4.98 REPORT—1905. 
tion are now being adapted for perennial irrigation. Many new canals have had 
to be dug, others to be deepened. Many new masonry works have had to be built. 
It is probable the works will be finished in 1908. There will then have been spent 
on the great dam at Assuan, the minor one at Assiut, and the new canals of distribu- 
tion in Upper Egypt about six and a half millions sterling. For this sum the 
increase of land rental will be about 2,637,000/7., and its sale value will be in- 
creased by about 26,570,000/. 
Drainage. 
In the great irrigation systems which I have been describing for a long time 
little or no attention was paid to drainage. It was taken for granted that the 
water would be absorbed, or evaporated, and get away somehow without doing any 
harm. This may hold good for high-lying lands, but alongside of these are low- 
lying lands, into which the irrigation water from above will percolate and produce 
waterlogging and marsh. Along with the irrigation channel should be con- 
structed the drainage channel, and Sir W. Willcocks, than whom there is no better 
authority on this subject, recommends that the capacity of the drain should be 
one-third that of the canal. The two should be kept carefully apart—the canal 
following the ridges, the drain following the hollows of the country, and one in no 
case obstructing the other. This subject of drainage early occupied the attention 
of the English engineers in Egypt. In the last twenty years many hundred miles 
of drains have been excavated, some as large as 50 feet width of bed and 10 feet 
deep. 
Irrigation in America. 
If it is to Italy that we should look for highly finished irrigation works and 
careful water distribution, and to India and Egypt for widespreading tracts of 
watered land, it is to America that we naturally look for rapid progress and bold 
engineering. In the Western States of America there is a rainfall of less than 20 
inches per annum, the consequence of which is a very rapid development of irriga~ 
tion works. In 1889 the irrigation of these Western States amounted to 3,564,416 
acres. In 1900 it amounted to 7,539,545 acres. Now it is at least 10,000,000 
acres. The land in these States sells from 10s, to 1/. per acre if unirrigated. With 
irrigation the same land fetches 8/. 10s. per acre. The works are often rude and 
of a temporary nature, the extensive use of timber striking a foreigner from the 
Old World. Some of the American canals are on a large scale. The Idaho Com- 
pany’s canal discharges 2,585 cubic feet, the Turlook Canal in California 1,500 
cubic feet, and the North Colorado Canal 2,400 cubic feet per second. These canals 
have all been constructed by corporations or societies, in no case by Government. 
On an average it has cost about 32s. per acre to bring the water on to the land, 
and a water-rate is charged of from 2J. 8s. to 4/. per acre, the farmer paying in 
addition a rate of from 2s. to 10s. per acre annually for maintenance. Distri- 
butary channels of less than 5 feet wide cost less than 100/., up to 10 feet wide 
about 150/. per mile. 
The Introduction of Irrigation into a Country. 
It is evident that there are many serious considerations to be taken into 
account before entering on any large project for irrigation. Statistics must be 
carefully collected of rainfall, of the sources of water supply available, and of the 
amount of that rainfall which it is possible to store and utilise. The water should 
be analysed if there is any danger of its being brackish. Its temperature should 
be ascertained. It should be considered what will be the effect of pouring water 
on the soil, for it is not always an unmixed benefit. A dry climate may be 
changed into a moist, and fever and ague may follow. In India there are large 
tracts of heavy black soil, which with the ordinary rainfall produce excellent 
crops une years out of ten, and where irrigation would rather do harm than good. 
But in the tenth year the rains fail, and without artificial irrigation the soil will 
yield nothing. So terrible may be the misery caused by that tenth year of 
