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water on one hand, while a sufficiency was furnished to supply the deficiency of the Nile water in the low state of the river; and as a measure merely affecting the internal trade of Egypt with the Red Sea, the plan merits atten­tion. But if the object be, as we now propose, to establish a highway for the nations of Europe trading to the In­dian Ocean, the objections to a line of navigation con­nected with the Nile are numerous and important:—

Eirstly. The employment of a number of locks and sluices, which are expensive to construct, and costly and troublesome to keep in repair;

Secondly. The filling of the canal between Bubastes and Serapeum with the mud of the Nile, and the expense and difficulty of removing it;

Thirdly. The engineering difficulties in disposing and maintaining a canal always open, which communicates at one end with a sea tide, and at the other with a river, subject to annual floods of 20 feet in height, and subject to a continual fluctuation of level during nine months of the year;

Fourthly. For four or five months of the year the water in the Nile is not sufficient to support the navigation; and the French engineers only calculated on maintaining the communication open for seven or eight months of the year;

Fithly. In a canal provided with locks, the water must generally be stagnant, or without scour; and what with drifted sand from the Desert and mud from the Nile, the danger of its being choaked would be considerable, and could only be prevented by frequently interrupting the navigation for the express purpose of scourage;

Sixthly. The greatest difficulty of this line of navigation would arise from the condition of the Pelusiac branch of