The Suez Canal starts from Port Said, 40 miles east of the Damietta mouth of the Nile, and runs across the isthmus, and through lakes Menzaleh, EL Ballah, and Timsah (on the shores of which latter stands the new town of Ismailia), and through the Bitter Lakes to Suez. Its total length is 92 miles. Its actual width (over the greater part of its length) does not permit of two vessels passing or crossing each other in the canal itself, but there are nuinerous sidings by which vessels are enabled to cross one another. Vessels measuring 430 feet in length, and drawing 25 feet 9 inches of water, have safely passed through the canal. The actual cost of the canal, according to a report of the year 1877, was £,17,518,729. The total receipts, from all sources, of the Suez Canal Com pany in the year 1877 amounted to 11.359,026, and the expenditure to £1,169,549. The first year in which the receipts exceeded the expenses was in 1872, when the surplus amounted to £82,849. In 1870, 491 vessels of 436,618 tons passed through ; in 1877, 1651 vessels of 2,257,556 tons ; in 1882, 3198 vessels of 7,122,125 tons ; and total receipts, 63,409,593 francs.
The isthmus has been ascertained to consist of fresh-water formations, passing on the south side into marine deposits of the Red Sea, and on the north into those of the Mediterranean. The whole of the service of the canal is supplied, from one end to the other, by a fresh-water canal, leaving the Nile near Cairo. For 70 miles the ship canal is carried through lakes, its course being marked by buoys, and the bottom having been dredged to the requisite depth ; while for 30 miles it takes the form of a land ditch, the water way being cut partly through sand and partly through clay. The prices of the canal shares have fluctuated. Their nominal value is 5oo f. They were quoted in 1861, 438 f. 75 c. ; in 1863 they varied from 220 f. to 558 f. ; in 1869, the year of the opening of the canal, they rose to 633 f. 50 c.; in 1875 they were at 875 f.; in 1880—they went from 715 f. to 1327 f. 1)0 c. ; in June 1881 they were quoted at 1700 f. from that period they rose even to 3500 f. In January 1884 they were selling at 2015 f. per share. In 1875 the British Government bougfit 176,602 shares from the Khedive for £3,976,852.