TCD MS 10515 folio 41v
[April 28th 1916]
pregnated with water to such an extent that shallow wells, a few feet deep, were rapidly filled with water. Yet not a date palm grows there. Now the soil all over this barren area is impregnated with saline deposit to such an extent that rain water collected in depressions on the ground is quite salt to the taste, and when the water in the pools evaporates there is left on the surface of the sand a film of white frosty crystals. I fancy that as the water from the river percolates through the sand further into the desert, it is continually dissolving and washing inland through the soil. A narrow belt on either side of the stream is thus purified by the ceasless flow of water; the saline deposit is dissolved and swept away,