"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٥‎٤‎٣] (١٧٨٢/١٦٩٨)

ft
to-
1643
At length the question of Mesopotamian irrigation and river-control ^£^3.
was taken in hand, at first in a private manner, by the eminent English projects
engineer Sir W. Willcocks, by whom the Assouan barrage on the Nile was .^ i ^ a ^ ion
designed, and who had been Director-General o£ Reservoirs in Egypt. On of Meso-
the 25th March 1903 he delivered, at a meeting of the Khedivial Geogra- ^90^05.
phical Society at Cairo, a ^lecture on the "Re-creation of Chaldea^ m
which he stated the conclusions at which he had arrived m regard to the
irrigation of Turkish 'Iraq. His information in regard to the country
was at that time chiefly drawn from the writings of Commander Felix
Jones, 1. N. In the winter of 1904-05 Sir W. Willcocks visited Baghdad
and spent several weeks in investigating the physical and agricultural con
ditions of the province. Returning to Egypt he drew up a report in which
he discussed the question of bringing the whole country from Hit and
Samarrah to the Persian Gulf under perennial irrigation, and advanced
for immediate consideration two preliminary projects, depending
one upon the Tigris and the other upon the Euphrates. These initial
schemes contemplated the fertilisation of a million acres of land at a cost
of seven and a half million pounds sterling; and Sir W. Willcocks
anticipated a handsome return on the outlay. The Euphrates project
was brought to the notice of the Sultan by the British Ambassador at
Constantinople in June 1905, and was received not unfavourably, but
with the remark that the magnitude of the undertaking would necessitate
the formation of a Company, and that until the terms required by the
Company were known no opinion could be pronounced as to the permissi
bility of the scheme. His Majesty, however, desired to be supplied with
a summary in Turkish of Sir W. Willcocks' proposals.
ftuestion of land communications in Turkish 'Iraq, 1876
1904.
In 1878, notwithstanding the measures taken by Mid-hat Pasha Baghdad
a few years previously to assure the safety of the drrect rente by the ^
fnr Tnpntionina a serios of coincide' ces
* The present writer may bo pard willcocks' original lecture at Cairo in
personal to himself. He was present at to W. Wxl cocks o Mdency
.r. n ^ t ..I q* w Willoocks the hospitality of the liiitisn Kesiaency,
1903; he enjoyed with Sn W ^ , ' lc0C „„ . ^ at a lato . period, in 190S-11,
then under Colonel Kewaiarch, at Bag a ' Tvysh Ministry of Public
whea Sir W. Willcoehs had been appointed Ad ..sc to Tu. k h ^
Works in Turkish 'Iraq, he was brought as Resident at I a„ u
with him.
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