Night Traffic on the Suez Canal.

Night Traffic on the Suez Canal.

One of the most interesting applications of the electric light yet made, is to the passage of the Suez canal at night time. This great waterway, which is so important to all European nations, and particularly to this country, ran the risk of being choked by the continued development of the traffic through it in the years 1882 to 1885. At the end of this period, however, the canal company determined to light the channel at night time, so that the passage could be made without danger, and hoped in this way to sensibly diminish the traffic on the canal during the day, and to render the state of affairs less annoying to shipowners, until the enlargements now in progress could be completed. The company accordingly installed a complete system of beacons along the banks of the canal, supplemented by luminous buoys burning Pintsch gas on the water, and in this way the channel was clearly marked out.

It was soon seen, however, that this alone would be insufficient to insure safety in night passages, and it was therefore decided that every vessel moving along the canal at night must itself be supplied with arrangements for working a set of electric lamps on board. Rules were accordingly drawn up which provide that these lamps shall be four in number, one of which is to be a powerful light at the bow, inside of a projector lamp capable of throwing the beam to a distance of not less than 4000 feet in front of the vessel. The other lights are placed one at the stern and one on each side of the boat. The first vessel to make the passage under these regulations was the P. and O. steamship Carthage in 1886, the transit lasting eighteen hours, but with the improvements recently effected this time has now been reduced to sixteen hours for large vessels.