The Egyptian Sudan 148 The project costs are to be paid from loans contracted in England by the British Government in the years 1913-1914, 1918, and 1920, totaling £130,000,000. The project includes the construction of a dam at Makwar, a main canal 62 miles long, and a thirty-mile-wide section of the first part of the canal – up to the point where the first branch exits – approximately 87 feet deep. It also includes the excavation of minor canals 535 miles long, additional canals 125 miles long, and field channels 5625 miles long.

The total earth excavated from the minor canals, additional 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 fact that if the excavated earth were made into bricks, it would be enough to build a wall five feet high and one foot thick around the Earth at the equator.

The American company Bechtel 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 contract. The Sudan Plantations Syndicate is responsible for the construction of channels in the farms, preparing the land, and making it ready for cultivation. This company has gained extensive experience in cotton cultivation in this region. The major construction works have been entrusted to the firm of Pearson & Sons, who have pledged to carry out the work rapidly to ensure a cotton harvest 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 section. The Syndicate will also oversee cultivation and establish the necessary ginneries. The magnitude of the project undertaken by the Agricultural Syndicate in Sudan can be understood by knowing that the new cotton-growing area is seven times the size of the largest...