from the sea, all the advantages of a seaboard, and especially that of
removing and despatching merchandise without the necessity of breaking
bulk.
The second great stage in the development of canal transport is of
comparatively recent origin. It may, in fact, be said to date only from
the time when the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Suez
was proved to be not only practicable as an engineering project, but
likewise highly successful as a commercial enterprise. Not that this
was by any means the first canal of its kind. On the contrary, as we
have shown elsewhere, the ancients had many schemes of a similar kind
in view across the same isthmus. The canal of Languedoc, constructed
in the reign of Louis XIV., was for that day as considerable an
undertaking. It was designed for the purpose of affording a safe
and speedy means of communication between the Mediterranean and the
Atlantic Ocean; it has a total length of 148 miles, is in its highest