^(^ PIM ON THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ. [Apkil 11, 1859. 



proper repair a canal, the bottom of which was below the line of low water in 

 the Nile, otherwise than by an enormous expenditure ; and even if incurring 

 this cost, it was uncertain whether the desired result would be obtained. In 

 all cases where an attempt has been made to dig a canal below the low-water 

 level, and more especially on the outskirts of the desert, in the Ghattat-Bey, 

 for instance, it invariably happens that at about the level of low water a bed of 

 loose sand is met with, as was the case at Masteroud on the Zafranieh. This 

 constitutes an enormous difficulty and a source of expense, of which it is 

 hardly possible to form any previous estimate. When even it is not sought to 

 obtain any great depth below the level, 0*50 metre (1' Ts") for instance, 

 annual dredgings of a really formidable nature are required. Thus in the 

 Ghattat-Bey, the labour of 30,000 or 40,000 men is required for the space of a 

 month to clear out the feeder at the point of junction ; in the Chibin, from 

 20,000 to 30,000 men are employed ; and from 15,000 to 20,000 for the 

 Chercaouieh. In the case of the Moeze, all attempt to dredge it has been 

 given up. To justify the withdrawal of so considerable a number of hands 

 from the ordinary employments of agriculture, nothing short of absolute 

 necessity can be admitted — a great damage to the resources of the country is 

 thus occasioned, and so serious a result should, if possible, be avoided." 



But it was not given to every one interested in this question to visit Egypt, 

 to travel on foot or by camel over the disputed land, and see the sands, the 

 swamps, and the flat Pelusian shores with their own eyes. The general 

 public must form their opinion on evidence, and not by the number but the 

 quality and the qualifications of the witnesses. The feasibility of the route 

 originally rested on the theory of the Ked Sea being thirty feet above the 

 Mediterranean, and thus affording a headwater sluicing power to wash out a 

 channel and keep a clear way through the artificial harbour proposed to be 

 built at Pelusium. While that theory prevailed in 1835, General Chesney in 

 1843, Captain Vetch, and Mr. Anderson, of the Post-office, a successful mer- 

 chant, but no engineer, all three supported the proposal for cutting through 

 the Isthmus. But, as Captain Pim had related in 1847, M. Talabot, Mr. 

 Eobert Stephenson, and Mr. Negrelli, an Austrian engineer, having contem- 

 plated embarking in an undertaking for cutting a canal between the two seas, 

 began by examining and levelling the route. Then, before this exact exami- 

 nation, the myth of the Red Sea headwaters disappeared, and the scheme of the 

 canal naturally disappeared with it. M. Negrelli appeared convinced, for he 

 was silent for nine years ; M. Talabot printed a report, in which he exhausted 

 every branch of the subject in an historical, geographical, and engineering 

 point of view, and decided that the idea of a salt-water canal, since proposed 

 by M. de Lesseps, was an absolute absurdity. And it was his (Mr. Sidney's) 

 firm opinion that, if M. Talabot's work had been circulated in a popular form 

 in the three leading European languages, the project of the Isthmus of Suez 

 Bosphorus would long since have been consigned to the limbo of iinfortunate 

 projects. In 1851 Mr. Stephenson, before the Institute of Civil Engineers, 

 publicly pronounced the canal scheme impracticable. 



In 1856 the Suez Bosphorus scheme was again examined by two of the 

 International Commissioners, Mr. M'Clean, who was living, and his (Mr. 

 Sidney's) late lamented friend Mr. Rendel, one of the Presidents of the 

 Institute of Civil Engineers, Consulting Engineer to the Admiralty, and 

 Engineer of several Breakwaters and Harbours of Eefuge. Mr. M'Clean 

 visited Egypt, and, conjointly with Mr. Rendel, x^repared a detailed report on 

 the Lesseps plan, and concluded in the following words as to the harbour of 

 Said ; — ■" No dredging can take place until a temporary harbour has been con- 

 structed, as it is a lee shore for nine months of the year. There will be no 

 breakwater to keep the channel open ; on the contrary, there will be a gradual 

 flow into the canal, which will tend to form a new beach in the harbour and 



