r l HE IREIGA T10N A GE. 93 



plenty of water all the year round for this land and three or four crops 

 may be planted and harvested. 



While the English started their planning for storing the Nile 

 waters that now escape into the Mediterranean at flood time, in 1883, 

 it was not until last year that the work was actually started. Now it 

 is being pushed with all possible vigor, an army of 15,000 workmen 

 being engaged on the task. Most of these are peasant laborers who 

 are paid not over 15 cents a day. 



All sorts of plans for recovering the desired water supply were 

 submitted to the gove r nment by American, English and French engi- 

 neers. What is conceded even in England by unprejudiced experts to- 

 have been the best plan was proposed by an American, Cope White- 

 house of Newport. Mr. Whitehouse, who has spent many years in 

 Egypt, discovered a great irregular depression in the desert about 6Q 

 miles from Cairo to the southward. He proposes that this depession 

 capable of storing a surface area of 250 square miles of water, should 

 be utilized as a reservoir. Joseph's canal, the great irrigation ditch 

 dug out of the sand by the patriarch, leaves the Nile at the town of 

 Assint, 160 miles south of Cairo. It feeds and brings life totheFayum. 

 a low lying oasis to the southwest of Cairo, containing hundreds 

 of thousands of acres, all carefully cultivated. Mr. Whitehouse pro- 

 posed b} T means of a ditch ten miles long, carried through soft soil, to 

 tap Joseph's canal, store the Nile water at flood in the depression he 

 had discovered, and by means of gates release it as required for irri- 

 gating the delta and the ; 'one crop" land. 



The plan was rejected by the Englishmen in control of affairs, for 

 the reason, it has been openly said, that they had no desire to divide 

 honors with an outsider. 



Instead, the Assuan dam plan was undertaken. The foundation 

 stone was laid on Feb. 12, 1899. It is to be completed under the con- 

 tract on July 1, 1903. The dam will be built of granite ashlen, quar- 

 ried from the same ledges out of which the obelisk, in Central park, 

 New York, was cut thousands of years ago. It will be a mile and a 

 quarter long, with the approaches 76 feet high and 35 feet wide at the 

 top, where there will be a fine drive and carriageway. A thousand 

 million gallons of water will be stored behind this monster structure. 

 To support this enormous weight, at a level of 46 feet above the water 

 on the other side of the dam, special means of construction had to 

 be planned. In consequence this dam is not only by far the greatest 

 in the world, but it. is unique in other respects. The greatest difficulty 

 that had to be overcome arose out of the fact that a solid masonry 

 dam could not be built To confine the Nile at high flood was impos- 

 sible. Therefore, the dam had also to be a waterway, so that the river 

 could be allowed to run through the structure practically unimpeded 

 at certain periods. To make this possible the dam will be built in 

 the shape of a bridge with piers set close together. When the flood 



