Note 36 — Chapter IV

We perceive by recent advertisements in the French papers, and by a letter from Mr. Daniel A. Lange, the “English representative of the Suez Maritime Canal Company,” inserted in the Times of the 26th September 1867, that the company proposes to raise £4,000,000 of capital by means of debentures, in addition to the £12,000,000 it has already expended. It is stated that the Great or Grand Canal will, by means of this loan, positively be finished by the first of October 1869. The debentures issued at £12 each, bear interest at the rate of 8½ per cent. per annum, and are to be paid off in the usual manner adopted in France, that is by lottery at the rate of £20 each. The original capital of the Suez Canal Company was fixed, at its formation in 1858, at £8,000,000. The length of the canal, when finished, is to be 100 miles, whilst the railway is 250. The reason is that Cairo is only about eight miles less distant from Alexandria than the Mediterranean mouth of the canal is from that of the Red Sea. Suez and Cairo are, practically, in the same latitude, but when the railway running nearly due south from Alexandria reaches Cairo, it makes a right angle towards the east to reach Suez.