SUE 



5613 



SUEZ CANAL 



The main ideas through all the work of 

 Sudermann are the unnecessary strain, nervous- 

 ness and violence of modern civilization, the 

 emptiness of many of the so-called moral rules 

 handed down from previous generations, and 

 the right of every human being to a happiness 

 which shall not be hampered by artificial con- 

 ventionality. He uses these theories over and 

 over, often with gloom and bitterness, but 

 never without absplute truthfulness. As an un- 

 sparing investigator of modern social life he 

 has few equals. 



SUE, MARIE JOSEPH EUGENE (1804-1859), a 

 French novelist, born at Paris. His father, who 

 was a famous physician in Napoleon's army, 

 left him a large fortune, and after some study 

 of medicine in his native city and practice of it 



SUEZ, soo cz' , a town in Egypt situated 

 two miles north of Port Ibrahim, the harbor at 

 the entrance to the Suez Canal. It is seventy- 

 six miles east of Cairo, with which it is con- 

 nected by rail, and is a seaport and coaling 

 station. Formerly Suez was a prosperous trade 

 center for the Orient, but notwithstanding im- 

 provements and increase of population since 

 the opening of the canal it has remained unat- 

 tractive and dreary. Only a small part of the 

 vast commerce on the canal affects it. The 

 original town has several mosques, and the 

 houses are built of sun-dried bricks. Modern 

 buildings, however, are found in the newer 

 European section. The surrounding country is 

 a desert. The exports are chiefly goods in tran- 

 sit. Population, about 18,000. 



Jerusalem 



\ 



0510 2030 40 5060 



El Ayat 



Wilderness of et-Tih \ 

 SINAI \ 



PENINSULA \ 



THE SUEZ CANAL AND COUNTRY EAST AND WEST 



in the French army, Sue settled in Paris to de- 

 vote his time to writing. He had been on the 

 sea a great deal both as a boy and as a physi- 

 cian, and used his knowledge of ocean animals 

 and plants in such weird romances as The Sala- 

 mander and Kernock, the Pirate. These books 

 appeared during the days of the romantic 

 movement in French literature. 



They were followed by novels dealing with 

 the mysterious and the supernatural, with oc- 

 casionally a touch 'of socialism, which was then 

 gaining favor. Among the most noted of these 

 stories were The Mysteries of Paris and The 

 Wandering Jew, which showed extraordinary 

 imagination and ability to impress upon the 

 reader the idea of the horrible and uncanny. 

 The plots, however, are very loosely con- 

 structed, and the style is often careless. The 

 latter defect has been corrected in translations, 

 and Sue is therefore still widely read and ad- 

 mired outside of France. 



SUEZ CANAL, the longest ship canal of the 

 world, extending in a north-and-south direction 

 across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt, connect- 

 ing the Mediterranean and Red Seas. From 

 Port Said on the Mediterranean, it extends to 

 Suez on the Gulf of Suez, a distance of ninety- 

 eight miles, twenty-one miles of which consists 

 of small lakes. Its construction, shortening the 

 route between England and India by 5,000 

 miles, has restored the Mediterranean to its 

 ancient place as the most important highway 

 of European and Asiatic trade. 



This canal, built without locks, therefore 

 known as a sea-level type, was first conceived 

 by Napoleon when he occupied the town of 

 Suez in 1798. A concession to build this canal 

 was granted to Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, 

 of France, in 1850, and work was begun April 

 25, 1859, the canal being opened for traffic 

 ten years later, on November 9, 1869. Be- 

 cause of the large increase in traffic since its 



