The triangular space enclosed by these two branches and the sea-coast was called by the Greeks the delta, on account of the likeness in shape to the Greek letter of that name A. At the head, or apex, of the triangle stands the famous barrage, or dam, begun in 1847 by Mehemet Ali, for the twofold purpose of reclaiming many thousand acres of waste land, and of regulating the discharge and the navigation through the Delta.  The idea was originated by a Frenchman in his service named Linant Bey.  This engineer desired to alter the course of the river and build a weir at a point farther to the north, where the contour of land seemed to favour the design more than that of the present locality.  Mehemet Ali thought his plans too costly, and accepted in preference those of Mougel Bey.  Unexpected difficulties were encountered from the very beginning.  Mehemet was exceedingly anxious to hurry the work, and Mougel Bey had only made a beginning, when an exceptionally high Nile carried away all the lime in the concrete base.  Mehemet Ali did not live to see the completion of this work.  The object, could it have been realised, was to hold up the waters of the Nile during the eight months of the ebb, and thus keep them on a level with the soil, and at the same time to supply Lower Egypt with an amount of water equal to that which came down during flood-time.  It was hoped to cover the very large expenditure by the additional land which it was expected would come under irrigation, and by doing away with the primitive shadoofs and setting free for productive enterprise the numerous army of the agricultural labourers who spent the greater part of their time in slowly raising up buckets of water from the Nile and pouring them into the irrigating channels.

[Illustration:  240b.jpg Harbour at Suez]

The barrage is a double bridge, or weir, the eastern part spanning the Damietta branch of the Nile, the western part the Rosetta branch.  The appearance of the structure is so light and graceful that the spectator finds it hard to conceive of the difficulty and the greatness of the work itself.  Architecturally, the barrage is very beautiful, with a noble front and a grand effect, produced by a line of castellated turrets, which mark the site of the sluice gates.  There are two lofty crenellated towers, corresponding with the towers over the gateway of a mediaeval baronial castle.  The sluices are formed of double cones of hollow iron, in a semicircular form, worked on a radii of rods fixed to a central axis at each side of the sluice-gate.  They are slowly raised or let down by the labour of two men, the gates being inflected as they descend in the direction of the bed of that part of the river whose waters are retained.  The working of the barrage was never what it was intended to be.  After the year 1867 it ceased to be of any practical utility, and was merely an impediment to navigation.  Between the years 1885—­90, however, during the British occupation, Sir Colon Scott-Moncrieff successfully completed the barrage at a cost of $2,500,000, and now the desired depth of eight feet of water on the lower part of the Nile can always be maintained.