NA TURh 



557 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1920. 



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The Nile, Egypt, and the Sudan. 



THIi latest publication of the I'ublic Works 

 Ministry of Egypt is of more than usual 

 interest, for it not only appears at a time when 

 work is being resumed after being stopped, or at 

 least largely restricted, during the war, but it also 

 sets forth a large collection of data relating to 

 projects which have met with criticism in some 

 quarters during the last three years. A year ago 

 th( \il< I'r. >jt(ts Commission was appointed to 

 nport upon the physical data upon which the 

 <rigineering plans were based, and this Commis- 

 .sion ha.s now unanimously accepted Sir Murdoch 

 I icDonald's evidence and approved his designs 

 1 the .series of irrigation works described in the 

 II port before us. 



A small amount of rain falls annually on the 

 Miditerrane.TH shore of Kgypt, but this diminislics 

 r.ipidly as lUthwards, .so that it is of no 



I'ue to agrauiture, except for the winter crops 

 i^ed by nomad tribes west of Alexandria. All 

 I lie water that the increasingly intensive cultiva- 

 tion of Egypt demands must be sup[>lied by the 

 Nile, and recent surveys have established th.it 

 there are about ^\ million .n rt s uhn h c ,m he [)i r- 

 ennially cultivated if the nccessnry wit. r i> forth 

 coming at all seasons. 



Fed by the summer rains on iIk Aii, sh,; i.,;. 

 tableland, the Nile begins to rise in ligvpt in 

 June, and reaches its maximum level in September, 

 after which it falls slowly, the contribution of the 

 White Nile delaying the reduction of the levels to 



-L!JL'*iiS' P"»"^" '^1' *»" Murdoch MacDonalil, Advittr, .Minhlry of 

 Hblic Wofkt, Igypi. (Cairo: (;oT«rnm«n« FiaM, i9«o.) Pric* n P,T. 



NO. 2670, VOL. 106] 



a very appreciable extent. The task, therefore, 

 of those in whose charge the control of the Nile 

 water rests is to utilise the surplus water of the 

 flood or of the river in the early stages of its 

 fall in order to supplement the supply in the early 

 summer, when the discharge is wholly inadequate 

 to meet the demands of agriculture. From 1886, 

 the earliest year for which statistics of the culti- 

 vated areas are available, there has been a steady 

 increase in the area perennially cultivated, until 

 now the area is greater by one-third, or more than 

 a million feddans," than it was in 1886 As some 

 land is double-cropped, the total crop area now 

 requiring water is somewhat more than 7J million 

 feddans. 



While this rapid extension of the area under 

 cultivation has been taking place, the population 

 of Egypt has been increasing at a notable rate, 

 and while it stood at 7 J millions in 1886, it num- 

 bered i2Jt millions in 1917; consequently, the 

 cultivated area per head of population, which in 

 1886 was 065 feddan, in 1917 was 042 feddan, 

 and the crop area had fallen from o 89 feddan to 

 o-6o feddan. Thus one result of an improved 

 administration of the country has been to increase 

 the demands upon its irrigation in much the same 

 proportion as new projects could be designed and 

 carried out. 



For the first decade after the reconquest of 

 the Sudan in 1898 the lands horcltring on the 

 Nile and those areas where the summer rains 

 made cultivation practicable sufficed for the sup- 

 port of the population which remained after fifteen 

 years of Dervish rule. In 1903 experiments were 

 inade to test the feasibility of producing, with the 

 aid of irrigation, crops suitable for export, such 

 as wheat, sugar, and cotton ; and the area which 

 might be so cuhivatcd in the Sudan was fixed at 

 10,000 feddans, an amount which was increased 

 to 20,000 feddans when the Aswan Dam had been 

 raised to its full height. It was now evident that 

 the Sudan could in time utilise a much larger area 

 of the fertile Gczira, the tract between the Blue 

 and \\ liii( Niles, if sufficient water could be taken 

 from the Nile without prejudicing the supply re- 

 quired by Egypt ; and the projects now described, 

 which have been in preparation s-ru 1 In i.k 

 the war, have been designed to supply water l(jr 

 an area of 300,000 feddans in the Sudan, while 

 safeguanliiiL; at the same time Egypt's require- 

 ments. 



Accurate gauging of the volume discharged by 

 the Nile at all stages was of the first importance, 



'' A Mdan la aqsivalaal to i«]l acfw. 



