The Egyptian Sudan 148 The project's installments are paid from loans contracted in England, guaranteed by the British Government, in the years 1913-1914, 1919, and 1920. The total of these loans is £13,000,000. The project includes the construction of a dam at Makwar, a main canal 62 miles long, and a thirty-mile wide canal. The first thirty miles – up to the point where the first branch exits – are approximately 87 feet wide. Then, the excavation of smaller canals 535 miles long, supplementary canals 125 miles long, and field channels 535 miles long.

The total earth excavated from the smaller canals, supplementary canals, and other channels (excluding the main canal) is approximately eight times the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The reader may find a clearer picture of the amount of excavation from the actual reality: if bricks were made from the excavated earth, they would be sufficient to build a wall five feet high and one foot thick around the Earth at the equator.

The American firm Bykros is undertaking the excavation of the main canals, working day and night with its massive machinery to complete the work before the deadline stipulated in the agreement. The Sudan Plantations Syndicate is responsible for constructing the irrigation systems on the farms and preparing the land for cultivation. This syndicate has gained extensive experience in cotton cultivation in this region. The major construction works have been entrusted to the firm of Pierce and Sons, who have pledged to proceed with the machinery at a rapid pace that will lead to obtaining a cotton crop in 1925.

The Syndicate proposes to divide the three hundred thousand feddans into twenty areas, each measuring fifteen thousand feddans, with a senior inspector managing each part. The Syndicate will also oversee cultivation and establish the necessary ice factories.

The magnitude of the project undertaken by the Agricultural Syndicate in Sudan is understood by knowing that the new cotton cultivation area is equivalent to seven times the area of the largest...