_ Dredger with a 45 metre chute. The machines used for widening the Suez canal were for the most part entirely metal, floating dredgers. The heavy scoops attached to an endless chain and driven by a steam engine removed mud sand and gravel from the bed and dumped the extracted material via the chute, a sheet metal pipe cut in half. The chutes directed the extracted waste onto the bank and the workers kept the waste flowing using a sort of rake. Two dredgers could thus work at a distance of only two metres.