M. BAZIN & Co. Suez Canal [~i~title on front cover</i>]. ~i~London, Waterlow & Sons for Bazin & Co,~/i~ [1874].
Small 8vo. Original full calf, front cover lettered in gilt, panels ruled in blind; pp. 22, fold-out lithographic plan in blue and black of the company's establishment at Port Said, large folding map of the canal at Port Said, and folding Suez Canal map in four colours, all illustrations linen-backed; minor spots to illustrations and text occasionally, otherwise very good.
Extremely rare in-house publication by one of the original engineering companies who worked on the Suez canal, and who remained there for maintanance, improvements and shipping. The first page - sort of a title - reads: M. Bazin & Co., Merchants, London (6, Crosby Square, E. C.), Port Said, Suez, Alexandria, Marseilles.~/i~ In 1867, suction dredgers designed by French engineer Henri-Émile Bazin were used in the construction of the Suez Canal. They issued food tokens for their French workers in 1865, which easily fetch up to over 1000 Euros at auctions. This publication was issued for British shipping companies using the canal by their London office under the direction of Napoleon Alexandre Coste. 'The Coste saga, at its outset, bounced back and forth between France and Canada. It started with Napoleon Alexandre Coste, the son of a well-to-do Marseilles family, who was sent to launch a naval career aboard a French freighter plying between Europe and the Americas in the hope that he might someday even become an admiral … While Eugene [his son] was being schooled, Napoleon was busy making money in Egypt, first as a ship chandler then as a contractor in construction of the Suez Canal. He piloted the first ship through the canal' (Earle Gray, Ontario's Oil Legacy~/i~, online). The book gives the regulations for navigations of the canal issued in July, 1873, by Ferdinand de Lesseps, and the New Mode of Levying Suez Canal Dues, established by the International Commission of Constantinople; in use since the 29th of April, 1874.~/i~
We were able to locate two copies in libraries, at Kansas University, and at Princeton (a rather shabby copy).~/i~
#2120644