WESTERN DESERT

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 September 1940, Page 10

WESTERN DESERT

EXPERIMENTAL WELLS The Egyptian Government has alt lotted in its Budget for 1940 a credit tof £lO,OOO (Egyptian) for sinking 5 further experimental artesian wells , iin the Libyan Desert. The possibili- , ties of water from the waterless wastes . are of more than academic interest, • and recent researches suggest that : the results of the borings may be of • great value to the future Egypt, writes ■ the Cairo correspondent of the . “Christian Science Monitor.” The oases which occur in the depressions of the Sahara have probably been known from earliest times, but it was certainly the result of Roman energy and ingenuity that a system of wells was planned, specially in the Oases of Kharga, Dakhla and of Siwa, where the famous oracle of Jupiter Ammon was situated. The source of this subsoil water was unknown, though the impression that it was the Nile was generally accepted till quite recent times. Dr. John Ball, of the Egyptian Desert Survey, after taking levels and studying the geology of the region, has come to the conclusion that the water comes from Central Africa, perhaps even from as far south as the Congo Basin, where it saturates the stratum of Nubian sandstone which underlies or overlies the greater part, if not all, of north-eastern Africa. RECENT BORINGS. i This assumption is further strengthened by the borings that have recently been made in the Oases of Kharga and Dakhla, which lie approximately 125 and 250 miles respectively west of Luxor in Upper Egypt. Thus, at Dakhla plentiful water was found at a depth of 700 feet, rising under natural pressure to the ground surface at a level of more than 300 feet above sea level, whereas at . Kharga, 125 miles to the east, water was found at a depth of more than 1,500 feet and rose to a level of about ' 240 feet above sea level, while the lev- 1 el of the Nile’another 125 miles further east is about 220 feet above sea ■ level. '

The water gradient would therefore appear to be from the desert toward the Nile Valley, not from the Nile toward the west.

All four wells bored gave good supplies, specially that at Dakhla; where a six-inch tube gave the remarkable discharge of .1,200 gallons a minute, or sufficient to irrigate ‘ liberally more than 200 acres.

In the past, new shallow wells when sunk at once affected adversely the discharge of old wells in the neighbourhood. So far, the new wells have had no similar effect, and there is therefore justification for believing that the new supply now tapped is practically inexhaustible. In this connection it is interesting to note that the Italian authorities have in recent years been successfully sinking a large number of similarly deep wells in Tripoli. In all probability the source of this water is the same as that of the Egyptian Sahara. If this is so, the optimism recently expressed by a high Egyptian official that the' Western Desert, specially near the Mediterranean, where the soil is generally of excellent quality, will provide ultimately a home for the surplus of Egypt’s ever-growing population, is justifiable.