L.45/3033

Full leather-bound volume (front board detached) measuring 300 x 390 mm, titled as above in gilt stamping on front cover, with titlepage and 2pp. printed introduction, followed by 20 gelatin silver prints mounted one to a page on heavy card (recto and verso) with letterpress captions beneath each image. The photographs record construction work undertaken between 1925 and 1927. The introductory 'Descriptive Note' records that 'The Gezira Plain lies between the Blue and White Niles in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The possibility of irrigating it [for growing cotton] was realised by Sir William Garstin ... when he visited the Sudan soon after its reconquest in 1898. From 1904 preliminary investigations were carried out by the Sudan branch of the Egyptian Irrigation Service under Messrs. Dupuis and Tottenham, C.B.B.' Preparatory experiments were carried out in 1911 and work began to be put in hand in 1914, with the contruction of accommodation, stores and workshops. The outbreak of the First World War put a stop to the project until 1919, when it was resumed. In 1922 a contract for the construction of a dam and irrigation works was signed between the Sudan Government and Messrs. S. Pearson and Sons, with a completion date of July 1925. At the height of construction work in 1924, 20,000 workers were employed on the project.