IRRIGATION IN NORTHERN 

 SYRIA. 



TAPPING OP THE EUPHRATES, THE OREXTES 

 AND THE TIGRIS, TO FILL THE "GRANARIES 

 OF EUROPE". 



EDITOR IRRIGATION AGE. 



Dear Sir I have just received your esteemed letter of the 1st. 

 of June and I take this occasion to express to you my best thanks 

 for your courtesy in so kindly aiding me to make known the wants of 

 the Municipality of Aleppo in respect to irrigating implements. I 

 have received several communications from leading firms in America 

 who were made known to me through your kindness and I have laid 

 their proposals before His Excellency Raif Pacha, Governor General 

 of the Velayet of Aleppo who will consider them fully at the next 

 general meeting of the council on behalf of the Municipality of the 

 City of Aleppo when I shall have much pleasure to write you further 

 on the matter. As you express the desire to be informed of the changes 

 and progress being made in irrigation in these parts I will endeavor 

 to review the matter briefly and I trust that this will serve in a manner 

 as a guide to such American firms as may wish to introduce new im- 

 plements into these parts. 



The whole of Northern Syria including the vast plains lying in the 

 districts of Aleppo and Adana, the immense water courses of the Eu- 

 phrates, the Orontes, and the Tigris, are possessed of excellent soil 

 and. were there means of obtaining an adequate supply of water, 

 these lands would truly become to-day, as they were of yore, the 

 "granary of Europe". Nevertheless water is not wanting: on the con- 

 trary it is abundant, one has but to dig a few feet to obtain a copious 

 volume of clear water, while the rivers themselves flow invitingly by, 

 seeming to challenge the cultivator of the soil to draw therefrom the 

 source of wealth and plenty but, alas! they call in vain. He sees but 

 cannot avail himself of this heavenly gift, for to him tne complicated 

 mechanism of the "West is but a dream unrealizable and unattainable. 

 The various turbines, the Dumont pumps, the different lifts, the mighty 

 steam-engine, are but hollow sounds to his ears, nor would he approach 

 them without a feeling of doubt and dread. The simple person as is 

 the farm laborer fears and distrusts all that is above the level of his 

 understanding, nothing terrifies him so much as the word "machine". 

 And he is right ! For in the desert where he lives hundreds of miles from 

 the capital, the complications of most irrigating apparatus would be an 



