THE DESERTS OF THE WORLD VANISHING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1671, 5 March 1890, Page 4

THE DESERTS OF THE WORLD VANISHING.

The world is fast losing its desert*. There was a day when the United States 1 had one of no small size; when it was olaimed. that all the land west of the Missouri, River "was a- barren waste. The farmers of Kansajr, Nebraska, and Dakota have disposed of much of the great American desert. Once upon a time large portions ,of the interior of Africa were believed to ba arid and unoultivable. Now we learn that they are fruitful and well populated. The interior of Australia has been held up as an awful example of a howling wilderness, destitute of water and of- animal and vegetable life. That illusion is . beyjg .rapidly: dispelled. Recent explorers report that inner Australia is no Sarahan waste, and that, chough uninhabited, it oan support a large population. There are grassy .plains, large lakes and also traoea of gold and precious stones. A north-and-south railway is now building through the centre of Australia, aad doubtless with its completion tb.9 last trace of the desert will vanish. The iron horse is a wonderful dispeller of illusions of that kind. The truth is that there are vast regions on this continent, in Asia and Australia, which are barren from the standpoint of primitive and ignorant agriculture, bnt which, when taken in hand by the educated farmer cf today, with his modern implements, blossom like the rose.—" Chicago Tribune."