CANAL OF GALLIPOLI. 
527 
nish valuable facilities for domestic intercourse, but become an 
important channel of communication between the Levant and 
the countries bordering on the Adriatic, or conducting their 
trade through that sea. 
As I have said, the importance of this latter canal and of a 
na\ igable channel between Mount Athos and the continent 
would be chiefly commercial, but both of them would be con¬ 
spicuous instances of the control of man over nature in a field 
where he has thus far done little to interfere with her sponta¬ 
neous arrangements. If they were constructed upon such a 
scale as to admit of the free passage of the water through 
them, in either direction, as the prevailing wdnds should impel 
it, they would exercise a certain influence on the coast cur¬ 
rents, which are important as hydrographical elements, and 
also as producing abrasion of the coast and a drift at the bot¬ 
tom of seas, and hence would be entitled to a higher rank than 
simply as artificial means of transit. 
Canal of Saros. 
It has been thought practicable to cut a canal across the 
peninsula of Gallipoli from the outlet of the Sea of Marmora 
into the Gulf of Saros. It may be doubted whether the mechan¬ 
ical difficulties of such a work would not be found insuperable; 
but when Constantinople shall recover the important political 
and commercial rank which naturally belongs to her, the exe¬ 
cution of such a canal will be recommended by strong reasons 
of military expediency, as well as by the interests of trade. 
An open channel across the peninsula would divert a portion 
of the water which now flows through the Dardanelles, dimin¬ 
ish.the rapidity of that powerful current, and thus in part re¬ 
move the difficulties which obstruct the navigation of the 
strait. It would considerably abridge the distance by water 
between Constantinople and tlie northern coast of the Aegean, 
and it wmuld have the important advantage of obliging an 
enemy to maintain two blockading fleets instead of one. 
