REPORT TO HIS HIGHNESS
MOHAMMED SAID PACHA,
VICEROY OF EGYPT.
The Camp, Marea, 30th April, 1855.
I had the honour of submitting to your Highness the memorial of your Engineers MM. Linant Bey, and Mougel Bey, for the construction of the Canal of the Isthmus of Suez.
This is intended as a precursory scheme for the cutting through the Isthmus. It is accompanied by a map indicating the configuration of the ground and the nature of the soil. It has met with your Highness’ approval, and you have requested me to give it the most extensive publicity in order to call the attention of all competent persons in Europe and America to a question which interests the whole world, and to invite their examination and observations.
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Your Highness has decided to send immediately, to the Counsellors of His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, the explanations which they require for the ratification of the scheme for the communication of the two Seas.
For my own part I shall proceed immediately to Europe, I shall make it my especial business to get the official documents relative to the affair as well as the precursory scheme of MM. Linant Bey, and Mougel Bey, printed and published. Arrangements will be made in order to collect within a limited time the opinions of those competent persons who shall be willing to aid the enterprise with their information and suggestions. In the mean time your engineers will be preparing the elements of their definitive scheme.
Agents will be appointed in every country to collect the communications and arrange the correspondence.
When the definitive scheme of the engineers is completed, and when the remarks received from each country have furnished a mass of information, a commission will be appointed, composed of engineers of known ability in hydraulic operations, and chosen in England, France, Germany, Italy and Holland. This commission will give its opinion upon the scheme of your Highness’ Engineers, and point out the modifications, or alterations which it shall think proper to be adopted. Every means shall be placed at the disposal of the Commission for visiting the Isthmus of Suez, should it be considered necessary to see the localities before deciding.
Your Highness has been pleased to limit at present the consideration of the track. After having passed in review the numerous schemes presented to Governments, or to the public, for more than fifty years, you give full liberty for the application of the means that science shall recognize to be best for making a communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, by cutting through the Isthmus of Suez at any point of the Isthmus, eastward of the course of the Nile; but you have declared that you will not authorize the Grand Maritime Suez Canal Company to adopt any track that might have its point of departure on the coast of the Mediterranean eastward of the Damietta branch, and which would cross the Nile.