be wondered at that the French, with their indisputable energy, should have thought of uniting them overland. More especially does it seem natural in the early days of steam navigation. Nowadays, when cargoes can be sent from Oran to Saint-Louis (Senegal) in eight to ten days for eight dollars or less a ton, there is no great reason for sending caravans there, whose best time in a straight line would be three months and a half. Among the enthusiasts on that question may be mentioned General Faidherbe, some time Governor of Senegal, who displayed a wonderful amount of energy in the matter. Others were not wanting, including several explorers; the efforts of the latter, however, were rather more in the interests of science than material benefits.
It was about the year 1850 that the attention of the Algerian Government began to be drawn to the project of facilitating communication across the desert. In 1854 the Geographical Society of Paris offered a special reward for any one who should go from one colony to the other via Timbuctoo. In 1858 the Algerian Historical Society made a special order of the day a study on the best route and method of reaching Soodan. Finally, in 1873, a company was formed in Algiers, with a capital of thirty thousand francs, and the rather vague name of "Company for the Encouragement of Commercial Explorations in the Sahara." The intention of this company seemed to be to form at Laghouat an entrepot for merchandise suitable to the southern tribes, and to try to draw to Algeria a part of the traffic of Morocco and Tripoli. The Algerian Historical Society had recommended somewhat similar measures in 1860, but they were not carried out—the cause of the failure being attributed to the lack of French agents outside the Algerian frontier. That indefatigible explorer M. Duveyrier, in 1862, proposed a route following the subterranean course of the Igharghar River southward, different from the four routes generally taken by caravans; the Azdjer chiefs, to whose interest it is to encourage traffic across the desert, offered to guarantee the security of the expedition, and the Algerian Government promised to render it practicable by wells. In 1867 an expedition was actually organized, but was abandoned for reasons not generally known.
Since then the project seems to have been dropped, only to be revived again under a different form. The question of a trans-Saharan railroad has been started, which should not astonish us in America who now think nothing of going from New York to San Francisco in less than a week. M. Paul de Soleillet was among the first to propose the construction of a railroad from Algiers to Timbuctoo, and thence to Saint-Louis; in 1872 he attempted to perform that journey to explore the route, but he got no farther than the oasis of Insalah, about six hundred miles south of Algiers, being stopped by the natives. It would seem that a more practicable route would be found farther east, clear of the Tademayt and Ahaggad plateaux, of which the latter at-
