Scottish Geographical Magazine the Development of The
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This article was downloaded by: [Bangor University] On: 22 December 2014, At: 05:23 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Scottish Geographical Magazine Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsgj19 The development of the Nile valley, past and future Henry M. Cadell B.Sc. F.R.S.E. Published online: 30 Jan 2008. To cite this article: Henry M. Cadell B.Sc. F.R.S.E. (1903) The development of the Nile valley, past and future, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 19:5, 225-248, DOI: 10.1080/14702540308553923 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14702540308553923 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions Downloaded by [Bangor University] at 05:23 22 December 2014 Downloaded by [Bangor University] at 05:23 22 December 2014 THE ASSUAN RESERVOIR DAM FROM THE SOUTH-WEST SKETCH BY H, ~{. CADELL~ SHEWING THE RESERVOIR NEARLY FULL 1 DECEMBER I902 THE SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NILE VALLEY, PAST AND FUTURE. By HENRY M. CADELL of Grange, B.Sc., F.R.S.E. ANCIENT records tell us that King Mena, who founded the first of the thirty Egyptian dynasties and the famous city of Memphis, showed his engineering skill by turning aside the course of the Nile some 6300 years ago. His successor, Teta, appears also to have been a practical and a scientific genius, for we are told that he continued to build Memphis, and wrote a book on anatomy. But the development of the Nile valley had been in progress long before these worthies of antiquity began their operations, and the record of its first beginnings and early growth must be sought for among the archives of unwritten history, embedded in the rocks and deserts of north-east Africa and the Arabian coast. Most river valleys, as every student of .~eography knows, are of the nature of ruts worn or eroded in the surface of the land by the long- continued action of running water, and of such valleys of erosion the Downloaded by [Bangor University] at 05:23 22 December 2014 Grand Cation of the Colorado river in America is perhaps the most classical example in the world. Recent geological investigations have disclosed the existence of a second class of valleys with a different history. These so-called "rift valleys" are due to great faults or cracks, and are particularly numerous in the NE. of Africa and the Red Sea area. The rift valleys are of comparatively recent geological age, and the rivers that flow along some of them, although perhaps ancient historically, are young in comparison with most of the streams in the valleys of erosion. The two famous rivers of antiquity, the Nile and the Jordan, had their courses marked out by lines of earthquake cracks which rent the whole region in two principal directions not earlier than the Miocene or Middle Tertiary period. The straight western coast of the Red Sea and VOL. XIX, R 226 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE the Gulf of Suez mark the direction of one of these lines of fissure which has a general trend to the NNW. The Jordan valley, terminating in the Gulf of Akaba, runs nearly due north and south, or a little to the east of north, and this is the course of the second system of rift lines. Great rift valleys also run southwards through the Abyssinian plateau to Lake Rudolf, and give rise to many remarkable physical features in other parts of East Africa. Between the main fractures there are many smaller ones which have also produced changes of level and features of more or less importance in the geography of the region. The valley of the Nile is not a single crack like that of the Jordan, and indeed a large part of it may not be directly caused by fracturing of the crust at all, but there is no room for doubt that between Assuan 1 and Cairo at all events the river runs more or less along lines of disturbance the evidence of which is sometimes extremely clear on the cliffs at either side. The geological history of the Nile valley has not yet been systematically studied, and the subject is one of much interest, not purely from the scientific side, but also from an economic point of view, since there is reason to believe that gold and other valuable metals, and perhaps coal, will be found to occur at different places in the unexplored desert and undeveloped wilderness of Upper Egypt and the Sudan. From what we do know of the development of Egypt in prehistoric times it seems quite clear that the lower part of the Nile valley was at first a long narrow arm of the sea, like the Gulf of Akaba. Various borings have been made through the fine alluvium that forms the rich soil of the country, and at depths varying from 40 to over 100 feet, a widespread substratum of coarse marine sand and gravel has been found underlying the loamy soil. Rough detritus occurs mixed with this old shore deposit, detritus washed down from the neighbouring limestone plateau at a time when this country enjoyed a comparatively moist climate. This may have been the period in Egypt that corresponded with the great ice age in northern Europe. By a later upheaval the valley, with the adjacent country, was lifted above sea-level, and the river began to spread its alluvium over the rougher sediment in the bottom of the trough. The fine river mud has continued to accumulate ever since, both along the banks in the strath of Upper Egypt and on the broad plain of the delta below Cairo. Downloaded by [Bangor University] at 05:23 22 December 2014 The quantity of water that passes Assuan at the upper extremity of the cultivable ground of Egypt is approximately known, and also the burden of sediment it carries. Sir William Willeocks, 2 the leading authority on Egyptian irrigation, estimates the whole quantity of solid matter that passes Assuan every year at 60 millions of cubic metres, or 2,119,000,000 cubic feet. This is a large figure, whose meaning is difficult to grasp, except by comparison, but if we imagine this mudbank heaped up and placed alongside of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, whose size is well known to all travellers, some idea may be formed of its dimensions. The pyramid, which is 451 feet high, covers an area of 13 acres, and has a volume of 85 millions of cubic feet. If one year's 1 Spelt also Assouan and Aswan. 2 Egyptian Irrigation, 2nd edition, p. 429. THE NILE--CAIRO TO KHARTUM 30 : : ? /~ ii:/¸/~ ::~ :i::~: ~:!ii :! ? ,.:~'t~" :i i :~::iii: ¸ i~iii" i :~:, ,!:ii:i'!~ c..l~,a., Downloaded by [Bangor University] at 05:23 22 December 2014 I~L-- Desert shown thus , LL--/ , 30 Scutti~ Geo~"a.p~iea] }/~a~azLr±e, ]903 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE l~ILE VALLEY, PAST AND FUTURE. 227 supply of Nile mud were to be heaped up in the same way it would make a pyramid with 25 times the volume of that of Cheops ; or, if'it were all spread over a single square mile of country, the level of the ground would be raised 76 feet. Sir William Willcocks estimates that 36 million cubic metres, or more than half of this mud, is carried past Cairo to the sea every year, the rest going to increase the area or height of the land. If the whole of the Nile mud could be collected and used for reclamation purposes, the development of Egypt would be greatly promoted, as the quantity lost would fill up a lake 1 yard deep and 14 miles square every year. According to the same authority the mud which is being already laid down is raising the surface of the land at the average rate of 0"12 metre per century, or nearly one-twentieth of an inch per annum. Some parts of course receive much more sediment than others according to their situation, and there are large areas that receive none at all, and are there- fore quite out of cultivation. Among the latter the salt marshes and shallow lakes round the coast occupy a conspicuous place, and if these were reclaimed and freshened so that they could support vegetation, the gain to Egypt would be very great.