A much more thorough reconnaissance than that made by Johnson and Wolfe would be necessary to establish the extra cost of the Aqaba route and in fact because of the extremely difficult nature of the terrain, any cost estimate not based on a a complete substantially final survey would involve a great deal of guess work. The extra cost of any any line through Aqaba would, however, be on the general order of $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 in addition to the increased cost due to the in creased length, which by the shortest route to El Arish, is about, 10% by the longest, that to Alexandria, about 33%.

There is no way to keep the Aqaba route out of Trans- Jordan, except by laying submarine pipe lines across about tbree miles of water which, according to the available navigation charts a maximum depth of about 600 ft. Such submarine pipe lines are certainy possible, but they would be objectionable from several standpoints and would add several million dollars to the cost.

There is apparently, no feasible route out of Aqaba that would avoid crossing a small portion of Palestine.

As to the proposed. by-pass lines for the Suez Canal designated 1, 2, 3 and 4, on Map No. 1, the first three are entirely feasible, and the first two from Suez to Alexandria or Port Said have no serious obstacles. The third route from Aqaba to