Word: wadi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After taking a dirt road across the desert toward Qumran, where the first Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the Pikes missed a turn and wound up instead driving down a gray sandstone wadi (dry creek bed). When large rocks kept them from going farther, they tried in vain to turn the car around. Then, ignoring an old desert rule, they abandoned their vehicle to search for help. Two hours later, James Pike could walk no farther. "If we are going to die in the desert," Diane recalled telling him, "I will stay by you." The two napped; then Mrs. Pike...
...agronomist named Dani Afik. A specialist in arid-zone agriculture, Afik so far has put into cultivation 50 of Kallia's 4,000 acres of arable land. His first problem was finding water. Two bores have turned up unusable water, and he had to turn to the Wadi Kelt supply some five miles away. Trouble was, they were owned by an Arab family. "Whoever heard of private families owning water sources," says Afik more in amusement than anger. "At first the Arabs didn't want to sell us the water, but we negotiated." It was not a particularly...
...most remarkable shots, taken by Lovell as Gemini 7 soared over the Wadi Hadhramaut region in Aden, shows with exceptional clarity a delicate, frostlike pattern of valleys and ridges that should delight both cartographers and geologists. One shot shows Borman concentrating on the use of an inflight vision tester; another shows Lovell peering out of his capsule, admiring the incomparable view from orbit. A closeup picture of Borman illustrates the effects of zero G in space: hovering near his head is a camera-film magazine floating weightlessly during orbit...
...evaporates or is absorbed by the soil before it reaches its destination, Israeli farmers are encouraged to apply a wax coating to their ditches to form a barrier against absorption. Like the ancient Nabataeans who once cultivated the desert, the Israelis also practice "runoff farming." But the Nabataeans used wadi beds as catch basins; the Israelis cut contoured strips and seal alternating strips with modern, petroleum-based chemicals. Water is caught in the sealed strip and runs off into the parallel strip where the crops are planted. "We have discovered little that is really new in water planning," says Yaacov...
Fulfillment. Foot survived to chart (on camel back) the Wadi Araba Desert between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, was blown out of a staff car on his way to demand the surrender of a Vichy French garrison in Syria, got stabbed in the back by an anti-British terrorist in Nigeria. He helped Nigerian politicians draft their constitution, and headed Jamaica's march to stability and independence. As for his last and most frustrating assignment, he says wryly that "anyone who understood Cyprus had been misinformed." Whatever the fate of that unhappy nation, Sir Hugh looks back...