The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-06-07

Egypt is the Nile" Standing by the
 pyramids of Gizeh and looking across
 the Nile valley one realizes the sig
 nifiance of the proverb. narrow strip of dark green runs like ribbon
 between the brown slopes of Ie desert
 From the heart of Africa comes tne
 life blood of tillable and tenantabie
 flow the encroaching sands of Sahara
 would soon blot out from the may the
 12.000 square miles of alluvtal iand that, from a practical standpoint, con
 stitute the whole of Egypt. That there
 Is no danger of such a catastrophe IS
 due to the fact that the Nile is sup piled at its sources from equatorial
 lakes fed by Abyssinian rivers. un-
 like & number of American rivers
 culture and navigation. the Nile rises in a region where the forests have not
 been cut for lumber.
 Geologists say that a prehistoric Assure in the earth extending from
 the southern shore of the Mediterran-
 can, to what is now the first cataract of the Nile, brought flow of salt
 water into what is now Egypt. Sedi-
 ment from rivers flowing from higher ground into this Assure gradually fll- ed It's bottom, raising 1t to a higher level. Volcanic disturbances in Central Africa so changed the surface of the earth that the courses of tropical streams were changed. and an enorm- ous head of water found an outlet to- ward the north from the lakes and swamps of the south. The high plat eaus have been, since that time. drain ed toward the Mediterranean and fresh water has flowed for thousands of years through the trough once i'll ed with salty flood All of this took place before the beginning of the history of the human race. The marvelously fertile soil of Egypt has yielded crops since the beginning of agriculture. As far back as the reign of the earliest Egyptian King Menes, irrigation has been employed to lead the water to the fields. If tradition speaks the truth.
 Upon the Island of Rhoda. upon the shores of which Moses was found by Pharaodh's the Egyptian of teday shows the traveller the Nilometer which registers the daily stages of the river at Cairo. These records have been kept for 5000 years. He is rising" or he is falling" say the Arabs. Al. have revealed the causes of the rising and falling of the Nile. the stream is still spoken of by the Arabs al- most as if 1t were deity.
 The year. divided in other countries into seasons, Is divided here by the
 of the Nile. The months of inundation or Mil, are from August to November. The winter. or Shitwi, is December to March. The lowest season is the summer called Self. from Apri6 to the end of July. In the Nile valley there is no occasion for the cartoonist or humorist to dis- cuss the lingering of winter in the lap of spring. Nor does Self finger in the lap of Mil. The rising and falling of the Nile Is much more ref9llar than the coming and going of the seasons to the position of the sun and the or according to the rain fall.
 In America the rivers rise in the late winter or early spring as 6 rule. and always during a period of heavy ains.When the Ohio or Mississippi IS out of its banks the cause of the the timen when other rivers aEes do- pleted. and comes pouring out of n burning desert, under a blazing sun. to fertiiize the fields of Upper Egypt. I It is /easy to understand why the who had never penetrated the interior beyond the desert TO- garded the annual flood as an inexpli- cable mystery.
 The fellah stops upon the shores of the river. the banks of canal, or an irrigation ditch. and scoops up a drink from the Nile in his ho1lowed hands. The tourist who dresses for dime rat his hotel drinks filtered Nile water, unless he prefers wine or bottled water from Europe. Every animal and every plant in the Nile valley Is dependent upon the same source for its supply of moisture. There are no wells or springs. The great river, three- hfths of a mile wide at Cairo. where it is hecked by the white sails of boats that suggest the pattern of the barges of the Pha- roahs. has no affluents below the mouth of the Atabara which is 1.soo miles from the sea.
 Throughout this much of it's entire length. which is 4.oe2 miles. or but fifty miles less than that of the Mas issippi, the river flows through desert transformed into a garden by water diverted from the stream. For thousands of years Egypt has blossom ed as the rose because volcanic up- heavals sent the torrents of Central Africa toward the Mediterranean Sea. The practicality of irrigation in the arid areas of the American west was. singularly enough. doubted by many Americans some years ago although the pyramids were builded by a race whose antecedents lived by converting dry sand into farming land.
 Advocates of reforesting denuded areas about the sources of American rivers, now more or less reduced dur ing the summer as a result of a de- pletion of storage reservoirs, say it Is possible to regulate the variation of the volume of a river by regulating its source of supply. They believe that the area of forests so directly affects the volume of a stream that it might be possible to create a river in an arid hill country by clothing the hills with timber. It Is interesting to re- fleet that the sources of the Nile arc in a region where there has been no civilization and no deforestation. Its rising and falling remain as regular today as they were many centuries ago.
 From the brige that connects Cairo proper with the island of Ghizereh. pr from the dock of a dahabeah the Nile European to whom Nile green" has been a familiar phrase since his child hood. to express surprise. The water Is green at one time in the year. Just before the annual innundation green water" arrives. It is offensive to the taste and has a b;A odor. It is well comed only because of its significance. High Nile Is preceded by heavy rains. along the tributaries. It was formerly believed that the appearance of green water" in Egypt meant that decaying vegetable matter from the swamps If Uganda was swept down the river a. head of the flood. Now 1t has been decided by Investigators that green water" is due to tha nraaanea oP o