RECENT GEOGRAPHIC ADVANCES 



387 



soil, the suitability of the climate, the 

 existence and accessibility of forestal 

 wealth, the presence and probable extent 

 of mineral veins, and on transportation 

 methods by road, river, or by rail. 

 Equally valuable are their data on the 

 social habits, tribal characteristics, cen- 

 tralizing conditions, and governmental 

 methods of the millions of natives, on 

 whose activities and stimulated wants 

 must eventually depend the commercial 

 development of Africa. 



The French army has contributed 

 largely to these valuable researches, and 

 the views of its trained and selected offi- 

 cers are well expressed by General Le- 

 bon, who said of Africa : "Geography 

 becomes a fairy godmother whose mis- 

 sion is to reveal to man for his highest 

 good infinite and hitherto unutilized 

 riches." The struggle of the army to 

 insure safe travel across the Sahara was 

 most bitter, as well as its work in Mo- 

 rocco, and there were in 1908- 1909 in 

 North Africa more than a hundred 

 fights, with a French loss of several 

 hundred in killed and wounded. Peace 

 and order now prevail ; the occupancy 

 of the desert palm groves controls the 

 nomads. Today at no point in the vast 

 French Sudan is there seen more than 

 a single company for police duty. 



It should be known that the regions 

 in Africa controlled by France exceed 

 in extent by more than 50 per cent the 

 area of the United States, and it is obvi- 

 ous that only the more important of its 

 many recent explorations can be even 

 mentioned in this brief summary. 



THE SAHARA REGION 



Though comparatively unfertile, the 

 great Saharan Desert vastly influences 

 the surrounding regions. France con- 

 trols it by oasis guards, selected scouts 

 of experience, called mcharistcs, well 

 mounted on camels. This service, at an 

 expense of $600,000 a year, is true econ- 

 omy. Under earlier conditions the Bilma 

 trans-Saharan route was plundered to 

 the amount of a million and a half dol- 

 lars yearly, besides the enslavement of 

 the natives there captured. 



Great portions of the desert (the Sa- 

 haran-Sudan region) have been charted 

 through the geodetical work of French 

 officers. Captain Cortier, the chief, 

 states that a vast region 9 degrees in 

 longitude and 12 degrees in latitude is 

 sufficiently watered to produce grain 

 (mil) from grass wherever the soil is 

 not sand-invaded. He relates that the 

 Touaregs habitually open the anthills 

 and take therefrom the reserves of grain 

 accumulated by the ants. 



His description of Kauouer modifies 

 our ideas of a Saharan oasis. Its 100.000 

 palm trees furnish subsistence for a 

 dozen straggling villages, with their 

 small flocks and scant crops of grain 

 and vegetables. Adjacent desert routes 

 are filled with long trains of slow-paced, 

 heavily laden camels carrying the annual 

 exports of the oasis — 25,000 loads of 

 salt and 5,000 of dates. 



FRENCH KONGO 



In connection with the Kongo-Kame- 

 rum boundary. Captain Periquet explored 

 500 miles of unknown routes, of which 

 300 were through dense woods. Railway 

 surveys now progressing from Libreville 

 to the Sanga River are through great for- 

 ests, which are being actively exploited, 

 the natives being tractable instead of hos- 

 tile, as before reported. These surveys 

 disclosed a high, rolling plateau, the lofty 

 Crystal Mountains of that region being 

 mythical. 



MOROCCO 



Nominally independent and practically 

 unknown, this country is gradually de- 

 veloping under the activity and influence 

 of France, to whose sphere of influence 

 it naturally trends by association and 

 propinquity. Since 1904 M. Louis Gentil 

 has annually investigated unknown areas 

 of Morocco, studying its hydrology, lo- 

 cating its mineral wealth, and examining 

 its forestal and agricultural zones. His 

 maps are the first to adequately represent 

 the -physical conditions of the country. 

 While mineral belts of prospective value 

 are found, yet M. Gentil looks to the 

 extremely fertile soil belts as insuring 

 the prosperity of Morocco, fitted as they 



