The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1907-07-26
MYSTERY OF
THE RIVER nile.
How Water in the River is
Regulated for HarveSterS.
And Now Another Twenty-Three
Feet is to b. Added to the
Great Dam at AsS0uan.

EVERY morning from a little room
of a great white house on the eastern
shore of the Nile, at Assouan, is
clicked by telegraph to Cairo the ques
ton: How much water?" The an
swer comes, so many thousand gal
Ions less. A button is pressed, the
water which flows under the iron
bridge at Cairo is increased or di-
minished some ten days later in ac-
cordance with the telegraphic answer
and the intervening valley between
Assouan and Cairo has a little more
or a little less water on its surface
The man at the button may bring
joy or sorrow to thousands of little
farms-it is all according to the mes
sage he receives.
From the great white house there
extends across the river a granite
wall or dam $50 feet high. Half way
up this wall, and stretching it's en-
tire length, line of shutters opens
or closes by the pressure of the buttor
In the winter months huge lake ex-
pands to the southwark, which has
every appearance of being a flood, for
in certain places, the tops OF palm
trees are discernible above its sur
face, and the SUBMITS OF inundated
ruins apparently mark the sites OF
sunken cities. AS the days go by
and Cairo demands more and more
water, the palm trees and the ruins
seems to rise from their watery beds
until in June and early July, the river
flows freely with all its historic indo-
lence.
Still the cry for water is Unsuitable
and now the $50 feet of granite wall
will be heightened by % feet, which
will double the power of the man al
the button, and after that no more
palms or ruins will unfold them.
selves, as the hot months come, from
the surface of the lake. The palm
trees will not be missed, but what OF
the ruins? That is the tribute of the
past which modern agricultural Egypt
is called upon to pay.
Just South of the granite wall is
the island which holds the amphibi.
GUS ruins. Twenty-three feet of gran
lite now stands between it and oblivion
1t is named Philae, and 1t is the bur.
ial place Of Osiris. A temple OF i
columns rises on its eastern banks
and on its western is the great TEN.
pie of Isis, begun by Pto}emy Phila.
delphus and added TO by the Roman
emperors. It's front is in the form of
popylon, before which is an expansive
court bounded by two galleries, the
column sides of which shirt the shore
are many nails and chambers of curl
GUS and fantastic design. The wnelm-
ing waters of the winter months have
already begun their work. Floors have
sunken, columns fallen, and wall.
crumbled. The twenty-three addition.
al feet of granite will complete the
work of devastation. Philas and It's
ruins will never again feel the sum
of Egyp.
1t is thought that the granite wall
across the Nile at Assosfan, $50 feet
high, would provide prepetsal irriga-
ton for the desert to the north. That
was a mistake. But will the % addi-
tional feet to the summit of the wall
which will forever bury Philae, COM
plete the work? Will the man at the
bottom in the great white house ever
have the power that Joseph had to
direct, increase or diminish the flow
Of the river? Joseph had no AS
souan dam and no shutters to manip-
ulate by the pressure of button. In
what, therefore did his power TO make
Epynf nerenuially ferfika consiSt IN