Transcriber’s Notes:
Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
in the original text.
A single underscore after a symbol indicates a subscript.
Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
Footnotes have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs.
Typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Inconsistent place names have been silently corrected.
Several wide tables in the original book have been split into two
sections in this ebook version to avoid very long lines.
IS A SHIP CANAL PRACTICABLE?
NOTES,
HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL,
UPON THE PROJECTED ROUTES FOR AN
INTEROCEANIC SHIP CANAL BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC AND
PACIFIC OCEANS,
IN WHICH IS INCLUDED
A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF THE CANAL
OF SUEZ, AND THE PROBABLE EFFECTS UPON THE COMMERCE
OF THE WORLD OF THE TWO CANALS, REGARDED EITHER
AS RIVALS, OR AS PARTS OF ONE SYSTEM OF
INTEROCEANIC NAVIGATION.
BY
S. T. ABERT, C.E.
ILLUSTRATED WITH MAPS.
CINCINNATI:
R. W. CARROLL & CO., PUBLISHERS,
117 WEST FOURTH STREET.
1870.
The following notes upon Interoceanic Routes across the American
Isthmus were collected and arranged during intervals of professional
occupation, and are doubtless affected by the haste incident to this
method of preparation.
They were laid by a friend before the Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD and the
late R. J. WALKER, for their perusal, and receiving the commendation
of their enlightened judgments, the writer has thought that the
publication may not be without interest to those who are seeking
information as to the feasibility of an intermarine ship canal between
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Prepared before the completion of the Suez Canal and the sailing of
the last Darien Expedition, some additions have been made to bring the
parts of the Notes relating to these topics up to date.
AUGUST 1, 1870.
IS A SHIP CANAL PRACTICABLE?
CHAPTER I.
Columbus discovers Darien—Opinions of Berghaus,
Humboldt, Garella, Hughes—Expectation of finding a
Strait—Influence of Oriental Trade—Names identified
with the Project of a Canal—Defeat of Miranda’s
Scheme—Object—Opinion of Admiral Davis—Sketch of
Oriental Trade—Contest for its Possession—Four different
Solutions—United States—Russia—France—England—English
Diplomacy and the Suez Canal—History of its
Difficulties—Empress Eugenie Inaugurates—Dimensions
of Canal—Capital of Company—Expenditures—Effects on
Commerce—Circumstances affecting the Permanence of the
Suez Canal—Teaching of History—Sand Dunes—Inferences
from Geology—Sediment of the Nile—Deltas—Silting up of
Port Said, and rate of advance of the Shore Line.
Upon the 14th of September, in the year of our Lord 1502, three
caravels, bearing Columbus and the destinies of the New World, long
baffled by opposing storms and currents, at last doubled Cape Gracias a
Dios.
To appreciate the courage of the daring Navigator, it is necessary to
call to mind the fact that the largest vessel of this little fleet did
not exceed seventy tons burden. With seams opened by the stress of the
gales, sails tattered by the winds, hulls eaten to a honey-comb by the
teredo, distrust at home, dissension around, and danger everywhere,
this great man abated not a jot of his high hopes, but repairing his
shattered ships as he was able, continued his adventurous voyage.
The air came to the toil-worn mariners freighted with spicy fragrance,
gentle winds wafted them in sight of lofty mountains and of verdant
slopes, clothed with the majestic palm and the pink and golden
blossoming _flor de Robles_.
The simple-minded natives of Honduras and Costa Rica welcomed them
with supernatural devotion, bringing gifts of fruits, gold, gems, and
tenders of hospitality.
Strange rumors reached them of a people living in houses of sculptured
stone, and occupied in the arts of peace. Columbus could not be
diverted from his purpose.
The season was that of gales, and the little fleet was shut in the
beautiful harbor of Porto Bello.
The Norther ceasing, the voyage continued as far as the little, craggy
Bay of El Retreate; here, near the present Puerto de Mosquitoes,
Columbus reached the westward limit of his last voyage of discovery.
Sixty-six years of sorrow and disappointment, of disinterested purposes
maliciously opposed, of bold designs ignorantly thwarted, of a pure and
illustrious character misjudged and traduced, had humbled the pride
and subdued the enthusiasm of that aspiring intellect; and now, at the
close of a career of vast and useful discoveries, he was called on to
face a trial which Goëthe has affirmed to be the severest and most
inexorable of life.
Welcomed with the approving plaudits of his king and countrymen, or
loaded with ignominious chains, he had ever kept one object constantly
in view. This object, pursued with unexampled courage, self-abnegation,
and constancy, he was now called on to renounce. Who will venture to
depict the thoughts of this remarkable man as he turned to retrace his
path, leaving behind him the prospect of discoveries far greater than
those which had cast the hallow of immortal fame around his name?
“Here ended,” says Irving, in a strain of tender eloquence, “the
lofty aspirations which had elevated him above all mercenary views in
his struggle along this perilous coast”——“it is true, he had been in
pursuit of a chimera, but it was the chimera of a splendid imagination
and a penetrating judgment. If he was disappointed in finding a strait
through the Isthmus of Darien, it was because Nature herself was
disappointed.”
This sagacious conjecture has its foundation in nature, and is
supported by the opinions of savans and the facts of recent geological
explorations.
The Prussian geographer, Berghaus, as early as 1823, and Prof. Hopkins,
contested the accepted opinion as to the unbroken continuity of the
Isthmus and the contiguous continents.
The French engineer, Garella, after making a geological reconnoissance,
declares that the Isthmus is of more recent origin than the continents
which it unites. Col. Hughes and Garella concur in a belief in the
existence, at an early period, of a strait uniting the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans. The identity of the species of fish inhabiting the
waters on both sides of the Isthmus is an additional argument in
confirmation of this view.
It is without surprise that we find the discoveries of another science
confirming this inference. Prof. Huxley, in a recent address on the
progress of palæontology, is unable to explain the distribution of
mammals at the close of the miocene period, except upon the supposition
of a barrier which prevented the migration of the apes, rodents, and
edentata from the southern to the northern continent. He cites the
opinions of Carrick Moore and Prof. Duncan in support of the same
conclusion. Further investigation will, no doubt, add to the number
of facts which indicate the separation of the two continents by the
ancient sea, and may even establish the fact that portions of Central
America once formed parts of the Antilles group of the equatorial belt
of islands.
General Michler, in his interesting report of the survey of the Atrato,
observes: “All the stratified rocks on the Isthmus, exhibiting strong
marks of disturbance and even dislocation since they were originally
deposited, clearly prove that the upheaval which brought this narrow
neck of land above the level of the ocean must have taken place at a
comparatively late era. This period was undoubtedly accompanied by the
protrusion of certain metamorphosed shistose (?) rocks, the doubtful
nature of which has induced us to mark them as belonging to a trappean
series. If Darwin had good reason to believe that the granite of South
America, now rising into central peaks 14,000 feet in elevation, must
have been in a fluid state since the deposition of the tertiary group,
we may also do so in pronouncing the formation of the Isthmus, now
linking together South and Central America, as decidedly post-tertiary.”
The deductions of Columbus were, however, based on the direction of the
coast of Cuba, which he supposed to be a continent, and the parallel
coast of South America; and was further confirmed by the westerly
current flowing between them, which must, he thought, find an outlet
near Darien.
These bold generalizations, drawn from stores of profound observation
and varied reading, although we now know them to be erroneous, evince
the sagacity of the man, and place him far ahead of the intelligence of
his age. With heartfelt sorrow he reluctantly renounced a chimera so
plausible, which he expected would lead him to the fabulous kingdom of
Prester John, or, perhaps, to the marvelous splendors of the imperial
dominions of Kublai Khan, and which would, he believed, open new fields
for the peaceful conquests of the banner of the Redeemer.
The delusive representations of travelers was the chief impulse to some
of the greatest achievements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The coveted wealth of “Ormus and of Ind” was a siren who had lured
adventurous navigators to dare the dangers of unknown seas.
The same diversity of motive may be found in the men of that period
which now exists and animates the westward course of civilization. Love
of money and fame are found contending by the side of the desire to
extend the domain of knowledge and zeal for the spread of religion.
The result of these combined passions was to open new avenues to
wealth, industry, and science.
Four hundred years have elapsed since the wondering eyes of Spanish
discoverers first gazed on the strange beauty of the New World. In this
interval a nation of forty millions of people have been planted in
the country of Columbus, its wildernesses are traversed by steam, its
products supply food and clothing to a large part of the world; but,
with all this progress, the visionary strait of the great navigator is
yet an unrealized dream.
Impossibilities have been accomplished, poetical fictions have become
facts, visionary theories of the past are the industrial arts of the
present. In wealth, comfort, health, longevity, art, science, organized
labor and charities, the human race of the present have out-stripped
the Arcadian felicity of the golden eras of Hesiod and Cervantes.
Possessing every facility, occupying a preëminent coigne of vantage, we
have left one thing unachieved. This ought we to have done, and not to
have left the others undone.
Many minds, speculative and practical, have closely scrutinized the
feasibility of making the American Isthmus a highway for the commerce
of the world.
Its importance grows in dimensions in proportion to the study bestowed
on it. It ranks among its friends some of the most able men of the race.
Columbus, Cortes, Charles V, Alverado, Gonzales de Avila, De Solis,
Gomaro, Bautista Antonella, and, in more recent times, Paterson, Pitt,
Jefferson, Humboldt, Guizot, Napoleon III, Wheaton, Dallas, Biddle, and
a long and honorable list of statesmen and publicists have contributed
to the project.
According to the scheme of General Miranda, sanctioned by Wm. Pitt, it
was proposed that Great Britain should supply the money and ships, and
the United States should send 10,000 men.
The failure of this plan is attributed to delay on the part of
President Adams.
The tonnage of the trade which would annually seek this route has been
estimated at 3,094,000 tons, equal in value to $152,475,750. The value
of the exports and imports of all the nations which would annually pass
the Isthmus would amount to $451,029,132.
With such enormous commercial interests, backed by advocates so able,
it is not a little curious that the question of feasibility should be
yet unsolved.
Political vicissitudes have often postponed its consideration.
Conflicting interest and rivalries have prevented the coöperation long
deemed essential to its successful execution.
The hereditary policy of the United States has always been anti-social
and insular. Schooled in this policy, it is difficult to enlist the
sympathies of our people in questions which are to be answered in
regions beyond their jurisdiction.
The utility and practicability of the work must first be made clearly
manifest.
Passing in review the present state of our knowledge of Isthmean
routes, one of the objects of this paper is to attempt to appreciate
the probable advantages which would result from the completion of an
intermarine ship canal.
In selecting from material, much of which bears little relation to the
questions at issue, many objects may be omitted which deserve notice,
and some may be noticed which might have been omitted.
If serious attention is attracted to this important project, the writer
will have attained his object.
“There does not exist in the libraries of the world,” observes Admiral
Davis, “the means of determining, even approximately, the most
practicable route for a ship canal across the Isthmus.” This deficiency
in our geographical knowledge will shortly be supplied. An exploration
is now in progress, under the auspices of Government.
If a practicable route is found, there is reason to believe that
execution will follow as certainly as the settlement of America
followed its discovery.
We may not unreasonably expect the progress of the future to keep pace
with the past, and that the absolute increase of the commercial marine,
and an enlarged area for its operations, will lead to a proportionate
extension of the beneficent influences of religion and civilization.
The speculation opens a prospect of the future destiny of intertropical
America; destined, perhaps, to produce as great a revolution on our
globe as the colonization of America.
“The completion of this work,” observes an earnest advocate, “will be
the same as if, by some great revolution of the globe, the eastern
continent were brought nearer to us.”
The produce of the Indies has always been a coveted prize; wealth has
followed in its path; commercial supremacy has been the property of
its possessor. As changes in the route brought about new political
relations, and raised up a more successful competitor for the trade
of the Orient, a reconstruction of the map of the world has become
necessary.
Its importance may be gathered from the fact that the annual exports
and imports of the United States to the East Indies, China, Australia,
and the South Pacific Islands amount to $39,380,000, and the aggregate
exports and imports of Great Britain to the same points amount to
$378,857,000.
If this trade has ceased to be a monopoly, and has lost some of its
importance since the colonization of the Americas, it is yet sufficient
to hold the guerdon of commercial supremacy. A history of its course
and influence is beyond the scope of this paper. A passing notice will
show how important a part it has played in the destinies of nations.
It is probable that the wars of ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon
were waged for the control of the trade of the East. The expedition of
Alexander was not the result of an unreasoning lust for dominion and
military glory. The apple of discord then, as now, was the beautiful
land of the East. The descendants of the great Aryan and Semitic
families, constantly moving westward, never forgot the land of their
birth.
At an early period, caravans brought the rich products of India across
the desert. Under the influence of this traffic, the palaces of Palmyra
sprang up amid the sands. The Saracens drove the course of trade to the
Caspian and the Euxine. The Mediterranean felt its beneficent effects,
and Venice, Trieste, Marseilles, Cadiz, Barcelona became the marts of
its rich and varied commodities.
After the discovery of de Gama, the busy hum of industry began to cease
in these once populous emporiums. When Shylock drew up his bloody
bond, the trade of the Indies had set around the cape. While commerce
was suspended and industry prostrated by wars and civil dissensions,
Holland bore off the prize. The devastating armies of Alva threw the
Indian trade into the strong hands of Elizabeth.
England now began to lay carefully the foundation of her empire. The
policy she now adopted, whether through instinct or forethought,
was one which looked beyond the temporary advantages of position
and possession. She attempted to make these advantages permanent by
the conquest of the territory from whence all these bounties seemed
perennially to flow.
The British Empire in India, in its extent, power, wealth, and future
possibilities, stands an enduring monument of the courage, energy, and
wisdom of the British people. Whether actual possession has secured the
reversionary benefit, time alone can show.
That wealth, power, and dominion follow oriental traffic, is now patent
to the world. It is no longer the object of secret diplomatic intrigue;
it has become an open question, to be solved by the general competition
of commercial nations.
In the pursuit of this object, the leader in the Pansclavonic movement
is pushing her outposts past India to the wall of China. The United
States, conscious of her natural advantage, is awakening to the
importance of a systematic policy.
The French Emperor seems at present, by the aid of the Suez Canal,
likely to appropriate the lion’s share. While American commerce is
disappearing from the seas—fifty per cent. of her exports and imports
being carried in foreign ships—the flag of France may be seen by the
side of England in every sea. The hereditary policy and commercial
instinct of the British may prove to be more than a match for the
astuteness of one man. Who will ultimately bear off the prize, is a
question admitting three possible solutions.
Russia, as has been said, rapidly extending her frontier eastward,
stretches out her hand to grasp the trade of the East. The Suez and
Darien Canals—the one an unsolved problem, the other an accomplished
fact—represent the two other contestants. One of the most constant
objects of war and diplomacy has been for the possession of the highway
through Egypt for the trade of the East.
It was designated by the Portuguese conqueror, Albuquerque, as one of
the three important points essential to the “command and monopoly” of
this trade. England, anticipating the day when it might be important
for her to have the military control of this highway, has persistently
established military ports, beginning at Gibraltar and ending at
Aiden. She has secured strong posts at Malta and Beb el Mandeb. The
Great Leibnitz called the attention of Louis XIV to the commercial and
political advantages of a conquest and colonization of this country.
Napoleon, flushed with the conquest of Italy, took the initiative in
this bold design. By his order, M. Lepere, “a distinguished engineer,”
completed an examination in 1801. The results of this examination have
been published by the Imperial Government.
M. Lepere asserted the practicability of a ship canal along the line of
the ancient canal from Suez to the Nile, as far as the Bitter Lakes.
From thence its course has to proceed to the Pelusiac branch of the
Nile. Here, on the sea, it encounters the accumulating banks and bars
of the Nile, one of the two very serious obstacles to the execution and
permanent value of a ship canal between the two seas.
The project of a canal uniting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean
appears to have been suggested by M. de Lesseps to Said Pacha, the
Viceroy of Egypt, in 1854. The company was definitely formed in 1869.
It is not very easy to estimate the important effects of opening this
route to the maritime States of Europe.
Lord Palmerston, acting in the interest of England, constantly opposed
the design. He at once perceived that the restoration of trade to the
Levantine ports would seriously disturb the commercial equilibrium. All
the ingenious devices of a clever lawyer in conducting a bad case were
employed by English diplomacy in order to arrest the operations of M.
de Lesseps.
The first and most valid objections alleged by Lord Palmerston were
based on the practical difficulties in the way of execution, and were
stated with great force and acuteness. The shifting sands of the Desert
would, it was affirmed, soon fill up the canal; and the sand and silt,
which from time immemorial had been brought down by the great father of
waters, and which swept to the westward by the prevailing winds, would
soon fill up any artificial harbor which might be constructed.
That these difficulties were resolutely encountered and overcome, is
one of the marvels of this truly marvelous work.
To these objections M. de Lesseps cautiously replied that all questions
would be referred to a commission of engineers.
After an examination of all the plans, the commission reported
favorably on that which has just been successfully executed. The work
found a few friends among the English people and in Parliament.
Lord Palmerston, being interrogated, declared that the scheme was
hostile to the interest of the country. His real objection was
obscurely hinted. “It is founded,” he remarked, “in remote speculations
in regard to easier access to our Indian possessions, which I need not
more distinctly shadow forth, because they will be obvious to any body
who pays attention to the subject.” He further characterized it as
one of those plans “so often brought out to make dupes of the English
people,” and he expressed his preference for the communication by
railroad between Suez and Cairo. As this railroad can never be more
than a passenger route, it is evident that its influence on commerce
must always be insignificant.
The work had barely commenced when, through the instigation of
the English Embassador, the Sultan issued an order arresting the
operations. The plea assigned for this interference was that the
authority of the Viceroy was insufficient without the sanction of the
Sultan. De Lesseps invoked the interposition of the Emperor, who, with
apparent indifference, was watching the proceedings from his retreat at
Biarritz.
Within a month after the presentation of the memorial the
misunderstanding between the two cabinets had been explained, and Lord
Palmerston was for a time silenced by the consent of Egypt to receive a
Turkish garrison. This acquiescence was in appearance only, as the real
object of these repeated assaults was to arrest the work. The Viceroy,
desirous of silencing all opposition, consulted French jurisconsults in
regard to the rights of the company, and definitely settled the powers
of the contracting parties.
For a moderate sum he ceded to the company the belt of country
bordering the fresh water canal. Immediately the cry was raised by the
opponents of the canal, that it was intended to colonize this region
with Europeans.
While this matter was in controversy, and the work was steadily
proceeding, Said Pacha suddenly died, and Ismail, his nephew, reigned
in his stead, with the title of Khédivé. He confirmed the concessions
of his predecessor and entered into new conventions. His confidence in
the work, which had appeared uncertain, was established by the able
report of Sir John Hawkshaw, the President of the Society of Civil
Engineers. This report, however, which was confirmed by the personal
inspection of Sir Henry Bulwer, aroused all the fears of the English
Government. The success of the work, at first problematical, now seemed
more than probable. A decisive blow must be struck; one that should be
fatal to the undertaking.
Throughout Egypt, according to an ancient and still prevailing custom,
private and public work is executed by a system of forced labor, termed
Corvē. The conscription is limited to the period of one month, at a
fixed rate of wages. The company engaged to pay higher rates than
usual, and to supply food, lodging, medical attendance, and half pay
when sick. No sooner had twenty thousand men been collected on the
excavations, than a “howl went up from Exeter Hall.” Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe demanded of the Sultan “to stop the scandal.”
The British Government were instantly seized with one of those sudden
spasms of morality, or humanity, which Lord Macaulay affirms has been
observed periodically to afflict the British people.
The Sultan, who appears to have been a pliable tool in the hands of
English Envoys, issued an order abolishing the system of compulsory
labor, and disbanding all the fellahs employed by the company.
This arbitrary and unjust interference had but one meaning, and seemed
likely to have but one result. The plea of humanity, advanced by a
Government which had overlooked the sacrifice of 1000 men in one day,
when that sacrifice had been made by their own injudicious advice, and
for their own benefit, could be nothing more than a manifest subterfuge.
This vigorous handling of the political puppets on the diplomatic
chess-board proved how serious were Lord Palmerston’s apprehensions. It
was the old question which every age revives. In the past, the issue
had again and again been brought to the arbitrament of the sword. With
such antagonists as Palmerston on one side and de Lesseps and the
Silent Emperor upon the other, the duel was necessarily _ā l’outrance_.
It was now evident that war alone could arrest the completion of the
maritime highway between the two seas. Was it the death of Palmerston
or the progress of peaceful arts that kept this question confined to
the field of diplomacy?
Opposition only stimulated the energy and confirmed the determination
of de Lesseps. The controversy was referred to the decision of the
French Emperor. A smile, half machiavellian, must have flitted over
the face of his reticent Majesty when the question was submitted to
his Imperial arbitration. By his decision the Egyptian Government were
called on to pay, not unwillingly, an indemnity to the company for a
release from the obligation to furnish compulsory labor, and for the
retrocession of certain land grants and privileges of navigation.
“The indomitable Lesseps did not despair.” After months of delay, he
collected laborers from all parts of Europe, and the work was resumed.
The vigilance of the English opposition soon found another vulnerable
point. The Sultan was again persuaded to issue a firman denying the
right of the Viceroy to cede the land through which the canal was to
be excavated. This well-aimed blow caused a suspension of operations
for two years. Any man less able, self-reliant, or resolute than M. de
Lesseps would have succumbed.[1]
The Emperor was induced to intervene. M. Thouvener, the French Minister
at Constantinople, was requested “to enlighten the mind of the Sublime
Porte as to the views and wishes of France.”
The introduction of machinery now became a matter of necessity. Ten
millions of dollars were expended for this object, and forty enormous
dredges were soon at work upon the excavations. One of the novelties
in the construction of these machines was a provision for carrying
off the excavated material by means of a stream of water. One of the
workmen, it is said, noticed that when removed in this way the slimy
earth spread over a wide surface and became soon indurated, instead
of flowing back into the place of excavation. It also possessed the
further advantage of fixing the mobile sand.
The total amount of earth removed amounted to about four hundred
million cubic yards. By working day and night, the machines of M. Borel
and Lavelley were able to remove 78,056 to 108,000 cubic meters per
month.
Although the completion of the canal now seemed assured, the opposition
of the English Government continued up to the last moment. Every effort
was made to prejudice the Sultan and the Khédivé against the work, and,
by exciting the jealousy of the Sultan, to induce him to arrest the
excavations.
After ten years of labor, this great work was completed. Upon the 17th
of November, 1869, the opening of the canal was inaugurated in the
presence of the Empress Eugenie and the Emperor of Austria, and of
princes, embassadors, and men of science from Europe and America.
The Empress, leading the van of the fleet in her steam yacht, l’Aigle,
entered the canal amid salvos of artillery. The yards of the ships were
manned with sailors, every mast-head was decked with a flag, and the
bands played the martial airs of the assembled nations. The transit
between the two seas was safely made by the fleet. But the requisite
depth had not been attained. Seventeen and a half feet could be
carried through the canal. Since then the depth has been increased to
twenty-two feet, and ultimately will be twenty-six feet.
The length of the canal is one hundred miles. The established
surface-width is about 328 feet, except in difficult cuttings, where it
is 190 feet. The least bottom width is 72 feet. The highest ground cut
through is at El Gúisr, where it is 85 feet; at Serapeum it is 62 feet;
and at Chalouf, near Suez, it is 56 feet.
The excavation of the canal, although of considerable difficulty,
was exceeded by the necessity for creating artificial harbors at the
extremities. The harbor at Port Said, upon the Mediterranean, has the
general form of a triangle, the base resting on the shore and the
longer side on the west, protecting the entrance from the moving sand.
The longer arm, or mole, is 8,200 feet, extending to the 26 feet curve
of sounding. It is proposed to extend this mole 2,300 feet farther.
As this harbor is exposed to N. E. winds, an inside basin has been
constructed. The area of the outer harbor is equal to 400 acres, and
will permit twenty line-of-battle ships to swing freely at anchor.
At the other extremity of the canal, a mole 2,550 feet in length
protects the channel, which has been dredged to the depth of 27 feet.
The mole at Suez differs from that at Port Said in construction; the
latter being formed of concrete blocks of 13 cubic feet, the former of
stone quarried from the neighboring mountain.
The organization, equipment, sanitary regulations, and division of
labor among twenty thousand men, employed at one time, is full of
interest and instruction, but must be omitted in this place.[2]
The following statement of receipts and expenditures, taken from a
recent periodical, deserves preservation:
_Gross Realized Capital._
Shareholders’ capital $40,000,000
Sale of bonds 19,999,980
Egyptian convention 5,948,805
Imperial arbitration 16,800,000
Rates of exchange 1,294,260
Various receipts received by the company 6,288,180
———————————
Total capital $90,331,225
The following is a summary of the expenditures up to the date of the
opening of the canal:
General expenditures for preliminary surveys
from 1854 to 1859 $15,825,525
General expenses of administration and negotiations
between France and Egypt 3,394,245
Sanitary service, 1866-1869 121,410
Telegraph service 34,000
Transport service, boats, stock, buildings 1,644,435
Payment of contractors for material 3,442,785
Dredging machines and heavy plant 6,819,240
Work-shops 844,150
Works of construction, canal, and ports 43,534,330
Miscellaneous 1,392,495
Expenses of various branches of company management 3,841,050
———————————
$80,893,665
———————————
The average cost of the canal per mile is $808,936
[Illustration: SUEZ CANAL General Map]
The balance on hand for the completion of the dredging is $9,437,560.
This sum will probably be sufficient to excavate the canal to the
uniform depth of 26 feet.
The effect of the opening of the canal is felt in the revival of
maritime interests in the Levantine ports. Port Said is the depot of
seven companies, Russian, French, and Austrian. A Spanish company is
organizing with the intention of establishing a line between Barcelona
and the Philippine Islands, and an American company is preparing a
depot in the Mediterranean.
In 1869, thirteen hundred and sixty-two ships, amounting to 637,440
tons, entered Port Said. M. de Lesseps estimates that the annual
revenue from tolls on the tonnage passing through the canal will be
$12,000,000.
The canal has conquered a peace. Its enemies have become its most
sanguine friends. The benefits it is destined to confer upon the
commerce of the world, and the changes in the present commercial
equilibrium of Europe, although important in their influence and
immediate in their effects, must be proportionate to the duration of
the canal as a highway for the commerce of the world.
The circumstances affecting the permanence of the canal have been
so ably canvassed, that, apart from the intrinsic importance of the
question, they deserve attentive consideration.
The ancient Pharaonic canal connected the Nile with the Red Sea, and
partly avoided the destruction threatened by the unceasing advance
of the sand dunes. The absence of harbors on the Mediterranean was
compensated by the channel of the Nile, which afforded a passage over
the bar for the light draft ships of that period. The French engineers,
confident in the resources of modern science, have boldly conquered the
difficulties which Egyptian engineers dared not encounter. It is well
known that the distinguished engineer, Robert Stephenson, pronounced
the work impracticable, and many cautious investigators have doubted
its permanence.
The objections may be classed under two heads:
1. To the permanency of the excavation of the canal.
2. To the permanency of the harbors.
The arguments relating to the duration of the canal are drawn from
history and the observations of travelers.
“We can not approach history,” says M. de Lesseps, “without touching
on Suez.” Its records, fragmentary and uncertain, are hid in the mists
of five thousand centuries. The stream of its history, now lost, now
re-appearing, is joined in its course by the tributary traditions of
nearly all the Indo-Germanic and Semitic nations. The tramp of armies
and the desolation of conquest has alternated with periods of intense
activity in the arts, sciences, literature, and commerce. The Egyptian
name, once a synonym of the profoundest learning, is now only known
to us by an architecture which is still invested with a unique and
imposing grandeur.
The value of a canal to afford transportation for the products of the
East occupied the attention of the Pharaohs at an early date. Since the
time of Rameses II, it has been repeatedly reconstructed and repaired.
This Pharaoh, who lived about the period of the Mosaic exodus (1400 B.
C.), was probably the Sesostris of Aristotle, Strabo, and Pliny.
If the Sesostris of the 12th dynasty was the constructor of the canal,
its date would be carried back 2730 B. C. Its construction has also
been attributed to other Egyptian rulers, but with more certainty to
Nechao, B. C. 625.
Sir G. Wilkinson accounts for this uncertainty by a very plausible
explanation. The sandy site of the canal required frequent excavation.
These operations gave to successive kings the credit of having
commenced the work which they only repaired.
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.
Thus the geological record is in harmony with the traditions of
the Priests as handed down to us by Herodotus, “Egypt is a gift of
the Nile.” Within historic times, the elevating movement has been
inappreciable. The Nile still continues to roll down its plenteous
bounty of sand, and to spread unceasingly its desolating influence over
the plains of Suez and along the coast of Egypt as far as Syria.
Capt. Pratt, in the Medina, made a careful survey of the coast,
sounding and dredging with sufficient minuteness to determine the
limit of Nile influence. Within this limit, the bottom was found to be
composed of siliceous sands, differing in no respect from the sands of
the desert about the Pyramids. Outside of the Nile sand, the bottom of
the sea was found to be composed exclusively of calcareous particles.
The suspended matter, which is greatest during the Nile floods, driven
eastward along the coast, accumulates upon the beach in the form of
dunes, and overwhelms the huts of the coast guard and the fishermen,
and, in twelve months, nearly buried the Mosque of Brulos. Commencing
its devastating march, it advances irresistibly toward Suez.
The Nile brings down a prodigious quantity of sand, which is swept
into the river by the Libyan winds, and borne by the current to the
sea, mingled with fragments of pottery from the villages on the
banks. The quantity of sand brought into the sea has excited the
astonishment of the most experienced students of delta formations. The
Ganges, the Indus, the Dneipper, the Danube, and the Mississippi, the
Yang-Tse-Kiang, and the Hoang Ho bring down annually millions of tons
of solid matter to add to the accretions at their mouths.
[Illustration: GEOLOGICAL MAP OF PALESTINE AND LOWER EGYPT]
The whole amount carried yearly into the Gulf of Mexico by all the
passes of the Mississippi is seven hundred and fifty millions of cubic
feet, or a mass of one mile square and twenty-seven feet thick. “As
the cubical contents of the whole mass of the bar at the South-west
pass is equal to a solid of one mile square and four hundred and ninety
feet thick, it would require fifty-five years to form the bar as it now
exists.”[3]
Since the time of Strabo the Nile has advanced the coast line of Egypt,
by its yearly contributions of sand, from four to six miles into the
sea. Any interruptions of the littoral currents greatly accelerates
this result. Such is the well-known effect of jetties and moles. Since
the construction of the mole at Port Said, the shore line has advanced
1213 feet in eight years. Eighty-eight feet of this distance was made
in the last six months. “If the shore line continues to advance,” Mr.
Mitchell remarks, “at any thing like its present rate, the dry land
will extend to the end of the mole in forty years. The shoaling of the
entrance to the harbor will keep pace with the advance of the shore
line, and before the end of twenty years an extension of the mole will
be necessary.”
The silting up of the interior of the harbor by the sand which sifts
through the interstices of the concrete block is regarded by Mr.
Mitchell as a more serious evil. But as it may not be impracticable to
close these interstices, this danger does not seem comparable to that
which must arise from the unceasing eastward movement of the sands
brought down by the Nile. It was for this reason that Alexander placed
his city to the west of the mouth of the Nile.
The boldness and skill displayed in the construction of the harbor of
Port Said may be appreciated from these facts. The excavation of the
canal presented comparatively little difficulty. The entire cost of the
canal and harbors was about forty-three and a half millions of dollars,
or more than half of the entire cost of the work, which includes the
expenses of hospitals, negotiations, surveys, machinery, and the
miscellaneous expenses of administration, amounting in the aggregate to
$80,893,665.
The doubts of the permanent value of the Suez Canal, as expressed by
Lord Palmerston and Sir Robert Stephenson, do not appear to have been
without sound and reasonable foundation. It is evident that a few years
of war will, as in the days of the Pharaohs, Ptolemies, the Cæsars, and
the Caliphs, necessitate a reconstruction on a scale almost as great
as that which has recently challenged the admiration of the civilized
world.
It is unnecessary to say any thing of the harbor of Suez. The
difficulties encountered at this point were much more easily conquered
than at Port Said.
The Egyptian Government has provided excellent docks and every facility
for the repairing of ships at the southern terminus.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For more detailed account of the difficulties and of the
preliminary work, the reader is referred to the pamphlets of Capt.
Methven, Pen. and Oriental Steamship Company; of J. N. Strouse, U. S.
N.; Mr. H. Mitchell, Coast Survey; Blackwood, Dec., 1869, and other
periodicals.
[2] The reader is referred to the reports of the French engineers; to
the pamphlet of J. N. Nourse, U. S. N.; Blackwood, Dec., 1869; London
Times, and other periodicals.
[3] See Delta Report of Generals Humphreys and Abbot.