74 INTENSE DESERT HEATS. 



mercury down to 28 F., a yearly variation of 149." * 



Then, as we have stated in the Soudan and other 

 parts of Northern Africa, in the great Sahara, etc., 

 very extreme temperatures are occasionally recorded, 

 due in a great measure, there can be no doubt, to 

 refraction of heat from the bare and stony surface : 

 but above all, we cannot too often insist upon it, to 

 the dry condition of the atmosphere. Solimos in his 

 " Desert Life " informs us that the " sand temperature 

 one day marked 146 Fahr. temperatures of 170 

 Fahr. were also found near Jaffa ; and Duveyrier found 

 the Sahara one day over 182 Fahr. f " But these would 

 propably be sun temperatures. On other occasions he 

 tells us 



" Matches were lit by touching the sand with them " 

 "Blankets drawn one over another or even slightly 

 shifted, blazed up like sheet lightning" ** "The heat 

 was 1 09 Fahr. among clothes in a trunk, and ui Fahr. 

 in the wind: combs, vulcanite, bone or horn, became brittle 

 and useless." ft 



Sir Samuel Baker fully confirms many of these 

 facts ; he also found woollen clothes and blankets gave 

 off a sheet of flame when suddenly drawn apart, accom- 

 panied by moderately loud reports, and he tells us that 

 in the desert between Korosko and Abu Hamed in 

 Upper Egypt the thermometer registered 



"114 Fahr. in the shade and 137 F. in the sun, in May, 

 during the hot season. All woodwork is warped, ivory knife 



* The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, by Lieut.-Col. Dodge, 

 U.S.A., 1877, p. 42. 



f Desert Life, by B. Solimos, 1880, p. 38. 



Ibid. p. 1 6. ** Ibid. p. 27. jf Ibid. 



