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THE FIRE OF DESERT FOLK

though improvement is also necessary in this field as well, and experiments yield most satisfactory results.

Besides these riches of the soil Maghreb has also its wealth of forests, yielding not only timber but great quantities of cork, resin, sandarac, oils and other products.

Industry is not greatly developed throughout the country but, if we may judge from the increasing investments of capital, is on a rapid upward trend.

In recent years mining has also attracted attention, but until now very little substantial progress has been made in this activity. Geological surveys have fallen far short of exhausting the mineral possibilities of the country, and I am led by what I saw superficially in the High Atlas and on the elevated plateau between Ujda and Figig to feel that strata of considerable interest to the mining industry may easily reward further investigations. In these various activities the genius of the white race is driving it forward to work upon the soil of Morocco and exploit its possibilities, penetrating year by year further into the country and by its example attracting the brown and black natives into similar activities. Capital and hard labor bring liberal reward, but these riches are hidden in the earth no less carefully than the treasures of the tragic Sous, for only the man who is strong in mind and body can win this guerdon from the soil. The weak, the timorous and the lazy are here sentenced to destruction. For a long time hence powerful and tenacious characters will be forged and hardened in this energetic school, where no one asks certificates of past extraction or intention but where a man is judged according to his acts of