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The width of the Kafr Zayat bridge on the Rosetta branch is 530 
metres, while the old Benha bridge on the Damietta branch is 285 
metres. The average depth of water in flood in the two branches may 
be taken as 7 metres. 
The barrage at the head of the Rosetta branch has 61 openings of 5 
metres each and one lock 15 metres wide and the other 12 metres. 
They are all open in high flood. The Damietta barrage has 61 openings 
of 5 metres and one lock of 12 metres. The depth of water in a high 
flood is 9 metres. The Rosetta barrage has 10 openings too few, and 
the Damietta barrage 15 openings too many. 
Before the construction of the Barrage in the middle of the 19th cen- 
tury, the maximum discharges of the two branches at the head of 
the Delta were nearly the same. A little lower down, however, the 
Rosetta branch had considerably more water than the Damietta. About 
2 kilometres below the Barrage there was a branch called the Shalakan 
branch which flowed from the Damietta into the Rosetta branch. 
About 20 kilometres below the Barrage, the Bahr Ferounieh took 
about J the total discharge of the Damietta branch and led it into the 
Rosetta branch. Both these were closed by Mehemet Ali, while at the 
same time the Bahrs Sirsawiah, Baguria, Shebin, Khadrawiah, Moes, 
Um-Salama, Bohia and Sogair were also completely closed or provided 
with regulating heads, which very considerably diminished their 
discharge. During the time that they had been open the Damietta 
branch had lost water at every kilometre as it approached the sea, and 
though 400 metres wide at the head it had a channel only 200 metres 
wide in its lower reaches. The Rosetta branch on the other hand 
received the tail waters of many Bahrs and had only one escape, the 
Bahr Saidi near its tail. 
The closing of so many escapes on the Damietta branch has caused 
this branch in its upper reaches to carry so much water that its 
tail reaches can not carry it without having the surface of the water 
raised inordinately and dangerously above the level of the country. 
An examination of the longitudinal sections will show that while the 
Rosetta branch in its middle reaches is from 1.50 to 2.00 metres above 
the level of the country in a high flood, the Damietta branch is from 
2.50 to 3.00 metres. They will also show how the slope in the early 
reaches of the Damietta branch is considerably less than that in the 
early reaches of the Rosetta branch, which results in the gradual silting up 
of the former as already noted. The Karanain regulator at the head of 
