 

 disappeared from the atmosphere. 



A peculiarity of the coast region (the Tell) is the 



Local climates diversity^ of the local climates (in most cases im- 

 abound in the i)roperly called artificial) due to geological and 

 coast region. geographical conditions, such as the nature, con- 



formation and lay of the land as regards the higher 

 hills and mountains, valleys and rivers, the sea, lakes, etc.; and also 

 to orographical characteristics, such as the height of the mountains, the 

 depth of these valleys, etc.; as well as to hydrological facts, such as the 

 presence, absence, abundance or scarcity of the waters, flowing or 

 stagnant, either above or underground. These local climates also de- 

 pend on the extent of the surface cultivated, and, to a lesser degree, on 

 the nature of the plants grown. A soil left to, or returning to nature, 

 such as that of the most northern Africa after the Arab conquest, is ever 

 harmful ; the Corsican maquis, the Indian jungle, the African brush, 

 the Australian bush, etc., are among the strongholds, and so to say 

 the lairs of disease, especially of malarial disease. 



Moreover, the winds that blow over a country exercise the greatest 

 of all influences on climate and vegetation, and consequently on health. 

 There are parts of northern Africa, as of Asia, of America and of Aiis- 

 tralia, and even limited parts of Europe, where a progressive popu- 

 lation can never dwell, while the physical causes actually at work 

 exist. 



In the coast region of Algeria the same communes, nay even tlie 

 same towns frequently exhibit diff'erent climates in their ditt'erent i)arts. 

 Thus, Algiers itself has distinctly two local climates : that of the Bab- 

 eloiied and Marengo quarter is more bracing, that of the Bab-Ozouu 

 and Isly more relaxing. These difl^erences are of great importance to 

 the sojourners generally and especially to invalids passing the winter 

 in Algiers ; and they are even more marked in the suburbs of St. 



