— 103 — 
with powerful companies, the most promising seem to be those which 
are connected with the 6th cataract. This cataract seems well suited 
for the construction of a solid dam to create power and develop elec- 
tricity to work pumps between it and Khartoum, and some 30 kilometres 
up the Blue Kile ; and if possible to allow of a canal down the left 
bank of the Kile as far as Berber. This project might be studied with 
advantage and a greater amount of water storage for summer use be 
also obtained. 
Another scheme is the construction of a double barrage and weir 
near Wad Medani on the Blue Kile, with canals irrigating the Gezireh 
and the right bank of the Blue Kile and the Kile to Shabluka. Unfor- 
tunately no cross sections have been taken of the Blue Kile showing how 
high the Gezireh is above the bed and water surface of the Blue Kile 
at Wad Medani. A weir further south would, as Mr. Dupuis states, 
entail very expensive canals to irrigate the lands south of Khartoum. 
Mr. Dupuis’s report on the Atbarais not very hopeful. Without reser- 
voirs this torrential river could insure no crop except millets and In- 
dian corn. The same may be said for the Gaash. Basins without 
winter irrigation would, I thik, be most unsatisfactory. 
Examining Mr. Dupuis’s figures and sections for the outlet of lake 
Tsana, I calculate that this reservoir would not supply a fraction of the 
water estimated by Mr. Dupuis. If I were wrong, and I should be 
pleased indeed to be wrong here, a tunnel along the alignment roughly 
surveyed by Mr. Dupuis, Plate XX, leading the waters of Lake Tsana 
into the Rahad river, and from there under the Blue Kile by a syphon, and 
branch canals irrigating both banks of the Rahad and both banks of the 
Blue Kile to Khartoum, would be one of the boldest projects in the world. 
It will be noted that no mention has been made of the tracts 
between the foothills of Abyssinia and Wad-el-Medani which can 
produce good crops of Indian corn, millets and even cotton in nine 
years out of ten with the aid of rain without irrigation. If the land 
could lend itself to basins similar to those of Bundelkund or to river 
fed pans as in Madras, a development of this country would be possible. 
Ordinary Egyptian basin irrigation would be, I think, of no use. 
The following quotations from a letter written by Messrs. Choremi, 
Benachi and Co a , of Alexandria, to Mr. Foaden on the 8th February 1904, 
will give an idea of the estimation in which Sudan grown cotton is 
held in Alexandria: — - 
“The cotton generally is good and superior to any Sudan cotton I 
