A NARROW ESCAPE FOR THE PYRAMIDS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XV, 14 April 1900, Page 708

A NARROW ESCAPE FOR THE PYRAMIDS.

Ail article of considerable importance, on "'rhe Conquest of the Nile,” is contributed by .Mr John Ward, F.S.A., to the February number of the "Windsor Magazine.” It is heavily illustrated with unique photos, which show till* progress of the stupendous undertaking we are now engaged upon in Egypt in order to control the waters of the Nile. "The place to see these modern wonders of the land of Egypt is at the Barrage, a few miles north of Cairo, where the Nile divides into two great arms known as the Rosetta and Damictta branches of the river. Napoleon Bonaparte gets credit for having first suggested that a great dam built at this point would double the cultivable land of the Delta (Lower Egypt). But few of Napoleon's grand ideas were allowed to be realised. It was printed somewhere that Napoleon had originally suggested the Barrage, and Mehemet Ali, as soon as he had his power consolidated by getting free, of Turkish dominance, seems to have set about trying to ’bind the Nile' in this wav. Mehemet Ali's object was a purely selfish -me. fie wanted to have enough water to enable him io grow cotton and sugar-eane. of which he retained a monopoly, and which he was convinced would double the income of his personal exchequer. He sent to France for engineers, and many suggestions were made unavailiugly. He found, after various attempts, however. a French engineer—afterwards known as Mougel Bey—clever enough and Milling to carry out his ideas. Mougel was a talented man. had he been given proper skilled labour to carry his designs out. A previous engineer had been ordered by the tyrant to •use up those useless heaps of stone, the Pyramids,’ to make a great weir to bar and raise the river's level, and to store up the waters of the inundation for supplying the Delta and increasing the area of the soil. The Pyramids had a very narrow escape; but the engineer boldly told a lie. and saved them. He said it would cost less to quarry new stone.”