DRYING UP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12550, 13 July 1905, Page 7

DRYING UP

«/& E^ h-l tb/ '"writes as follows in "ChaaberViTphrQal'' for June,.-.-, v .#■ *? M«**i«!l«4 nftwi^ays that, both- in ■ Afnoa'.,aaid • m Centrail' Asia, and mflieed an all -'th* great levels of the. world, the watersheds axe drying up. A? great number of fakes well known during tihe historical jage have entirely disappeared; while in Africa, Lake"Chiroua, to the sioutJi-west of Nyassa, has been shrinking during the last twenty years,- and !has mm no place. Lake •Ngamj, whicih was discovered by Livingstone exists no longer. liAke Tchad is now nothing but a haif-dried-up water bed. Turning ito Austa-alia-iand in discussing this matter, it will be noticed -tlhat only the important lakes, etc., are considered though thero are countless smaller depots of water, rivers, streams, a<nd rills fallowing *h© example—we find ■what Lake Eyre has greatly decreased in sfce. v'Explorat(ions in Central Asia have proved tifoat for centuries a zone stretching from the east to tdie south-east of this part of the Czar's dominions has been drying up; deserts are gradually^, spreading , iand (reports show that it is only in the neighbourhoods of mountains, round whose brows vapour condenses and falls for the 'service of tne agricultuirist, ititoat irrigation can be car. ried ion, or tsiat life itself can be preserved.

"Travellers have brought back Mews from East Turkestan of .tlhe ruins of the fine cities, great i&onasfceries and remains of- odd irrigation works, which prove that two thousand yeairs ago what is now a howling wilderness of sand was then a fruitful land, where man lived on the product of tfch© soil. In Western Turkestan the salt 'lake of Ohar-Kel on Zembil-Koul is gradually drying. The Rdver Tarim, whidh was once one of the moist frequented Asiatic routes, is now almost gone; and Lob-nbr, which formerly covered an area four times as 'large as *ho lake of Geneva, is now nothing but a shallow marsh, whose greatest depth is 15ft. Without naming the numerous deserts which were once habitable and peopled and coming to a part of tlhe world (more generally known, it may be remarked that the Siberian lakes haye1 greatly diminished both in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

"In European Russia, large stretches of country tihat were once covered with water are now dry; and Novgorod', that modern scene of a busy commercial fail-, where thousands of merchants congregate annually, was in the Middle Ages so surrounded by marsh that the Mongols, when sweeping the country, were unable to seize it.

" Everywhere in out own country, as in others, water-springs are giving out, and water-beds drying up, slowly., perhaps, but surely. The increase of population and the 'modern system of drainage have, of course, a great deal to answer for; but much of the drought is undoubtedly caused by the rapid destruction of timber on all sides, for trees not only 'attract rain clouds, but preserve the moisture of tine soil. While it is impossible for puny man to control the 'geographical period through which we are passing, and whose characteristic would be —according to some—the gradual disappearance of water, it may be inquired 'whether it would not be advisable to postpone that disagreeable moment of a world without water as far as possible by tihe better preservation of oiir woods and forests and the persistent replanting of trees."