THE DAMMING OF THE NILE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2355, 13 April 1899, Page 56

THE DAMMING OF THE NILE.

The Nile, in far-off geological periods, ■was a much larger river, but then it still had the same annual surcharge of waters, which we call "High Nile." This is proved by. great banks and terraces of etratifie'd mud, high and dry above the highest Nile

of these days. . . . There were traditions and historical tales of the early Egrvptians having stored up the floods, tod there are beds of ancient canals that the Nile waters could not now supply, even at flood. No 'traces of Such ancient dams exist, but thera raav Ibava been natural

barriers &f rock, now worn away, which held up the water to supply these ancient canals. Egypt generally bears two crops in the year ; it can be made to give thre.e ctods and even four in some districts. In order to give- perennial irrigation to Egypt, and increase the yield of the cultivated land, much more water is needed than before. Nine-tenths of the Nile flood goes to the sea. Store it up somehow, and the Delta will yield tluec or four crops a year, and the thirsty land will never want supplies. This thought must have occurred to anyone standing on the spot 10 miles below Cairo, where now stands the great Barrage, the only existing dam throughout the whole length of the Nile. But the French, who made it (but did not make it do its work), give the credit of its inception to the great Napoleon. . . .

The rule of Napoleon was cut short, but his idea had been published, and bore fiuit In time. Mehemet Ali, the famous Egyptian leader in the early part of this century, had shaken off the blighting Turkish rule, whilst his wars and his attempts to make Egypt a great nation, combined with his own extravagance, caused a great demand for money. To supply his exhausted exchequer, ha introduced the growth of cotton, sugar, rice, and other props new to Egypt, requiring water in enormous quantities, and at the very time when the Nile was low. Then he bethought him of Napoleon's project. Various French engineers were summoned /to carry this out: One ventured to suggest a great stone embankment. " Well, then," said Mehemet Ali, "you have those great \iseless heaps of &tone — the Pyramids — use them tip, every block, for the piu'pose." The engineer knew that infamy would attach to his name if he agreed to this proposition, and asked some day 3to make calculations. His master would only allow him one day. When the engineer again appeared, he said the cost of transporting the stone from the Pyramids would be greater than to quarry it anew in the mountains. " Then let the Pyramids stay, and quarry new stone." said the tyrant, and so the monuments were saved." Mehemet Ali planned his Barrage in 1833, bus the plague came, killed his fellaheen (labourers) by thousands and thousands, and so even the tyrant had to cease work 'for several years. It was not therefore till 1837 that "the actual Barrage we now see was begun. It was Mehemet Ali. by the way, who made the great Mamoudieh Canal conveying the Nile to Alexandria. He tore villagers, men, women, and children from their homes, and compelled them (under the lash and unpaid) to work without tools, burrowing the earth out with their hands. The canal, 36 miles long, was made in one year ; 250,000 were employed, but 25,000 of them died at the work.

The existing Barrage was designed and planned by a Frenchman, Mougel Bey, who had been long in the Viceroy's service, and who must have been a man of genius and of considerable artistic taste. It is probable that the foundations intended by such a talented man would have Tieen properly laid had he been allowed to employ skilled workmen, but he had only thousands of poor half-starved fellaheen, and when the work "dragged, extra thousands were sent down, only to spoil what had been done, or do indifferently anything new. Millions of tons of stones and gravel were thrown into the river bed, and on this cement was poured, often under water. On such unreliable substructure was piled the vast dyke of masonry, pierced by 120 arches, carrying sluices and roadway, and upwards of a mile in length. Skilled labour had t« be now employed, and the cost became enormous. Mehemet Ali died in 1848, before it was finished. Under his successors the work went on. At length, in 1861, it was declared completed, bub no one ventured to use it to dam up the full pressure of High Nile. The river was only kept back enough to raise the level a few feet. However, in 1863, it was thought that the dam would by this time have been consolidated, and some venturesome engineer closed the sluices and let the waters rise. Immediately the unfortunate barrier cracked in several places, and began actually to move down stream ! The sluices were all quickly opened, and the movement stopped. The extent of its northward progress can still be seen, about 100 ft of the parapet being out of line to this day. Various experts were called in during the next few years. Some, like Sir John Fowler, suggested spending £1,500,000 more to save it. Tt had already cost fow millions sterling. Not only did the masonry threaten to move off to the Mediterranean, but the cills cracked, and springs of water began to boil up everywhere below the arches. Other experts advocated the whole affair being blown up with gunpowder, but even this and the removal of the vast masses of masonry to free the passage of the Nile would have cost £500,000. Time went on. A costly staff was maintained to keep the sluices always open, and to be constantly repairing the whole work. Then came the events of 1882, and with them the British arrived upon the scene, and Lord Dufferin was sent from Constantinople to advise a plan of action to save

the country after the disastrous effects of Arabi's mutiny. His masterly reports to Lord Granville have been published as State papers, and his advice undoubt edly saved Egypt from hopeless ruin and insolvency. All the revenue of Egypt comes practically from the Nile, and Lord Dufferin's wise counsel to borrow some of our Indian officials and irrigation engineers was carried out, and Sir William Garstin, Sir Colin Moncrieff, Sir Alfred Milner, Major*" R. H. Brown, and Mr Willcocks, among others, came into power. Sir Colin Moncrieff and Mr Willcocks were asked if the Barrage should be abandoned and destroyed at a cost of half a million. They spent much time in boring and experimenting, and at length Sir Colin Moncrieff reported that for v similar sum he would undertake to save the structure. Lord Cromer backed him up, the work was done, and soon the Damietta section was completed and at work. Then the other section was taken in hand. The Barrage has been in full work ever since, and has long ago repaid in increased water-supply every penny of the money expended on its salvation. The Barrage, spanning the two arms of the Nile, is upwards of a mile in length, and consists of 120 arches, with double sluices in each, and a broad roadway along the top. The sluices allow the muddy deposit to free itself, so that the reservoir can never fill up, and yet the 20ft or 30ft of water can be dammed up at the proper season. Stoney's patent sluices are now being applied, by which a child, by moving a lever, can elevate or depress a mass of solid steel, 20ft by 12ft, with all the pressure of the Nile upon it.— JOHN WARD, F.S.A., in Pearson's Magazine.