سؤال قراءة ستيب محلول — فهم التفاصيل (تدريب 4738)

(1) In 1859, thanks to the efforts of a French diplomat and politician, Ferdinand de Lesseps, work started on the Suez Canal. Though he was not an engineer, he had been haunted by the idea of the canal since his youth. De Lesseps spent a decade supervising the massive operation that involved the excavation of about 97 million cubic yards of earth. (2) De Lesseps first established an artificial harbor at Port Said as a base and had a canal dug from the Nile to the Suez to provide fresh-water for the 20.000 laborers. (3) The official opening was on November 17, 1869. Representatives of almost every European royal family attended the inauguration celebration. Ships from France, Russia, Austria, Italy, Britain, and the United States sailed through the canal and de Lesseps' dream was finally a reality. The total cost of the project was an estimated $ 105 million, which at the time was a lot of money. This was more than twice the original estimate, but it was a tiny sum compared with the value of the canal to world trade.