NOTES ON SOME EFFECTS OF EXTREME DROUGHT IN 
WATERBERG, SOUTH AFRICA.* 
By Advocate Everne N. Marars, R. J. P., Rietfontein, Waterberg. 
The gradual but continuous diminution of the surface water of the 
earth is undoubtedly the chief element in our cosmic history since 
long before the advent of man. The change in environment occa- 
sioned by it has been the great moving cause of natural selection and 
the evolution of living species. 
If we study this loss in the two continents where water has reached 
such a degree of scarcity as to render its present rate of lessening 
an outstanding natural feature, the progress not only becomes more 
noticeable, but also more easily measurable. In Asia and Africa, the 
two ‘‘dry”’ continents, the disappearance of water annually is so 
great that it seems to justify the prediction of the French astronomer, 
Flammarion, that within a measurable space of time the human race 
is to find in this cause its final eclipse. In Europe and America, the 
““wet’’ continents, water is still too plentiful to make its yearly less- 
ening a matter of much moment; but they are certainly not exempt. 
If one compares, for instance, the facts disclosed in the histories of 
early Roman conquest with existing conditions, it would appear that 
what are now comparatively dry countries and fertile tracts were 
in those times an unending succession of marshes with broad sluggish 
rivers winding from mere to mere. 
In Asia a comparison between the observations of the Russian 
explorers of 50 years ago with those of Sven Hedin reveals the fact 
that even in that short space of time the desert has taken in thousands 
upon thousands of square miles of once fertile country. Rivers and 
lakes have vanished and even populous cities have been obliterated 
by the all-conquering sand. 
Just as rapidly are the great lakes of Africa shrinking. Our own 
N’gami was a real lake less than 50 years ago; now it is no more than 
a marsh threatened with speedy extinction. Lake Rudolf, that most 
perfect diadem in the girdle of the globe, is approached on one side 
(that opposite Rowenzori) over enormous plateaus of dry mud 
which were quite recently covered by the waters of the lake, and 
yearly a new belt is added to these mud flats, a process that becomes 
alarming when one remembers that upon this great natural reservoir 
largely depends the fate of the Nile and of fertile Egypt. 
1 Reprinted by permission from the Agricultural Journal of the Union of South Africa, February, 1914, 
511 
