45— IRRIGATION IN EGYPT AND IN SOUTH AFRICA. 

 By F a. Hurley, F.C.H., A.M.I.CE. 



So much has been written of late years about Egypt and the 

 Nile, that it is safe to assume that it is now a matter of common 

 knowledge that the Nile has been the creative agency by which 

 the land of the Pharoahs has been evolved, and is almost the sole 

 means by which life is sustained in a country that, without it, 

 would be as barren and uninhabitable as the surrounding desert. 



Since the overthrow of the Khalifa at the battle of Omdurman 

 in 1899, much has been learnt about the basin of the Upper Nile 

 that was previously unknown, and any thorough description of 

 the irrigation question in Egypt at the present day, involves a con- 

 sideration of the whole river from its sources at the Great Lakes in 

 Central Africa and Abyssinia to the sea. Even the most meagre 

 description of the river would, however, require much more space 

 than is usually considered ample for a single paper. The historical 

 development of irrigation in Egypt, moreover, took place in Egypt 

 proper ; that which depends on the Upper Nile is only in the course 

 'Of development at the present day. 



It is proposed to describe the irrigation system of the country 

 and its development more from the aspect of the political economist 

 than from that of the Engineer, and therefore no attempt is made 

 here to deal with the general questions of the Nile. The present 

 paper deals only with irrigation in Egypt proper, that is, that part 

 of the Nile basin between the first cataract at Assouan and the 

 Mediterranean Sea. In writing it, the author has drawn liberally 

 and sometimes verbatim on most of the literature that has appeared 

 on the subject, notably : — 



The Delta Barrage, by Sir H. Brown. 



England in Egypt, by Lord Milner. 



Egyptian Irrigation, by Sir W. Willcocks. 



Administration Reports of the Egyptian Public Works 

 Department. 



From Assouan to Cairo the Nile flows in a narrow valley, 

 flanked, north of Luxor (the ancient Thebes), by high cliffs of white 

 limestone, from the tops of which the true desert extends east and 

 west. Between the foot of the cliffs and the actual channel of the 

 river lie, first, a narrow strip of desert, and then a belt of cultivated 

 soil which has been deposited by the overflowing of the Nile during 

 many thousands of years. 



At Cairo the cliffs recede from the river, and the valley opens 

 out into the broad deltaic formation of Lower Egypt ; the country 

 between Cairo and Assouan being known as Upper Egypt. A few 

 miles north of Cairo the Nile bifurcates into two main branches, 

 called, from the names of the towns at their mouths, the Damietta 

 and Rosetta branches. 



It is almost needless to say that, as the cultivable land of Egypt 

 has been formed by a continuous deposit from the Nile as it slopes 

 away from the river to the foot of the desert hills. 



