The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-06-08

OFcE the tofaD or OsiTib Causeu eHo eh~
 hual flooding of the Nile. can man
 arrest the tears of Isis as they fowT' was a question implying the impossi-
 ble Today the tears of Isis are stored
 behind great dam at Assouan in q
 lake that contains q billion tons and
 Is 140 miles long. According to a pop
 ular superstition, pearls mean tears. In
 Egypt the tears of Isis mean pearls
 to agriculturists; and William Will
 cocks. who made the plans for the dam wears an order of British knighthood,
 conferred in recognition of his ssr-
 vices
 Agriculture in the Nile Valley is. of
 course. older than the oldest monu-
 ments of Egypt Irrigation Is as old
 as agriculture. but scientific irrigation
 upon scale commensurate with its importance as a factor in the develop ' rnent of the country is a product of
 modern times. There are two kinds
 of irrigation along the Nile. One is 1 1000 years old. It consists of a basin l system. which inundates the fields dur ing the freshet The other is peren- nial and depends upon storage reser- voirs and e modern system of releasing the water as 1t is needed.
 | The first crops were the result of seed sown upon the mud when the
 flood had receded. Interiocked with | the known and unknown political his-
 tory of Egypt from the beginning is the story of the expansion of systems l for increasing the area of land made | tillable by retaining the siit-laden overflow and causing 1t to take the place of rain during the season of low | Nile. At present the lode of syenite | granite that furnished the material for | the temple of the Sphinx, and the obe- lisks, Is the backbone of plan of ir- rigation that contempiates still great CT results than have been already achieved.
 Tiilabie Egypt, except in the prov- | ince of Fayoum and in the Nile delta. l is merely a narrow strip of reclaimed desert, sometimes extending only upon one side of the stream. According to tradition, Lake Moeris, a great reser- voir to irrigate Fayoum, was con- structed by King Amenemaht of the Twelfth Dynasty. It is believed that Mehemet Ali the viceroy who planned but never completed, a system of per- ennial irrigation, was inspired by the example of Amenemaht. But Great Britain claims, and must be accorded, credit for planning. financing and com pleting the dam at Assouan.
 Tn Upper Egypt the traveller sees to- day in active opera the basin irri- gation which tradition says dates back to King Menes, who reigned some sew enty centuries before the British oc- cupation of the land of Pharaohs. It is simple in it's rudimentary form, al- though complex in It's development. The banks of the Nile are of deitaic formation. and higher than the valley behind them. The sources Of the river are approximately $500 feet above the level of the sea. Along the river, as it's shores slope northward toward the Mediterranean earthen dykes are run at right angles to the stream. Dykes parallel to the stream and close to the ''berms" or high banks, connect them, forming basins enclosed on the desert side by the rising ground that marks the limit of arabic area. The basins drain from one to another and the last of series drains into the Nile. In this manner the land is arranged in succession of terraces falling grad ualiy toward the north. Where the lay of the land admits of n, the sys- tenn is extended by the construction Of second or third dyke parallel to the river. 44
 The "berms" are irrigated either by high level canals starting from above the beginning of the basin system or by lifting the water from the river. Feeder canals vary in size from in- significant ditches to considerable riv- CTS, upon which sail beats ply. From the train asN the traveller traverses Egypt, picturesque triangular sails and slanting bamboo booms of the Egyp- tan dahabeahs seem to rise from ploughed fields.
 Upper Egypt at flood time is a vast lake, bounded by the brown slopes of the desert on the east and west and gridironed by network of dykes. The lakes are dotted by the mud huts of the fellaheen, or peasants, always builded on mounds and in clusters or small villages. The fellah and his family lead a somewhat precarious ex- istence during the inundation. If the water reaches the huts they crun1ble like mud pies dipped in a duck pond. and the homes become a mass of muck. The fellaheen and their livestock live throughout the flood period upon bits of high ground and the dykes, which form their roads. Goats, sheep, water buffa1oes, camels, little donkeys hardly larger than great Danes, horses, and human beings, are herded in narrow spaces of solid earth. White winged aquatic birds claim the lakes as their own. Rats frc the marshes infest the dykes and Villages and are pro- perstition of the kellaheen according to which the rats. as the flood recedes, | turn to balls of fertile mud to play part in producing crops.
 Basin irrigation reached a high de- velopment under the Romans and q stream of grain from the whole Nile Valley and the delta flowed through Alexandria to the ports of the Mediter- ranean. After the Arab conquest there followed ten or eleven, centuries of neglect. which caused an enormous de- crease in cultivatable area and a pro- portional decrease in population. While the claim that there were 12.000.000 in- habitants of the country when the Arabs conquered it is doubtless an exaggeration, 1t is true. that the be- l ginning of the nineteenth century found Egypt reduced in population to about 1000. 900 and despoiled by shift lessness of a great deal of matchless farming land. At present more than l 1,000,O00 acres of land which produced crops during the Roman occupation now lie under the so called great | lakes" of the delta or are uncuitivat- able salt marshes. Where the vine- l yards, palm groves and wheat fields once smiled beneath the sun, great salty lagoons now form home for nah and other manufacturing cities are under the sloughs.
 | The retreat of agriculture South ward as a result of the overflow of a part of the delta was followed in time ther up the Nile, due to perennial ir- rigation. viceroy Mehemet Ali, a man of great imagination and ambition, but rather lacking in flxedness of purpose, is given credit for having | intrduced the idea of perennial trri- l gation, and for having planned and | dreamed of such a structure as the As- souan dam. but his dream became an accomplished fact only when British