Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/107

 than the mean temperature of the oasis) comes from a natural reservoir lying probably at a depth of 465 feet below the surface; and although containing about twenty grains of salt to the pint, it has no disagreeable taste when allowed to get cold. Multitudes of leeches swarm amid the surrounding aquatic plants.

Besides this spring and the other artesian wells, seven or eight ordinary wells some 65 feet deep yield a liquid with a temperature of not more than 65° F., but so charged with salt as to be undrinkable. With every economy, the water from all

sources scarcely suffices to irrigate some hundred and eighty-five acres, in which are crowded sixty-three thousand palms, and where are also cultivated various fruit-trees and vegetables, all of poor quality except the melons and pistachios. Formerly the whole space of four hundred acres comprised within the ramparts was under cultivation; but during the course of centuries the water supply has fallen off, or else the natives have relaxed their efforts, wearied with the incessant struggle to preserve their lands from the ever-encroaching sands.

In few other districts is the land more subdivided than in the Ghadames oasis,