A82 ARTESIAN WELLS IN THE DESERT. 
and the native sheikhs are beginning to avail themselves of the 
process. Every well becomes the nucleus of a settlement pro- 
portioned to the supply of water, and before the end of the 
year 1860, several nomade tribes had abandoned their wander- 
ing life, established themselves around the wells, and planted 
more than 80,000 palm trees, besides other perennial vege- 
tables.* The water is found at a small depth, generally from 
100 to 200 feet, and though containing too large a proportion of 
mineral matter to be acceptable to a European palate, it an- 
swers well for irrigation, and does not prove unwholesome to 
the natives. 
The most obvious use of artesian wells in the desert at 
present is that of creating stations for the establishment of 
military posts and halting-places for the desert traveller; but 
if the supply of water shall prove adequate for the indefinite 
extension of the system, it is probably destined to produce a 
greater geographical transformation than has ever been effected 
by any scheme of human improvement. 
The most striking contrast of landscape scenery that nature 
brings near together in time or place, is that between the green- 
ery of the tropics, or of a northern summer, and the snowy 
pall of leafless winter. Next to this in startling novelty of 
* “(Tn the anticipation of our success at Oum-Thiour, everything had been 
prepared to take advantage of this new source of wealth without a moment’s 
delay. A division of the tribe of the Selmia, and their sheikh, Aissa ben Sha, 
laid the foundation of a village as soon as the water flowed, and planted 
twelve hundred date-palms, renouncing their wandering life to attach them- 
selves to the soil. In this arid spot, life had taken the place of solitude, and 
presented itself, with its smiling images, to the astonished traveller. Young 
girls were drawing water at the fountain; the flocks, the great dromedaries 
with their slow pace, the horses led by the halter, were moving to the water- 
ing trough; the hounds and the falcons enlivened the group of party-colored 
tents, and living voices and animated movement had succeeded to silence and 
desolation.” —LAURENT, Mémoires sur le Sahara, p. 85. 
Between 1856 and 1864 the French engineers had bored 83 wells in the 
Hodna and the Sahara of the Province of Constantine, yielding, all together, 
9,000 gallons a minute, and irrigating more than 125,000 date-palms.—RECLUS, 
La Terre, i., p. 110. 
eae 
