The suggestion of carrying out the project of constructing a ship canal through the Isthmus was seriously revived by Père Enfantin, the St. Simonian, in the year 1833. He then induced M. Ferdinand Lesseps, the French vice-consul, and Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, to take some practical measures towards its accomplishment. Surveys were made, but owing to the breaking out of a plague, and to other causes, not much more was heard of the scheme till 1845. In 1846 _La Société d’Etude du Canal de Suez_ was formed, and among those who turned their attention to the subject was Robert Stephenson. His report was wholly unfavourable to the enterprise. He recommended the construction of a railway through Egypt, and a line was accordingly made between Alexandria and Suez. But, notwithstanding the opinion of Mr. Stephenson, M. Lesseps persevered with wonderful energy, believing, on the report of other engineers, that the scheme could be successfully carried out. It is right, however, to state that Mr. Stephenson did not say it was impossible to complete the Suez Canal—he merely gave it as his opinion that the cost of making the canal, and keeping it in a proper state for navigation, would be so great that the scheme would not pay. However, in 1854, the Viceroy of Egypt signed the concession, and in 1860 the work was actually commenced, but not on a plan that was advocated by the English engineers of making the canal 25 feet above the sea level. There were also some political and financial difficulties to be overcome. The Suez Canal Company, it was said, had expended twelve millions of money in what was considered to be chiefly shifting sands.
When the Suez Canal was projected, many prophesied evil to the undertaking, from the sand of the Desert being drifted by the wind into the canal, and others were apprehensive that where the canal was cut through the sand, the bottom would be pushed up by the pressure of the banks. They imagined that the sand would behave exactly like the ooze of a soft peat-bog, through which, when a trench has been cut, the bottom of the trench soon rises, for the soft matter has virtually the properties of a liquid: it acts, in fact, exactly like very thick treacle. Sand, however, is not possessed of liquid properties; it has a definite angle of repose, which is not the case with thin bog. This behaviour of sand is familiarly illustrated in the sand-glass, which the diagram Fig. 123, will recall to mind. It may be observed that the sand falling in a slender stream from the upper compartment is in the lower one heaped up in a little mound, the sides of which preserve a nearly constant inclination of about 30°. In this property it is distinctly different from peat-bog or such-like material, which has no definite angle of repose. It need hardly be said that all apprehensions as to the safety of the canal from the causes here alluded to have proved unfounded.