The Suez Canal - Letters and Documents Descriptive of Its Rise and Progress in 1854-1856 #247392

I owe the distinguished honour pf my seat in the Academy of Science to the execution of the Suez Canal.<br><br>My colleagues have expresses a wish to know the history of the labours they have so frequently aided by their assistance and influence, and which, spread over a period of twenty years, have resulted in a successful completion of the work, supported as it has been by the verdict of Science and the progress of Civilisation.<br><br>It is not for me to compile a complete history of an enterprise in which much opposition and contest, years before the formation of a financial company, necessarily compelled me to make myself conspicuous.<br><br>But, in order to prepare an outline of the history and to comply with the wish of the Academy, I have collected my private and official correspondence, together with such of my notes as have been written according to the requirements of events as they occurred.<br><br>This collection contains as account of the principal circumstances which occurred during and after the opening of the Egyptian Bosphorus to navigation, an occasion honoured by the presence of a numerous deputation of members of the Institution of France.