Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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“This is of all lands with which we are acquainted, by far the best for the growth of corn. It is so fruitful in the produce of corn that it yields continually two hundred-fold, and when it produces its best it yields even three hundred-fold. The blades of wheat and barley grow there to full four fingers in breadth, and though I well know to what a height millet and sesame grow, I shall not mention it.”

The proposed reclamation, according to the Willcocks report, can be completed for $40,000,000, and bring under irrigation more than 3,000,000 acres, which he estimates would be worth at least $100,000,000, or $30 an acre. The Assouan dam system, which he has recently completed, cost the Egyptian government $25,000,000, and only about half the area was reclaimed.

Sir William proposes, by dams and canals, to store the floods that are brought down from the mountains in the spring, in enormous reservoirs for use during the summer, and has indicated locations for at least five, which will, he believes, answer every purpose. At least two of these locations were used as reservoirs by the Babylonians and probably by previous civilizations, and Sir William will adapt to modern use the same canals that were then used to distribute the water over the plains. Several dry river beds can also be made available and thus economize the cost.