Norwich bulletin., 1916-01-11
THE MODERN CITY
 OF ALEXANDRIA,
The Country House and Commission
 Office of the Mile Valley.
0special to Tba RnlIetin- !

Especial to The Bulletin.)
 Washington, D. C.. Jan. 10.-"Alex- ander the Great, like an cratic me- teor, flashed across the drowse of civ ilization-weary Egypt; and, perhaps, as memorial of his deification in the land of the Pharaohs, he left behind him the beginnings of vigorus Greek city. Alexandria, destined to be the 5uvenation to the worn valley, and today, with Constantinople and a few other places one of the greatest prizes for the contesting army millions in the East" begins a bulletin just prepared py the National Geographic Society. Alexander built his city in 322 B. .. upon the ruins of an Egyptian town, Rhacotis. After more than 2,0O0 years, Alexandria has become the life or Egypt, its largest port, one of the busiest ports on the Mediterranean, and an important world-city
 The modern city is divided into two parts. one Of which, inhabited by Mohammedans, is a listless tangle of Oriental narrow, crooked streets and unlnvitlng buildings, while, the other the European quarter, is so1idily built and possesses many of the essential conveniences of the American or Eu- rcpean metropolis. It occupies a ridge of land between the Mediterranean and Lake Mareotis. The Rosetta mouth of the Nile lies more than 30 metropolis, iies 129 miles by rail to the southeast, and the Suez Canal is more thar lao miles to the east. The city is linked by a network of railway and telegraph lines to the other towns of Egypt, and is in telephonic con- nection with Cairo.
 Alexandria is the counting house and the commission office of the Nile Valley. The British chamber of com merce has its headquarters there, and there, too. are located the head offices or many Of the largest commercial or ganIzations doing business in the Near East. The value of the city's trade, in normal times. Is about $249,- 00o,o00 year. The western harbor. designed for modern, Arst-rank vessels. The chief articles of export are grain, cotton, beans, sugar and rice. and the business is largely in the hands of Europeans, of whom there are 50,000 in the total population Of 100000. The city is connected by ca- ble lines with Cyprs, Malta, Crete and port Said. One of the interesting phases of Aiexandria,s commerce Is that 1t sends S0.000. .000 eggs each year to London, where these products re- tall as fancy fresh eggs. This large yearly turnover gives Egypt an inti- mate relationship with the English mans breakfast table.
 D1nocrates of Rhodes, architect and friend to the famous Macedonian, laid out Alexandria He planned the city as an affair of right angles and sharp corners, including the whole in a par allelogram quadrisected by two main thoroughfares. This regularity of city plan that Dinocrates developed was the beginning Of the school of grid-iron city-building. of the imper- sonal, strictly business city only now waning in popularity.
 The exotic Grecian city was a battle-ground from the start. The East and the West met and fought out their differences to a finish there, Greek learning and Greek philosophy antagonized, and finally blended with, the philosophies of the East. Chris tianity and Paganism fought some of their most bitter battles there; and the Jews, the Christians, the Panths- ists. and the philosophers fomented many bloody riots, In which the ficlxle, violent, loot-hungary Alexandria mob ragged in unforgetable religious tu- mults. In one such tunult, the sur passingly beautiful pagan priestess, Hypatia, was torn to pieces to glut e
 The famous Alexandrian library was the bridge between the culture of classic Greece and the cultural needs Of early Christian and Mohamnedan Europe. Much of it's treasures filtered through to the Moore and to the Christians through the scholarship of Rome. The library was destroyed in the war-flood, which followed the rise Of the religion from the desert; and the burning of the great book treas- ury has been keenly deplored by scholars of each generation succeed Ing.
 Tn the latter years of the 18th cen- tury. the city was held by the French 1t had sunk to tho status of a small village under centuries of Mohanme- dan rnisruie. having a population oi less than 1000. Under Mohemet All the wise and cunning Albanian, it re- gained much of it's prosperity. Eng fish control of the city'a, as well aa Egypt'E welfare, dates from 1884 since which date new city has bean developed, and one that bears a great CT degree of relationship 10 the West than to the East.s