| Show k TO TRANSFORM EGYPT A London dispatch to the New York Sun gives some particulars of the great Assuan dam The wall stretches from the right bank of the Nile to the left of the southern side of the first cataract cat-aract a distance of a mile and a quarter j quar-ter and when fully completed will rise ninety feet above the level of low water The top of It will be as wide as Fleet street and will accommodate as much traffic The wall Is provided with steel sluices tothe number of ISO The great steel doors with which they aro provided will be worked by machinery ma-chinery at once enormously powerful and yet so delicate that a child could let loose millions of gallons of this wa ter which is to be Egypts salvatlpn At some periods of the year 900000 tons of water will rush through the sluices every minute The dam will bottle up a billion tons of water and the effect of the wall 1 will be apparent over 141 miles of the river or in other words a lake 144 miles long will be formed The estimated cost is 3000000 payments to be ex tended over thirty years The Egyptian Governmentwill the co lossal dam on thesame system that the thrifty housewives get their sew ing machines the deferred payment system In addition to the great dam at Assuan a subsidiary dam Is being built at Assult Some I 12000 men are employed a vast majority of whom are natives They receive from three to four plasters a day or five shillings a week which is twice as much as they usually earn On pay day the r montv h h l oo 5 VIAOUI j < > uuiiiuii on camels across the desert from the Assuan bank The stone for the great dam Is being obtained from the quarries of which the temples of Phln are be lieved tohave been built The unhap py Philae when the dam Is completed will be submerged and partly disappear from sight for the first time In three thousand years The granite blocks that are being quarried for this great achievement bear the marks of wedges used thirty centuries ago It Is going to make a new Egypt and th6 men who raise cotton In the SOuth should keep their eyes fixed on that t country be cause they and the lands still higher on the Nile are liable where weekly wages are only five English shillings to sup ply Europe with the staple |
