Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE SUEZ CANAL. 249 route to the Far East. The upshot of the discussion was that a Commission was ap- pointed, consisting of eight Frenchmen, eight Englishmen, and six members of other nationalities. They had two alternative schemes to con- sider — whether the Canal should be enlarged and deep- ened, or whether a second canal should be made parallel to the first. The first plan was adopted after lengthy discussions, and the work put in hand. By 1889 the Canal had had its bottom width increased from 72 feet to 121 HUGE STONES RAISED BY THE BUCKETS OF A DREDGER BUILT BY MESSRS. FLEMING AND FERGUSON OF PAISLEY. This photograph gives a good idea of the work of which the modern Dredger is capable. 26 feet 3 Electric Lighting of the Canal. feet 4 inches, and its depth from inches to 27 feet 10 inches. In 1885 a still further improvement was carried into effect—namely, the lighting of the Canal by electricity, so that ships might make a safe passage of the waterway by night. A system of lead- ing marks, supplemented by Pintsch lightbuoys, was there- fore established along the banks of the Canal to mark the channel. It was soon discovered, however, that this device was in- sufficient to ensure perfect safety, and the difficulty was surmounted by making the vessels illuminate their own course. By the rules of the Company each vessel must carry four lights, to one of which should be supplied a powerful reflector, capable of casting a light 4,000 feet ahead of the vessel. The Mangin reflector is generally used. Of the other three lights, one should be placed astern and one on each side of the ship. Men-of-war and the large mail steamers carry their own appa- ratus. Smaller vessels generally use a port- able apparatus, which they hire on entering the waterway and return on leaving it. The first vessel that effected a free passage by night was the P. and 0. steamer Carthage in 1886, the time of transit being eighteen hours. Before the lighting of the Canal, steamers often took twenty-eight hours and more to traverse the 100 miles of artificial waterway. During the last few years, particularly at the Mediterranean end of the Canal, thousands of trees and shrubs have been planted along the banks. This has been done in order to protect the Bank , , . .. Protection. snores and approaches. Along the water’s edge a reed of unusual size, the Arundo gigantea, which spreads its roots rap- idly into the mud and quickly attains a height of from ten to twenty feet, has been estab- lished. This vegetation has been found to retard erosion greatly, and to break the swells caused by the passage of ships. Farther back on the slopes of the banks have been set, with success, several varieties of tamarisks, whose branches take root when the sand-hills just cover them, -and which are intermingled with herbaceous plants like the orach and the alfa. Then farther back still, at a distance of about 350 feet from the water’s edge, are hedges, 170 feet long, formed of arborescent plants, to prevent the encroachment of the