François Élie Roudaire
François Élie Roudaire (born 6 August 1836 in
Early life and military career
Roudaire was born into a middle-class family. His father, François Joseph Roudaire, was director of the Natural History Museum of Gueret. After classical studies in his hometown, François Élie turned towards a scientific career in the army. He entered the
Proposal of a Sahara Sea
Having discovered many locations far below sea level (up to 40 metres (130 ft)), Roudaire became convinced that a vast depression once extended to the salty
While there was initially general enthusiasm for the project, further surveys discovered that one of the chotts that Roudaire and de Lesseps had proposed digging a canal to was, in fact, above sea level.[6] This reduction in floodable area (a reduction of between 6,000 square kilometres (2,300 sq mi) and 8,000 square kilometres (3,100 sq mi)), and the cost of a channel 240 kilometres (150 mi) long, caused a loss of support from within the government, leading the Public Works Minister to cancel the project in 1882.[5] Roudaire and Ferdinand de Lesseps fell back on private funding and founded the Society for the Study of African inland sea later that year to continue their pursuit of the project. Criticism of the project from within the scientific community mounted, however, and the project was abandoned shortly before Roudaire's death in 1885.[5]
Decorations
- First class medal awarded by the International Geographical Congress (11 August 1875)
- Grade Officer of the Legion of Honour (6 October 1875)
- Grade Officer of Public Instruction (28 August 1876)
- Gold Medal of the Geographical Society (March 1877)
- Great Medal of Honor Society (March 1877)
Publications
- Premier rapport sur la mission des chotts publié par l'instruction publique (January 1877)
- Deuxième rapport sur les missions des chotts publié par l'instruction publique (January 1881)
- La mer intérieure africaine (September 1883)
Portrayals in literature
- Jules Verne, Invasion of the Sea (1905).
Footnotes
- ^ a b "Roudaire". Johnson's (revised) universal cyclopaedia: a scientific and popular treasury of useful knowledge. New York: A.J. Johnson & Co. 1886. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
- ^ ISBN 978-0822343165. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
- ^ Plummer, Harry Chapin (1913). "A Sea in the Sahara". National Waterways: A Magazine of Transportation. 1 (2). National Rivers and Harbors Congress: 131–138. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
- JSTOR 209775.
- ^ ISBN 978-0521869690. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
- ISBN 978-1405384551. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
Other references
- Gérard Dubost, Le colonel Roudaire et son projet de mer saharienne, éd. Société des sciences naturelles et archéologiques de la Creuse, Guéret, 1998
- René Létolle et Hocine Bendjoudi, Histoires d'une mer au Sahara : utopies et politiques, coll. Écologie et agronomie appliquée, éd. L'Harmattan, Paris, 1997
- Jean-Louis Marçot, Une mer au Sahara, éd. La Différence, Paris, 2003