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SUEZ 146 SUEZ CANAL harbor, but a tolerably good quay. It is divided into an Arab quarter and a Eu- ropean quarter, the latter containing the buildings of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Co. Since the opening of the Suez canal, the town has greatly im- proved, and a railroad connects it with Cairo. The Gulf of Suez is the W. and larger of the two branches into which the Red Sea divides toward its N. extremity, and washes the E. coasts of Egypt on the W. of the Sinaitic peninsula. Extreme length 200 miles, average width about 20 miles. The Isthmus of Suez is a neck of land 72 miles wide at its narrowest part, ex- tending from the Gulf of Suez on the S. to the Mediterranean on the N., and con- necting the continents of Asia and Af- rica. The main interest attached to this region, in recent times, has been in the ship canal through the isthmus. Pop. (1897) 17,457. SUEZ CANAL. It is certain that in ancient times a canal connecting, in- directly, the Mediterranean and Red seas did exist. At what period it was constructed is not so certain. Herodotus ascribes its projection and partial execu- tion to Pharaoh Necho (about 600 B. C.) ; Aristotie, Strabo, and Pliny fix on the half mythical Sesostris as its origin- ator. The honor of its completion is assigned by some to Darius, King of Persia; by others to the Ptolemies. It began about a mile and a half from Suez, and was carried in a N. W. direction, through a remarkable series of natural depressions, to Bubastis, on the Pelusiac or E. branch of the Nile. Its entire length was 92 mile's (of which upward of 60 were cut by human labor), its width from 108 to 165 feet, and its depth 15 (Pliny says 30) feet. How long it continued to be used we cannot tell, but at length it became choked up with sand, was restored by Trajan early in the 2d century A. D., but again became un- usable from the same cause, and so re- mained till the conquest of Egypt by Amrou, the Arab general of the Caliph Omar, who caused it to be re-opened, and named it the "Canal of the Prince of the Faithful," under which designation it continued to be employed for upward of a century, but was finally blocked up by the unconquerable sands, A. D. 767. In this condition it has ever since remained. The attention of Europe was first turned to a canal here during the in- vasion of Egypt by Bonaparte, who caused the isthmus to be surveyed by a body of engineers, who arrived at the opinion that the level of the Mediter- ranean is 30 feet below that of the Red Sea at Suez — an opinion which a subse- quent survey proved to be erroneous. In 1847 France, England and Austria sent out a commission to measure accurately the levels of the two seas. The commis- sioners, M. Talabot, Robert Stephenson, and Signor Nigrelli, ascertained that in- stead of a difference of 30 feet the two seas have exactly the same mean level. Another examination leading to similar results was made in 1853. Mr. Stephen- son expressed himself very strongly against the feasibility of a canal and planned instead a railway from Cairo to Suez, which was opened (1858) and which now conveys overland the Indian and Australian mails. In 1854 a new experimenter appeared in the person of M. de Lesseps, a member of the French diplomatic service in Egypt, who (1856) obtained from the pasha the concession of building a ship canal from Tsmeh (near the ruins of ancient Pelusium) to Suez. The peculiarity of M. de Lesseps's plan lay in this, that instead of following an oblique course and uniting his canal with the Nile, as the ancients had done, and as all modern engineers had thought of doing, he proposed to cut a canal right through the isthmus in a straight line to Suez. The colossal feature of M. de Les- seps's plan was the artificial harbors which he proposed to execute at the two ends. In 1855 a new European commis- sion was appointed, which reported that M. de Lesseps's scheme was practicable. The result of the report was the forma- tion of a joint-stock company, and the work was accordingly begun in 1860. Starting from Port Said, the canal crosses about 20 miles of Menzaleh Lake. Through this lagoon it is 112 yards wide at the surface, 26 yards at the bottom, and 26 feet deep. An artificial bank rises 15 feet on each side of this canal. Beyond Menzaleh Lake heavier work be- gins. The distance thence to Abu Ballah Lake is Jl miles, with a height of ground above the level of the sea varying from 15 to 30 feet. Crossing the last named lake, there is another land distance of 11 miles to Timsah Lake cutting through ground to a depth varying from 30 to 70 or 80 feet, and then 3 miles further across this little lake itself. At El Guisr, or Girsch, occurs the deepest cutting in the whole line, 85 feet below the surface. Ismailia, on Timsah Lake, is reofarded as the central point of the canal. The fresh- water canal extends from the Nile to Timsah Lake, and was constructed pur- posely to supply with water the popula- tion accumulating at various points on the line of the canal; but it is also used by sailing vessels. On Nov. 16, 1869, the Suez canal was opened in form, vnth a procession of English and foreign steam-