THE HISTORY OF IRRIGATION. 3 



to have been the first man who acquired the knowledge 

 of civil engineering and applied his learning particularly 

 to hydraulics, for he introduced irrigation in the valley 

 of the Nile by means of systemic engineering. He built 

 a great reservoir in a natural catchment basin and con- 

 structed canals in one vast system. Seti was no doubt 

 the first person to sink an artesian well, for the Greek 

 historians speak of this as "the well from which water 

 flowed over the top." He used the well in supplying 

 water to the great temple of Karnak. Sesostris, one of 

 the most illustrious kings of antiquity, who reigned in 

 Egypt 1491 B. C., had a great number of canals cut for 

 the purpose of trade and irrigation, and is said to have 

 designed the first canal which established communica- 

 tion between the Mediterranean and Red Sea. The old- 

 est monument at Thebes has a representation of a naked 

 fellah under a dom palm tree drawing water from the 

 Nile with a well sweep or shadoof, a reproduction of 

 which is shown in Figure 1, and the fellah of to-day does 

 it the same way, except that two or more usually work 

 together on a large turn beam. 



By the time that Moses, the great leader and law- 

 giver, appeared to lead the enslaved children out of 

 Egyptian slavery, irrigation had made great progress in 

 a general way, for in the book of Deuteronomy we are 

 told something of their agricultural methods in these 

 words : "For the land whither thou goest in to possess 

 it is not as the land of Egypt from whence ye came 

 out, where thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it with 

 thy foot as a garden of herbs. But the land whither 

 ye go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys and 

 drinketh water of the rain of heaven." There are in 

 Egypt sections of country that have been in constant 

 use for over four thousand years and still the soil shows 

 no sign of wearing out, for such is the nature of the 

 water of the Nile that the annual deposit of sediment 



