_Communication of the Red Seas with the Mediterranean._
LXV. We read in various histories, that some princes endeavoured to make
a communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, by means of
a cut from the Red Sea to the Nile; but that, in the execution of the
work, they met with such difficulties that were next to insuperable;
the principal of which was the apprehension that the Red Sea being
much higher than the Nile, its waters would inundate Egypt. In the
Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, in the year 1702, when they were
examining the geographical map which Monsieur Boutier had made of Egypt,
they examined this point also, and found that such an apprehension was
chimerical: they push’d their enquiries further, and discovered, upon
reading some antient historians, that there was great reason to conclude,
that in the very remote ages there had been such a canal of communication.