SUEZ, ISTHMUS OF, connects Africa with Asia, and separates the Mediterranean from the Red Sea. Its extent from north to south a little exceeds seventy-two miles. The most northern recess of the harbour of Suez, on the Red Sea, is hardly a mile south of 30° N. lat., and the village of Tyueh, on the Mediterranean, near the arm of the Nile, which in ancient times was called the Peluaiac, and which at present is blocked up with sand, is only about two miles north of 31° N. lat. There once existed a canal on the isthmus, and numerous traces of it still appear in several places; it united the Red Sea with the river Nile. This canal was commenced when Egypt was an independent kingdom, under Neebo, about 2500 years ago, and was completed by Darius. (Herod. ii. 157.) The whole tract, from Suez to Tyneh, is uninhabited. Drinkable water occurs only in one or two places. The surface, in general, consists of sandstone, which in many places, by disintegration, has been converted into sand. In some places occur considerable depres sions, which tire covered with salt swamps or salt lakes. A depression of a somewhat different kind extends across the isthmus from Suez to Tyneh, not in a straight line, but diverging first to the west, and aftcr wards returning to the east, until it again reaches the straight line. In the southern part of this depression the canal of Nocho had been made. Near 30° 10' N. lat. are several lakes called the Bitter Lakes, from the taste of their waters. Up to these lakes the direction of the depression is due north, or nearly so, but the hikes themselves turn to the north-west, and extend to 30' N. lat. without interruption. Not far from the northern extremity of the Bitter Lakes are the ruins of a temple of Sempis. At a short, distance to the north of these ruins is another depression, containing a email lake called Temsah, which is dry during the greater part of the year, but filled with water when the inundations of the Nile have attained their greatest height.
From the Nile the water reaches this lake by a depression, in which the canal of Necho had originally been led. Northward of the Lake Temsah are some salt-marshes called KarAsh, which occupy a apace of a few miles in length from north to south. Between the selt-marshes and the Lake of Bellah is a similar stony country. The last-mentioned lake maybe considered as the moat southern branch of Lake Menzaleh, being united to It by low ground and marshes, which during the inun dations of the Nile are covered with water. East of these lakes is a low stony tract, which, about 31' N. lat., joins the plain of Pelusinm. The plain is a dead fiat, with a sandy arid soil, in many parts covered with a thin layer of salt. When the water attains its greatest height in the Nile, the plain of Pelusium is almost entirely covered. At its eastern extremity is the small village of Tyneh, and about a mile to the south-went of it are a few ruins, which are supposed to be those of the ancient town ofTehuiium. But no traces of the bed of that arm of the Nile, the Pelusiac, the name of which was derived from that town, can be discovered in any part of the plain. The country which extends to the west of the line described is covered with horizontal strata of sandstone, and presents few inequalities, except towards tho south. The country which lies to the east of the line is stony as far south as the south end of the Lake of Bellah on the north, and as far north as the caravan-road from Cairo to Suez on the south, but that part of the country which intervenes between these two points is entirely covered with sand. A French engineer has recently obtained the authorisation of the Pasha of Egypt to cut a ship-canal, 92 miles in length, across the isthmus.