Suez and Panama

MR. SIEGFRIED has produced one of the best books of the year in this account of the world’s two principal artificial waterways. It is as interesting as it is sound and thoroughgoing; Mr. Siegfried somehow manages to make even its statistics interesting. He deals with every aspect of the great canal-cutting enterprises, their history, geography, geology, politics, finance, their relation to the problems of war and peace, and makes it all interesting — their history especially so. Probably, for example, most people never knew (we certainly did not) that the Suez Canal was a going concern in 1200 B.C., and that its final course, the one it follows now, was laid out under Ptolemy Philadelphus in the third century B.C. Mr. Siegfried’s work is a really notable achievement of well-digested knowledge set forth in fine craftsmanship, and we are therefore happy in praising it.