Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/689

Rh strewed along the borders with small round and polished quartz pebbles. Near the banks is a meagre salsuginous vegetation. In the interior its bed is clay, filled with crevices, but moist; farther on the crevices close and the saturated marl and clay form quagmires in which horse and rider might be swallowed up.

The eastern end of Shott Melrir, which is called Shott Es-Selam, presents other general characteristics. Near the banks the bed is sandy, but toward the middle it forms a hard crust of salt and sand. Elsewhere the soil is a hard surface of clay, which shines in the sun. Mirage is very frequent in this shott.

Between the Shotts Es-Selam and El-Rharsa the expedition first began to encounter obstacles which may seriously interfere with the projected inland sea. In the intervening country are numerous smaller shotts, of which that called Mouia-el-Tadjer is the largest. This shott has a long extension stretching southward, called El-Hadjila, connected with which on the east is Shott Mouia-el-Tofla. Measurements in the highest part of the bed of the latter showed it to be more than eleven feet above the level of the sea. A low ridge separates it from Shott El-Asloudg, the western border of which is only between six and seven feet below the sea, and the eastern about twelve feet. Between this and Shott Bou Dhouil, which is little more than eight feet above the sea, is an extended ridge of sand. Bou Dhouil is but a short distance from the Tunisian frontier and the great Shott El-Rharsa. At this point the expedition ceased its labors and returned to Biskra, convinced that a secondary canal connecting El-Rharsa and Melrir, or some of the shotts belonging to its system, would be necessary before the proposed inland sea could be extended far enough west to benefit Algeria. This would entail a considerable additional expense, but whether large enough to seriously affect the realization of the scheme cannot be known until the publication of the official reports.

This expedition made no investigation of the Tunisian portion of the depression, being evidently under the impression that no insurmountable obstacle existed in that part. Whether this belief was founded on the accounts of the ancient geographers or on an actual knowledge of the country is not apparent, but it is said that levels were taken from Shott El-Jerid to the Mediterranean several years ago by Captain Pricot de Sainte Marie, of the staff of the French army in Algeria. His report, which is deposited in the archives of the Ministry of War in Paris, must have been favorable, else the survey of the Algerian shotts would scarcely have been undertaken.

It is reported, however, on the contrary, that a survey was made of the same isthmus in 1874 by M. Fuchs, a French geologist employed by the government of Tunis to investigate the mineral resources of the country, who discovered that physical obstacles exist of a nature to render a canal impossible; that a range of sandstone hills lies between El-Jerid and the sea, and that the bed of El-Jerid itself is