Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-12
RISE OF THE NILE.
PECULIARITIES OF THE RIVER
FOR THE YEAR 1855.
Natures Grand Irrigation System
for the People Of Egypt-Cause
of Fertility-Etc.

The United States Consul, John Card.
well, writing to the StaterDepartment un-
der date of November 81, 1888, says con-
corning the ever interesting and historic
river Nile:
Calamity upon calamity befalls Egypt.
The Nile flood of 1887 was disastrous being
so excessive as to destroy great quantities
OF growing crops, while ii also laid waste
villages, demolished and filled up shadoofs
and sakheyebs, and drove many persons,
with their animals, 10 the edges of the
deserts, where numbers of the latter died
or became so Impoverished as to be useless
for some time to come in the requirements
of agriculture. Private property was in
consequence, increased and public debt was
augmented.
The Nile flood of 1888, which has now
entirely subsidized, has proven another cis-
aster, IN contrary sense to what befell
the country in 1887. The highest point re
corded by the nilometer at Rhoda, near
Cairo, in 1887, was 25 pics, kirats, while
in 1888 the greatest altitude to which the
waters rose was is pics IA kirats, differ.
ence of pics y kirats. A food of %
pics is regarded as quite advantageous to
all sections of the country. Owing to the
success of the Barrage, the great water ele-
vator for filling the canals and bitches of
the Delta the state of agriculture in Lower
Egypt is good. The well guarded dykes of
the branches of the Nile and of the great
canals in the Delta protected by Lower
Egypt against the high water of 1887, while
the Barrage, probably the most worthy
monument to the wisdom and capacity of
Mohammed Ali and his engineers, has
saved the same region from present barren
ness and desolation. Water has been and
is being supplied to all the good lands of
Lower Egypt in quantity sufficient to in
crease production in growing crops. and
the lands have been properly prepared and
planted in winter crops, while, because OF
the Barrage, those now growing, and those
to be planted and grown before the season
of another food. may be safely calculated
on as remunerative. In limited districts,
even IN the Delta, there has been and will
be some scarcity of water, but on the whole
the agriculturists of Lower Egypt are in an
Egyptian sense, blessed Canaization, sup
ported by the Barrage, has made the Delta
quite independent of low Nile, while good
dykes and unceasing vigilance protect it
against the dangers of a high Nile. The
cultivatable area of Lower Egypt is 2,744,-
600 feddans, not more than one-seventieth
of which are lost to agriculture because of
the low Nile of this year. Still, complaint
is made and it will continue to be
made of an insufficient supply of
water in many parts of the Delta. The
loss to agriculture, therefore, may be placed
at more than double the loss in cultivated
area-say one-thirtieth or more in produc-
ton.
There is no mammoth system of water
elevation in Upper Egypt like the Barrage,
o,,A ,atiz at anita iipnItpd Thara
when the river fails in annual bounty,
shadoofs and sakheyebs may be operated
increasingly through the days and nights of
long year, and yet vast areas go un-
watered, and hence in this rainless land
remain as barren as desert wastes. The
cultivable area OF Upper Egypt is 2,220,0
feddans, equal to 1881 900 acres,
and of this nearly one-seventh is lost to
agriculture. Unwatered land is not sub
ject to Government taxation, and the direct
loss to the State on account of the low
Nile of this year will amount to a sum
about equal to 81, 100000. The relation of
area to population presents the appalling
fact thar nearly one-tenth of the entire
agricultural population of Egypt have no
lands to work for one whole year. In
Upper Egypt the unfortuDates amount to
nearly One-sixth of its entire population.
Unless the Government gives these poor
beings employment on public works. which
appears improbable, there must be wide
spread starvation. A portion of the I'M
forlunates may exc out a bare substance
by repairing to cultivated districts and
quartering themselves upon the more for
tunate but relief so obtained will be little
better than starvation. The agriculturists
who are supplied with water will have little
more than is necessary to keep body and
cnr1 tnuofhor No Of rplef G nnaSihlo
until another flood has watered the lands
and thus enabled them to produce crops,
which will be in the spring of 1890, pro-
yided there be not low Nile in 1889.
Special information upon the subject of
Nile floods may be interesting. The river
begins to rise at Asswan about the middle
of June and at Cairo about the middle of
July. The highest food level is reached
between the middle and the end of Octo-
Der. A fairly good flood is % pics Is kirats,
while % pics is really good, watering the
lands outside the river banks. Any increase
over % pics is unnecessary and over "a is
danger Gus. During the last sixty-three
years there has been but one lower Nile
than that of this year. In 1877 the flood
rose to only IL pics 3 kirats, and in conse-
quence there were lost to agriculture then
over $50. 900 feddans of land.
A pic as applied to the rise of the Nile, is
lineal measure of 054 meter, about Oh
inches. The zero of the nilometer is pics
below the mean low water mark, and there
fore the measure of the rise begins at that
point. According to an hereditary usage
the measuring of the Nile waters having
been transmitted from father to son in the
same family since the eighth century, the
Nile pic represents 0 81 meter, from 0 to Is.
From 16 to % the pic is one-half of its
rnol of
the pic again represents its absolute meas
ure. To find the rise of the Nile in me-
tiers, seven pics must first be deducted from
the stated rise, and the remainder must
then be reduced according to the measures
above given. From the total result there
must finally be deducted OILS meter. A
kirat is the twenty fourth part of a pic.
In 1877, as have already stated, the flood
was, by the rule of measurement above ex-
planned, 81 kirats (full measure) lower than
in 1888. In 1888 the rise reached Is pics %
kirats, and tradition establishes the fact
that great suffering ensued, but canalization
was not then as good as now. In 1885,
1886 and 1887 there were successfully low
Niles, the highest water levels of those
years being respectively 10 pics Is kirats, 20
pics II kirats and 10 pics kirats. The re-
suit was the noted three-years' famine.
which almost wholly ruined Egypt, and
yet at that time the country had no foreign
debt and the modern bond curse was I'M
known.
The low Nile of this year gives rise to
much speculation in regard to more COM
plete facilities for irrigation. But little
more is necessary for the delta and what
may be necessary is simply more canaliza-
ton. In Upper Egypt the case is different.
There water elevation is necessary, and
with it a perfect system of canals and
| bitches. What will be adopted it is impos-
sible to predict. Riaz Pasha, Prime Min
lister, favors a number of very powerful