Abstract
SOME passing remarks in the article entitled “Soil Drift in South Australia” in NATURE of December 19 (p. 1039) may give the casual reader the erroneous impression that the northern part of British Nigeria is threatened by the “encroaching desert”. A glance at any adequate map of Africa will show that the northern frontier of Nigeria runs through the western Sudan and that the Sahara lies well to the north in French West Africa. The geological evidence is clear, as I pointed out twenty-five years ago1, that the desert pulsates, that its margins expand and contract, and that the most recent movement has been one of contraction with the consequent spread of more humid conditions over the country between Lake Chad and the River Niger. There is no evidence that existing climatic conditions are deteriorating.
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