have its strong impact on the Anglo-Egyptian relations. The Ismailia Canal The first major project the department under Linant (now under his new title as director general) constructed was the Ismailia canal. It was constructed between 1861 and 1863, in virtue of agreements between the Egyptian Government and the Suez Canal Company, for the purpose of creating a navigable waterway between the Nile and the planned Suez maritime canal; to furnish water for irrigating some lands conceded to the company, and finally to provide for the needs of the maritime canal and the towns and stations established along its course a daily supply of 70,000 cubic meters of fresh water. It was designed by Linant who also managed its construction. The Ismailia canal has its inlet at Cairo upstream of the Delta Barrages. It actually used to have two inlets, one called the Kasr-el-Nil, in the heart of Cairo. This was the oldest, but it was abandoned later after the area got very urbanized. The other inlet, called Shobra, is situated 7 kilometers below in the now bustling Shobra district in northern Cairo. After leaving its inlet, the canal follows the edge of the desert until it reaches the little Wadi Tumilat, which it crosses and follows the north side, trending direct to the east as far as the town of Ismailia, where it discharges into Lake Timsah. A branch, which begins a little before Ismailia, stretches toward the south across the desert, following a line parallel to the maritime Suez canal and empties into the channel of the port of Suez. The line of the Ismailia canal conforms at many points to the direction followed by the ancient canal, which, according to historians, put the Nile in communication with Lake Timsah, or with the Red Sea itself, and of which traces have been found on the surface. The length of the canal between the Nile and Lake Timseh is 136 kilometers, and the length of the Suez branch is 89 kilometers. Under Ismail Pasha During the reign of Ismail Pasha (1863–1879), many great public works projects were constructed. Over of new canals (the longest of which was the Ibrahimiya Canal) were dug; the cultivated area increased from 3,050,000 feddans in 1813 to 4,743,000 in 1877. Ismail's khedivate is also closely connected to the construction of the Suez Canal. He agreed to, and oversaw, the Egyptian portion of its construction.