As a depth of 7 met. 50 to 8 met. is not found before Pelusium or Tineh, but at a distance of 6000 met. into the sea, it is assumed that it is practically impossible to prolong the jetty of the Canal to that distance, because the waters are but liquid mud, and that clouds of earth would interfere with the progress of the vessels and the solidity of the works.
This is a complete mistake.
Because Herodotus has said, that the Delta is a present from the Nile, his inaccurate assertion has been repeated without verifying it, and his metaphor has passed for an incontestable truth. But it is an absolute fact, and it is only necessary to ask those who have been at Pelusium, that the water there is as limpid as at Alexandria or Jaffa. The banks of travelling mud seen by Admiral Sir Sidney Smith have no more reality than the present from the Nile, and for the twenty years that these coasts have been traversed in every direction by steam boats, no one has ever met again with those muddy banks. The truth is, that the waters of the Nile, which, at the time of the inundation are distinguished for more than ten leagues into the sea, carry far out into the Mediterranean and deposit in its depths, the masses of earthy matter which they hold in suspension (near 1/8000) which do not reappear on the coasts but in imperceptible quantities; the truth is, that a handful of sand may be taken up from the sea beach, at Pelusium, without finding the least particle of mud. The Viceroy’s engineers have proved that the coast, from El-Arish to Tripoli, is pure sand, and the soundings taken along the shore give the same result. Far from the Nile forming accretions at Pelusium, it is an axiom now admitted by science that the muddy or sandy deposits observed at the mouths of rivers are entirely owing to matters brought by the tide. The rivers have no part therein; and the excellent observations made by most able hydrographers at the bay of Mount St. Michael, at the mouths of the Scheld, the Meuse, the Rhine, the Yssel, have superabundantly proved it. The accumulations of sand at Pelusium and Suez, like the whole Isthmus, have been formed by the maritime deposits of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The thorough investigation of the motion of the waves has demonstrated that the bars of rivers are due to the ground swell alone. The Nile, therefore, has no influence upon the approaches to Pelusium, as Herodotus supposed, and as is still the common opinion; and this is so true, that for 20 kilometres above its mouth there are accretions of mud, while below there is nothing but sand. Finally the accumulations of sand are more considerable in proportion as the waters of the river are less abundant.
Setting aside from the question the hypothetical assertions, it remains therefore incontestable that the only difficulty at Pelusium, is the length of the jetties in the sea. Pelusium, with its ruins, is at the same point where Strabo saw it, where the Egyptian commission saw it, which found the twenty stadia of the Greek geographer between the shore and the town quite correct. But are jetties of a league and a half into the sea possible, or are they indeed a work that cannot be executed? The answer to this question is easy: a hundred years ago, the Hollanders, not so rich and not so skillful as we are now, although quite as bold, erected at the Cape, in the bay of the Lion, at a depth of 16 met., in spite of the most frightful tempests, a dyke of 8000 metres, that is, a work of at least four times the extent of that required for the entrance of the Canal at Pelusium.
As for the harbour of Suez, the work there would be comparatively trifling because it is sheltered from all the winds, excepting that from the south-east, and ships keep the sea there very well, as is proved by the English Magazine corvette, moored there for two years, without sustaining any damage.
What is to be deduced from these observations?—That it is possible to make a canal 100 metres wide from Suez to Pelusium, with a draught of water of 8 met., below low water in the Mediterranean, with parapets, towing path, &c. and available for the passage of screw and paddle frigates, and vessels of 1000 to 1500 tons burthen, and that this canal, following the straight line between the two Seas is the only practicable one, as it will be one of the grandest and most useful works ever performed by man.
To conclude, this track is the only one that the prince who now rules in Egypt will allow. Well informed himself in nautical arts and sciences, the inheritor of the policy of Mehemet Ali, which he approves while he practises, he has declared in dictating his own terms for the firman of concession, that he would have the shortest and least expensive track, and one that would be available for the largest ships. It is not in the scheme of an inland canal that the real junction of the two Seas consists; the indirect canal cuts through Egypt, and not the Isthmus; its extent is not only tripled, but the cost of execution and maintenance are enormous, and the existence of a canal constructed upon these conditions would be always uncertain and precarious while the direct track, which unites so many advantages, has none of these drawbacks.
Hôte.