42 the objects which they are intended to serve. The Gebel Aulia dam, forty-five kiloni.

south of Khartoum, is designed to form a reservoir with an effective summer storage ■estimated at nearly double that of the reservoir at Assouan. Its object is to permit of the perennial cultivation of the remaining waste or basin areas of Egypt, amounting to some 1,900,000 acres (excluding 200,000 acres of Lake Menzala reserved for pisciculture) which are now uncultivated, and 1,200,000 acres which, under basin irrigation, produce one crop a year. To allow of the distribution of the increased supply of water to the land a series of schemes is in progress for the enlargement and ■extension of canals in the Delta for the provision of drainage and the reclamation of land at present heavily salted or under marsh and lake; while the construction of a barrage near Nag Hamadi would enable basin areas in Upper Ept to be ■converted to perennial irrigation. The works are intended at the same time to reduce the danger arising from an excessive flood. The dam on the Blue Nile at Makwar, near Sennar, is intended to raise that river to the level required to feed a great canal, which is to irrigate a triangular tract of land known as the Gezira, approximately as large as the Delta of Egypt, and lying immediately south of lUbartoum. It is proposed at first to cultivate an area of 300,000 acres, one-third •of which would be placed under cotton in each year. This dam would also store a ater in order to ensure none being withdrawn at a time when it During the summer Sir Murdoch MacDonald, Adviser to the Ministry of Public Works, gave evidence before a Board of Trade Committee in London both as to the •cultivation of cotton in the Soudan Gezira and as to the great extension of cotton production in Egypt expected to result from the construction of the White Nile dam •and other works. A very urgent and difficult undertakii was carried out in the Soudan provinces •of Dongola and Berber on behalf of the Soudan Government. It was decided to •erect pumps and irrigate for cereal cultivation a number of specified areas in these two provinces. Many of the sites were remote from convenient sources of supply. The work was begun early in 1917; it was due to be completed in the autumn, and much of it had to be done before the arrival of the flood at midsummer. Machinery was late in arriving at some places, but otherwise works were in the main ready by the appointed time.

This was the second year of the working by Government of the Abu Menaga pumping station a little way north of Cairo. This station, whose electric power is obtained from the Heliopolis Oasis Company, has proved an unqualified success, and the cultivators within reach of the system have, at the expense of 15s. an acre, gerformed the irrigation that elsewhere in the same neighbourhood is understood to ave cost several pounds.

The summer water supply of 1918 was good; the flood was late but otherwise satisfactory. Continued care was given to Nile banks and a large programme of protective works carried out. In the Soudan preliminary work was conducted at the site of the Sennar dam, upon the canalisation of the Gezira and also at Gebel Aulia. Certain machinery for the cement factory was bought, and quarrying for limestone and wood-cutting for fuel were begun.

The 1919 summer supply intheNile was above normal and the flood arrived in good time. Thus, although at one time a considerable quantity of water had to be used for purposes of navigation that would normally have been reserved for crops, the season passed without undue shortage. The area cultivated with rice had, however, to be, limited to 100,000 acres instead of the 200,000 which are usually attempted. The* maximum level of the flood, measured at Assouan, was E.L. 92*22 and was attained on the 19th and 20th September. It was a high enough flood to allow satisfactory cultivation of the basin areas in Upper Egypt, and only an area of 16,500 acres was left without water, chiefly on islands, foreshores of the Nile and in some isolated basins. In Lower Egypt levels were not sc high as to cause anxiety in regard to the safety of the river banks; the flood may, therefore, be called a fairly good one, being almost sufficient, and not unsafe.

As regards new irrigation works, the year was far from representing a return to the normal conditions of peace. Political unrest, the high cost of labour and material, the continued absence of officials with the army in Europe were causes that hindered a resumption of the schemes suspended by the war. Some advance, however, was made in the works for the Gebel Aulia and Sennar dams in the Soudan by the erection of the cement factory at the site of the Sennar dam and the purchase of plant, while the quarrying of limestone for ceinent and the cutting of timber for fuel were continued.

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