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Show NOT MUCH NEW UNDER THE SUN. Old Herodotus grows enthusiastic over an artificial lake or reservoir in Egypt which was constructed 2,000 years before the dawn of the Christian era; which was constructed to catch and hold the flood waters of the Nile in its annual rise, and to irrigate the valley later in the year. The old historian esteemed it as a work grander than the building of the pyramid of Cheops. It covered 950 square miles, and was in places 300 feet deep. It was connected with the Nile ten miles away by a canal that was 360 feet wide and regulated by sluices and gates. There were no steam shovels in those days, no fulminating fulminat-ing powder; no steam derricks; no steam hoists and civil engineering was in its infancy. But the people needed food and it was done. The site of this ancient reservoir has been found. It has been filled with silt from the Nile, it is now a rare oasis in the midst of the desert containing 400,-000 400,-000 acres of rich land, and is of a value of $400,000,000. But according to London Engineering Engineer-ing the same advantages are to be accomplished by building a new reservoir near the old one and raising the Assouan dam ten feet, as was originally planned. Thus modern men are imitating imitat-ing the work which was accomplished 4,000 years ago by old King Amenemhat III and his slaves. When the world was young and over the record of time, As yet it was sweet to dwell. It shows that all that has been said about irrigation ir-rigation in our country during the past few years has been but a review of what was discussed and achieved 120 generations ago, and that at best the modern man is but imitating what wa wrought out by slaves forty centuries ago in their struggle for bread. But what a chance that would have been for Councilman Fernstrom had he been in the city council of Thebes and in which old Amenemhat, who was at the time head of both church and state. The Utah Light & Railway company would not have been 30 cents to the business that could have been patched up there. There would have been no daily papers jto interfere, and at a nod Mr. Fernstrom could have had any such malcontents as Councilmen Black or New-hausen New-hausen tossed into the Nile. By the way, the old Egyptians believed in the transmigration of souls. Who knows but Councilman Fernstrom was there, and that it was there he first caught the trick of being an attorney for the one who has a divine right to rule? All ages have had these old chaps with their divine rights. It has suited the masses, too, for the great majority of certain classes of men love to believe that without any effort on their part some old chump can save their souls and they are willing to cringe and pay for the job. |