IRRIGATION IN EGYPT. 
373 
tion with the works for the Suez canal, will not only restore 
the long abandoned fields east of the Nile, hut add to the arable 
soil of Egypt hundreds of square miles of newly reclaimed 
desert, and thus still further increase the climatic effects of 
irrigation.* 
The Nile receives not a single tributary in its course through 
Egypt; there is not so much as one living spring in the whole 
land,f and, with the exception of a narrow strip of coast, where 
the annual precipitation is said to amount to six inches, the 
fall of rain in the territory of the Pharaohs is not two inches 
in the year. The subsoil of the wdiole valley is pervaded with 
moisture by infiltration from the Nile, and water can every¬ 
where be found at the depth of a few feet. Were irrigation 
suspended, and Egypt abandoned, as in that case it must be, 
Lower and Upper Egypt; for from the statistical tables in the same vol¬ 
ume, it appears that 3,317,125 feddan, or 5,253 square statute miles, were 
cultivated, in both geographical divisions, in the year referred to in the 
tables, the date of which is not stated. 
The area which the Nile would now cover at high water, if left to itself, 
is greater than in ancient times, because the bed of the river has been ele¬ 
vated, and consequently the lateral spread of the inundation increased. See 
Smith’s Dictionary of Geography, article “ iEgyptus.” But the industry 
of the Egyptians in the days of the Pharaohs and the Ptolomies carried 
the Nile-water to large provinces which have now been long abandoned 
and have relapsed into the condition of a desert. “ Anciently,” observes 
the writer of the article “Egypt” in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible , 
“2,735 square miles more [about 3,700 square statute miles] may have 
been cultivated. In the best days of Egypt, probably all the land was 
cultivated that could be made available for agricultural purposes, and 
hence we may estimate the ancient arable area of that country at not less 
than 11,000 square statute miles, or fully double its present extent.” 
* A canal has been constructed, and new ones are in progress, to con¬ 
vey water from the Nile to the city of Suez, and to various points on the 
line of the ship canal, with the double purpose of supplying fresh water to 
the inhabitants and laborers, and of irrigating the adjacent soil. The area 
of land which may be thus reclaimed and fertilized is very large, but the 
actual quantity which it will be found economically expedient to bring 
under cultivation cannot now be determined. 
t The so-called spring at Heliopolis is only a thread of water infiltrated 
from the Nile or the canals. 
