DAM 



1693 



DAMASCUS 



a member of the Manhattan Opera Company, 

 New York. Since then he has been identified 

 with the Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Com- 

 pany and is generally recognized as one of the 

 best of the younger French tenors. Among the 

 many roles which he has to his credit he has 

 won greatest renown as Don Jose in Carmen, 

 Samson in Samson and Delilah, Romeo in 

 Romeo and Juliet, and Hoffman in the Tales 

 of Hoffman. 



DAM, an artificial barrier to the flow of 

 water, is a device older than history. Never- 

 theless, it is just entering on a period of use- 

 fulness until recently little suspected. The 

 great Assuan dam has added several hundred 

 square miles to the arable lands of Egypt; it 

 holds back thousands of millions of gallons 

 of the water of the Nile, to be used in irriga- 

 tion. The dam at Bassano, in Alberta, is a 

 part of the largest irrigation system in Amer- 

 ica. The Arrowrock dam, in Idaho, the high- 

 est dam in the world, is one of several new 

 irrigation dams which store billions of gallons 

 of water for the United States irrigation service. 

 The Croton dam, one of the highest masonry 

 dams, controls New York City's water supply. 

 The dam across the Mississippi River from 

 Illinois to Keokuk, Iowa, generates half as 

 much electric power as Niagara. Another im- 

 portant dam is the Gatun, which maintains 

 the level of water in the Panama Canal. All 

 of these great dams have been completed in 

 the present century. 



The earliest dams were earthen, and many 

 modern dams, including the Bassano and Gatun 

 dams, are built largely of earth. Timber, in 

 the use of which the beavers anticipated man, 

 makes a very durable dam, but one not suited 

 for high structures. Steel has been used in a 

 few dams. As the pressure of the water against 

 a dam is in direct proportion to its depth, the 

 highest dams are built of masonry or concrete. 

 The Arrowrock, 354 feet high, is of concrete; 

 the Shoshone, in Wyoming, 328.4 feet high, is 

 the world's highest masonry dam. 



The dikes of Holland, the levees of the 

 Mississippi and the artificial banks of the Yel- 

 low River in China are dams built; not to util- 

 ize water, but to prevent damage from floods. 



Related Subjects. Wider Information on the 

 topic of dams may be gained from the following 

 articles in these volumes : 



Alberta Irrigation 



Aqueduct, (Illustration) Jetty 



Assuan Keokuk Dam 



Canada Levee 



Idaho Mississippi River 



DAMASCUS, damas'kus, one of the most 

 ancient cities of the world, now the capital of 

 the Turkish province of Syria, in Asia. Prac- 

 tically nothing is known of its origin; but 

 that it was a place of some importance even 

 in the days of Abraham is indicated by Bib- 

 lical references (see Genesis XIV, 15). There 

 still stands, according to some authorities, the 

 house of Naaman, the leper, who thought the 

 waters of the River 

 Abana better able to wash 

 him clean than those of 

 the Jordan (// Kings V). 

 The Abana, now called 

 the Barrada, still waters 

 the beautiful gardens and 

 orchards of Damascus. 

 Towards this city Paul 

 was proceeding when he 

 was halted by the blind- 



OLD EAST GATE AND WATCH TOWER 



ing light of conversion. There, in "the street 

 called Straight," still stands the house of Judas, 

 in which the disciple Ananias found the peni- 

 tent apostle (Acts IX). 



As of old, the streets are still mean and 

 narrow, the outside of the houses gloomy, for- 

 bidding, and in many cases unsanitary. The 

 interior of the better-class dwellings, however, 

 is in contrast with the sordid exterior. Beauti- 

 ful courts paved with marble, ornamented with 

 trees and shrubs, fountains spraying cooling 

 waters, and refreshing shade await the vis- 

 itor who passes through the outer door. Many 

 homes are furnished in luxurious style, with 

 not a few modern Western appointments, yet 

 Damascus remains the most Oriental in man- 

 ners and customs of all Eastern cities. To the 

 visitor the bazaars of Damascus are of intense 

 interest. They consist of small stores on each 

 side of covered streets, very similar to modern 

 arcades. 



