Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/766

SUEZ CANAL. 664 SUEZ CANAL. SUEZ CANAL. A canal about 100 miles in length, which crosses the Isthmus of Suez and connects Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea with Port Thewfik on the Ked Sea, by an arti- ficial channel about 120 feet wide at ihe bot- tom, about twice as wide at the surface, and about 28 feet deep. In 18.54 Ferdinand de Les- seps (q.v.) obtained permission from Said Pasha to form a company to construct a waterway from sea to sea without locks, and in 1855 an 'International Consultative Commission' selected from among" the most celebrated civil engi- neers of Eui-ope was appointed to report upon the scheme. The final report of this Commis- sion was submitted to and accepted by the Vice- roy in .lune, 1856. Its conclusions were in effect as follows: The system of indirect routes through the Delta of the Nile was rejected and a direct route through the isthmus from Suez to the ^Mediterranean was adopted. The dimensions of the channel were to be as follows: From the Red Sea to the Bitter Lakes, depth 26% feet, bottom width 210 feet, top width 320 feet; from the Bitter Lakes to the ^Mediterranean Sea, deptli 26% feet, bottom width, 144 feet, top width 262 feet. At Port Said the plan of extending jetties directly seaward to protect the entrance was adopted. ( See Jetty. ) Easing his efforts on these conclusions, M. de Lesseps succeeded, in 1858, in forming a company, with a capital stock of £8,000,000, to build the'canal. Topography. The construction of the canal was greatly facilitated by the existence along the route of four driedup depressions which were formerly and liave again become lakes of considerable area, namely, the two Bullah Lakes, the Great and Small Bitter Lakes, and Lake Timsah. (See Map of Egypt.) These low-lying Dasins have an aggregate length of 27 miles. Excavation was required, however, through the Bullah Lakes, Lake Timsah, and the Small Bitter Lake, and also through a portion of the Great Bitter Lake. Consequently it was only for a length of eight miles of the Great Bitter Lake, where the natural depth exceeded that of the canal, that no excavation was necessary. The total distance from Port Said to Suez. Port Thewfik, is 88 nautical miles, or 100 English miles. The only serious obstacles to be overcome in the lino of the canal were at El-Gisr, the summit of the work, situated between the Bullah Lakes and Lake Timsah. where the hills crossing the canal vary from .30 to 60 feet above sea-level over a length of 6 miles, and at the deep cutting of Serapeum, between Lake Timsah and the Great Bitter Lake. From Port Said to Kantara, a dis- tance of 24 miles, the canal passes throvigh Lake Manzaleh, a sliallow lagoon which covers an area of nearly 1000 square iniles. The soil en- countered along the route was sand, sandy clay, and hard clay, with rare stretches of rock, and thus favorable to rapid and easy excavation. No serious engineering difficulties were presented by the harbor works at Port Said and Suez. In short, the canal works in general were of a very simple nature, lint of vast magnitude, involving as originally proposed, the removal of 60.000.000 cubic meters of dry earth and 56,000.000 cubic meters of eartli under water; and as they were situated in a country destitute of fresh water. a well -conceived organization was required to bring the colossal work to a successful issue. Progress of the Work. Work on the canal was begun on April 25, 1859. The work pro- gressed slowly at first, but the installation of a large fieet of dredges bj' means of which the dredged material carried by long and high pro- jecting chutes was rapidly delivered on either bank of the canal at some distance from the slopes of the cuttings without the intervention of barges, and other mechanical appliances, had the effect of reducing by three-fourtlis the num- lier of workmen needed to open the canal by the time originally estimated, jlore important than these, however, was the completion, in 1863, of a fresh-water canal and pipe line from Cairo by the way of Ismailia to Port Said. Financial difficulties were overcome, first, by decreasing the width of the bottom of the canal to 72 feet, and, second, by virtually increasing the capital of the company to £17,100.000. To compensate for the greatly reduced width of the canal, sidings were provided at every five or six miles between Port Said and Lake Timsah to allow vessels to bring up either for the purpose of passing each other or to moor for the night. In April. 1867, water from the Jlediterranean was let into the marshy bed of Lake Timsah, and in March, 1869, it was allowed to floAV into a near-by dry salt- incrusted basin of the Bitter Lakes. On Novem- ber 17, 1869, the canal was opened to traffic with great pomp and ceremony. According to the ex- pense account the canal had cost up to Decem- ber 31, 1869. a sum of £16,632.953. Enlargement of the Canal. In 1883 it be- came evident that, owing to the gi'eat increase of traffic, a radical plan of improvement was de- manded. In 1884, therefore, a second Inter- national Consultative Commission was appointed to consider the whole question and to report plans. This commission made its report in 1885, and shortly thereafter the enlargement works were begun according to the general plan recommended by the commission. The first stage of these enlargement works was completed in 1898; it consisted in an increase of the bottom width of the canal to 12P'3 feet, and of an in- crease of the navigable depth to 27 feet 10 inches. In addition to this uniform enlargement of sec- tion there were completed in 1899 nine new sidings, each 49 feet wide and 2460 feet long. In 1900 the average time of passage was 18 hours and 32 minutes for vessels navigating by night as well as day. Lighting for Night NA^^GATION. At the close of 1885 it was decided to make use of electric light in such a manner as to insure a safe passage by night through the canal, the company hoping in this way to diminish the traffic by day and thus to render the navigation less diflicult until the full enlargement of the waterway was accomplished. After some ex- perimenting with a system of landing marks, supplemented by Pintsch light buoys, it was de- cided that every vessel in motion during the night should itself be provided with the neces- sary appar.ntus tn illuminate its passage through the canal. Accordingly it was arranged that every vessel passing by night should carry four lights, one astern, one on each side, and one ahead, to the last of which should be applied a powerful reflector capable of spreading light 4000 feet ahead of the vessel. The ilangin reflector is gen- erallv used. Men-of-war and large postal steam- ers carry their own apparatus. Smaller vessels