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The natural channel of communication between the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea had begun to fill up with silt even in the time of Necho, and a hundred years later, in the time of Darius, was completely blocked, so that it had to be entirely cleaned out to render it navigable.
This canal tapped the Nile at Bubastis, near Zagazig, and followed closely the line of modern Wady Canal to Heroopolis, the site of which lies in the neighbourhood of Toussun and Serapeum, between the Bitter Lakes and Lake Tinseh. At that date the Red Sea reached much farther inland than it does now, and was called in the upper portion the Heroopolite Gulf.
This inconvenient transfer of cargoes was remedied by the next Egyptian sovereign, who bestowed much care on the water connection between the two seas. At the point where the canal joined the Heroopolite Gulf to the Red Sea, Ptolemy founded the town of Arsinoë, a little to the north of the modern Suez.
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