868 



NOETH-EAST AFEICA. 



After the settlement of this important point in physical geography, nothing 

 more apparently remained to be done before proceeding to construct a direct canal 

 across the isthmus. But the first project, presented by M. Paulin Talabot, one of 

 the engineers engaged on the survey, proposed the construction of a canal from 

 Suez through Cairo to Alexandria. This scheme, which has been recently again 

 adopted by some English engineers in opposition to the present undertaking,* 

 involved the construction of locks and sluices, in order on both sides to reach the 

 level of the Nile above the head of the delta. It would have also been necessary 

 to provide for a system of flood-gates, to resist and regulate the fluvial inxmdations, 

 besides a tow-bridge across the Nile between the two sections of the canal, in order 



Fig. 109. — Pkoposed Freshwater Canal from Suez to Alexandria. 

 Scal^ 1 : 2,500,000. 



eo Wiles. 



to tow the vessels from one side to the other. As a highway of navigation, the 

 inferiority of this canal, winding through Lower Egypt, compared with that across 

 the isthmus, dispensing with sluices and nearly three times shorter, is self-evident. 

 But the primary object of this canal, which would have been 240 miles long, was 

 the irrigation of the delta rather than traffic. The interests of navigation and 

 irrigation however being different, and even antagonistic, seeing that shipping 

 requires a low level, while cultivators naturally seek to raise the bed of their 

 artificial streams as high as possible, it would be a mistake to construct a canal 



* John FowIpp and Benjanim Baker, " A Sweet-water Ship-canal through Egypt," Nineteenth 

 Century, No. 71, January. 18S3. 



