A map of the world shows two narrow strips of land left by nature almost as though with the design of stimulating men to pierce them, the isthmus of Suez and the isthmus of Panama. A canal at either point unites not countries or small seas, but continents and great oceans, and saves thousands of miles in the routes of trade. The American isthmus presents great difficulties to the construction of a canal, but the Suez route runs through a district composed almost entirely of sand, with no elevation above 50 or 60 feet and with considerable parts actually below the level of the sea. =363. The Suez Canal, and its services to commerce.=—The scheme of reopening the route across the isthmus of Suez, which, as said in the first chapter, had been made practicable for small vessels before the time of Christ, and had been rendered useless in the Middle Ages, was certain to rise as commerce between Europe and the East increased in volume. It is said to have been entertained by Napoleon I among others, but the credit for its accomplishment belongs to a French engineer and promoter, Ferdinand Lesseps. After more than ten years spent in preparation, work was finally begun in 1860, and the canal was ready for use in 1869. The success of the Suez Canal may be gaged, from the investor’s standpoint, by the fact that dividends have risen to 20 per cent, from the public standpoint by the fact that the tonnage accommodated by the canal in 1891 exceeded ten million, in 1907 exceeded twenty million, and in general has been roughly equal to the tonnage entering and leaving any one of the great seaports of the world. The duration of the voyage to India has been shortened by a third, and more than half of the voyages to the East are now made through the canal rather than around the Cape of Good Hope. The canal has been an important influence in furthering the growth of the world’s steam tonnage, for it is practically barred to sailing vessels by the difficulties of navigation in the Red Sea; no sea-going sailing vessel has passed through it for years. It has made possible the movement of bulky wares formerly excluded from the trade with the East by the expense of transportation: rice, wheat, petroleum, and coal. It has not, however, produced one result which was expected, the diversion of trade to the countries of southern Europe, as in the time before the passage around the Cape had been discovered. Three quarters, in tonnage, of the ships using the canal have been British, and ships from the countries of northern Europe make up most of the remainder.