688 MAEITIME CANALS IN GEEECE. 



A collateral feature of tliis great enterprise deserves notice as 

 possessing no inconsiderable geographical importance. I refer 

 to tlie conduit or conduits constructed from the NUe to the 

 isthmus, primarily to supply fresh water to the laborers on the 

 great canal, and ultimately to serve as aqueducts for the city of 

 Suez and other towns on the hue of the canal, and for the irri- 

 gation and reclamation of a large extent of desert soil. In the 

 flourishing days of the Egyptian empire, the waters of the 'NUe 

 were carried over important districts east of the river. In later 

 ages most of this territory relapsed into a desert, from the decay 

 of the canals which once fertilized it. There is no difficulty in 

 restoring the ancient channels, or in constructing new, and thus 

 watering, not only aU the soil that the wisdom of the Pharaohs 

 had improved, but much additional land. Hundreds of square 

 miles of arid sand waste would thus be converted into fields of 

 perennial verdure, and the geography of Lower Egypt would be 

 thereby sensibly changed. Considerable towns are growing up 

 at both ends of the channel and at intermediate points, all de- 

 pending on the maintenance of aqueducts from the Nile, both 

 for water and for the irrigation of the neighboring fields which 

 are to supply them with bread. Important interests will thus be 

 created, which will secure the permanence of the hydraulic works 

 and of the geographical changes produced by them, and Suez, or 

 Port Said, or Ismailich, may become the capital of the govern- 

 ment which has been so long established at Cairo. 



Maritime Canals in Greece. 



A maritime canal executed and another projected in ancient 

 times, the latter of which is again beghming to excite attention, 

 deserve some notice, though their importance is of a commercial 

 rather than a geographical character. The first of these is the 

 cut made by Xerxes through the rock which connects the prom- 

 ontory of Mount Athos with the mainland ; the other, a navigable 

 canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. In spite of the testimony 

 of Herodotus and Thucydides, the Romans classed the canal of 

 Xerxes among the fables of " mendacious Greece," and yet traces 

 of it are perfectly distinct at the present day through its whole 

 extent, except at a single point where, after it had become so 



