THE FIRST SUEZ CANAL.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2643, 21 January 1908, Page 7

THE FIRST SUEZ CANAL.

A water communication for small vessels between tho Mediterranean and the Red Sea is said to have been formed as early as 600 years before the Christian era, and existed for a period of about 1,400 years, after which it was allowed to fall into disuse. Baron de Tott, in his "Memoirs of the Turks and Tartars," written in 1785, after giving quotations from the historian Diodorus as to the existence of certain portions of the earty work, and as to its having been abandoned in consequence of the supposed difference of level between the two seas and threatened inundations of Egypt, said that there still existed traces of the canal. The idea of restoring this ancient communication on a scale suited to modern times is understood to have been due to Napoleon 1., and the outcome of his idea was the Suez Canal, or, more correctly speaking. the artificial strait or arm of the sea connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. From both of these seas it derives its water supply ; and the fact that the two seas are nearly on the same level, and the rise of the tide is very small, allowed this mode of construction to be adopted.