THE CONFERENCE ON THE SUEZ CANAL
The Grand Basin Ismail, at Port Said, is only an extension in breadth of
the canal, and the Guardian-Mother had only to proceed on her course by
the narrow water-way through the desert. The Maud followed her closely,
having nothing to fear on account of the depth of the water; and even
the ship had plenty under her keel. But it is said that, by what appears
to be a curious reversal of the ordinary rule, the very large steamers
are in less danger of running aground than those of smaller dimensions.
When the commander stated this canal axiom to the passengers assembled
before the starting on the promenade, Uncle Moses objected strenuously
to its truth, and Dr. Hawkes warmly supported him. The statement did not
look reasonable to them.
"Is it claimed that a vessel drawing twenty-five feet of water is in
less peril than one needing only eighteen feet of water to float her?"
asked the lawyer.
"The facts seem to prove this; but you will say that it is so much the
worse for the facts," replied the captain, laughing at the earnestness
of the non-nautical gentlemen; and even the ladies understood the
matter well enough to be interested in the dispute.
"The affirmative side of the question must prove its position,"
suggested the doctor.
"Which the affirmative will be very happy to do," replied the commander
very cheerfully. "If the bottom of the canal were a dead level, paved
like Broadway, and the depth of the canal were just twenty-six feet in
every place, with a perpendicular wall on each side, your theory would
be entirely correct, and the affirmative would have nothing more to say.
But the bottom is not paved, and there are no walls at the sides to
secure a uniform depth."
"Then the canal is not twenty-six feet deep, as the affirmative has laid
down the law," added Uncle Moses.
"That looks like a lawyer's quibble," replied the captain with a hearty
laugh. "You have opened the road for the retreat of the negative."
"The facts set forth by the speakers in our conference fail to be
facts," persisted the legal gentleman.
"The fact was given as a general truth that the depth of the canal is
twenty-six feet; but I think that no person as reasonable as Squire
Scarburn of Von Blonk Park would insist that it should be absolutely of
fully that depth in every part in order to comply with the general truth
of the statement. The courts don't rule in that way. I read lately of a
life insurance company which refused to pay a policy on the plea that
the holder had been a drunkard; but the court ruled that the use of
intoxicating liquors, or even an occasional over-indulgence, did not
constitute a drunkard."
"A wise ruling," added the squire.
"We call a person a good man; but even the affirmative does not insist
that he shall be absolutely without sin, stain, or fault in order to
entitle him to this designation."
"There would not be a single good man in that case," laughed the doctor.
"We admit the general truth that the canal is twenty-six feet deep."
"The canal has been dug out of loose sand for the most part, and it
would have been impossible to make it of uniform depth. Some of the
largest steamers in the world pass through the canal on their way to
India, China, and Australia. The Orient Line has the Ophir, a twin-screw
ship, about five hundred feet long, and others nearly as large.
"This big ditch across the isthmus has an average width of three hundred
feet, or two hundred less than the length of the Ophir. She could not,
therefore, get across the channel. There is a current in this water, and
fierce winds sometimes blow across it, and both of these affect the
inertia of the vessels. A comparatively small steamer like the
Guardian-Mother can be twisted about by these causes, and her bow or her
stern may catch on the sloping sides."
"You have made out your case, Captain Ringgold; and the moral is that
general truths are not invariably true," said Uncle Moses
good-naturedly.
"I only hope we shall not get aground," added Mrs. Belgrave.
"We are fairly started now, and we have Lake Menzaleh on one side, and a
low sandy plain, once covered with water, on the other," continued the
commander. "It is difficult to believe that the swamp and lagoon on the
starboard were once covered with fertile fields, watered by two of the
branches of the Nile, where wheat was raised in abundance, from which
Rome and other countries were supplied with food."
"What vast flocks of birds!" exclaimed Mrs. Woolridge.
"Those are flamingoes, just rising from their resting-place," added the
captain. "They were white just now as we looked at them; notice the
color of the inside of their wings, which are of a rose-tinted pink."
"But what became of the wheat-fields that were here?" asked Mrs.
Blossom, after they had observed the wild birds for a time.
"The sea broke in and covered the rich lands with sand and salt; and
there are towns buried there now."
"Goodness, gracious!" almost screamed Mrs. Blossom. "There's another
steamer sailing on the land!"
"It appears to be so, but is not so," replied the commander.
"It is really so," added Mrs. Woolridge; and all the party gazed with
interest at the phenomenon.
"Only apparently so," the captain insisted.
"Please to explain it to us, Commodore," said Miss Blanche, who had long
ago applied this title to him.
"With pleasure, Miss Woolridge. It is the mirage, from the Latin
_miror_, to wonder, which appears to be what you are doing just now. The
steamer you see sailing along the shore is an optical illusion, a
reflection, and not a reality. Refraction, which is the bending of the
rays of light, produces this effect. If you look at a straight stick set
up in the water, it will appear to be bent, and this is caused by
refraction. The learned gentlemen present will excuse me for going back
to the primer of physics."
"We are quite satisfied to have the memory refreshed," replied the
doctor.
"The air around us is of different densities, which causes the rays of
reflection of our ship to be bent, sending the image up on the shore.
What sailors call 'looming,' often seen on our own shores, is produced
in the same way; and we often see an island, or a vessel, looming up
away above the water, from which it is sometimes separated by a strip of
sky. The mirage is often seen in the desert, with a whole caravan up in
the air, sometimes upside down.
"An object is often seen when at a considerable distance from it. In the
Arctic regions ships below the horizon, or hull down as sailors phrase
it, are revealed to other ships far distant by their images in the air.
From Hastings, on the English Channel, the coast of France, fifty miles
distant, from Calais to Dieppe, was once seen for about three hours. In
1854 a remarkable exhibition of the mirage was witnessed in the Baltic
Sea from the deck of a ship of the British navy. The whole English
fleet, consisting of nineteen sail, distant thirty miles from the point
of observation, were seen up in the air, upside down, as if they had
been hung up there by their keels.
"The Fata Morgana is a sort of mirage seen in the Strait of Messina. A
person standing on the shore sees the images of men, houses, ships, and
other objects, sometimes in the air, sometimes in the water, the
originals frequently magnified, passing like a panorama before the
beholder. The vapory masses above the strait may cause the pictures to
be surrounded by a colored line. When the peasants see it, they shout
'Morgana! Morgana!'"
"What does that word mean?" inquired Miss Blanche.
"The French from which it is derived is '_Morgaine la Fee_,' from a
sister of King Arthur of the Round Table, who had the reputation of
being a fairy, which is _fata_ in Italian."
"But what is that round table?" asked Mrs. Blossom very innocently.
"You must excuse me, my dear woman," replied the commander, looking at
his watch. "The Suez Canal is the subject before us, and I am talking
all the morning about other things."
"But it is collateral information, called out by the mirage; and the
illustrations you mentioned are quite new to me, for one," added Dr.
Hawkes.
"I like this kind of a conference, where the side matters are all
explained," said Mrs. Belgrave. "But it is a pity the boys are not here,
for they are not getting any of the cream of this conference so early in
the morning."
This was enough for the commander, coming from her; and he immediately
hastened to the stern of the ship, where he hailed the Maud, and ordered
her to come alongside. The four sailors who had attended the party in
the excursion to Cairo and up the Nile were directed to go on board of
the tender, and take the places of the "Big Four." The Guardian-Mother
had to go into a "siding" to permit a steamer to pass her at this point,
and the transfer was easily made.
However it may have been with the others, Louis Belgrave was glad to get
back to the ship, where he could sit by the side of Miss Blanche, and
answer the many questions she was continually asking; for she had an
inquiring mind. As she often remarked, Louis always seemed to know all
about everything. Perhaps if he had been with the party all the time, he
might have lost some portion of his reputation as a walking
encyclopædia; for when he was to be with her on any excursion, he took
extraordinary pains to post himself upon the topics likely to be
considered.
"You notice that post near the siding," said Captain Ringgold when the
party on the promenade had been re-enforced by the addition of the young
men, and the steamer began to move again. "That is one of the five
kilometre posts; and you will find them all the way to the Red Sea."
"What is a kilometre?" inquired Mrs. Woolridge.
"I have talked so much that I will ask Mr. Belgrave to explain it,"
replied the captain.
"It belongs to the French metrical system, which most people have come
to believe is the best in the world. I suppose everybody here knows what
a meridian is, for it was explained when we were talking about great
circles and geographical or sea miles. A meridian is a great circle
reaching around the earth, and passing through the equator and the
poles. A quadrant of a meridian is the quarter of a meridian, extending
from the equator to either pole. This is something that does not vary in
extent. A commission of five learned men, especially in mathematics, was
appointed by the French Academy, at the instance of the government, to
adopt a standard, and they made it a metre, which is the ten millionth
part of the quadrant of a meridian. The metre is 3.28 feet of our
measure, with five more decimal places after it.
"Ten metres make a decametre, and one thousand metres make a kilometre,
and ten thousand metres make a myriametre. Without bothering with all
these decimals, a kilometre is about five-eighths of a mile. Five
kilometres make three miles and one-tenth, which is the distance between
these posts," said Louis in conclusion.
"How came you to be so ready with your explanation, Mr. Belgrave?" asked
Miss Blanche, with a pleasant smile of approval.
"Captain Scott had talked the whole thing to us on board of the Maud
while he steered the steamer," replied Louis.
"But he knows five times as much about metres as I do; for I could not
have explained the meridian business," interjected the captain of the
Maud.
"Five miles an hour is slow travelling; but it enables us to see the
country, and also to talk about it," said Dr. Hawkes.
"If you don't mean that I am talking too much, Doctor"--
"I certainly do not mean that, and I hope you will keep it up,"
interposed the surgeon.
"Then I will say that the canal is run on the 'block system,' except on
the lakes, where the ships can go at full speed," added the commander.
"Where are the blocks? I don't see any," said Mrs. Blossom.
"They are all along the canal."
"I don't know what is meant by the block system," added Mrs. Belgrave.
"The railroads in England and the United States, or many of them, are
run by this method. The whole length of the road, or canal in this case,
is divided into short sections. On the railroad no train is permitted to
enter a section till all other trains are out of it, and a collision is
therefore impossible. The system is controlled by telegraph, by which
signals are ordered at either end of the division. On the canal the
director at Port Tewfik controls the movements of every ship on its
passage either way. These posts mark the sections. You will learn more
of it when we get to the other end of the canal."
The breakfast gong sounded at this time, and the party were not so eager
for knowledge as to pass over the morning meal.