Science: Abode of Loneliness

Long has the desert of Ruba-el-Khali ("Abode of Loneliness"), wild, waterless, utterly unknown, remained "the white blot on the map." The southern interior of Arabia, centre of population and geography of the Old World, circled by ocean liners and near airplane routes, its 300,000 sandy square miles have challenged and beaten back explorers since the Middle Ages. No European had seen its mysterious, lethal interior until this winter hardy Englishman Bertram Thomas trekked 900 mi. across its arid wastes, from Dhofar on the Arabian Sea to Dohah on the Persian Gulf,...