Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!vrdxhq!BMS-AT!stuart
From: stuart@BMS-AT.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.misc
Subject: A new topic: the Sahara
Message-ID: <256@BMS-AT.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Nov-86 12:14:43 EST
Article-I.D.: BMS-AT.256
Posted: Mon Nov  3 12:14:43 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Nov-86 05:58:33 EST
Organization: Business Management Systems, Inc., Fairfax, VA
Lines: 29
Keywords: Sahara Desert
Xref: mnetor talk.origins:124 sci.misc:66

The Sahara Desert (what I've read about it that is) has always fascinated
me.  It appears, from the accounts I've read, to be the most lifeless
desert in the world.  I've been to our southwestern desert, and it is
far from lifeless.  It is filled with many fascinating plants and animals,
all amazingly adapted to the dry climate.  The Sahara, on the other hand,
is described as completely barren: nothing but sand dunes and a few
oases.

	Is this description accurate?  How long has the Sahara been in
existence?  I've read that it is moving southward at the rate of several
hundred feet every year.

	To be in character with talk.origins, we need some outlandish
explanations as well as serious ones.  For example:

	The first nuclear war occurred long ago in northern Africa.

or,	Northern Africa was the bread basket of the Roman Empire.
	Over production reduced it to a desert.

or,	A stray planet struck northern Africa while Earth was in
	orbit around Saturn.  (Now where did I come up with that one? :-)

	What, if anything, is buried beneath the Sahara?  There are
legends of a king in that area.

	Looking for some good reading.
-- 
Stuart D. Gathman	<..!seismo!{vrdxhq|dgis}!BMS-AT!stuart>