WATER-WORKS OP EGYPT. 317 



mon for ages in Eastern countries of flooding their 

 grounds with water previously to sowing their most 

 precious crops. How these husbandmen first became 

 acquainted with the art of irrigation, we are not told ; 

 but there is much reason in the supposition that the 

 annual overflowing of the river Nile, and the benefits 

 derived to Egypt by that means, first suggested the 

 idea of artificial irrigation to the Egyptians, and that 

 other nations borrowed from them the fruits of their 

 experience. However this may be, the Egyptians them- 

 selves practised the art on a scale of such surpassing 

 magnitude, that their canals and vast artificial lakes 

 have been deemed " more praiseworthy monuments of 

 their genius than all the temples and cemeteries with 

 which they have covered their country." Various 

 hydraulic machines were in ancient use, some of which 

 appear to have resembled the water wheels of the fen- 

 districts of England, and to have been worked by the 

 feet of men, after the manner of the tread-mill. Doubt- 

 less this laborious method of watering the ground was 

 common in Egypt during the sojourn of the children of 

 Israel in that land, for Moses drew the following re- 

 markable contrast between the climate and customs of 

 Egypt, where rain seldom falls, and the more genial 

 climate of the promised land. "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 water edst 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," 

 Dent. xi. 10, 11. 



The method of raising and distributing water in 

 Egypt at the present time demands a great amount of 

 labour. Water from the Nile is collected at certain 

 times in large cisterns on the banks of the river. For 

 this purpose the screw of Archimedes was formerly 

 used, but now leathern buckets, or Persian wheels, are 

 employed. The latter machines are placed all along 



