Originally published in Encyclopedia Britannica in 1911, this Kindle edition, equivalent in length to a physical book of approximately 16 pages, tells the story of the building of the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea.Includes supplemental material:•About the Suez Canal in Brief•About Canals: Their History and Construction•About Ferdinand de LessepsSample passage:For the most part the material was soft and therefore readily removed. At some points, however, as at Shaluf and Serapeum, rock was encountered. Much of the channel was formed by means of dredgers. Through Lake Menzala, for instance, native workmen made a shallow channel by scooping out the soil with their hands and throwing it out on each side to form the banks; dredgers were then floated in and completed the excavation to the required depth, the soil being delivered on the other side of the banks through long spouts. At Serapeum, a preliminary shallow channel having been dug out, water was admitted from the freshwater canal, the level of which is higher than that of the ship canal, and the work was completed by dredgers from a level of about twenty feet above the sea. At El Gisr, where the soil, composed largely of loose sand, rises sixty feet above the sea, the contractor, Alphonse Couvreux, employed an excavator of his own design, which was practically a bucket dredger working in the dry. A long arm projecting downwards at an angle from an engine on the bank carried a number of buckets, mounted on a continuous chain, which scooped up the stuff at the bottom and discharged it into wagons at the top.
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