April 11, 1859.] PIM ON THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ. 199 



question. I take these statements of M. Lesseps, and I find his scheme has 

 met with unanimous approval at Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow, 

 Dublin, and all the great commercial towns of England. Again, I cannot 

 understand why this project should be pronounced impracticable after it has 

 undergone the investigations of a Commission consisting of the first autho- 

 rities in Europe. It is not likely these men would compromise their cha- 

 racters by asserting the possibility of a scheme which is now declared by the 

 author of this paper to be impossible. I therefore think that simply as 

 an engineering question the statements of Captain Pim, as to the imprac- 

 ticability of that canal, are at variance with the facts stated by M. Lesseps 

 and verified by the Commission. 



Mr. S. Sidney said, — The question was one which could not be settled 

 without the consent of England. British exports and imports in the port of 

 Alexandria averaged nearly 4,000,000?., or more than those of all the other 

 nations trading there put together. British passengers paid for transit across 

 the Isthmus upwards of 200,000?. per annum. British merchandise and 

 specie were sent across here to the value of upwards of 28,000,000?.* England 

 is the only country that received duty free the whole produce of Egypt — grain, 

 pulse, and cotton. Egypt was the road to India. The "gate of our house" 

 old Mehemed Ali called it, and the Isthmus "the key of our gate." 



It did not require arguments to prove that if it were possible to cut a real 

 Bosphorus across the Isthmus, through which our great ships could sail 

 or steam without interruption, it would be an enomious advantage to our 

 commerce, putting out of sight the political and military consideration that 

 it would be an additional strait for us to watch and defend. 



But, if a deep and open Bosphorus would be a commercial advantage, 

 a shallow ditch, open only to flat-bottomed boats, useless for trade, but avail- 

 able for the cou'p de main of an invading army, was a thing to be resisted with 

 all our strength. The piercing of the Isthmus of Suez was essentially a geo- 

 graphical question, and therefore eminently fitted to be discussed by the 

 Society. It was not new; it had been discussed for sixty years, and, accord- 

 ing to all the reliable evidence, it was impracticable. He also (Mr. Sidney) 

 was prepared, but would not add to the picture drawn by his friend Captain 

 Pim, of the Mediterranean, driven by north-eastern winds for nine months of 

 the year on the long, low, flat, shallow, surf-beaten shores of the Delta ; for 

 ages on ages barren, treeless, devoid of every kind of material needed for con- 

 struction by an engineer. But, in reference to the scheme of running out on 

 the soft sand of the Pelusium shore two stone breakwaters of a united length 

 of between six and seven miles, every stone to be brought either by sea from 

 Valencia in Spain, or from Rhodes in Egypt, or 90 miles inland, with neither 

 railroad nor common road for conveyance, he would remind the Society that 

 at Plymouth, with stone close at hand, a breakwater 1^ mile had taken 

 twenty-eight years to construct, and cost 1,500,000?. sterling ; Cherbourg, 

 2\ miles, had cost 3,000,000?. ; Portland, years in progress, was still proceed- 

 ing bit by bit. And these works were executed with all the advantages of 

 labour, fuel, food, and all the appliances of machinery to be had close at hand 

 for money. At Pelusium every labourer, every ounce of food, every stick, 

 every stone would have to be imported, and money loved not either labour or 

 time. But, leaving the difficulties of founding a port on a delta to be dealt 

 with by engineers, leaving them to treat of the Sisyphyan task of dredging a 

 deep channel in a soft flat, in the face of a never-ceasing current, he would 

 step on shore and tell them what was the experience of the celebrated Frank- 

 Egyptian engineers in cutting canals through such swamps as Lake Mero- 

 zalah — the swamp through which was proposed to dredge twenty-five feet 

 below the level of the Mediterranean. They say, in their Avant Propos, 

 reporting to the Viceroy : — *' It appears to them impossible to maintain iu 



VOL. III. R 



