On July 1, 1905, and for a month, the Magasin d’Education et de Récréation serialized a novel by Jules Verne titled L’invasion de la mer (The Invasion of the Sea), the last work the French author published in his lifetime, as he passed away that same year. The novel tells the story of a French detachment in Tunisia that must escort an engineer into the Sahara, where he plans to turn the desert into a vast sea. In this case, such an extraordinary idea did not originate from Verne’s imagination but was actually based on a real project proposed by several visionaries in the last quarter of the 19th century, known as the Sahara Sea.

Of course, the writer infused his work with the usual elements of adventure, with the team facing off against the Tuareg amid the dunes, as they see their way of life threatened. The story, one of the lesser-known works of the literary giant, carries a clear critique of the colonial world and humanity’s powerlessness against nature. However, what is truly interesting is the revival of the concept of the Saharienne Mer (or Saharan Sea or Sea of the Sahara; the name had several variations), a plan proposed in 1878 by a prestigious French geographer named François Élie Roudaire, although based on earlier ideas. Verne set the action in the future, in the 1930s.

The Sahara is the largest desert in the world—excluding Antarctica and the Arctic—as it covers an area comparable to that of China or the United States: 9,065,000 square kilometers. It is a veritable ocean of sand that, during the last glaciation, was even larger but with a key difference: at that time, it had a monsoonal climate, meaning that the Sahara was covered in vegetation, and rainfall was frequent. This condition persisted until around 4200 B.C., when the polar ice caps began to shrink, leading to a retreat of the monsoon and an increasing process of desertification. Since nature is cyclical, it is estimated that in about fifteen thousand years, the Sahara will turn green again.

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1905 cover of L’invasion de la mer. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

However, anyone visiting it today must endure scorching heat and occasional siroccos (strong winds) that generate sandstorms, as well as sparse vegetation concentrated in certain areas. At times, there are also sharp temperature contrasts between day and night. Suffice it to say that the highest recorded temperature is 59°C (138°F) and the lowest is -21°C (-6°F).

Despite all this, life finds a way. If certain animal species have managed to adapt to such an extreme environment, so too has humankind. The Sahara has been inhabited since the Neolithic era, when it was not yet a desert. Back then, there were sedentary settlements, whereas today, most of its inhabitants are nomadic, the majority speaking Amazigh (Berber) languages—though not all.

This context explains the premise of L’invasion de la mer; none of the projects aimed at creating a Sahara Sea took into account the opinions of its inhabitants, as at that time, much of the region was still unexplored and had drawn the attention of European powers, which would soon proceed to divide Africa among themselves. Thus, the Berlin Conference (1884–85) allocated the largest portion to France, but the western third was British, with Spanish and Italian territories also present. In fact, the pioneer of the idea was Scottish, despite his name often being confused with that of an American explorer from an earlier generation. His name was Donald Mackenzie.

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Main topographical features of the Saharan region. Credit: T.L. Miles / Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by the abolitionist ideals that permeated the United Kingdom in the 19th century, Mackenzie believed that a good way to disrupt the slave trade routes—by then almost exclusively operated by Muslims—crossing the desert was to eliminate the desert itself, turning it into an artificial sea that would facilitate maritime trade and agriculture.

To achieve this, a canal would need to be excavated from one of the sandbanks of Cape Juby on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, extending southward to El Djouf, a plain in northwestern Mauritania covered by dunes but with a rocky substrate. Mackenzie estimated that the entire region lay 61 meters below sea level, so Atlantic waters would flow in through the canal effortlessly, flooding 155,400 square kilometers, as he believed had occurred thousands of years earlier via Saguia el-Hamra, a wadi (seasonal riverbed) in Western Sahara.

Moreover, the canal could be extended to connect the resulting sea with the Niger River, thereby increasing its economic potential. In fact, Mackenzie founded a company, the North West Africa Trading Company, with British capital and opened a trading post in Cape Juby, hoping to secure navigation rights. The issue was that his plans clashed with the interests of France and Spain. France opposed the project because such an ambitious engineering feat would not only take place in its sphere of influence but also potentially compete with the Suez Canal. Spain was also concerned because the starting point of the excavations was near the Canary Islands, leaving the archipelago vulnerable to a possible Berber invasion—or worse, British influence.

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François Élie Roudaire in 1879. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

However, the project ultimately failed for more substantial reasons. Mackenzie never set foot in the region; he merely extrapolated data from the chotts and sebkhas (salt marshes) of North Africa, such as those in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. This lack of firsthand knowledge meant he was unaware that the basin he proposed to flood covered no more than 250 square kilometers and, worse, was actually located 500 kilometers farther north than he assumed. In reality, El Djouf is not below sea level but sits at an altitude of 320 meters. The project collapsed due to serious scientific errors, lack of financial support, and the aforementioned strategic concerns. To top it off, in 1887, German geographer Ernst Bunger accused him of plagiarism, claiming that he had presented a similar plan to Napoleon III twenty-two years earlier. However, the idea did not fade into oblivion—someone else picked up the torch.

Curiously, one of them was Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat who had promoted the aforementioned Suez Canal and would attempt to do the same in Panama. In 1878, Lesseps joined François Élie Roudaire to revive Mackenzie’s proposal from a French perspective. Roudaire was a military geographer who, in 1864, had conducted a topographic and geodetic study of the chotts in Algeria’s Constantine province, determining that many were up to 40 meters below sea level. This led him to deduce that in another era, there had been a vast depression extending to the Gulf of Gabès (Tunisia), likely corresponding to what Herodotus identified as Lake Tritonis, a large freshwater body mentioned in numerous ancient texts (Diodorus of Sicily, Apollonius of Rhodes…), which had probably disappeared due to an earthquake.

Furthermore, Roudaire believed that creating a navigable sea in the Sahara would bring about a climate change in the region, making it much more fertile, while also positively impacting the European climate. Therefore, with Lesseps’ collaboration, he conducted on-site analyses of the chotts, and in the early 1870s, he confirmed that Chott Melrhir was 31 meters below sea level. In 1874, he published an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes with the expressive title Une mer intérieure en Algérie, in which he outlined his project: to open a canal from the Gulf of Gabès to Chott el Fejej, a section of the Tunisian lake Chott el Djerid that stretches about 110 kilometers in length and is separated from the Mediterranean by a 21-kilometer-wide sand ridge near El Hamma. This would allow Mediterranean waters to flood the basin. They did not determine the exact extent of the resulting sea, but they estimated it would be around 8,000 square kilometers, smaller than Mackenzie’s vision.

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Map of the Tunisian area proposed by Roudaire for the Sahara Sea. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

Objections soon arose, including those from the French Geographical Society and Alexander William Mitchinson, a specialist on the subject, who warned that the new sea would only create swampy areas that would spread diseases.

There were also criticisms regarding the projected cost, estimated at 1.3 billion francs at the time, which many deemed unfeasible and wasteful. In 1882, after Roudaire returned from two more expeditions, a commission was formed to decide on the matter, and it ruled against the project. Consequently, the French government, which was to be the main investor, withdrew its financial commitment.

Lesseps disagreed and founded the Société d’Etude de la Mer Intérieure, which funded a new expedition to gather more data, arguing that in his view, the budget would be lower than previously estimated, at around 150 million francs. However, the final blow came in 1884 with the publication of geological analyses of the site, which concluded that there was no evidence of a prehistoric lake, nor was the terrain as low as Roudaire had calculated—in fact, the chott designated for excavation was actually above sea level.

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Ferdinand de Lesseps. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

All of this reduced the floodable area to between 6,000 and 8,000 square kilometers, effectively nullifying the project’s usefulness, and it vanished like its predecessor. Roudaire’s death the following year closed the matter. Lesseps definitively set aside the Sahara project to focus on the other major engineering endeavor that was captivating global attention: the Panama Canal.

But this was not the end of the subject; on the contrary, there were several more attempts to revive it. The first came in 1910, led by French professor Edmund Etchegoyen, who proposed creating a longer and deeper canal that, once filled with water, would form a sea half the size of the Mediterranean. His proposal was considered, but countered with arguments that only some parts of the Sahara were below sea level, while most were above it, and that, in any case, the dimensions he proposed would never be reached—not to mention that any moderation of the African climate would be counterbalanced by a cooling of Europe. In the 1930s, more proposals came from German and American authors, focusing on Tunisia and always referencing Lake Tritonis. None materialized.

The last major attempt came in the second half of the 20th century. By then, the world was already undergoing decolonization, and it was Tunisia—having gained independence in 1956—that founded ARTEMIS (Association de Researches Technique pour l’Etude de la Mer Intérieure Saharienne) the following year to explore the possibility of opening the long-sought canal, hoping to foster economic development by moderating the climate and promoting the fishing industry. It was a popular idea at the time, as Egypt was engaged in a similar project: the Qattara Depression Project, which aimed to create an artificial lake by utilizing a desert region 60 meters below sea level (west of the Nile Delta), where hypersalinity would cause excess water to evaporate, balancing the influx.

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The Qattara Depression Project. Credit: AlwaysUnite / Wikimedia Commons

The Egyptian project, designed to generate hydroelectric power, required excavating a canal up to 100 kilometers long. The United States, interested in persuading Nasser to abandon Soviet backing, offered to collaborate.

For excavation, the U.S. proposed using 213 nuclear bombs of 1.5 megatons each, as part of its Atoms for Peace program. This approach would eliminate the danger posed by the thousands of landmines still present there since World War II (El Alamein is in the area). However, it introduced other risks (the evacuation of thousands of people, seismic instability in the Red Sea, coastal erosion…), leading Egypt to decline the offer.

Tunisia, on the other hand, was intrigued by the idea and considered it in 1968, as the concept had gained traction. While the U.S. promoted Operation Plowshare (using atomic explosives for peaceful purposes), the USSR was running a similar program, Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy. The signing of the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) in 1968 ruled out the possibility, but in the 1980s, Tunisia continued to explore the idea of opening the canal through conventional means. SETAMI (Société d’Etude Tuniso-Algérienne de la Mer Intérieure) commissioned a study from the Swedish engineering consultancy SWECO.

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The Sahara in a satellite photograph. Credit: NASA / Wikimedia Commons

In 2002, SWECO concluded that there would be no significant climate change, that the heat-induced water evaporation would hinder agriculture, that the resulting salt concentration would necessitate water treatment, and that the jobs created by the construction would eventually lead to economic decline once the work was completed. In short, any potential benefits would be outweighed by numerous collateral drawbacks—not to mention an astronomical investment estimated between 11 and 86 billion dollars.

What was the decision? In 2018, the Cooperation Road project was made public, continuing the idea of flooding Chott el Djerid to create a sea that would generate salt flats and fish farms, improve agriculture, attract tourism and real estate development, combat desertification, control migration, and create 60,000 jobs.

Incidentally, L’Invasion de la mer, Jules Verne’s novel, [spoiler alert ahead] ends with a massive earthquake that floods the Sahara far beyond the engineers’ calculations, wiping out the Tuareg.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on October 16, 2019: Convertir el desierto del Sáhara en un mar: los proyectos desde el siglo XIX hasta la actualidad

SOURCES

Jules Verne, L’invasion de la mer

Donald Mackenzie, The flooding of the Sahara

G. A. Thompson, A plan for converting the Sahara desert into a sea

Resolviendo la Incógnita, Los proyectos para inundar el Sahara

Wikipedia, Sahara Sea

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