“It is not in the accomplishment of this project (the interior canal), that the real junction of the two Seas consists. This problem will not be resolved, until the Isthmus shall present a practicable opening, by which all ships may pass without unloading. In order to this, it must be operated upon directly from Pelusium to Suez; on this line the desert is narrower than anywhere else. It is also in this direction, that the great depression of which we have spoken extends, and at the bottom of which the grand basin of the Bitter Lakes is situated. Everything therefore points out this spot in the strip of land for the construction of a canal. Everything, with one single exception, which is, that there is not, they say, any port at the extremity of this line of navigation; that of Suez is partly filled up with sand, and upon the Mediterranean, not a harbour, not a single roadstead, which now affords any safety. Yet more, some travellers have stated, that if it were required to form a port, it would be necessary to contend against masses of sand, which, continually shifted from west to east by a tolerably rapid current, seem to oppose any maritime establishment upon that coast. In fact it is, they say, for this reason that Alexander laid much farther to the west the foundations of the town which bears his name, and which he wished to become the emporium of the world. But is the objection very serious at the present time? can the obstacle, which occasions this anxiety, resist the constructive means which are at the disposal of our engineers? We think not. To create a port without the assistance of nature; to put a restraint upon the sea; to reduce it to subjection; to impose upon it an artificial roadstead; and to maintain that roadstead, in spite of the natural causes operating to destroy it: is a problem which has ceased to terrify modern art. “Let us take the port of Pelusium,—see how easily the difficulty would be removed! Suppose the Bitter Lakes to be filled with the waters of the Arabian Gulf; by the action of the tides alone, more than 700,000,000 cubic _metres_ of water might be turned to account, the velocity of which would constantly scour the channel, and prevent the accumulation of sand at its mouth.