THE SUEZ CANAL.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1110, 17 December 1869, Page 3

THE SUEZ CANAL.

If the proof of a pudding is in the eat ing of it, so the test of this groat cana will be the working of it with a commer cial profit. There has been too much hai looing by M. Lesscps and his friends bo fore they are out of the wood. It wai never questioned that the canal could b< made witli the help of plenty of money and this is all that has yet been done, witl much of the work, it is to be feared, onl] half-done, and large outlays of capital stil necessary. The Suez Canal has just beei visited by a German savant, \Professo: Beyer, whose views on this subject woin given in our columns yesterday. W< have been much struck with the comjDleti corroboration which Professor Ecyer s re marks give to 'the' views of Eobert Stc phenson.on the same subject in 1846. Mr . Stephensoncflrofully cxamiuedthecount r along the lino of the proposed canal, am was^ accompanied in this survey by Prcuol

i . and Austrian engineers. They found that ■ • there was, no difference of level between the two seas,' and that .consequently a ft canal capable of being scoured by the t .waters of either, was impracticabli?; Mr. 't S fcephenson ridiculed the idea of a harbour ' |f at Port Said. He said it. .would- •only act a as a gigantic mud-t%pT and^could' nob be V kept open. The Nile brings down millions of tons'of mud yearly, the' course of i , which would be at once arrested by piers j projected into the sea. There is no large . harbour in the ; world maintained on the ii delta of a large river like the Nile, because Q Any such harbour would be silted up in a . few yeaTSi Mob only so as regards Port 9 Said, but Mr. Stephenson was also of s opinion from the moving sands in the dis--3 trict between Port Said and Suez, that it g would be necessary to dredge not only r that harbour but the canal itself. Such ' were the deliberate conclusions of Mr. { Eobert Stephenson, and it was on the 3 ground of such condemnatory reports by 3 the first engineers of the time, and not 3 from any jealousy of France, that British. . statesmen and capitalists gave the cold 3 shoulder to M. Lesseps' grand scheme I for burying unknown millions in the . sands and mud of Egypt. Now, wliat 3 does Professor lleyer say as to re- [ suits already visible. " The harbour of t Port Said," lie writes, "is in danger of . being filled up' by the fine deposit brought (; down by the Nile. A bank has already « been formed on the outside of the west . moie, and in a short time will be carried j into the first basin." This fine mud is j even penetrating into the harbor through. L . the blocks of stone. As regards the canal, i the Professor says it is choked up f with storm sand and. washings from the ! sides." As a remedy, it is thought that t it will be necessary to coa.t the whole bed and walls of the canal with stone. It is \ already found that the dredging will greatly exceed what was anticipated. The ! canal, moreover, is neither deep enough t- nor broad ; ;enoughfor large vessels to pass. Professor Reyer, it must be confessed, ) gives a most unpromising account of the . Suez Canal, but an account which coincides 5 entirely with the warnings of Stephenson f and other eminent engineers. The jjreat ? work' may' be formally opened in Novemr ber, but it is a guinea to a gooseberry that 3 it will never pay, that its demands on the ' money-market will be those of the horsel leech, and that in course of a few . years, } what from too muck sand and too little .. gold dust, it will be closed.