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From the art of Suez North Seas

Another note "note reading rambling "to share my views and thoughts of the moment that it inspires, but also because it is a way to circulate this blog outside of my own research - yes, I come to the time to keep a vague idea of the fact that there is life outside of my subject I do not know how long it lasts.

Today it is a book I have mentioned several times that of Nathalie Montel on the construction of the Suez Canal, built between 1859 and 1869 (the channel, not the book). A book that has a lot of merit, for good sides, it is a model monograph on the history of art, which suits me fine, since it is precisely the kind of work I'm producing this year.

First Merit: debunking the myth of Ferdinand de Lesseps. I quote André Siegfried in the book I mentioned a few weeks ago , Suez and Panama routes world (p. 49):

can not be too much admired Ferdinand de Lesseps ;: he made the channel, it is the channel; creator of a new global way, it is the size of Magellan and Vasco da Gama.

And it continues in this vein. Montel brings it to a stature much more reasonable than promoter (Montel, p. 351), the strong sense of the word: he launched the idea, in fact ensures the promotion, going after funding .. . By cons, it practically does not intervene in the work, except for stubborn in the initial choice of site organization that does not hold water - to finally change his mind, in any discretion not to alarm shareholders. The genius of Lesseps is, in large part, seeing how important it was to monopolize the communication concerning the book: it is contractually prohibited company employees from leaking any information whatsoever on the outside. His posthumous fame showed he had fully mastered this aspect of the thing!

On the site itself, I'll let you read the book. Just remember that it is a pipeline of 162 km to dig in the desert, using in part the salt lakes that dot the isthmus. Red Sea side, an ancient port and important Suez - the point of embarkation for pilgrims of Lower Egypt on their way to Mecca. Mediterranean side, nothing: you build a port artificial dunes on the broad lagoon that separates the lake from the sea Menzaleh; it also remains a difficult approach for vessels that do not have satellite navigation, as the coast lack of landmarks. Between the two, the channel does not require a lock: it is, in the words of the day, an artificial Bosphorus. It is therefore a major operation moving, in harsh conditions and with a huge volume to extract.

The key point in the case, and more generally in the history of the shipyards, "do" or "make do". It is both a strength and a weakness of the book. The company founded by Lesseps must be the future operator of the channel but it is not an undertaking of public works - it's owner rather than contractor. The work is initially assigned globally to a contractor, Hardon. Nathalie Montel highlights the difficulties which entangled in the yard for lack of effective control of the company's achievements Hardon by the Company and demonstrates the crucial importance of the establishment by the engineer of Roads and Bridges Voisin such control. When the market is finally terminated with Hardon, work is temporarily continued in authority (the Company becoming for a time contractor) before being divided into lots and assigned to various companies, including Borel and Lavalley, which in large reinforcement of mechanization, generate about three quarters of earthworks.

My regret is that this transition by the authority is not analyzed in more detail. It is presented only in the form of failure: by conservatism, infrastructure modeled from that of Highways does to fail to implement the necessary innovations to further work, which would force it to hand over to contractors capable of taking this risk. I'm willing to believe, but I wish for this, it eliminates evidence to support the opposite hypothesis: that the company, owner, does is put in the shoes of the contracting undertaken only by default, temporarily, the time of the liquidation of the company Hardon and launch of new tenders. These completed, the Company would be naturally returned to the area that is hers, that of "doing do ". It can of course be any kind of intermediate solutions, such as Voisin, head of work for the Company, has been tempted by the direct realization of the work before realizing that he was leaving his area of expertise ... Well, the seminar will be Nathalie Montel Masters in December: I'll ask him!

Note also that the passages on the mechanization of public works, for which Suez, with its context of chronic shortage of manpower, is a special test site, are exciting, the reflections on the relationship between science and technology in the mid-nineteenth century ^e is quite challenging (for short, there is virtually no direct application of scientific advances in public works) and finally, I share fully reserves its author on the site made history techniques to the concept of engineer!

short, a good history bouqin techniques. Glop, glop.

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Reference: Nathalie Montel The construction of the Suez Canal (1859-1869), A History of technical practices , editions En Forma / Press the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1998, 381 p.

Illustration: cover of the book, Plan of the Suez Canal (Foncin / Colin / Fraysse, geography lessons for primary school certificate, Armand Colin, 1957); drag long corridor Lavalley (from Montel op. cit. , p. 240.)