AGRICULTURE IX THE, NILE VALLEY 



GODFREY SYKES 



The Desert Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona 



The amazing and apparently everlasting fertility of the Nile 

 \'alley which has always been a favorite theme of tra\'elers in 

 Egypt, possesses a special interest for those who are working 

 toward an understanding of the problems incidental to the recla- 

 mation and development of arid areas. 



Lender present social conditions matters are at rest along the 

 Xile, and this has rendered possible those vast engineering works, 

 designed for the conser^'ation and utilization of the ri\'er water, 

 which represent the last word in irrigation practice, and for the 

 moment serve as models for the rest of the world. 



An\' adequate conception of Egypt, however, must always 

 take into consideration, in addition to these modern develop- 

 ments, the real economic backbone of the country: the teeming 

 population of the hundreds of mud-walled villages, whose methods 

 of irrigation and intensive cultivation, primitive though they 

 may be, are still responsible for the larger part of her present 

 prosperit}^ 



In common with all other rivers which combine heavily silt- 

 laden flood water with a regularly fluctuating seasonal flow, the 

 Nile is continually building for itself an elevated trough above the 

 general level of its valley floor, and this fact has in great measure 

 determined the character of irrigation evolved for the adjacent 

 land. The upbuilding of its bed must perforce go on but slowly, 

 because the gradient of the river through lower Eg^-pt is but 

 slight. It has nevertheless, amounted, according to reliable 

 records from the various nilometers, to from 12 to 15 cm. per 

 century during historic times, and has sufficed to keep pace with 

 the aggregate gain of the valley floor; and so the banks of the 

 river are in general higher than the ground immediately behind 



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