HUGE DAM IN NILE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 19 October 1942, Page 4

HUGE DAM IN NILE

A SOLDIER'S DESCRIPTION A description of the Aswan Dam in the upper Nile Valley is given by a soldier writing to relatives at Upper Moutere- He wrote: The dam is 1 1-3 miles long and I would estimate its height at between 120 ft and 150 ft, and it is wide enough on top for three cars to travel abreast- The lake thus formed is 180 miles long and is supposed to contain 60,000.000 cubic meters of water. The dam is fitted with 180 sluices and each one when fully open lets away 640 gallons of water per second but at the time less than half were open. On the right end are locks to allow the Nile boats to pass on up the river. There are seven locks altogether and it takes about two hours for a boat to pass through them all. The only purpose that the dam serves is to regulate the supply of the lower Nile Valley. In winter time the upper Nile is in flood for about three months and the dam is large enough to store water to supply the lower part of the valley with water for irrigation, etc, for the remaining nine months of the year, thus allowing the farmers to grow three crops a year instead of the oneThey were discussing utilising the force of water from the sluices for generating electricity prior to the war, but for the present that has been abandoned.