THE SUEZ CANAL. , 367 



But the project did not take definite shape till the time of the French expedition. 

 With the expedition came a number of distinguished naturalists, eager to accom- 

 plish great things, and one of the greatest to them seemed the idea of reuniting 

 the two seas. Lepère and other savants forthwith set to work to survey the surface 

 of the isthmus, and accurately determine the conditions under which the enterprise 

 might be successfully undertaken. 



Unfortunatel}^ the results of this exploration were vitiated by a fatal error. 

 Lepère fancied he had found the level of the Red Sea nearly 33 feet higher than 

 that of the Mediterranean. Under the influence of this serious miscalculation he 

 allowed himself to be influenced by the illusion of the ancients, who feared the 

 low-lying tracts on the Mediterranean coast would be engulfed by the waters of the 

 Red Sea were the project carried out. He accordingly gave up the idea of cutting 

 a direct maritime canal, although recognising how greatly the trade of the world 

 would be benefited by connecting the two basins by a deep channel not subject to 

 the alternative rise and fall of the Nile waters. Falling back on the scheme of 

 the Pharaohs, he proposed to construct a canal, from 14 to 16 feet deep, running 

 from Cairo to Suez, in four sections at four different levels, two filled with the 

 sweet water of the Nile, two with the saline water of the Red Sea. This canal was 

 further to be completed by a navigable highway flowing from the head of the delta 

 to the port of Alexandria. Being accessible only to river craft, the canal projected 

 by Lepère could have been used for inter-oceanic traffic only during the periodical 

 inundations of the Nile. 



The French occupation of Egypt was too short for the work to be undertaken. 

 But the idea of separating Asia and Africa by a new Bosphorus was destined 

 never again to be laid aside. It even became the dogma of a new religion, the 

 Saint -Simonians having introduced it into their " articles of faith." Their jour- 

 nals were already discussing the question in the year 1825, and when several 

 members of the sect had to leave France, the study of the Suez Canal was one of 

 the chief reasons that induced them to turn towards the East. Later on, when the 

 Saint- Simonian religion had ceased to exist, but when most of its former adherents 

 had become men of influence in the commercial world, the scheme found its most 

 zealous champions amongst them. 



At last public opinion became so clamorous, that it was found necessary to 

 undertake a fresh survey, in order to verify or set aside that of Lepère, which 

 Laplace and Fourier, besides many other savants, had always regarded as erroneous. 

 In 1847 a European society was instituted, and under the direction of the engi- 

 neers Linant, Talabot, and Bourdaloue, accurate levellings were taken across the 

 isthmus, from Suez to Pelusium. Henceforth it was once for all placed beyond 

 doubt that, apart from the inequalities caused by the higher tides in the Gulf of 

 Suez, the surface of the two seas presented but slight discrepancies of level. The 

 operations of the Bourdaloue survey were again checked in the years 1853, 1855, 

 and 1856, the results being each time almost identical.* 



* Mediterranean at Tineh, on the Gulf of Pelusium :— Lov7 water, 00 metres ; high water, 0-38 

 meties. Red Sea at Suez .-—Low water, 0-7414 metres ; hij,'h water, 2-0886 metres. 



