Hey, cabby! How much to take me to the station?
"Five bucks, sir."
"And how much for my suitcase?"
"No charge for the suitcase, sir."
"Okay. Take the case and I'll walk."
Sir William WillcocksDied 29 Jul 1932 at age 79 (born 27 Sep 1852). British civil engineer who proposed and designed the first Aswan (Assuan) Dam (1898-1902) on the River Nile and executed major irrigation projects in South Africa and Turkey. He was born studied engineering in India before moving to Egypt in 1883, becoming director-general of reservoirs. On being asked to find a means of storing Nile water to allow the growth of an extra crop of cotton, he found a depression at Wadi Rayan, into which part of the annual flood waters could be diverted, then fed back into the river in the dry season. When persuaded to build a dam, he designed the Aswan Dam to allow the silt-laden waters of the early weeks of the annual flood to pass through, and only capture for storage the clear water that flowed later in the season. |
