Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 1891. The Suez Canal.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 20 August 1891, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 1891. The Suez Canal.

» *- The Canal connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, that is now used for traffic, was commenced in 1858. This appears, from recent researches, not to be the first time that communication between these two seas was made by water. At the point on the Nile, where the river divides into many mouths, there stood in ancient days a town, shown on the maps of that period as either Heliopolis or Heroopolis. Dr Naville has just been |fiving in Lon ( don the result of his explorations in Egypt, and from, a valuable inscription discovered at Pithom, he has no longer any doubt but that this Heroopolis was the town which Pliny, Agathemeros, Artemi* dorus have described, as the place from whence merchant ships sailed to the Arabian Gulf, otherwise the Red Sea. The position of the Sea and the town at the present time would show an insuperable obstacle, of one hundred miles of land, inter* vening between the Nile and the Red

Sea, but this of course Wad different then. Scientific surveys show that between the period of that communi* cation and now, there has been a gradual rising of the land, and that the Red Sea once extendqji to the 1 walls of Pitbom, and this must have been 8000 years ago. Pithom we cannot find upon the old map, but it can be admitted to have laid between Heroopolis and the Red Sea. A reference to ancient history sup* pies us with the information that at the time the Egyptians flourished 1496—1328 b. 0.) Rameses the Great v carried out extensive public Works. It is thought that probably he ex* cavated a canal between Heroopolis and Pithom. However we find it possitively stated that many years later, 610 b.c, Necho another Egyp* tian ruler, endeavoured to construct a canal between the Arabian Gulf and the Mediterranean and after using up 120,000 men, be aban* doned the design. Three hundred years afterwards under Potlemies this oanal of Necho's was made navi* gable, It is now clear that the idea of the Suez Canal was one that entered the head of an Egyptian many long years ago, and so far as it availed for the vessels of those days it was made practicable. Solomon laid the foundation of the Temple in 1012 b.c, and if it should be that Rameses the Great is to be credited with the opening of water cummunication between the two seas this would be somewhere about 1850 or some 950 years prior to the date of starting the Temple, and this fact would help us to understand how it was that the Phoenicians, Solomon's neighbours on the Mediterranean, were asked to assist with vessels of his fleet to trade to the land of Ophir— that is India. The Jews had no land abutting on the Arabian Gulf, and it seems highly probable that such a connection, by canal and by the longer course of the Red Sea, enabled a similar short cut to be made, as is now is use 8000 years afterwards. Africa becomes more interesting month by month.