San Francisco water . lve milesabove Cairo, is agreat dam, or bar-rage, that raises thewaters of the Nileinto a vast canalfrom which they flowover the fanlike ter-ritory of LowerEgypt. All through Egyptone sees men scoop-ing the water up inbaskets from onelevel to another, andeverywhere he findsthe buffalo, the cam-el, or donkey turn-ing the wheels thatoperate the crudeapparatus for gettingthe water out of theriver and onto theland. It remained forthe engineers of to-day to harness the Nile, to teach it how toflow, to defeat its weakness (for this mightyriver can be weak when its sources are n
San Francisco water . lve milesabove Cairo, is agreat dam, or bar-rage, that raises thewaters of the Nileinto a vast canalfrom which they flowover the fanlike ter-ritory of LowerEgypt. All through Egyptone sees men scoop-ing the water up inbaskets from onelevel to another, andeverywhere he findsthe buffalo, the cam-el, or donkey turn-ing the wheels thatoperate the crudeapparatus for gettingthe water out of theriver and onto theland. It remained forthe engineers of to-day to harness the Nile, to teach it how toflow, to defeat its weakness (for this mightyriver can be weak when its sources are notadequately replenished), and to do awaywith those alternations of fat years and leanthat we have associated with the Nile eversince we first spelled out the immortal storyof Joseph and his brethren. In the heart of the desert, seven hundredmiles south of the Mediterranean, at the firstcataract of the Nile, is the Assouan Damthat British engineers built to harness theNile and free Egypt from the possibility The volume of the Nile, says Frank , is enormous. At flood times, abillion tons of water go by at Assouan everyday. The river then rises twenty-five feet atCairo, thirty-eight at Old Thebes, and al-most fifty feet at the first cataract. There isso much water that no dam could hold it,hence all of these great works had to be madeso that the water can be let in and out andallowed to pass through at will. It is at flood time that the Nile valleygets its rich feed of Abyssinian mud. Thisis brought down in part by the Blue Nile,but more abundantly by the Atbara, or Black January, 1928 SAN FRANCISCO WATER
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectwatersupply, bookyear
