1870.] 



Mr. J. F. Bateman on the Suez Canal. 



133 



nication, or of forming another more suitable to existing circumstances, 

 seems to be due to the Emperor Napoleon I. (then General Bonaparte), 

 who, at the close of the last century, during his occupation of Egypt, 

 directed that a complete survey of the ancient canal should be made 

 under the direction of M. Lepere, a French engineer of reputation. This 

 survey was completed, and a project for a canal was designed iti accordance 

 with the apparent facts resulting from M. Lepere's survey. The evacuation 

 of the country by the French put an end to further investigation, and 

 arrested all progress in this direction for many years. 



The conclusion at which M. Lepere arrived was, that the level of the 

 Red Sea at high water at Suez was 30^ feet higher than low water in the 

 Mediterranean in Pelusium Bay ; and his scheme was projected in ac- 

 cordance with the existence of such a difference in the level of the 

 two seas. He also ascertained that the rise and fall of the tide in the 

 Red Sea was 5-L or 6 feet, and in the Mediterranean about i foot, 

 leaving still a difference of 25 feet between the respective low waters of 

 the two seas. 



Doubts of the accuracy of the statement as to the difference of these 

 levels were entertained by those who carefully considered the subject; 

 but it was not till the year 1847 that these doubts were set at rest. 

 In that year the late Mr. Robert Stephenson, in conjunction with M. 

 Talabot, a French engineer, M. de Negrelli, an Austrian engineer, and Li- 

 nant Bey, a French engineer in the Egyptian service, directed a series of 

 independent levellings across the Isthmus, which determined beyond all 

 doubt the important fact that " at low water there w r as no essential dif- 

 ference in the level of the two seas, and that at high water it was not 

 more than 4 feet, the rise of tide being about 1 foot in the Mediter- 

 ranean and about 6 feet in the Red Sea." Up to that time Mr. Stephen- 

 son seems to have been in favour of the proposal to form a canal across 

 the Isthmus, in accordance with the views of Linant Bey, who "proposed 

 to carry a canal from the Red Sea through the Bitter Lakes to Lake 

 Timsah, and thence through the lagoons of Menzaleh to Tineh (Pelusium) 

 on the Mediterranean :" it was " thus expected to create a current through 

 the canal of three or four miles an hour;" and "the project appeared very 

 feasible, and was calculated to excite high hopes of success." When, 

 however, it was ascertained that the level of the two seas was practically 

 the same, Mr. Stephenson remarked " it became evident that it would 

 not be practicable to keep open a level cut or canal without any current 

 between the two seas, and the project was abandoned." 



The fact of there being no difference in the level of the two seas led 

 other men to very different conclusions ; for shortly after the period here 

 referred to, M. Ferdinand Lesseps conceived the idea which has since been 

 so successfully realized. His project was to cut a great canal on the 

 level of the two seas by the nearest and most practicable route, which lay 



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