As I came over, I stopped from time to time to examine the construction. The dam is made of big blocks of red granite as fine as that of any tombstone in the United States. They are beautifully cut, and fitted as closely as the walls of a palace. On the upper side or south face the wall is perpendicular, forming a straight up-and-down barrier against the waters of the Nile. I climbed down a ladder on that side at one place almost to the river, and could see that the blocks are fitted so closely that the cement does not show. The masonry seems almost one solid stone throughout, with the exception of where the great sluices are cut, to allow the river to flow through at the times of the flood, and as the floods subside to shut back the waters to form the reservoir for the dry season. There are one hundred and eighty of these sluice gates in the dam, each of which has steel doors that can be raised or lowered to allow the whole river to flow through or to hold back as much or as little as the engineers will. The dam is thus a great stone wall pierced by these gates. The Nile never flows over the top of the dam, but always through the gates and the canal at one side. When the gates are closed during the dry season, enough water is held back by this structure of steel and granite to form a lake over one hundred miles long, and this is let out as needed to supplement the ordinary flow of the river and give the crops plenty of water all summer through. There is water enough in the reservoir to give all the families of the United States all they could use for four or five months, and enough to supply Great Britain and Ireland the entire year. The weight of this water is stupendous and its force inconceivable. Nevertheless, during the floods fully as much runs through the dam every day as the whole supply kept back during the dry season; and the structure had to be made so that it would retain this huge lake and at flood time let a lake equal to it pass through. Talk about the Pyramids! The Aswan Dam is far more wonderful than they are. The Pyramid of Cheops required one hundred thousand men and over twenty years in its building. The Aswan Dam was constructed by about eleven thousand men in four years. The Pyramid of Cheops was made by forced labour and impoverished the people. The Aswan Dam cost about twelve million dollars and the men who worked upon it were better paid than any others who had ever laboured in the valley of the Nile. Moreover, the dam has meant prosperity for Egypt. It has added to it more than one million five hundred thousand acres of tillable land and has increased the value of its crops by over thirteen million dollars per annum. It has more than paid for its cost every year. Since it has been built the yearly tax revenues have gained by two million dollars, and the lands owned by the government have become worth five million dollars more.