FANTASTIC PROJECTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 185, 6 August 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

FANTASTIC PROJECTS.

LAND RECLAIMING DREAMS. STUPENDOUS ENGINEERING PROPOSALS. DRAINING OCEANS AND IRRIGATING DESERTS. Humanity's insistent cry for "more room" in an over-populated world is inspiring the inventive and imaginative to some amazingly fantastic projects. While Italy and Holland are achieving practical wonders in the way of reclamation of land, engineers dream of draining oceans, irrigating deserts and harnessing the sun to fertilise the empty spaces. The Sahara, claimed by scientists to have been once fertile and populated, is an incessant temptation to experiment. Dwight Braman, a Boston engi >eer, told me several years ago of his idea to flood a 47.000 square mile depression lying partly in Algeria and partly in Tunisia, which would promote rainfall and fertility, while the damming of the rivers flowing south from the Atlas mountains would produce one of the largest irrigated territories in the world. Mr. Braman claims to have interested both the French and Italian Governments in the scheme. Giant Schemes. The French themselves dispatched a mission last year to study the "lost rivers" of the Sahara, and the possibilities of making the Sahara Desert the richest granary in the world, producing two wheat crops a year. It is calculated that if the maps of hidden _ waters is made, and wells sunk with iron pipes, an area of 2,700,000 square miles of fruitful agricultural land would be at the disposal of the ever-increasing populations of Europe. Hermann Sorgel, however, wants to drain the Mediterranean, obliterate the Adriatic Sea, by building huge dykes between Tarifa, Spain, to a point on the African coast, and across the Dardanelles. Engineer Sorgel explains that 50,000 years ago the sea-bed of the Mediterranean was dry land, separated by thin bodies of water from Asia, Africa and Europe. His plan, which he estimates would cost f1,600,000,000, includes the building of a wall 1110 ft high in parts, the deflating of air from tanks which would sink, anchor and take some pressure off the wall being erected, the harnessing of water power, and utilisation of the hydro-electric force to pump water for the irrigation of the Sahara. A North Sea Project. Another group of German engineers have worked out a scheme to dry up the North Sea by means of two gigantic dams, some 90ft above sea-level, one across the Strait of Dover, the other between Denmark and Scotland. The North Sea is shallow, which facilitates the overcoming of technical difliculties. Such a plan would provide work for legions of unemployed, and eventually furnish some 120,000 square miles of reclaimed land to receivc the surplus populations of Western Europe. All that is lacking is the money—in billions of pounds—Britain's consent to becoming a very small part of Europe, and the loss of her island security, and a guarantee of international harmony regarding the new boundaries. In the meantime, Holland is increasing the area of its country by 7 per cent, and of its arable land by 10 per cent, through the £60,000,000 Zuyder Zee reclamation •i '-cme, which it is hoped will have auu* i "•>O,OOO acres to the Netherlands by 19oJ. Signor Serpieri, Italian Under-Secre-tary for Land Reclamation, stated in the autumn that reclamation work in Italy would provide employment during this winter for an average of 90,000 men a day. During the financial year 1929-30 expenditure of 1,122,000,000 lire was approved for this purpose. Germany has found a way of conquering the sterile desolation of her untillable moors. By means of great power stations, furnishing light and power for +he new districts, and heat for forcing fruits and early vegetables, northern regions, formerly deserted, have become populated, and villages grown into towns. For those who prefer cooler climes there are always the uninhabited Poles. Both Sir Douglas Mawson and Sir Hubert Wilkins, famous polar explorers, impressed upon me at various time that the' icelands are far from inhospitable to emigrants, and that mankind could do worse than to try his luck as a colonist o the White World.