BLUE NILE DAM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17567, 18 June 1925, Page 9

BLUE NILE DAM.

GREAT WORK FINISHED. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyngbt Ileuter's Teles-rams. CAIRO, June 16. The great dam at Makwar, a few miles north of Sennar on the Blue Nile, has been opened. It cost £10.000.00?;, It is expected that the irrigation canals will be finished very shortly, enabling cotton-growing at Gczira to get into full swing. “ A COLOSSAL VICTORY.” The Makwar dam is the largest in the world, and it is hoped by means of it to reclaim a million acres cf waste land so that it will grow cotton for the Lancashire mills. The dam is a spectacular piece cf engineering work. The idea was mooted in 1899 by Sir William Garston. and a few years before the outbreak cf the war the work was put in the hands of a foreign firm of contractors. The work, however, did not progress favourably, and the Sudan Government asked Mr F. T. IJopkinson, a distinguished engineer, to inspect the works, which he condemned. The Sudan Government called for tenders, and Messrs S. Pearson and Son, a well-known British firm, obtained the contract for £4,000.000, a cost which has been much exceeded. The site cf the dam is at Makwar, a few miles south of Sennar. on the banks of the Blue Nile, 170 miles south of Khartoum. At this point the river is divided by a small island in the

centre of the stream, of which the cnineers made good use, as they were able to deal with one -section of the stream at a time. The western arm of the river was first of all laid bare by temporary earthern dams above and below the island, thus diverting the flow of the river into the eastern arm. Then hundreds of men were set to work to dig out the riverbed, in order to get down to the solid rock. In places the workers had to penetrate more than forty feet below the level of the original bed of the stream. Then a temporary wooden gantry was built along the site cf the dam, on which the stone trains ran, and large cranes and other heavy machinery stood. The cranes were used for lifting the excavated material and lowering the heavy stones for the building of the great retaining wall. The next portion of the work, the construction of the wall in the eastern arm, presented difficulties. The engineers wished to complete the main part of the wall before the floods, which begin to rise in the river at about the beginning of June, poured down the river with irresistible force. They had nine months in which to build up the retaining wall sufficiently high to allow the remaining work to be continued while the rver flowed through the sluices. This great task was completed just in time, over 19,000 natives being employed, working night and day. And now the huge dam, whieh weighs a million tons, is finished British engineers have won a colossal victory over the forces of Nature in the heart of the Sudan desert. The result will be the formation of a lake fifty miles long, two miles wide, at an average depth of 56 feet. The quantity of water held up will be 23,896,000 cubic feet, which will be conveyed by means cf thousands of miles of ..channels to the semi-parched land, and some 300,000 acres of waste land will lp>e brought into cultivation immediately. and eventually a total area of a million acres will be planted with the finest cotton, and a production of forty million pounds weight per annum is expected. The dam has a total length of 3300 metres, just over two miles, about 1000 metres ionger than the famous Assuan dain. The maximum height of the wall is over 120 feet, with a width at the I>ase of 90 feet, and at the top of lo feet. Over 15,408,000 cubic feet of masonry and 100.000 tons of Portland cement were used in its erection, and the top of it is to carry a railway line.