Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/566

560 dam. A triple line of railway, and numerous trucks and locomotives, were provided to convey the materials from quarries and stores to every part of the work. The maximum number of men employed was 11,000, of whom 1,000 were European masons and other skilled men (Figs. 3, 4 and 5).

Mr. Wilfred Stokes, chief engineer and managing director of Messrs. Ransomes and Rapier, was responsible for the detailed designing and manufacture of the sluices and lock-gates; 140 of the sluices are 23 feet high by 6 feet 6 inches wide, and 40 of them half that height; 130 of the sluices are on the 'Stoney' principle, with rollers, and the remainder move on sliding surfaces. The larger of the Stoney sluices weigh 14 tons, and are capable of being moved by hand under a head of water producing a pressure of 450 tons against the sluice.

There are five lock-gates, 32 feet wide, and varying in height up to 60 feet. They are of an entirely different type to ordinary folding lock-gates, being hung from the top on rollers, and moving like a sliding coach-house door. This arrangement was adopted for safety, as 1,000 million tons of water are stored up above the lock-gates, and each of the two upper gates is made strong enough to hold up the water, assuming the four other gates were destroyed (Fig. 6). When the river is rising, the sluices will all be open, and the red water will pass freely through, without depositing the fertilizing silt. After the flood, when the water has become clear, and the discharge of the Nile has fallen to about 2,000 tons per second, the gates without rollers will be closed, and then some of those with rolllersrollers [sic]; so that between December and March the reservoir will be gradually filled. The reopening of the sluices will take place between May and July, according to the state of the Nile and the requirements of the crops.

Between December and May, when the reservoir is full, the island of Philæ will in places be slightly flooded. As the temples are founded partly on loose silt and sand, the saturation of the hitherto dry soil would cause settlement, and no doubt injury to the ruins. To obviate this risk, all the important parts, including the well-known Kiosk, or