Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cuae2!ihnp4!houxm!hropus!jin
From: jin@hropus.UUCP (Jerry Natowitz)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.misc
Subject: Re: A new topic: the Sahara
Message-ID: <764@hropus.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Nov-86 09:16:20 EST
Article-I.D.: hropus.764
Posted: Thu Nov  6 09:16:20 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Nov-86 22:45:49 EST
References: <256@BMS-AT.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 21
Keywords: Sahara Desert
Xref: watmath talk.origins:139 sci.misc:43

> ...
> 	To be in character with talk.origins, we need some outlandish
> explanations as well as serious ones.  For example:
> ... 
> or,	Northern Africa was the bread basket of the Roman Empire.
> 	Over production reduced it to a desert.
> ...
> Stuart D. Gathman	<..!seismo!{vrdxhq|dgis}!BMS-AT!stuart>

I don't think this explaination is as outlandish as you think.
I read an article a few years ago (probably Scientific American or
Smithsonian) that overly intensive grazing and/or cropping is responsible
for the the growth of the Sahara.  Of course the Sahara was never
the bread basket of the Roman Empire, or was it?
-- 
     Jerry Natowitz (HASA - A division)
     Bell Labs
     HR 2A-214
     201-615-5178 (no CORNET yet)
     ihnp4!houxm!hropus!jin (official)
     ihnp4!opus!jin         (better)