The Increase Of The
River's Level Would Depend Upon The Height Of The Dams; But, As
Stone Is Plentiful Throughout The Nile, The Engineering
Difficulties Would Be Trifling.
Mehemet Ali Pasha acknowledged the principle, by the erection of
the barrage between Cairo and Alexandria, which, by simply
Raising the level of the river, enabled the people to extend
their channels for irrigation; but this was the crude idea, that
has not been carried out upon a scale commensurate with the
requirements of Egypt. The ancient Egyptians made use of the lake
Mareotis as a reservoir for the Nile waters for the irrigation of
a large extent of Lower Egypt, by taking advantage of a high Nile
to secure a supply for the remainder of the year; but, great as
were the works of those industrious people, they appear to have
ignored the first principle of irrigation, by neglecting to raise
the level of the river.
Egypt remains in the same position that Nature originally
allotted to her; the life-giving stream that flows through a
thousand miles of burning sands suddenly rises in July, and
floods the Delta which it has formed by a deposit, during perhaps
hundreds of thousands of inundations; and it wastes a
superabundance of fertilizing mud in the waters of the
Mediterranean. As Nature has thus formed, and is still forming a
delta, why should not Science create a delta, with the powerful
means at our disposal? Why should not the mud of the Nile that
now silts up the Mediterranean be directed to the barren but vast
area of deserts, that by such a deposit would become a fertile
portion of Egypt?
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