Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/451

 THE SUEZ CANAL. 867 But the project did not take definite shape till the time of the French expedition. With the cxiKKlition 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. Lepere and other savunts forthwith set to work to survey the surface of the isthmus, and accurately determine the conditions under which the enterprise might be successfully undertaken. Unfortunately the results of this exploration were vitiated by a fatal error. Lepere 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 Lepere could have been used for inter-oceanic traffic only during the periodical inundutiuus 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. I^ater on, when the Saint-Simonian religion had cease<l to exist, but when most of its former adherents had become men of influence in the commercial world, the scheme fuund 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 Lt^j)ere, which Laplace and Fourier, besides many other savants, had always regarded as erroneous. In 1S47 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 checketl in the years 1853, 1855, and 18oG, the results being each time almost identical.* • MrdiU^rranMin at Tineh. on tho Gulf of PoliiBiiim :— Low wnter. metres ; high wat«r, O'M metios. lied Sou al Suez :— Low water, 0-7414 meire* ; bi^h wat«r, 2-U6SG muires.