358 EEPOET— 1882. 



doned, most unfortunately for those two cities, which, are suffering from 

 the want of good water. The same thing happened at Tahin-Bacu, where 

 at the depth of 300 feet no water could be reached. 



We must consequently admit that the pliocene impermeable clay, be- 

 fore having been covered first by different rocks, and finally by sand, 

 has been exposed to some powerful agents which caused its surface 

 to undergo the most various changes, so as to produce more or less deep 

 excavations in some places, and to leave others (often quite near the 

 first) in the shape of high conical masses, with hollowed basin-like 

 tops. 



Another curious phenomenon which the sinking of the Algerian wells 

 has revealed is the discovery of fishes, crabs, and fresh-water moUusks, 

 at considerable depths. This interesting fact has been ascertained in the 

 artesian well called Mezer, situated in the desert of Wadi-Rir, quite near 

 one of the brackish lakes (Ghott or SehJcha of the Arabs), which are so 

 numerous in the region between Biskra and Tuggurt. When the sound- 

 ing-line brought those creatures fi-om a depth of about 230 feet, they 

 were perfectly alive, and M. Jus even boiled a crab, and found it of ex- 

 cellent taste. The fishes were covered with sand and mud, but the shell 

 of the crabs was quite bright and glittering, a proof that they inhabited 

 pure water. M. Jus showed me all these animals, preserved in spirit, 

 and adorning his rich collections at Batna. 



The wells constructed by the French engineers numbered at my last 

 visit (1879) in the province of Constantine alone (and there are many 

 elsewhere) more than 155 ; and as the works begun in 1856 have never 

 been interrupted, and are rapidly advancing into the interior of the desert, 

 the time may not be far off when all these regions, now so barren and 

 dry, will be copiously irrigated, an advantage which they certainly enjoyed 

 once, seeing that the numerous oases spread over the Sahara and the 

 Lybian desert contain many remnants of Greek and Roman constructions ; 

 a proof that once they were populated and consequently provided with 

 water. This was most probably got by means of the so-called artesian 

 wells, which we moderns presume to consider as our own invention, 

 whereas they were undoubtedly known to the ancients, and were even 

 constructed in the very Desert of Sahara, as it is ascertained from 

 Olympiodorus, an historian whose writings have perished, with the 

 exception of a few fragments quoted by the learned Greek patriarch 

 Photius, one of which contains the following important passage : ' In the 

 oasis of Sahara the inhabitants used to scoop out excavations 100 and 250 

 feet deep, from which jets of pure water rose in high columns.' But it 

 was not in the Sahai'a alone that the ancients sunk artesian wells, they 

 multiplied them almost everywhere ; and to those artificial irrigations was 

 due the once flourishing state of the plain now so arid, which is covered 

 by the ruins of Balbek (the ancient Heliopolis) and Palmyra. The Eng- 

 lish travellers, Wood and Darwin, discovered under those heaps of ruins 

 numerous traces of ancient artesian wells ; and such traces are so frequent 

 in the Arabian desert crossed by the Hebrews under the leadership of 

 Moses, that several modern authors, among others M. Joberd, are of 

 opinion that the miracle attributed to the celebrated Hebrew legislator 

 of having called forth a jet of water from a rock he struck with his staff, 

 may be explained by the presence of an artesian well previously known 

 to him. 



Since the invasion of the destructive Ottoman race, all those monu- 



I 



