Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century

Port Saïd. Of all portions of the undertaking, this one, M. Lesseps states, was the most arduous and difficult, though, at the time, it attracted the least attention. A trough had to be dredged out of the bed of the shallow lagoon, and on either side of this hollowed out space high sandbanks had to be erected, and the difficulty of making a solid foundation for these sand banks was found to be extreme. The difficulty, however, was surmounted, and such is the excellence of the work, that the water neither leaks out, nor does any of the brackish water of the lagoon infiltrate and undermine the great embankments. Fig. 130.—Lake Timsah and Ismaïlia. At Kantara, the canal crosses the track of the highway between Cairo and Syria—a floating bridge carries the caravans across; and near this spot is stationed an Egyptian man-of-war, which supplies the police for the proper watch and ward of the canal. From Kantara to El Fendane is a distance of 15 miles—that is to say, to the southern extremity of Lake 260Ballah, where the canal still passes through sand embankments, raised within a mere. The lake is, however, almost dried up, and therefore the difficulties which had to be surmounted at Lake Menzaleh were not felt here. The traveller may now be supposed to have arrived at Lake Timsah, where, no doubt, in the days of the Pharaohs, a lake existed. When taken in hand by M. Lesseps, it was a barren, sandy hollow, containing a few shallow pools, through which a man could easily wade, but now it is filled with the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. It is a pretty, inland, salt water lake, about three miles in width. On the northern shore stands the town, or, rather, small settlement of Ismaïlia, which is, in fact, the “half way house” where most of the officials of the Suez Canal Company resided, as they could get to either end of the canal with greater facility, or to Cairo by the railroad, which comes to this point, and continues, with the canal, to Suez. Fig. 131.—Railway Station at Ismaïlia. When the canal was opened, in November, 1869, Ismaïlia was the scene of the most brilliant part of the opening ceremony, in which the French Empress Eugénie, the Empress of Austria, the Crown Prince of Prussia, and other distinguished personages took share. The Khedive built himself a summer palace, and M. Lesseps erected a villa, and the town was most artistically laid out, with every prospect of becoming a flourishing place. But the drainage had been so entirely overlooked, that it is said the sewage found its only outlet in the fresh water canal; and the consequence was fever broke out and so infected the town, that it was soon almost quite deserted. In 1882, Ismaïlia was once more the scene of bustle and activity, for here was the base of Sir Garnet Wolseley’s operations in his brilliant campaign against Arabi. The British Navy entered the canal, and took possession of Ismaïlia, where the army and the military stores were rapidly concentrated. From this place, Sir Garnet advanced along the route of the railway and the Sweet Water Canal, and, after storming the lines of Tel-el-Kebir, occupied Cairo, without further resistance, after a campaign of only three weeks’ duration. From Lake Timsah to the Bitter Lakes the canal again passes for eight miles or so through the desert, where, by partial excavations by hand labour and subsequent flooding to admit the dredges, it was considered 261that a sufficiently deep channel could be made. The couloirs were set to work, when suddenly “a lion arose in their path” in the shape of a great rock, about 80 feet in length, and lying 12 feet only below the surface, and right in the middle of the main channel. If anything could show the indomitable energy of M. Lesseps it was his courage in dealing with this difficulty, and at a time when a few months only could elapse before the advertised day of the opening. He attacked the sunken rock with gunpowder. A large raft, or floor, supported on barges, was moored over the sunken rock, and from this men, armed with long poles shod with steel, drilled numerous holes, into which charges of gunpowder were placed, and fired in the usual manner by the electric battery. This temporary obstruction occurred opposite to the landing place at Sérápeum. Fig. 132.—The Viceroy of Egypt cutting the last embankment of the Reservoir of the Plain of Suez, to unite the two seas—the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Passing by Sérápeum, the traveller arrives at a vast expanse of water called the “Bitter Lakes,” because the dry sandy hollow formerly contained a marsh, or mere, of very brackish water. The possibility of keeping this great area filled with sea water had been denied by the opponents of the canal, who said the water would sink into the sand or be evaporated by the intense heat of the sun; but none of these prognostications have been verified, and it is now a great inland sea, far surpassing Lake Timsah, being 25 miles long and from six to seven miles wide. The only difficulty in filling this enormous natural basin arose from the rapidity and force with which the waters flowed in. This was done when the water at Suez was at low tide, and then subsequently the Red Sea was allowed to flow in. Though the expanse of water in the Bitter Lakes is great enough, the available channel is still narrow. But the steamers can proceed at full speed, as here there are no banks to be washed away. Since the two seas have joined their waters, a strong current has set in from south to north, but there is no eddy or fall at the place where the 262waters meet. The tide runs up the canal with great force, and there is a difference of six or seven feet between high and low water: but the tide does not extend beyond the Bitter Lakes, where it is gradually diffused and lost. The colour of the current of water from Suez is said to be green, whilst that portion fed by the Mediterranean is blue. Since the Bitter Lakes have been filled the mean temperature of the districts on the banks has fallen 5° Centigrade. It is also stated that, although the canal swarms with sea fish they keep to their respective ends of the canal, as if the Mediterranean fish would not consort with those of the Red Sea, or, rather, make themselves at home in strange waters. There is also, perhaps, another cause, and that is the very bitter nature of the water at the northern end of the Bitter Lakes, which acts as a natural barrier, through which the fish may decline to pass. The bed of the Bitter Lakes is the only portion of the canal’s course in which it was not necessary to make a cutting. Buoys are laid down to mark the best channel, but such is the width and depth of the water that vessels need not exactly keep within them. Quitting the Bitter Lakes we again enter the canal proper. In order to reach the vast docks which the Suez Canal Company has constructed on the western coast of the Red Sea, the canal is now quitted, and the vessel crosses the neck of the Red Sea. The Cairo and Alexandria Railway has been extended two miles, and is carried through the sea on an embankment, which lands the train close to the docks and quays of the canal, so that passengers by the overland route are able to embark from the train on board the steamer, and thus escape the troublesome transhipment of themselves and luggage. THE MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL. The project of constructing a ship canal to connect Manchester with the sea appears to have been started just before the railway era, but it was then abandoned, as the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Canal brought about an immediate reduction in the rates of carriage. Perhaps it was the success of the Suez Canal which caused the revival of this scheme, in 1880, combined with the depression of the cotton trade at that period, when the Liverpool dock dues and the comparatively high railway rates proved a heavier tax than usual on the great Lancashire industry. The first definite steps were taken two years afterwards, when two plans were submitted for the selection of a committee. One scheme proposed to construct the canal without any locks; but, as Manchester is 60 feet above the sea level, there would, it was felt, be certain inconveniences in loading or unloading ships in a deep depression. The other plan was submitted by Mr. Leader Williams, a well known canal engineer, who proposed to take the canal from Runcorn, a distance of 20 miles, and making use of locks. When Parliament was applied to for powers authorizing the prosecution of the enterprise, there was, of course, much opposition offered by the various interests involved, and the inquires before the Committees of each House of Parliament were unusually protracted, for they extended in all to 175 days, and the cost to the promoters is said to have amounted to £150,000. Then, when the Bill had passed, it was found that the capital (£8,000,000) could not be raised owing to the financial depression, and partly also to some want of confidence in 264the soundness of the undertaking on the part of the Lancashire capitalists. But the promoters submitted the whole scheme to a representative committee, who should consider any possible objections. This committee reported (after sitting almost daily for five weeks) upon every point, and were unanimous in pronouncing the undertaking to be perfectly practicable and commercially sound. After this there was no difficulty in raising the required capital, which was subscribed by corporate bodies as well as private persons. The contract was let for £5,750,000, and the work was commenced in November, 1887, the contractor undertaking to have the canal completed and ready for traffic by January 1st, 1892. Fig. 133.—Western Portion. Fig. 134.—Eastern Portion.Figs. 133 and 134.—Map of the Manchester Ship Canal. The Manchester Docks of this canal will cover an area of nearly 200 acres at the south-western suburb of that city, and from there the canal traverses the Valley of the Irwell, following, indeed, the general course of the river, but not its windings, so that the bed of the river is, in the distance of eight miles, or down to its junction with the Mersey, repeatedly crossed by the line of the canal. From the confluence of the rivers, the canal traverses the Valley of the Mersey, for this is the name retained by the combined streams. The course of the river, in its progress towards the sea, now makes wider bends, but the canal proceeds, by a slight and nearly uniform curve, to Latchford, near Warrington, passing to the south of which last named place it follows a straight line to Runcorn, which is at a distance of 23 miles from Manchester. Here it reaches what is now the estuary of the Mersey, but the embankments are continued along the southern shore to Eastham, where the terminal locks are placed. In this part of the canal, the engineer had difficulties to overcome of a different nature from those encountered in the upper part, where it was chiefly a matter of cutting across the ground intervening between the bends of the river, so as to form for its waters a new and direct channel everywhere of the requisite breadth and depth. But when Runcorn has been passed, and Weston Point rounded, there is the mouth of the River Weaver to be crossed, and this is marked by a great expanse of loose and shifting mud. Other affluents of the Mersey are dealt with by means of sluices, and in one instance the waters of a river are actually carried beneath the course of the canal by conduits of 12 feet in diameter.