T1IE SUEZ CANAL. 
519 
Nature sometimes mocks the cunning and the power of man 
by spontaneously performing, for his benefit, works which he 
shrinks from undertaking, and the execution of which by him 
she would resist with unconquerable obstinacy. A dangerous 
sand bank, that all the enginery of the world could not dredge 
out in a generation, may be carried off in a night by a strong 
river flood, or a current impelled by a violent wind from an 
unusual quarter, and a passage scarcely navigable by fishing 
boats may be thus converted into a commodious channel for 
the largest ship that floats upon the ocean. In the remarkable 
gulf of Liimfjord in Jutland, nature has given a singular ex¬ 
ample of a canal which she alternately opens as a marine strait, 
and, by shutting again, converts into a fresh-water lagoon. 
The Liimfjord was doubtless originally an open channel from 
the Atlantic to the Baltic between two islands, but the sand 
washed up by the sea blocked up the western entrance, and 
built a wall of dunes to close it more firmly. This natural 
dike, as we have seen, has been more than once broken through, 
and it is perhaps in the power of man, either permanently to 
maintain the barrier, or to remove it and keep a navigable 
channel constantly open. If the Liimfjord becomes an open 
strait, the washing of sea sand through it would perhaps block 
up some of the belts and small channels now important for the 
navigation of the Baltic, and the direct introduction of a tidal 
<D ' 
current might produce very perceptible effects on the hydro¬ 
graphy of the Cattegat. 
Tlie Suez Canal. 
If the Suez Canal—the greatest and most truly cosmopolite 
physical improvement ever undertaken by man—shall prove 
successful, it will considerably affect the basins of the Mediter¬ 
ranean and of the Bed Sea, though in a different manner, and 
probably in a less degree than the diversion of the current of the 
Nile from the one to the other—to which I shall presently re¬ 
fer _would do. It. is, indeed, conceivable, that if a free chan¬ 
nel be once cut from sea to sea, the coincidence of a high tide 
and a heavy south wind might produce a hydraulic force 
