Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/224

LEFT SAGOIN 180 SAHABA The chief uses of sago in Europe are for feeding stock, making starch, and in giv- ing thickness and consistency to cocoa. The stem, about 15 to 20 feet, is cut into lengths, split open, and the pith dug out and placed in a vessel with a sieve bottom. Water is applied to separate the flour and carry it into a second ves- sel, where it is soon deposited. The water is then run off, and the flour dried. The produce of a tree ranges from 600 to 750 pounds. Pearl sago (which the Chinese of Malacca prepare and send to Singa- pore) is in small white spherical grains. There are several varieties which differ much in color, some being white and oth- ers reddish brown. One kind of granu- lated sago from India has been introduced under the name of tapioca — the real Tap- ioca (q. v.) being a totally different sub- stance. Sago is not entirely soluble in hot water like ordinary starch, and can therefore be employed in making pud- dings, etc. SAGOIN, or SAGOUIN, the native South American name of a genus (Calli- thrix) of Brazilian monkeys of small size, and remarkably light, active, and grace- ful in their movements. SAGTJENAY, a river of Canada, in the province of Quebec; formed by two outlets of Lake St. John, which unite about 9 miles below the lake, from which point the river flows S. E. and falls into the St. Lawrence at Tadousac harbor; length about 100 miles. For many miles of the latter part of its course the banks are very lofty, and in some parts there are precipices more than 1,000 feet high. Ships moor at rings fixed into some of the precipitous walls of rock, the water being so deep as to be unsuitable for anchorage. The Saguenay is navigable for vessels of any size to Ha Ha Bay, a distance of about 50 miles to 60 miles from the St. Lawrence, and at high water for vessels of large dimensions from 15 miles to 18 miles farther. It is visited by a great many tourists on account of its remark- able scenery. SAGUNTtTM, a former town of Spain, S. of the Ebro, about 3 miles from the coast. It is famous in Roman history; its siege by Hannibal in 219-218 B. c. having given rise to the second Punic War. The site is occupied by the modern town of Murviedro. SAHARA (Arabic Sah'ra), the vast desert region of North Africa, stretching from the Atlantic to the Nile, and from the S. confines of Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli S. to the vicinity of the Niger and Lake Tchad. It is usual to regard the Libyan Desert, lying between Egypt, the Central Sudan, and Tripoli, as a sep- arate division. Both are, however, links in the chain of great deserts that girdle the Old World from the Atlantic coast across Africa, Arabia, Persia, Turkestan, and Mongolia to the Pacific. It was long customary to assert that the Sahara was the bed of an ancient inland sea, and that it consisted of a vast, uniform ex- panse of sand, swept up here and there into ridges by the wind. But this idea is utterly erroneous. Since the French became masters of Algeria, they have completely revolutionized our knowledge of the Sahara, at all events of the coun- try immediately to the S. of Algeria and Tunis. The surface, instead of being uni- form and depressed below sea-level, is highly diversified, and attains in one place an altitude of fully 8,000 feet. From the neighborhood of Cape Blanco in the W. a vast bow or semicircle of sand-dunes stretches right round the N. side of the Sahara to Fezzan, skirting the Atlas Mountains and the mountains of Algeria. This long belt of sand hills varies in width from 50 to 300 miles, and is known by the names Igidi and Erg, both meaning "sand hills." The hills rise to 300 feet (in one place, it is said, to more than 1,000 feet), though the aver- age elevation is about 70 feet. Water is nearly always to be found below the sur- face in the hollows between the different chains of these sand hills, and there a few dry plants struggle to maintain a miserable existence. S. of Algeria, on the other side of the Erg, the country rises into the lofty plateau of Ahaggar (4,000 feet), which fills all the middle parts of the Sahara. Its surface runs up into veritable mountains 6,500 feet high, which, incredible as it may seem, are covered with snow for three months in the year. On the S. it apparently falls again toward the basins of the Niger and Lake Tchad ; nevertheless there are moun- tain ranges along the E. side reaching 8,000 feet in Mount Tusidde in the Tibbu country, and a mountain knot in the oasis of Air (or Asben) which reaches up to 6,500 feet. Mountainous tracts 'occur also in the W., between Morocco and Tim- buctoo, but of inferior elevation (2,000 feet). These mountainous parts embrace many deep valleys, most of them seamed with the dry beds of ancient rivers, as the Igharghar and the Mya, both going some hundreds of miles N. toward the "shotts" of Algeria and Tunis. These valleys always yield an abundance of wa- ter, if not on the surface in the water- courses, then a short distance below it, and are mostly inhabited, and grazed by the cattle and sheep and camels of the natives.