Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project
From Palk Bay and Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project
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[edit] Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project
[edit] சேது சமுத்திரம் கப்பல் கால்வாய் திட்டம்
[edit] Introduction
Richard B.Cathcart [rbcathcart@msn.com]
Just what reasoning its proponents have for naming this macroproject a "canal" is not obvious. Is it possibly because canals are typically distinguished from natural watercourses by containing slack, or stagnant, [fresh] water with little discernable current? The SSCP ought to be named the SS Channel Project! It is planned to be a navigational channel dredged from the seabed!
There are existing sea level canals (Suez, Corinth, Kiel) that were dug through LAND. The SSCP is an ocean shipping channel excavated from the ocean's bed. Another term for ocean's bed is seafloor, and "floor" has an architectural connotation and derivation as so many geological and geomorphological descriptivist terms do.
[edit] History
SSCP idea was allegedly first proposed by "Commander A.D. Taylor" of the Indian Marines sometime circa 1860. Here's a bit more biography of him.
Alfred Dundas Taylor was born 30 August 1825 in England, son of George Ledwell Taylor (1788-1873), a civil architect to the Admiralty in the UK not known to have ever visited India. ADT's last published book was THE INDIA DIRECTORY FOR THE GUIDANCE OF STEAMERS AND SAILING VESSELS (London: Smith Elder, 1891). For sure, ADT retired as Commander of the Indian Navy and died in England in 1898.
So, Alfred Dundas Taylor (1825-1898) is documented history. Most remarkably so far, however, I've found no historical evidence to substantiate the widely made claim that ADT, in 1860, first suggested the SSCP!
Map of the proposed Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project
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