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Show IHE GREAT SUEZ CANAL BUILT BY fRAHCI Mgs Become Important to the Nations of the World. the section is cleared. " The transport Sum.- er was held up thus tour times In Its passage through the canal, three times In the night and once at midday, mid-day, causing In all a delay of almost four hours. The transport made the run In 21 hours; had her progress been unimpeded she could have covered cov-ered the course if three and a fc'aH hours less. in leaving Suez, the lower terminus of the canal, one runs into the most disagreeable period of the entire" voyage voy-age to Manila. The Red Sea is a terror, ter-ror, and everybody schemes and plots to sleep on deck during the three days that it takes to get through that watery wat-ery purgatory. The breezes are baked by the fire of the sand deserts which encompass the dreaded. sea. ..' On entering the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb at the mouth of the Red Sea, a marked difference is perceived at once in the atmosphere and conditions- ,A The channel, apparently, is wide enough to permit two large steamships to pas3 in opposite directions at any point, but so careful is the management manage-ment to prevent any possibility of collision, or any similar accident, that no such, contingency is allowed to occur. oc-cur. The rules of the canal are based on those of the block system, which prevails on: the great railroad , lines of America. If one large vessel is in a given block section coming north, no vessel going in the opposite direction is allowed to enter! It until the north-bound boat has left it. The block sections aver- , age 'five miles in length, and it often happens that there are- as many as three or four big steamships in the Now that we are in the business of expansion, to stay, many places all over the world that used to. seem too far away and too remote from subjects sub-jects of daily Interest to be more than names assume real and almost local Importance. One of them is that great marine highway, the Suez canal. Thou- V many other like regions in the United States, the dune-building systems ft which have been described at length in the columns of the Sunday Press. The banks of the canal in these reaches have been built up artificially with stone facing and by the planting I of sand binding grasses and stunted peKRYTHs "CameLs over dtrez CaHal. . . . ::-!- .1 i.i .' ' . - . - , t . .- . ... mnu . r. - . . .-. ... IS OVER JlfEZ CAkAL r Jh" e 1 1? Y v - . 'is?: : . . 11 1 ' : .. 1 ...... sands of Americans have passed through it since we tackled the little Philippine problem, and thousands more will see it year after year for many years to come. It those old, old lands through which It winds possess sentience, what did they think of the armed men of a strange race who. stared at them as did the men of the United States army transport shown in this picture? They were men from the Bowery and Kansas Kan-sas and the plains men from Georgia and Maine the newest countries in the world. And here they looked with young eyes on a country where the most ancient known civilizations had played its tremendous part and disappeared, disap-peared, leaving behind it only a few poor ruins. The member of the Sunday Press : staff who made the pictures shown here sends this interesting account of the appearance and operation of the , great canal: Generally speaking the Suez canal i out through a practically level desert of barren and hot yellow sand. There are a few hilly places in it, where deep cuts were found necessary, and on the other hand, long flooded districts, in whih expensive dredging was called into play and dikes were built The hot winds along the adjoining fields are mighty and blow the loose and into the canal from either side if not prevented by clever devices. They are in this respect as dangerous to the construction as the winds of the Atlantic ocean are to the farmers and cottagers of eastern Long Island and strong breeze blows in from the Indian ocenn as if a door had been opened suddenly. From that time on, while the thermometer is high, the run to Columbo is comfortable -by reason of the steadv cool breezes that blow through both the sun-heated day and bright- starry night. The sunsets on the Indian ocean are weird and glorified glori-fied creations and excel in intensity of j color and grandeur of display any de- scription of them ever given by pu-ture or p n The sun goes down in a glorious glor-ious blaze of golden red. All - around the horizon are little bunches of tiny, fieecv clouds, looking like bouquets of cotton blossoms - against an azure screen Soon the heavens darken and lights begin to play. A mirage is not to be compared with the wonderful light and color, plays that follow the sunset The horizon is a deep, rich brown, then a big, broad field of white, flecked with little clouds that seem black against the brilliant background. A wonderful purple hue pervades the water. Then, like a burst of fireworks to end the display with greater glory, comes a great illusion scene. The lights seem to take form, and the display assumes as-sumes the view of a glorified hillside, where we know that no dry land is. trees with, outspreading roots, on the lines of the system first adopted in South France and now in use all over the world. The results are satisfactory and the officials of the canal company find that method of protecting their property cheaper than any other they could 'adopt A reproduction of some of the work of artificial agriculture is shown in the photo of the saitf dunes along the east bank of the canal. These appear about one-third of the length of the entire canal, which is 87 miles one section at the same time. . They are all propelling, In the same direction, direc-tion, of course, and cannot get into danger, because one of the strictest rules of the company provides that the maximum speed in the canal shall be five miles per hour. As all maintain exactly the same rate of speed, they keep the same distance apart throughout through-out the whole course. In sueh cases th waiting southbound south-bound vessels have to remain tied up to the stakes at the signal stations, sometimes for an hour or more until |