THE OCEAN AS THE RESERVOIR OF HEALTH 23 



whole world would be brought about by the addition of 

 so many thousands of square miles of water to this arid 

 region can only faintly be conjectured, but one thing 

 is certain, and that is that the vast alteration could 

 not fail to be beneficial. The immediate probability 

 is that the great continent of Africa would become 

 available for colonization by men from temperate 

 regions, and that the shores of that great inland sea, 

 another Mediterranean, would be fertile beyond belief, 

 while the fierce heat and excessive dryness of Northern 

 Africa would at once be exchanged for a livable 

 temperature and an agreeable humidity entirely 

 favourable to vegetation and all kinds of animal life. 

 It requires, indeed, no great stretch of the imagination, 

 assuming that what we are told of the favourable 

 levels of the Sahara for its flooding by the Atlantic be 

 true, to picture this vast inland sea bordered by 

 thriving cities and richly cultivated land, while fleets 

 of steamers would be busily engaged in bearing its 

 teeming produce from port to port. At present, 

 however, this is only a dream of the civil engineer, 

 whose dreams, however, have a knack of crystalliz- 

 ing into rich reality. The mere idea, though, goes 

 to prove how entirely dependent the land is upon 

 the sea for all that makes life worth living or indeed 

 possible. 



But to return to Asia. Whatever the future may 

 hold in store for Africa in the way of benefits by the 

 ocean when aided by man's enterprise, Asia can never 

 hope for any share in them. Those vast arid steppes, 

 mountain ranges, and barren valleys are, by their 

 geographical position, entirely removed from any 

 possibility of becoming habitable by aid of the sea. 



