SHALL WE ALL DIE OF THIRST ?

Otago Witness, Volume 23, Issue 2684, 23 August 1905, Page 71

SHALL WE ALL DIE OF THIRST ?

(By J. E. "WiTtTBT, in Chambers's Journal.) Prom earliest times humanity has been eupposed to exist with the sword of Damocles over its head. Through long etnturie.3 the comparatively immediate destruction of the human race has been persistently prophesied, the only variation being in the make and shape of the weapon ■which, should accomplish the catastrophe. Each of the elements in turn has been presented before our terrified eyes as the arbiter of our destiny, and we have only been reassured by the rainbow from the fear of drowning by a deluge to be confronted with the terror of a universal conflagration. "While some savants consider the internal- eartli-fires- as likely to make it unpleasantly waim for us one day, in consequence of the const-ant shrinking of the earth's cru3t, others warn us that in consequence of the expected vagaries in its old age of the Gulf Stream we shall perish from cold ; while spirits more pessimistic still, foretelling the breaking loosedfroni their formidable barriers of the icy ■waters of the Poles, prophesy the extermination of all-human life in a second glacjjtl period. To these warnings we have become some■nhat accustomed, and, partly no doubt from our iropotency to check, consider the future with resignation, if not indifference. But we are also confronted with problems in the preservation of human life %s a •whole which we can control to a certain extent, and one of these is that of nourishment. The question as to whether, at the present rate of the increase of the world's population, there will in the near future .be sufficient iood is one with which we are all familiar ; but we console ourselves with the thought that by the time mouths nre our. of proportion to eatables some chemical compound will replace present-day nourishment. It is not merely food alone, ihowever, which is likely to fail us, but, jaocording to scientists, water ; and tfeotigh . /this may not strike the man on the black"'list as much to grieve over, the thoughtful will be struck by the trend of certain phenomena which have been recently brought to notice, and will perhaps anxiously inquire whether, while we are unable to control the mysterious laws of

Nature, some effort cannot be made at least to retard the annihilation of humanity by thirst. It is well established nowadays that both in Africa and in Central Asia, and indeed in all the great levels of the world, the water-beds are drying up. A great number of lakes well known during the historical age have entirely disappeared ; while in Africa, Lake Chiroua, to the south-west of Nyassa, has been shrinking during the last 20 years, and has now no place. . Lake Ngami, which was discovered by Livingstone, exists no longer. Lake Tchad is now nothing but a half-dried-up water-bed. Turning to Australia — and" in discussing this matter it will be noticed that only the important lakes, etc., are crmsidered, tlv>ug'a there are countless smaller depots of water, livers, streams, and rills following the example — we find that Lake Eyva l<as greatly decreased vi size.

Explorations in Central Asia hare proved that for centuries a zone stretching from tie east to the south-east of this part oi tlii© Czar's dominions has been drying up ; •leserts are gradually spreading; and reports shovr that it is only in the neighbourhood of mountains, round whose Brows vapour condenses and falls for the service of th'j agriculturist, that irrigation can bs r«arnrd on or that >ife itself can be pre-j-'srvisrl.

Travellers have brought back news from East Turkestan of the rums of fine cities, great monasteries, and remains of old irrigation works which prove that 2000 years ago what, is now a howling frilderness of sand was then a fruit ful land, where mar lived on the product of the soil. In Western Turkestan the salt "ake of CliarKel or Zembil Koul is gradually drying. Tb? river Tarim, which wa.> or.oe on* of the most frequented Asistic ionte?. is now almost gciu: ; and Lob-nor, which formerly covered an are •„ four times as large a.s the Lake of Geneva, is now nothing but a shallow marsh, whoso greatest depth is 15ft. Without naming tile numerous deserts which were once habitable and peopled, and coming to a part of the world rnora generally known, it may be temsi'kcd that the Siberian- lakes have greatly diminishi.-d both in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In European Russia large stretches of country that were onoe covered with wat'-r ara now dry ;" and Novgorod, that irodctn sc^ne of a* bu&y commercial fair, where thousands of merr'iants congregate xinnually, was- in tlio Middle Ages so surrounded by marsh that the Mongol?, wslvju. &wet-ptng the country, were unable to sei^e it.

According to Prince Kropotkine, the Russian savant, who has written much on the 1 latter, all these effects may be referred to changes that have ba&n going on &mx» the remote geological epoch known as the glacial period. Durmo- that time a groat part of northern Europe and Asia (to the fiftieth degree of latitude) was covered -with, thick ice, stretching to tht, valleys of the Don and Dnieper. When the *ioe retired, all the regions in. those two parts of the world less than 3000 ft in height became submarine. In these days the Gulf of Finland stretched to Lako Ladoga, and was. only separated from the Arctic Ocean by a narrow neck of land. The Caspian Sea reached to L?kc Aral. The wa.fcer, therefrre, left by the glaciers has been and is b3i«£ simply used up *n different ways, Natiuo playing hear usual reckless part. Thf* Russian scientist hys naturally devoted his examination of this phenomenon to his own country ; but the reports which come from other lands nearer home bsstr out the same disquieting fact. Everywhere in our own country, as in others, water- springs are siving out and •vater-beds drying vp — slowly, perhaps, but Mirely. The increase of population and the modern system of. <3rainag«» have, tof course, a great deal to answer for ; but much of the droniQ'ht is undoubtedly caused by the rapid destruction _of timber on all sides, for trees not only attract rain-clouds but preserve the moisture of the soil. Wliile it is impossible for puny man lio control the geological period through which we are passing, and whose characteristic wowld be — accoi'ding to some — the gradual disanpearance of water, it may bs inquired whether it -would not be advisable to postpone tint disagreeable moment of a world without water as far as possible 'by the better preservation of our woods and forests and the persistent replanting of trees.