| OCR Text |
Show Hot Wind or Africa. i In the vast deserts of Africa. Asia and Australia we find all the requisites for the full development of healed air cur-i cur-i rents. The whole surroundings are fa- vorable. and sand boiug a poor conductor the powerful rays of an undlmmed sun warm the superficial layers to an extraordinary extraor-dinary degree, and this excessive tempor-at tempor-at ure Is commuuicated to the superincumbent superin-cumbent atmosphere in the usual way Between Tripoli aud Mnrzuk there is a i sterile tract of more thou fifty miles of sandy country, where a thermometer thrust six inches below the surface recorded re-corded a temperature of degs. In South Africa Sir Jolm llerachel found a ground temperature of 16U degs. In tho Severe drought of the summer of 1H77, in tho Fiji Islands, the black bulb thermom eter on tho grass registered 172 degs. So exceedingly hot was tho ground that the poor natives, whose feet are "us tough as cowhide, often enabling them to walk over tire or on the top of live coral, an ordeal almost equally severe," wero compelled for once to bandago their feet for protec tion against the fiery soil. On some arid desert plains tho tempera t ure of the sand reaches 1200 degs. and even higher. During dipt, blurt's wan derings In Australia he found that a match would lire by simply dropping it on tho ground. Burton's feet were Bcorched whilo pitching his tent In tho Arabian desert. The same authority, describing tho lnengo district of Central Africa, states that "under the burning yellow sky the grass is as white as the soil; the fields stubbles stiff as harrows are stained only by the Bhudows of passing clouds; the trees, except upon the nullah bunks, are hare; the animals are walking skeletons, and nothing seome to flourish but flies, whitoants and caltrops. Intense heat and want of water have dried tho land." The Uagolay, an important river system of Abyssinia, receiving many trib ntary streams, is unable to reach tho Boa. as the hot dry air and sand between them drink up the whole volume of water. Cornhil Magazine. |
