The Société sent surveying teams to Egypt, developed engineering plans, determined that the elevation difference between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea was negligible, but Muhammad Ali was still reticent to the idea of a canal. Upon his death in 1848, the activities of the Société were minimized until his successor was assassinated in 1854 and Ferdinand de Lesseps took up the initiative to build a canal. Lessups had corresponded at least once with the Société in the intervening years and had known the new Egyptian viceroy, Sa'id, when he was a young man. Enfantin was listed by Lessups as a founder of the Suez Canal Company.