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Show I Al l J r L t U 5 j i Amazing Feat of Irrigation Engineering to I y Make the Holy Land, Where Christ lj tlMm ' Walked with His Disciples, a Center of 1 Hi By REV. CLIFTON H. LEVY. TTTTORD comes from Port Said that a tlle Dead Sea ln Palestlne- to "bo made alive again" after countless ages, by an amazing feat of modern engineering. First plans have been completed, under Hj the supervision of British authorities, for the construction of a tunnel which will traverse the enttro Holy Land under-ground, under-ground, through which the waters of the Hf Mediterranean will pour into the Dead Sea and bring It to life once more, as it was in ancient prehistoric times. Hf It is believed the project will be the means of giving life and wealth, by irnga-tion, irnga-tion, to many miles of arid, desert terrl-tory. terrl-tory. In addition, by the construction of turbines at different points along the p;ith of the tunnel, electric power lor civic and H commercial uses will be furnished to the whole of Palestine. The tunnel will ruu directly beneath Jerusalem, and, when it is completed, vis ltors may expect to see electric lights and street cars operated by its power in the Holy City. Hj It Is a gigantic problem from the en- H' gineering point of view, for it Will mean the construction of a subterranean viaduct some thirty-seven miles long, with a ' fall" ol more than 1,000 feet. The Dead bea, which is probably the greatest natural wonder on the face oi the earth, lies 1,295 feet below the level of the Mediterranean Sea, and in some places 1 1,300 feet deep The River Jordan is the chief source of its water, but many smaller brooks pour into it. so that something like six million tons of water fall into it every twenty-four hours. While the water that pours into it is largely fresh, the excessive salt of its bed and surrounding cliffs is Hj absorbed so rapidly that the water be- comes 25 per cent salt, a thick, brackish solution, which prevents any breathing thing from living ln it, and even destroys vegetation. When the water from the Mediterranean pours iu, the Dead Sea will spread widely out over surrounding territory, and the 11 total volume of its water will be so great that the percentage of salt will be practt- I cally no higher than -"'le that in the ocean. The engineers who a S plan the revival of ( xDJPVs life in and around the Dead Sea realize that J" their task is an enor- LV ' mous one, but they SwS do not believe they will encounter any problems which modern mod-ern machinery cannot solve. The Sim-plun Sim-plun Tunnel, which runs under the Alp- between Switzerland and Italy, was duu' at a very high elevation through BOlld rock, and had to be dug with far greater care and at greater expense than will be nec-f-ssary here. The engineers will surely sure-ly encounter some rock, but they believe that most of the tunneling will be "easj going." The fall of 1.300 feet will make it pos-B pos-B ble to construct power stations, beneath ground, ln which tne water will fall over turbine wheels through which enough olectric power can be generated to run ell the electric lighting plants, factories and railways in southern Palestine. As the tunnel will run directly under Jerusalem itself, which Hps on a line with the northern end of the Dead Sea, there will bo no loss in transmitting the power to that central point The surface of the earth will not be disturbed dis-turbed at Jerusalem, nor will any of the sacred buildings or shrines be endangered, for Jerusalem is above the sea level in the Judaean mountains It is believed that the climate itselt around the Dead Sea will be protoundly affected by the change. The evaporation of thr- fresher water will be more rapid, the surface of the sea will be greater when it spreads out over surrounding plains, and consequently the local rainfalls will be more abun dant V ' I I t - j Forry Overlooking the River Jordan and Old Lake Deposits at Ed-Damich, and, above. Shoreline of Dead Sea Looking North. the spread of the Dead Sea will trend westward overflowing any of the cities or Bacred places of the Holy Land High din's rise westward to 4,400 feet. Other cliffs and mountains lie eastward. The waters, therefore, will "back up" toward the north along the v alley of the River Jordan and will spread out southward, covering a wide expanse of what is now sandy desert. Then will not be any danger of flooding too widely the valley of the Jordan, except ex-cept at a few low-lying points, and then for a short distance only, as most of the Jordan Jor-dan Valley is a huge crevasse, or "fault" as the geologists call it, in which lay a narrow lake more than 200 miles long ln prehistoric days This project promises much for the land, even north of Jerusalem, for with suffi cient power and an increased rainfall, irrigation would be made easier, and in some cases would ceas1 to be necessary Once more the Promised Land would flow with milk and honey," for the greatest lack of agricultui Ists has been water, due to the arid nature of the soil on the level lands and to the denudation denuda-tion of the soil on the slopes by the cultiug down of the forests. Palestine proper is usually considered to mean the land west of the River Jordan, but there is a once-fruitful table land lying east of the s river, formerly the "Land of Moab," where wheat was y Sectional I , View of PTunneeid 1 Drop L ' grown in large quantities in ancient times. In order to understand precisely what will occur when the waters of the Mediterranean Medi-terranean pour into the Dead Sea by the million tons daily, we must consider the ' gi eat valley of the Jordan, which the Arabs I .. call the "Ghor." This depression of more than .".000 feet, in which the Dead Sea and the Jordan River valley lie is part of a great geological "fault" extending extend-ing from Antloch, in Syria, southward between be-tween the Lebanon mountans and the range of which Mount Hermon is the summit, sum-mit, and onward through the Jordan valley and its continuation to the Gulf of Akaba I and t he Red Sea. The earthquakes which still occur from M time to time in the region of the Dead , Sea are but the last shivering movements of the earth's crust which have been ln progress -here since the middle of the Ter- ij tlary period (long before man came on Alfl earth), and which in their total result have produced the depression. It is as ' If a vast block of solid rock fifty or sixty swf miles wide and hundreds of ti:!les long had broken off from the main mass extending ex-tending eastward, and thus had created the gaping crevasse which separates Pal estlne proper from the plains of Moab. This ground is of especial interest to' Bible students for it is closf ly connected ' With the story of Lot and Abraham in the Old Testament Those who know their Book of Genesis will remember that when tli herdsmen of Abraham quarrelled with those of his nephew Lot, Abraham ad-j ?1 ed that they separate and gave Lot the privilege of choosing where he would go. Lot went to Sodom. Warned of the lm- if pending doom, he hastened to leave, warn- j ing his wife and children not to look back, but Lot's wife did look back and was turned Into "a pillar of salt." j . The vivid description of the destruction b of Sodom and Gomorrah where it is said JE the brimstono was rained down upon these f cities and that the scene was "as the smoke of a furnace," is borne out by the fact that there : re still volcanoes in the neighborhood and many hot springs, show Ing that the inner fires are not very far from the surface. I All tlm happened something like forty centuries ago. for Abraham lived in 2100 B. C , and it is quite remarkable that now the very site of the destruction of two of the great cities of ancient times will be the centre of a project to bring back pros-pint;-- and agricultural wealth to the country. tfl The Mediterranean Sea is really an inland ocean, of enormous size, extending from the Straits of Gibraltar on the I r to Asia on the east, and covering l'.:iriV fhmwriml Tiiltoo -f a,,-fonA T - . u u u i oui IUV.C. i L llu easily Bpare millions upon millions of tons of ater, for it is not only fed by the great Ivera of Europe. Asia and Africa, but is Connected directh with the vast Atfentio Ocean, and consequently its waters are 1 inexhau-1 1 )1 Map Showing Subterranean Route of the Proposed Gigantic Tunnel. (ft l; Ph JEfCHO I IfI Z P ( JEUSflLEH A " I o 5 'O yy - i 1 - 1 SCALE of MIL.C5 J ' |