SEA BENEATH THE SAHARA.
MARINE LIFE UNDER. SAND. .Is there water under the Sahara? A Paris despatch states that there is animal life 200' and 300 feet beneath the burning sands of the Sahara Desert. That is the extraordinary discovery made by the experiments of sinking artesian wells at various points in the North African waste with a view to possible irrigation. Waters drawn from great depths were found to contain small crabs, fish, and shell fish, all alive. The discovery is proving an absolute puzzle, no theory so far seeming entirely satisfactory.
It has been possible usually to explain the presence of fish and shell fish in underground waters by the fact that they were locked up during some primeval cataclysm. These animals adapt themselves gradually to new conditions, but, living in darkness, are always blind entirely or possess special optical apparatus suitable to. darkness. Those found'underneath the Sahara belong to a species inhabiting the lakes of Palestine.
Shafts sunk during the past few years in the Sahara prove there are large sheets of water everywhere. Animals found now prompt the belief that there is' a vast underground sea densely inhabited.
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Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 27 September 1924, Page 10
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192SEA BENEATH THE SAHARA. Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 27 September 1924, Page 10
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