Note 330 — Chapter IX

Some preparatory steps had also been taken which, by getting rid of unscientific hypotheses, facilitated in some degree M. de Lesseps’ views. Thus, at the suggestion of the Viceroy, the English, French, and Austrian Governments had sent in 1847 a joint commission of scientific men to take the various levels on the isthmus of Suez, especially as regarded the relative heights of the water in the two seas. Mr. Robert Stephenson represented England; M. Talabot, France; M. Negretti, Austria; and Linant Bey, the Pasha. Stephenson watched the rise and fall of the tide at Suez and Negretti at Tineh, the result being the demonstration that the two seas have exactly the same level within a few inches. A full account of the plan developed by M. Talabot from the observations of this commission will be found in the “Révue des Deux Mondes,” and there seems little doubt that, but for the determined opposition of Mr. Robert Stephenson, whose imagination (to the day of his death) was perpetually haunted with ideas of the sand, silt, and mud with which he maintained any canal must be filled up, the great work, which was the glory of M. de Lesseps, would have been carried out by English enterprise some years earlier than 1869.