Basin irrigation holds the flood waters for some 45 days per annum over the whole of the valley. The water is in places 3 metres deep, and in others only 30 centimetres deep, while the average depth is about 1 metre. Now the retention of this water over the land for a period of six weeks permits of the thorough saturation of the subsoil in places where the subsoil is of proper consistency; and this water can be drawn on, in winter and summer, for maturing certain crops and growing others. It was where the subsoil gave a plentiful supply of water, and permitted of intense cultivation throughout the year, that we find all the ancient capitals of Egypt. Abydos has the finest subsoil water in the Nile Valley; Memphis has an excellent supply; while Thebes has the only good subsoil water on the whole of the right bank. Good subsoil water was to the ancient Egyptian world what the presence of a rich gold mine is to one of our new colonies.

PLAN XIV

THE NORTH SOHAG SYSTEM of BASINS

Lith. Sur. Dep. Cairo.

[Larger map] (280 kB)

Subsoil water supplies the link between basin and perennial irrigation. It explains the reason why modern Egypt is not satisfied with the irrigation which has come down from the remotest antiquity, but is desirous of conferring on the length and breadth of the Nile Valley those advantages which gave Abydos, Memphis, and Thebes their pre-eminence in the past. Any country which possesses rivers and streams whose waters are in flood for six weeks per annum at a suitable season of the year can betake itself to basin irrigation with more or less profit. The science of dams, weirs, and regulators has received such development during recent years that there can be no problem so difficult that it cannot be solved by experience and originality. Basin irrigation allows of the thorough development of countries whose streams have short and turbid floods which precede a fairly cool season; whether such irrigation be the stately irrigation of the Nile Valley, perfected by the science and experience of 7,000 years; or the less perfect, but still highly developed and river-fed tank systems of Madras; or the primitive, but effective basins of Bundelkund, where the impounded water irrigates the crops on the down-stream sides of the basins for one season, and then allows of the basins themselves being dried and cultivated in the next.

The Nile in high flood rises 10 metres above its bed, in a mean flood 9 metres and in a poor flood 71⁄2 metres. The beds of the main basin canals are about 41⁄2 metres, and the cultivated land at the river’s edge about 9 metres above the river-bed. The basins have an average area of 7,000 acres. Where the valley is narrow, they average 2,000 acres each, and where it is wide 20,000 acres; while some of the tail basins are 40,000 acres in extent. Each canal has about seven or eight basins depending on it, of which the last is always the largest. There are masonry regulators at the canal heads, at each crossing of the cross banks, and at the tail escapes into the river. In the more perfect basins the canals and escapes syphon under one another and overlap and supply each other’s deficiencies, so as to meet the requirements of every kind of flood which Egypt can experience. Colonel Ross’s work on the basin irrigation of Egypt is a monument of patient observation and a storehouse of information. Some of the canals like the Sohagia on [Plate XIV] are veritable rivers, discharging 450 cubic metres per second; but a good average canal discharges 30 cubic metres per second. The largest canal has a width of 75 metres, while the average width is 9 metres. Good basin canals discharge in an average year one cubic metre per second per 700 acres. Forty-five days suffice for a perfect irrigation. The cost of providing basin irrigation in Egypt for basins of 10,000 acres may be taken at £3 per acre thus made up:—Banks, £1·50.; canals, £·75.; masonry works, £·50.; and bank protection, £·25. If the basins are under 5,000 acres, the cost will be nearly double this. The annual cost of maintenance is £·10 per acre; while the lands themselves are rented at £3 per acre. In well irrigated basins no manures are needed, and alternate crops of cereals and legumins have been reaped for centuries without the land having been exhausted in any way whatever. Where the subsoil water is good and double cropping resorted to, then manures have to be applied.

29. Perennial Irrigation.

—The foundation-stone of the conversion of the whole of Egypt from basin to perennial irrigation was laid by Mehemet Ali in 1833, when he began the construction of the Barrages across the Nile branches north of Cairo. These weirs were intended to raise the summer level of the Nile by 3 metres. As the ordinary summer level of the Nile was 1.50 metres above its bed, the weirs were expected to raise it 4.50 metres above the Nile bed. The old basin canals had to be considerably deepened to take in the summer supplies; while in other parts new perennial canals were dug. Perennial irrigation requires canals capable of discharging 1 cubic metre per second per 3500 acres, as against 700 acres for basin irrigation. Some of the perennial canals are very capacious. The two largest discharge 700 and 450 cubic metres per second respectively. There are no artificial canals in the world like them. All the canals are liberally provided with regulators and locks. The energies of the Irrigation Department during the last ten years have been chiefly directed to the provision of sufficient drains to meet that over-saturation of the soil, which all but the best regulated perennial irrigation invariably entails. After many years’ experience in India and Egypt, we are convinced that the construction of drains and escapes should precede, and not follow the canals. It seems fatuous for engineers to be always over-saturating and half-ruining tens of thousands of acres of low-lying lands, during the improvement of hundreds of thousands of acres of high-lying lands, when it would be perfectly easy, with a little foresight, to secure all the advantages without piling up disadvantages. The drains have generally one-third the capacity of the canals. Dry crops require 1 cubic metre per second per 3500 acres; and rice requires the same per 2000 acres. The drains in dry-cropped lands provide for 1 cubic metre per second per 10,000 acres, and in rice lands 1 cubic metre per second per 6000 acres.