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¢ > "~ Harnessing the Sacred River Jordan for 5000000 = & Broadway by Horse Power Li 2 3 : hi, i : ISM8 Wrung from the Tres ~ Stream Where Jesus Was ' Jerusalem As It Is To-day, from a Photograph Taken from the Hill Overlooking the Church of St. Anne. HE-sacred River Jordan, famous in Biblical history from the days of Joshua to the time of Christ, is to be harnessed by science te irrigate, heat, light and industrialize the Holy Land. The British Government, which holds a mandatory over Palestine, has granted concessions to a company organized to carry out the pro- ject at a cost of $5,000,000, and next month the first construction gang will pitch camp near the spot where St. John baptized Jesus. Within five years the company expects to throw a dam across the Jordan at its outlet from the Sea of Galilee and to parallel the river with canals, laterals and ditches which will water the Plains of Sharon and other barren lands familar to every Bible reader. _ Nor is this all. After the initial expense of $5,000,000, the com- pany contemplates additional financing of from $40,000,006 to $60,- 000,000 through which electrie power will be supplied to docks, wharves, railways, plantations, mills, factories, workshops, laboratories and every building and home from Dan to Beersheba. Strange as it may seem, this generation may see Jerusalem, Jeri- cho,-Damascus and other ancient cities with street cars,, "White Ways," great industrial plants, telephones, radio concerts, steam heat in the brief but bitter Mediterranean Winter, artificial ice and electric fans in Summer, and all the other modern inventions which hydraulic ex- ploitation brings. And this from the river the Israclites under Joshua ctossed dry- shod with the Ark of the Covenant; the river where Naaman bathed seven times to cure his leprosy; the river where John stooped to lave his Lord as the dove fluttered above their heads; the river whose re- puted sacred waters have been bottled and sold for fabulous prices for centuries in every part of the world! The development of Palestine has been discussed for many years. But not until Pinhas Rutenberg, a practical civil engineer, spent months of study in the Holy Land, reported that the thing could be executed as a paying proposition, secured the assistance of the Baron Edmond de Rothschild and other financiers, obtained Zionist approval and then helped to organize the company.that got government concessions, was anything definite done. : Now there is already an electric power station under construction at Jaffa on the Palestine shore of the Mediterranean, two other station Baptized: Photograph Taken at the Headwaters of the Jordan. From above the Sea of Galilee two canals will be cut parallelin the course of the Jordan. A thir canal may be dug. in another direc- tion to reach the Plains of Sharon. From these canals will branch out laterals and irrigation ditchas touching the entire countryside. It. is believed that hundreds 'of thousands of acres, now arid, can thus be. made to bear rich har- vests. Already there are in Pal- estine crudely fashioned water- 'works, many of them dating back are planned at Haifa and Jerusalem, and men and materials are being : assembled for the first great step of the project--harnessing the Jordan. Pe the ei or David, whie ae --What Mr. Rutenberg proposes to do can be told very simply. a3 L1¢ €ana 3 are Hui i. The River Jordan, most important stream in Palestine, rises in the Two power houses will be built mountains of Lebanon and runs only thirteen miles until it reaches ©on the Jordan, one near the Gal- the Sea of Galilee, slso known as Lake Gennesaret and Lake Tiberias. ilee dam and another farther Leaving the Sea of Galilee, it winds southward until it empties into the: flown the river. The water in the Sea of Galilee cgn die so Dead Sea. . a s Its main course, from Galilee to the Dead Sea, is only sixty-five conserved in the wet on for use in the miles as the crow flies. But the Jordan's channel is so winding and d hat i tortudus that it describes altogether a route of two hundred miles be- TY tUs0N t at it tween the two seas. Where the Jordan leaves the Sea of Galilee is 18 believed more a falls. wv Engineers will build a great dam p STL Py J at this point like the Roosevelt Dam / A View : PR EE in Arizona. This willl make the / Showing. How ed ATS ASL Ei TT Sea of Galilee, already a great nat- the bs will PEA 4 ural reservoir, an almost unlimited BROT IV awed Sy Tl 2 a source for irrigation and electrical : Arey ol A FE Picturesque Laborers Will Work Side by Side With Modern' . Mechanics and Motor \@ IE a) NS a \ Map of Palestine Showing the River Jordan and Location of Proposed Dam, Irrigation Canals and Power Stations. than sufficient will be available for all power requirements. In addition, there ig another river, the Yarmuk, which empties into the Jordan a short distance below the Sea of Galilee, and still another, the Jabbok, joining the Jordan about halfway to the Dead Sea so that the Jordan itself will not dry up The Holy. Lan. to-day is almost like : desert, after its centuries of Turkish con trol. Life here is almost as primitive a it was nineteen hundred and twenty-threc years ago. It-took an era of war to re store Palestine to occidental control; now with an era of peace, Palestine ma) be, changed from a'land of sacred story only to a land of prosperity las well. ~ A "-~¥roduction from Gus- t 2 Dore's Famous Engraving of the Baptism of Jesus in River Jordan. * ,