The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-13 00:00:00

SHIP RAILWAY OVER SUEZ.

There have b:en many wonderful events in connexion
will the extension of the railway system. Not the least
marvellous of these is the ship railway across the
Isthmus of Suez. The following remarks on this sub-
ject are taken from the first number of the Br it'sh and
Foreign Railway Magazine :
" To a mind, scientific in its bias, one subject imparts
infinite pleasure. It is the consideration, resulting trove
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, ere 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 of
material and time. It is thus, by the fortuitous discovery
of the element of file by accidental friction, that a Pro-
inetheus 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
arid rematkable erelor of development than in its pro-
pos: d 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 ot•
locotnotion in this c,•untry. Furths•r, it is consid, red
that even the necessity of engines in the case proposed
might be cli•hensed with, and that, as a till further
improscin lit on this scheme, it would be quite practic-
able to construct all the siesmers employed upon th,
navigation or the Red Sea on such a principle as to do
away with the necessity of locomotive engines to bring
them ac•r. ss the Isthmus. They might he fi.ted, sass
th° oobl, originator of the plan", with propiling screws
in lieu of paddle wheels ; in the plate of which latter
might be substituted railway wheels, so that the vess..l
of its truck could work i s way with its own engines.
This, then, is the beginning of the exemplificAton of
• our new plan.
" To preclude the supposition that anything chimerical
is proposed, or that here is tendered the pudic any rail-
way toy or deceptive • Glenmutchkin.' we 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 adducad.

"Sir William Cornwallis Harris, major of engineers
of the Bombay establishment, so far back as 18:30,
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 presids s.
" The ease and simplicity of the means by which great
undertakings are generally attained, naturally excite in
the thikking 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 ye
hitherto been advanced on the respective advantages and
disadvantages, the adequacy and inadequacy, of a rail-
Ny and a navigable opening at the track, ports, and
sea in que'tion.
" 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

Cild-Aplendour, to re.establish the solemn Sanhedrim O

the Jews—to mike and unmake the rulers of empire.
To cut, as with an axe, this arm of land in two—to
cause the free waters of either ocean to flow in co allied
currents, through this grand and new-formed char.nel—
and to behold the fleets of nations sailint, 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 bec,.m a matter--not of diminished
grandeur or importance, but of more easily accessible
accomplishment in carryine it out to a speedy consum-
Instion. A company, capital, and co-operation are the
auxiliaries in present request, and the fearibility of
establishing• the marine-railway in question is beyond
the power of a doub-.
From the first ent.ertainment of this proji,et it has

been sto,itly asserted that the natural obstiicle-s that op-
pose its co;struction- are somewhat imminent. Sir
William Harris, in his opinion on the Euhjeet, showing
at the same time -the eaqf of its aec,mptishwent at
expense, an l by a much l"ss cornplieat; d
pr. ce,s than A cut', as also in a much briefer space of
time, sttv es that the line over which the rail must ir:t,s,
flr fr,,in b.ing beset with difficulties to the engikeer, has
peen asc,•rtaim d to present .a very favourable profile ;

and a hard, ;oil, is knowii to prevail it; lieu of
the shiftmg an is of the desert, which here skilfully cen-
jur..-t1 into exist lice by a faction whose theory -vas .0
arrest the progress or the plan. Those who had a put.
pose to serve in thus opposing the construeti rn of a rail-
way, are now compelled to admit that it could be made,
and would fully answer the en . of accelerating mails and
p tssengers through Egypt ; but they still cling to the
scheme which dazzled the mit.d of Napoleon, and stew 'ily
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 t • 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 ntees-
sides of the case. Fur 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. .1 he 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 z hicli each will be placed during th 3 transit would
he 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
for vessels of any considerable draught of water, render
it almost 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-
iiutim, which we shall specify at the end of our descrip-
tion. With regard to the locomotive power neces-ary, it
appears, in the opinion of judges on the spot, that
the engine required to draw a laden vessel of 800
tons burden across the desert of Suez, would rot
need to possess above three times the power of those
ordinarily used upon an English railway ; and the
increased disposable breadth for the machinery
would render this power one of easy acquisition.
The masts of the vssad would have to be so con-
structed as to fold elter and lie flat during the transit, in
order to prevent any action of the wind upon them ; and
a moderate width bt tmeen 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 diAance 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 sterl ng, then, in conclusion, is the outside
sum at which this very noble project could be carried
Out. This stun falls very far short of the lowest
e-titnat, that has been framed for a ship canal, anti 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 riot to be purchased, that there are
neither bridges nor tunnels to construct (both of whidi
are am-angst the heaviest items of an English rail-
was). and that only one line of rails will be le
quired. The railway might he completed in two years,
whereas the construction of a canal, supphsing 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 carves 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
op-ration of a railway is 'to treble the traffic upon a
new line ; and the improve] 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 fur the supply of the depots both at
Aden and Suez.
" The plan, when carried out, will certainly in those
distant and comparatively untravelled regions, produce
a new era of commerce, and wider fields fur the spread
of civilisation, philanthropy, and tats ligence."

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