STEP #04 - Citazioni

1) La cariola e i picconi

"They worked on the site normally for one month, but many stayed on for a longer time. Twenty thousand were working on the Canal simultaneously. They were supplied with shovels and picks, as well as with ropes, driving wheels, ramps, and wheelbarrows. But they refused to use tools to which they were unaccustomed.
The first diggings were accomplished by fellahs wielding a shovel and a short pick; 35,000 such picks were imported in 1862. The sand was removed in baskets made of palm tree staple, and carried on mens’ backs or by mules or camels."

Macro-Engineering: MIT Brunel Lectures on Global Infrastructure, Di F P Davidson, E G Frankl, C L Meado, pag.14

Le difficoltà tecniche incontrate nell’esecuzione dell’impresa (la costruzione del canale) ne fecero aumentare i costi e i tempi; occorreranno 10 anni per portare a termine il canale, durante i quali verranno rimossi 75 milioni di metri cubi di terra, verranno fatte esplodere delle pareti di roccia e verrà introdotto l’uso della carriola, che, importata dai francesi, incontrerà una certa resistenza da parte degli egiziani


Nathalie Montel parla di “ostacoli culturali al trasferimento di tecnica” in: MONTEL N., Le chantier du canal de Suez (1859-1869). Une histoire des pratiques techniques, Presses de l’École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris 1998, p. 33

2) Il cemento


"The ultimate resource was powder, and it worked. Concrete was used to build Port-Saïd harbor; in the ancient times, blocks of stone had been carried, with great difficulty, from Alexandria and the Greek Islands; afterwards, the piers were constructed with concrete made at the site. The first concrete lighthouse in the world was built at Port-Saïd. Thus, the future met the past in the land of the Pharaohs."

Macro-Engineering: MIT Brunel Lectures on Global Infrastructure, Di F P Davidson, E G Frankl, C L Meado , Pag 18