The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-14 00:00:00

SHIP RAILWAY OVER. SUEZ.

There have been many wonderful events in connexion
with the extension of the railway system. ,IsTot the least
marvellous of these is the ship railway across the
h
Isthmus of Suez. The following remarks on this sub-
ject are taken from the first number of the Britte 7 and
Foreign Railway Magazine :
" To a mind, scientific in its bias, one subject imparts
infinite pleasure. It is the consideration, resulting from
the reflection, that mechanical undertakings, con-
sidered vast in the olden time, have now, through mo-
dern discovery, become so puny and unimportant,
as to be barely feats for college boys ; while, in a
more extensive class of these mighty labours—the
, work of many thousand of artificers—capital of many
millions, and the prolonged half century of the ar-
tisan's labour, are compressed, with all their Iliad
of contingencies, into the comparatively easy nut-shell
of a task, accomplished by a brace of competent engi-
neers, and a staff of subordinates, with the collaterals o_
material and time. It is thus, by the fortuitous discovery
of the element of fire by accidental friction, that a Pro-
metheus augments the comforts of a race with a useful
auxiliary, diminishing the savageness of primeval bar-
barism, and endowing it with ornament and art. The
discovery of steam-power in this latter age is a second
stupendous lever towards moving tardy and inert matter
into rapid and astonishing movement, and also into trans-
portation of enormous masses, in a space of time, over a
league-long distance, equally regardless of their im-
menseness of bulk. The Prometheus of this latter case
was Watt—was Stephenson.
"But in no project, perhaps, of the present day,
feasible in its aims and probable accomplishments, is this
new power to be comprehended in a more showy
and remarkable order of development than in its pro-
posed application towards transporting across the
Isthmus of Suez merchant vessels of the largest
burden, filled with their cargoes and merchandise, by
a railway and engines, after the ordinary mode of
locomotion in this country. Further, it is considered
that even the necessity of engines in the case proposed
might be di-pensed with, and that, as a still further
improvement on this scheme, it would be quite practic-
able to construct all the steamers employed upon the
navigation of the Red Sea on such a principle as 'to do
away with the necessity of locomotive engines to bring
them across the Isthmus. They might be fitted, says
the noble originator of the plan, with propelling screws
in lieu of paddle wheels ; in the place of which latter
might be substituted railway wheels, so that the vessel
of its truck could work its way with its own engines.
This, then, is the beginning of the exemplification of
our new plan.
" To preclude the supposition that anything chimerical
is proposed, or that here is tendered the pubjic any rail-
way toy or deceptive Glenmutchkin,' wn lay before
our readers the name of the actual surveyor of the
Isthmus, together with the occasions and facts which
led him to the conclusions adduced.

" Sir William Cornwallis Harris, major of engineers
of the Bombay establishment, so far back as 1830,
during the administration of Lord Clare, was nomi-
nated by his Lordship to the Bombay Government,
who had instructed him to select an officer to con-
duct a survey of the Isthmus, in view to the exe-
cution of a navigable canal then in contemplation,
although subsequent political events unfortunately
set this project aside. He had, meanwhile, diligently
collected information on the subject about to be confided
to him, and when returning through Egypt from the
mission with which he had been entrusted to the Court of
Shoa in Southern Abyssinia, he enjoyed an opportunity
of studying on the spot the facilities presented towards
a project, important alike to the interests of Europe,
and to the advancement of the eastern empire over which
the East India Company presides.
" The ease and simplicity of the means by which great
undertakings are generally attained, naturally excite in
the thinking mind feelings of surprise that no
simili-
tude of the same idea should have been conceived
before, or come under discussion for contemplation or
adoption. _ _

"Sir William, however, traces the delay that to this
hour obtains in the establishment of a communication
which all parties must, and do, concur in admitting to
be most desirable, to the rival opinions that have
hitherto been advanced on the respective advantages and
disadvantages, the adequacy and inadequacy, of a rail-
way and a navigable opening at the track, ports, and
sea in question.

" A favourite project of a late crowned king of
Gaul,' was to make a navigable passage across the
Isthmus of Suez. It was, in fact, one of the gigantic
projects of a mind that had hoped to restore Rome to its
old splendour, to re-establish the solemn Sanhedrim of
the Jews—te make and unmake the rulers of enipire.
To cut, as with an axe, this arm of land in two—to
cause the free waters of either ocean to flew in co allied
currents, through this grand and new-formed channel—
and to behold the fleets of nations sailing majestically
through a marine highway, with merchandise and men,
was among the noblest, yet unaccomplished achievements
of Napoleon, on the throne of the Bourbons.
" The establishment, however, of this desirable com-
munication, by the combined powers of steam and
machinery, has now become a matter—not of diminished
grandeur or importance, but of more easily accessible
accomplishment in carrying it out to a speedy consum-
mation. A company, capital, and co-operation are the
auxiliaries in present request, and the feasibility of
establishing the marine-railway in question is beyond
the power of a doubt.
"From the first entertainment of this project it has
been stoutly asserted that the natural obstacles that op-
pose its construction are somewhat imminent. Sir
William Harris, in his opinion on the subject, showing
at the same time the ease of its accomplishment at
infinitely less expense, and by a much less complicated
process than a canal, as also in a much briefer-space of
time, states that the line over which the rail must pass,
far from being beset with difficulties to the engineer, has
been ascertained to present a very favourable profile ;
and a hard, gravelly soil, is known to prevail in lieu of
the shifting sands of the desert, which were skilfully con-
jured into existence by a faction whose theory was to
arrest the progress of the plan. Those who had a pur-
pose to serve in thus opposing the construction of a rail-
way, are now compelled to admit that it could be made,
and would fully answer the end of accelerating mails and
passengers through Egypt ; but they still cling to the
scheme which dazzled the mind of Napoleon, and steadily
maintain the necessity of piercing the Isthmus, so as to
obtain uninterrupted water communication by means of
a canal, which would enable merchant vessels of the
largest class to perform the voyage between Asia and
Europe without discharging their cargoes.
The rails of the proposed road being laid down, the
next exigent in the case is the special order of engine
to be fabricated to adapt itself to the peculiar neces-
sities of the case. For this purpose it is proposed to
construct a class of narrow steam-vessels of about 800
tons burden, suited for freight, and to transport them
across the Isthmus of Suez upon trucks, by means of
locomotive engines of adequate power. The vessels
would advisedly be built upon the plan that will best serve
to counteract any additional strain upon the sides in-
volved by removal from the water, and the cradle truck
upon which each will be placed during the transit would
be constructed with the same view.

" The most eligible point to which the railway could
be carried is of course determinable solely by the geo-
graphical character of the surrounding and adjacent
country. The Nile about Cairo is clearly the point indi-
cated for this purpose. Here the laden steamers might
be transferred from one to the other of the divided seas,
through its always navigable channel.

" The inaccessible Character of the Mediterranean
shore, lying over against the Sea of Suez, and the gene-
ral unfitness of all the ports or roadsteads on that coast
fur vessels of any considerable draught of water, render
it alteost unsafe to regard any other point as available.
" Owing to the peculiarities of the situation, the en-
gineer will have to look to the ordering of some few mi-
nutiae, which we shall specify at the end of our descrip-
appears, in the opinion of judges on the spot, that
the engine required to draw a laden vessel of 800
need co possess above three times the power of those
tons burden series the desert of Suez, would not
ordinarily used upon an English railway ; and the
increased disposable breadth fur the machinery
would render this power one
as to fold ever and lie flat during f
The masts of the vessel would haveeasyacquisition.
eg toth
eb
transit, o
con-
structedinorder to prevent any action of the wind upon them ; and
a mederate width between the rails would then be found
sufficient. A station, or siding, to admit of vessels on
their trucks passing each other midway, would also have
to be constructed in the centre of the line ; and, as the
entire distance of eighty four miles could be accom-
plished in four or five hours, communication between
Suez and Cairo might be daily held each way upon a
single line of rails.
" A million sterling, then, in conclusion, is the outside
sum at which this very noble project could be carried
out. This sum falls very far short of the lowest
estimate that has been framed for a ship canal, and it
may appear a small sum for so long a line as that
in contemplation ; but it should be borne in mind that
the ground has not to be purchased, that there are
neither bridges nor tunnels to construct (both of which
are amongst the heaviest items of an English rail-
way), and that only one line of rails will be re-
quired. The railway might be completed in two years,
whereas the construction of a canal, supposing it to
be within the compass of human exertion, would
occupy ten. Commercial interests generally cannot
fail to be materially promoted by this mode of trans-
porting cargoes across the neck of land which
disconnects Europe and Asia ; and it must propor-
tionably improve the revenues of his Highness the
Viceroy of Egypt. It is always observed that the
operation of a railway is to treble the traffic upon a
new line ; and the improved relations with China, as
well as the success of a new branch of commerce on
the eastern coast of Africa, will both tend to swell the
importance of the plan suggested. Recurrence also may
here be made to the highly important subject of the coal
beds which have been reported to exist within a reason-
able distance of the coast of Abyssinia, in a position the
most convenient for the supply of the depots both at
Aden and Suez.
" The plan, when carried out, will certainly in those
distant and comparatively untr fields fur
a new era of commerce, and wider the spread
i!velled regions, produce
of civilisation, philanthropy, and intelligence."

Mr. Sheil,Theto leyaorunn,gbas
_ _---,---,---- _____
d hewainsiisnfohri:
gentlemanat tune to lose his w
only
twenty-fourth. year, and died a short time ago at Funchal,
in Madeira, whither he had gone for the benefit of his
health. ie l y regret
son.
A WOMAN DROWNED IN A CISTERN.-011 SIM..
I iy afternoon a woman, named Duncombe, the wife of
,a cab-
man living in Silver-mews, near Red Lion-square, Holborn,
went out to fetch the beer for dinner, but after a lapse of time
her husband went to seek for her, and he found her in the
cistern, which was at the foot of the stairs, and into which
she had accidentally fallen. Her husband extricated her and
rent fora surgeon, who pronounced life to be extinct.