inhabited by the nomadic Bedouin people and their flocks, with the uninhabited Moghra oasis being important in times of water scarcity during the dry seasons. The Qattara Depression contains many oil concessions, and several operational oil fields. The drilling companies include Royal Dutch Shell and the Apache Corporation. History Measurement The elevation of the depression was first measured in 1917 by an officer of the British Army leading a light car patrol into the region. The officer took readings of the height of the terrain with an aneroid barometer on behalf of John Ball, who later would also publish on the region. He discovered that the spring Ain EI Qattara lay about below sea level. Because the barometer got lost and the readings were so unexpected, this find had to be verified. During 1924–25, Ball again organised a survey party, this time with the sole purpose to triangulate the elevation on a westerly line from Wadi El Natrun. The survey was led by G.F. Walpole who had already distinguished himself by triangulating the terrain across from the Nile to Siwa via Bahariya. He confirmed the earlier readings and proved the presence of a huge area below sea level, with places as deep as below sea level. Knowledge about the geology of the Qattara Depression was greatly extended by Ralph Alger Bagnold, a British military commander and explorer, through numerous journeys in the 1920s and 1930s. Most notable was his 1927 journey during which he crossed the depression east to west and visited the oases of Qara and Siwa. Many of these trips used motor vehicles (Ford Model-Ts) which used special techniques for driving in desert conditions. These techniques were an important asset of the Long Range Desert Group which Bagnold founded in 1940. After the discovery of the depression, Ball published the triangulation findings about the region in October 1927 in The Geographical Journal. He also gave the region its name "Qattara" after the spring Ain EI Qattara where the first readings were taken. The name literally means "dripping" in Arabic. Six years later in 1933, Ball was the first to publish a proposal for flooding the region to generate hydroelectric power in his article "The Qattara Depression of the Libyan Desert and the possibility of its utilisation for power-production". World War II During World War II, the depression's presence shaped the 1st and 2nd Battles of El Alamein. It