ifty-four or fifty-five feet at the
Egyptian frontier, and twenty-five or twenty-six feet at Cairo. A
subsidence then sets in, and continues till low-water level is again
reached, usually about the end of May. The floods are then much higher
and confined to a narrower space in the Nubian section of the Nile,
while they gradually die out in the region of the Delta, where the
excess seawards is discharged by the Rosetta and Damietta branches. In
place of the old Nilometers, the amount of the rise of the Nile is now
reported by telegraph from meteorological stations.

It is popularly supposed that at every rise the plains of the Delta are
inundated, but this is not the case. The actual overflow of the banks
of the river and canals is the exception, and when it happens is most
disastrous. The irrigation of fields and plantations is effected by
slow infiltration through the retaining dykes, which are prevented
from bursting by the process of slow absorption. The first lands to be
affected are not those which are nearest to the dyke, but those which
are of the lowest level, because the waters, in percolating through
under the ground, reach the surface of these parts first. In Manitoba
during a dry season sometimes the roots of the wheat strike down deep
enough to reach the reservoir of moisture under ground. In Egypt this
underground moisture is what is counted upon, but it is fed by a special
and prepared system, and is thus brought to the roots of the plants
artificially.

[Illustration: 245.jpg SCALE OF THE NILOMETER]

An analysis of the Nile alluvium, which has accumulated in the course of
ages to a thickness of from three to four feet above the old river-bed,
shows that it contains a considerable percentage of such fertilising
substances as carbonate of lime and magnesia, silicates of aluminum,
carbon, and several oxides. Where the water has to be raised to higher
levels, two processes are used. The primitive shadoof of native origin
figured on a monument as far back as 3,300 years ago, and the more
modern sakieh was apparently introduced in later times from Syria and
Persia. The shadoof is used on small farms, and the sakieh is more often
used for larger farms and plantations. These contrivances line the whole
course of the Nile from Lower Egypt to above Khartum. The shadoof will
raise six hundred gallons ten feet in an hour, and consists of a pole
weighted at one end, with a bucket at the other; when the water is
ra