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Show WATfcRS OP THE NILE. New York Times: Every morniiig' from a little room of a great white house on the eastern shore of the Nile, at Assouan, is clicked hy telc-jp telc-jp graph to Cairo the question, "How inttch water?'' The answer comes, so iitiiny thousand gallons more, or so matly thousand gallons less. A button1 but-ton1 is pressed, the water which flows under the iron bridge at Cairo is increased in-creased or diminished some ten days later in accordance with the telegraphic tele-graphic answer, and the intervening valley between Assouan aild Cairo has a little more or a little less water on its surface. The man at the button may bring joy or sorrow to thous-m. thous-m. amis of little farms St is all accord-' accord-' ing to the message he receives. From the great white house there extends across the river a granite wall or dam 150 feet high. Half way up this wall, and stretching its entire length, a line of shutters opens -or 1 closes by a pressure of the button. In the winter months a huge lake expands ex-pands to the southward, which has every ev-ery appearance of being a flood, for, in certain places, the tops of palm trees are discernible above its surface and the summits of inundated ruins 1 .apparently mark the sites of sunken I cities. As the days go by, and Cairo , demands more and more water, the . palm trees and the ruins seem to rise . from titcir watery beds, until, in June j and early July, the river flows freely with all its historic indolence. 1 Still the cry for water is insatiable, and now the 150 feet of granite wall will be lengthened by twenty-three feet, which will double the power of the man at the button, and after that , no more palms or ruins will unfold themselves, as the hot months come from the surface of the lake. The palm trees will not be missed, but wlifit of the ruins? That is the trib utc of the past which modern agricultural agri-cultural Egypt is called upon to pay. Just south of the granite wall is the island which holds the amphibious ruins. Twenty-three feet of granite now stand between it and oblivion. It is named Philac, and is the burial place of Osiris. A temple of fourteen four-teen columns rises on its eastern bank and on its western is the great Temple Tem-ple of Isis, begun by Ptolemy Phila-delphus Phila-delphus and added to by the Roman emperors. Its front is in the form of a propylon, before which is an expansive ex-pansive court bounded by two galleries, galler-ies, the column sides of which skirt the shore for 250 feet. Behind the propylon are many halls and chambers cham-bers of curious and fantastic design. The whelming waters of the winter months have . already begun their work. Floors have sunken, columns fallen, and walls crumbled. The twenty-three additional feet of granite gran-ite will complete the work of devastation. devas-tation. Philac and it- ruins will never ne-ver again feel the sun of Egypt It was thought that the granite wall across the Nile at Assouan, 150 feet' high, would provide perpetual irrigation irriga-tion for the desert to the north. That was a mistake. But will the twenty-three twenty-three additional feet to the summit of the walls, which will forever bury Philae, complete the work? Will the man at the button in the great white house ever have the power that Joseph Jos-eph had to direct, increase, or diminish dimin-ish the flow of the river? Joseph had no Assouan dam, and no shutters to manipulate by the pressure of a button. but-ton. In what, therefore, did his pow cr to make Egypt perennially fertile consist? |
