The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1869-01-06
TIM sUEz CANAL.

4 great Kntsrpriss nearly Completed.
From the New York Tribune.
Almost simultaneously with the completion
Of the railway which is to connect the oppo
sse coasts Of the North American Continent
We shall probably have to record the triumph
Of another great work Of human ingenuity
and persevsrspes, ~hich u to unite the Medi-
tarranean and Indian Seas. ms project Of
cutting q ship canal through the hundred
miles Of sand which unite the continents Of
Africa and Asia is ~ old - the age OF the
Pharaohs, and nearly twenty-five centuries
ago channel was finished from the Nile to
the Calf Of Suex, two-thirds Of It, or about
sky miles cut by the labor of man. 1t was
repeatedly choked up with drifting sands
Of the desert, and repeatedly reopened., At
doned. The First Napoleon designed new
canal, but was deferred by the report Of the
engineers, who decided that the level of the
Mediterranean was thirty feet below the level
af the Red Sea. This proved to be an error,
for the two bodies Of water have exactly the
same mean level; and when this fact was as
certained, more than half the difficulties in
the way Of the undertaking disappeared. The
cuttings have now been going on under the
direction of that enterprising French gentle,
man, M. de Lesseps, for nearly ten years,
and one or perhaps two years more will see
the end Of them. His plan makes no use Of
| the Nile, except 81 feeder, but the canal
runs in nearly straight line across the 18TH
mus, from Port Said on the Mediterranean to
Suez at the head Of the Cult of the same
name, which sets up the Rsd Sea.
AT each end an enormous port has to be
constructed, running the ono three and the
other Eve miles out from the land, In order
l nf -afa ouH ri.
| Gent for large ships, and also at the Medi-
terranean end to protect the canal from the
enormous deposits of mud which are contin-
| ually csrried down by the Nile and swept
eastward along the shore. The canal is about
| 100 miles long and 100 yards wide, and wher
| finished will 80 26 feet deep. Already 5t
| miles of it have been excavated to the full
width and opened to the SEA, and forty enof
| NOUS dredging machines float on it, digging
GU, the channel to the required depth. TIT
remaining 80 miles are in vayious stages o
progress but navigable passage has beer
opened, and not long since French wa
vessel passed through on the way to NADIA
eascar. This was not the first ship, however
that crossed the isthmus of Suez. DurinI
the Abyssinian war British gunboats took thu
same route, and as early indeed as August
1865, vessel Of some sort, probsbly of yer.
light drA0ght, was Also noased through. d
completes success of II. de Lessep5 schem,
involves no other problems, therefore. tia,
time and money; vey little Tins and grea
deal Of money. The rate Of expenditure nov
is above 1850, 900 year, and after thu
work is finished the keeping It in order vii
be very costly. Beside the difficulty Of pro
tecting the banks, exposed u they will be t,
driving winds and the wash Of large steamers
| there will be another serious trouble in til,
GOO tons of sand which il 10 calculated will b
i drifted into the canal from the desert ever.
day, These difficulties are by no means in
superable, nor even seriously perplexiug
but they will prove expensive.