Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1898-01-27
NILE CANNOT BE DIVERTED.
Silly Talk About Draining 1t in Order
to Ruin Egypt.

To KUHN Egypt.
There is a good deal of loose talk just
now concerning the possibility of some
power possessing itself of position on
the headwaters of the Nile, and then
cutting the banks in such a way that
the water would be drained away from
Egypt and the latter left without the
overflow which now gives her life.
What are the headwaters of the Nile ?
First, the basin catch of The Victoria
Nyanza, which joins the basin catch of
the Albert Edward Nyanza running on
as joint stream to the north of Con-
dokoro. All this way it is cabined,
cribbed, confined between walls of rock
never less than 1900 in height. After
that it runs on toward KhaIto1m
through a great open alluvial valley,
receiving on the left bank the mighty
waters of the Bahr-el-Arab, the Bahr-el-
Gazal, and a number of other streams.
Here would be place to tap the Nile
so as to keep the waters away from
Egypt? No doubt, for about one year
at the most. But this very valley is it
self surrounded by elevations of 1,500
feet, and consequently after the first
soakage every drop of water led out of
the Nile will flow back to the Nile-it
cannot possibly get away. At Khar-
toum runs in the Blue Nile from the
mountains of Abyssinia, and thence
right away. At Khar-Suef, close to
Cairo, there is a ridge never less than
1900 feet high and with a minimum
breadth of $50 miles, sufficient, surely.
to prevent anybody turning the Nile
into the Red sea, and we have not heard
yet of any power with money enough to
spare to cut a canal 500 feet deep and
$50 miles long, or to drive a tunnel at a
similar depth for a like distance.
So far for the right bank of the Nile
The left is bounded by the Libyan des-
ert. There, of course, is the country
into which the enterprising Egypt ruin
er is to divert the Nile. But all the Lib
yam desert watersheds is toward the
Nile. The Wadies all make for the Nile.
not from it. AT various distances from
the Nile is q range of not less than SOC
feet trending northwest and southeast
to the very latitude of Cairo itself, so
that on this side also the Nile is shut in
by the Libyan desert, which is itself
shut in by the Tarso and Tummo and
Black mountains, and the chain of
which they form part and which runs
east until it reaches the GASES fed I'M
derground from the Nile to the north
OF Assuan.
Therefore the entire Nile basin is held
in an unbroken chain of mountains,
with a minimum elevation of 1900 feet.
Obviously to break the banks some
where in this great area and let off the
water for the temporary injury of
Egypt is possible, but it is not possible
to prevent the water returning to the
bed of the Nile. And q careful eXami-
nation of the maps show that there is no
place where the cut would not have to
be several hundred miles in length to
produce any appreciable effect even
temporarily.
But there is a safeguard even against
this outrage. The Nile is not one
stream, but a collection of streams. If
the waters of the Bahr-el-Gazal and its
neighbors were suddenly subtracted
from those of the whole river there
would remain the true headwaters in
the great lakes, the Sobat, the Blue Nile
and the Atbara. The CONFORMATION of
the river makes it impossible it should
be materially tapped at any one dis
trict. Even if Abyssinia, cutting off
her nose to spite Egypt's face, were to
divert the supply from Lake Tana and
Amhara district she would only have
hurt herself, and then would not have
prevented two-thirds of the stream of
the Blue Nile running past Famaka to
Khartoum. It is the Blue Nile and|the
Atbara which bring down the great
bulk of the fertilizing alluvial MAKER,
but their course can no more be altered
during the lower part of their streams
than the Tay could be made to dis
charge itself into the Caledonian canal.