376 THE HOUR OF MAXIMUM HEAT. 



and Sir Samuel Baker expressly warns travellers, in 

 these climates, of the danger of carrying them at all 

 in their baggage, for fear of their becoming ignited 

 and destroying the contents. * 



During the progress of the surveys for the 

 Soudan railway the engineers tell us that " people who 

 worked with metal instruments, without gloves, got 

 their fingers blistered the mahogany tripods of the 

 instruments were painfully hot, and an eyelid, placed 

 too near the brass work of a telescope, was blistered : 

 this was, of course," adds Mr. Falkonberg, C.E, "in 

 the sun temperatures between 150 and 180 Fahr." f 

 The French traveller Duveyrier found even higher 

 temperatures than these in the Sahara. 



We might go on, were that desirable, to mention 

 circumstance after circumstance in amplification of 

 these details, respecting the extraordinary intensity of 

 the sun's power in the Desert Zone; but we think 

 that this would hardly add anything to the significance 

 of what has been already stated. 



Though the hour of maximum thermometric heat is 

 about 3 p.m., it has been frequently remarked, that it is 

 the slanting rays of the sun, towards sunset, which are 

 found most trying; the Soudan railway surveyors 

 confirm this opinion, and found that on these occasions 

 "the sun hit them everywhere," as they turned about 

 their instruments, and the lower the sun declined the 

 more they seemed to feel it. This, of course, only 



* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Saml. W. Baker, 1867, 

 p. 541. (Safety matches are less likely to ignite spontaneously, than 

 common lucifers.) 



f Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, p. 16. ("Solymos" was the 

 Arab name given to Mr. Falkonberg, the chief engineer.) 



Ibid., pp. 918. 



