This suggestion might be carried out by gradations; the
great work might be commenced by a single dam above the first
cataract at Assouan, at a spot where the river is walled in by
granite hills; at that place, the water could be raised to an
exceedingly high level, that would command an immense tract of
country. As the system became developed, similar dams might be
constructed at convenient intervals that would not only bring
into cultivation the neighbouring deserts, but would facilitate
the navigation of the river, that is now impeded, and frequently
closed, by the numerous cataracts. By raising the level of the
Nile sixty feet at every dam, the cataracts would no longer
exist, as the rocks which at present form the obstructions would
be buried in the depths of the river. At the positions of the
several dams, sluice gates and canals would conduct the shipping
either up or down the stream. Were this principle carried out as
far as the last cataracts, near Khartoum, the Soudan would no
longer remain a desert; the Nile would become not only the
cultivator of those immense tracts that are now utterly
worthless, but it would be the navigable channel of Egypt for the
extraordinary distance of twenty-seven degrees of
latitude--direct from the Mediterranean to Gondokoro, N.
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