[138] The immediate cause of this occurrence does not appear, but it is obvious that there would not be much employment for a canal at this early date. The first ship would no doubt be constructed anterior to this period, but the vessels of that day were rude and small.

[139] The Red Sea is 1500 miles in length, and, besides being narrowed in its middle channel, is so deep that there is hardly any place where a vessel can anchor. Sailing vessels have to contend with currents that are blowing steadily to the northward for a great part of the year, while for some months there is little or no wind.

[140] Herodotus, book ii., secs. 159 and 160, Cary’s translation.

[141] Washington Irving’s ‘Successors of Mahomet.’

[142] Rubino’s “Statistical Story of the Suez Canal,” in the ‘Journal’ of the Royal Statistical Society for 1887.

[143] ‘Mémoire sur le Canal des deux Mers.’

[144] ‘Quarterly Review,’ January 1856, p. 257.

[145] Since then, of course, this difficulty has been conquered by the use of steam dredgers.

[146] This letter is reproduced from an excellent article on the subject of the Suez Canal in Engineering of December 7, 1883, p. 52.

[147] In 1886 the transit and navigation receipts were over 2,500,000l.

[148] The following are the details of the contracts for works on Suez Canal:—

[149] We do not, of course, include the Panama Canal, which is not, and may never be, completed.

[150] One long trough dredger, set to work in June 1885, weighed 760 tons.

[151] It is stated that the number of these baskets used at the trench of El Guisr alone would, if extended in line, reach three times round the world. Of course when the fellaheen were withdrawn in 1864 these baskets were less largely used.

[152] The following table shows the principal distances and the saving by the canal:—

[153] This amount was made up as follows:—

[154] “The Statistical Story of the Suez Canal,” in the ‘Journal’ of the Royal Statistical Society for 1887.

[155] ‘Edinburgh Review,’ January 1856, p. 245.

[156] It was assumed that the canal could not take vessels like the Himalaya and the Persia, or indeed any vessel over 350 feet in length.

[157] The preference of Stephenson for a railway is not difficult to understand. He had “won his spurs” in railroad construction, and was familiar with every phase of their working and capabilities, but he had had comparatively little knowledge experimentally of canals. He was, indeed, the apostle of the new era—the railway against the canal.

[158] It was expected that the Great Eastern steamship would attain a speed of 25 knots an hour, and the proposition that a vessel’s speed is almost in the direct ratio to her length having once been granted, that a class of vessels would come to be built that would be too large to make use of the canal.

[159] ‘Edinburgh Review,’ vol. ciii. (January 1856).

[160] This seems an extraordinary assumption when we consider that the canal saves in the journey to Bombay 41 per cent. of the voyage by the Cape, and on the journey to Madras and Calcutta 32 to 35 per cent.

[161] In 1887 the average duration of the passage through the canal for the whole 3137 ships that made use of it was 34 hours 3 minutes. Between 1870 and 1873 the passage was frequently effected in 12 to 15 hours.

[162] The shares rose from a middle price of 306 francs in 1867 to 664 in 1877, 1021 in 1880, 2710 in 1882, and fell to 1989 in 1884, rising again to 2095 in 1886.

[163] The distance from Suedia to Kalah Jabar, a small Arab settlement on the Euphrates, was put down at 100 to 150 miles, and the river journey from Kalah Jabar to Bussora at 715 miles. From Bussora to Kurrachee the distance is 1000 miles. The average time occupied in descending the Tigris was taken at seven days, and that of the ascent at twelve.

[164] M. Emile Ende, in a communication to the French Academy of Sciences in 1886.