Word: canals
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...every department." The Army has come some way since then, and U.S. military installations round the world plan to mark the 200th anniversary this week with ceremonies and pageants. Later Army exhibits will emphasize contributions made by the military to civilian life. These include the building of the Panama Canal as well as some lesser-known examples of Army pioneering: development of freeze-dried foods and the invention of the aerosol...
...money may prove to be well spent. A 19th century biographer of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat who completed the canal in 1869, said that the waterway "traced for civilization a pacific and productive route across the sands of the desert." It also saved mercantile countries huge sums in shipping charges. Closing the canal has cost an estimated $10 billion in the extra expense of sending goods around Africa's southern tip. By the end of this week, when the first convoy starts north from Suez city, ships traveling from the Persian Gulf will be able...
With all the hoopla of the reopening, however, there are some who feel that the canal will never again attain the importance it had before 1967. Even before the closing, tanker-fleet owners had begun building giant superships of 100,000 tons or more that could not navigate the canal. In 1967, fully 74% of the world's tanker fleet could traverse the canal; today only 27% of the tanker fleet can use it. Thus, though Cairo last week almost doubled the tolls from what they were in 1967, Egyptian hopes of collecting $450 million a year from...
...Egyptians are well aware of the new realities of the shipping business, and are already planning to deepen and widen the canal to take bigger ships. Within three years they hope to accommodate ships of 53-ft. draft and 150,000 tons fully loaded (v. the present maximums of 38 ft. and 60,000 tons); within six years they want to be able to take ships of 67-ft. draft and 260,000 tons...
Even so, some experts consider Egypt's grandiose plans for expanding the Suez Canal to be way beyond the country's means. Before Lesseps first brought together the waters of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, 97 million cu. yds. of earth had to be excavated; the new plans would require the removal of 300 million cu. yds., a stupendous undertaking even with today's more advanced earth-moving equipment. The Egyptians are nonetheless confident. There is even some talk that the colossal bronze statue of Lesseps, torn to pieces and dumped in a Port Said shipyard...