Fig. 123.—The Sand-Glass.
When the Suez Canal was projected, many prophesied evil to the undertaking, from the sand of the Desert being drifted by the wind into the canal, and others were apprehensive that where the canal was cut through the sand, the bottom would be pushed up by the pressure of the banks. They imagined that the sand would behave exactly like the ooze of a soft peat-bog, through which, when a trench has been cut, the bottom of the trench soon rises, for the soft matter has virtually the properties of a liquid: it acts, in fact, exactly like very thick treacle. Sand, however, is not possessed of liquid properties; it has a definite angle of repose, which is not the case with thin bog. This behaviour of sand is familiarly illustrated in the sand-glass, which the diagram Fig. [123], will recall to mind. It may be observed that the sand falling in a slender stream from the upper compartment is in the lower one heaped up in a little mound, the sides of which preserve a nearly constant inclination of about 30°. In this property it is distinctly different from peat-bog or such-like material, which has no definite angle of repose. It need hardly be said that all apprehensions as to the safety of the canal from the causes here alluded to have proved unfounded.
But if some English engineers appeared to oppose the project, another eminent one, Mr. Hawkshaw, certainly helped it on at a moment when the Viceroy of Egypt was losing confidence; and, had his opinion been adverse to the project reported upon, the Viceroy would certainly not have taken upon himself additional liability in connection with the undertaking, and the money expended up to that date would have been represented only by some huge mounds of sand and many shiploads of artificial stone, thrown into the bottom of the sea to make the harbour of Port Saïd. And that M. Lesseps appreciated the good offices of Mr. Hawkshaw is shown from the fact that, when he introduced that engineer to various distinguished persons, on the occasion of the opening of the canal, he said, “This is the gentleman to whom I owe the canal.” It cannot, therefore, be said of the English nation that they were jealous of the peaceful work of their French neighbours, or opposed it in any other sense but as a “non-paying” and apparently unprofitable scheme.
The Canal was opened in great state by Napoleon III.’s Empress Eugénie, in November, 1869, when a fleet of fifty vessels passed through, and the fact was thus officially announced in Paris:—“The canal has been traversed from end to end without hindrance, and the Imperial yacht, Aigle, after a splendid passage, now lies at her moorings in the Red Sea.
“Thus are realized the hopes which were entertained of this great undertaking—the joining of the two seas.
“The Government of the Emperor cannot but look with satisfaction upon the success of an enterprise which it has never ceased to encourage. A work like this, successfully accomplished in the face of so many obstacles, does honour to the energetic initiative of the French mind, and is a testimony to the progress of modern science.”
An Imperial decree was then issued, dated the 19th of November, appointing M. de Lesseps to the rank of Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, in consideration of his services in piercing the Isthmus of Suez.
The Suez Canal is 88 geographical, or about 100 statute miles long: its average width is 25 yards, and the minimum depth, 26 feet. At intervals of five or six miles, the canal is widened, for a short space, to 50 yards, forming thus sidings (gares) where only vessels can pass each other. At these, therefore, a ship has often to wait until a file of perhaps twenty steamers, coming the other way, has passed. Occasionally a ship gets across, or “touches,” and then the canal is blocked for hours. So much inconvenience has been found from the restricted dimensions of the work, that in 1886 it was proposed to widen the canal, or, alternatively, to construct a second canal, and use the two like the lines of a railway, so that vessels would never have occasion to pass each other. The amount of traffic is very large, and has been steadily increasing. Thus, in 1874, the tonnage of the vessels passing through was 5,794,400 tons; in 1880, the tonnage was 8,183,313, and the receipts of the Company amounted to £2,309,218. In 1875, the British Government purchased, from the Khedive, £4,000,000 worth of shares.
Fig. 124.—A Group of Egyptian Fellahs, and their Wives.