The canal used by the Romans was afterward closed, and subsequently re-opened by the Caliph Omar. It was again closed for 134 years, when it was once more rendered navigable by El Hakim, A. D. 1000. It appears at this period to have extended to the Bitter Lakes before turning toward the Nile.
It again became filled with sand between the Nile and the Bitter Lakes. Mohammed Ali closed it entirely, after having lost 10,000 men from hunger, having hurried them into the desert without suitable preparation. At a more recent period, 1000 men died in one day from the same want of preparation, having been hurried into the desert, at the request of the English authorities, to work on the railroad between Suez and Cairo.
Pliny affirms that the ancient canal had a width of 100 feet and a depth of 40 feet as far as the Bitter Lakes, and the geological evidences indicate that the Bitter Lakes were once connected with the Red Sea. A stratum of salt, 8 to 10 feet thick, covers the bottom of the Lakes, and sea-shells are found in them and between them and Suez.
History for 3300 years bears testimony to the constant movement of the sand, burying all obstructions and obliterating channels which have lain in its path; and the statement of Herodotus, that Lower Egypt is a gift of the Nile, is sustained by a large number of scientific investigators, who maintain that ancient and modern Egypt was reclaimed from an arm of the sea. When nature acts so constantly and irresistibly in one direction, the difficulties of those who contend with her can hardly be overstated.
The winds of Libya, sweeping over the desert, bear the sands irresistibly before them. The ruins of Isamboul and Palmyra are partly buried or threatened by the sand waves. The base of the great Pyramids are concealed, and the gigantic head of Memnon and Sphinx are partially engulfed. The sand dunes near Ismailia move at the rate of ninety-eight feet per annum.
The following excellent description of the sand dunes is taken from Mr. Mitchell’s report: “In the central part of the land of Goshen, where there are broad plains covered with flints, solitary dunes are seen, like golden islands, and they are objects of grace and beauty in every detail. On near approach to one of them, the sands may be seen traveling up the long rear slope before the wind, flying in the air at the crest, and falling down the fore slope in a perpetual cascade—everywhere in motion, but preserving always the same faultless curves. Nor do these dunes leave a grain behind them to mark their tracks. The homogeneous sands of which they are composed are as fine as those usually seen in an hour-glass, and, like the latter, serve to measure the lapse of time in their steady march. The prevailing winds in this part of the desert blow from due north, and are more steady than at Port Said or Suez. In consequence of this, the course of the dunes is so nearly parallel to that of the canal, that their slow approach can always be prepared for. They can at any time be fixed by covering them with brushwood.”
Between Lake Timseh and Port Said, it is estimated that 130,000 cubic yards of sand will be swept into the canal annually. This will give employment for one of the largest dredges for three or four months, working twelve hours each day. This estimate is based on the work done by one of Lavalley’s first-class dredges, which removed 120,000 cubic yards per month, working day and night. But as the material will be distributed in a thin stratum along the entire length of this section of the canal, a longer period will be requisite for its removal. The able engineers who conducted the operations of excavation express confidence in their ability to keep the depth from decreasing. The chief danger from this source, therefore, can only come from a suspension of the work of the dredges.
2. Permanence of the harbors, particularly that of Port Said.
The reports of Capt. Spratt, Royal Navy, and of Mr. Mitchell, U. S. Coast Survey, supply very interesting information on this subject. M. Lartet is now publishing, in the Annales des Sciences Geologiques, his observations upon the Isthmus. From the map of M. Lartet it appears that an arm of the Gulf of Suez once extended, by the way of the Bitter Lakes, to the Mediterranean, and that, at the same time, the Gulf of Akaba united the waters of the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. The endogenous movement which raised the mountains of Gebel Attaka and the crystalline rocks surrounding the north end of the Red Sea, placed the first barrier between the seas, and, by a succession of seismic movements, raised the cretaceous plateau of Egypt and Syria, or Palestine.
The mouth of the Nile at this period must have emptied into the Mediterranean, near the great Pyramid of Gizah; and here the river must have begun to lay the foundation of modern Egypt along the border of the cretaceous formation.