Evening star., 1898-07-30
Great Change That viii Soon Be
Made on the Nile.
MEANS MILLIONS TO THE COUNTRY
In Land Which Positively Screams
r.. for Water.
COST WILL BE ENORMOUS


LONDON. July %. 1898.
After some centuries of discussion and
planning the Nile is al last to be damned
Tie plans have been completed for some
time and as soon as the seasons floods
have subsided the contractors will have
several hundred men busy on the stone
work at Assouan. The man who is to have
the direction of the work. which will rank
as the greatest irrigation scheme ever at
tempted. and one of the engineering fca;s
of the age. is Sir Benjamin Baker whose
name is already associated with many
great enterprises. Sir Benjamin is himself
ready to start for Assouan, where he will
assume personal direction of the under
taking. In discussing the matter a few
Gays ago he hazarded the prediction that
by the beginning of the twentieth century
the first steamer would pass through the
locks into the reservoir, on its way to the
upper Nile. Whatever difficulties may be
encountered in the work. 1t probably will
not take so long as it has for the khedive
and his French advisers to make up their
minds to sanction 1t.
In the industrial world the big enterprise
Is attracting great deal OF attention. but
to the average reader the chief interest Of
the dam is not in the engineering prob
lens and possibilities which it presents.
but in its situation and surroundings.
AsSouan is the site of quarries which
furnished stone for many temples in the
days of the Ptolemies. The granite which
will form the masonry work of the new
dam was cut out of the hills thousands of
years ago, and has stood here ever since.
The same quarry which supplied the ma
Tial for the temples Of Philae, now, 5000
years later, furnishes granite for new
twentieth century wonder.
Temples of Philea.
These temples of Philae. by the way,
have formed one of the chief difficulties,
though not an engineering difficulty, in re
spect of the dams construction. The first
cataract consists of a scattered mass of
sn all islands and rocks, and it is across
this scattered stone heap that the dam. a
mile and quarter wide forty feet broad
and several feet high is to be constructed.
This is a modification of the original plan.
which would have made the top of the
dam thirty-six feet higher. The effect of
the dam as at present conceived will he to
submerge the nearer islands only, but as
originally planned ii would at flood tide or
high Nile" have submerged the Island of
Philae. mile up stream, and the temples
on the Island of Philae are of immense in
terest to the architect and the archaeolo-
gist. They are splendid examples of the
Ptolemaic temple. No Gothic architect in
his widest moments ever played so freely
with his lines and his dimensions as the
forgotten designer of Philae, and none
beautiful. 1t contains all the play Of light
and shade, all the variety of Gothic art,
with the massiveness and grandeur of the
Egyptian style. There is no building out
of ThebeS that gives so favorable an i'm
preston of Egyptian art as this. 1t would
have been great pity If the reservoir
which is to water Egypt had der landed
such a sacrifice. At one time 1t ap feared
inevitable. and Sir Benjamin Bake sug-
gested that the whole groundwork of the
temples should be raised. The cost of this
would have been EGO 600, which was rather
tco much for the Egyptian taxpayer. who
in Sir Benjamin's words. does not care a
piastre for the temples" except as a
means of attracting tourists to Assouan.
Facts and Figures.
As to the Importance Of the work from
the engineers point of view, Sir Benjamin
says:
'The colossal character Of the great dam
will be apparent when 1t is stated that the
flood discharge of river a mile wide and
thirty feet deep, flowing at high velocity
must pass through the dams sluices at
the rate of 150 900 tons of water per second
1900, eco tons minute-more than 10000, 600
tons of water an hcurI At times the water
will be damned back sixty-siX feet above
it's present level and for distance 144
miles above the dam.
1.-The Nile at Assouan by no means full
fills the popular conception of a cataract.
The river Is broken up by innumerable
islands-some of them of considerable acre
age; but the great majority mare rocks
which are submerged in flood time-into
myriad shallow water courses. At one
two points the water runs deep and fast
between the islands, but for the greater
part of the width of the river the channels
between the islands carry only a trickle
of water during the dry season. 1t is upon
this" foundation of small islands that the
dam will be built. So far as strength and
economy of foundation are concerned the
site leaves nothing to be desired. The rock
throughout is hard. compact syenite OF
quartz diorite and the section of the river
is so wide and shallow that the foundations
of the larger part of the dam can be put
In dry. The under sluices will be built upon
reefs projecting over the water surface both
in summer and winter that the founda-
tfons will be open to annual Inspections
most important advantage when so many
interests depend upon the stability and en-
durance Of the work. 1t will be splendid
thing to look at-stretching a mile and a
quarter from shore to shore, of compact