THE Congress of the United States has voted twenty-five thousand dollars to cover the cost of an inquiry into the feasibility and chances of the Nicaragua Canal; and in accordance with the decision of Congress the President has appointed а Commission of Investigation. The construction of such a waterway has now, therefore, entered the sphere of public discussion. It may be taken as certain that at some time or other a waterway for ocean traffic will be constructed between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans over the narrow ridge of land which connects North and South America. The necessities of international commerce plainly point to this as one of the great engineering enterprises of the next, if not of the present century. It will be interesting therefore to consider the present prospects of the two rival schemes to which are respectively committed in a greater or less degree the great Republic of Europe and the great Republic of North America. The elements of the problem to be taken into consideration are not wholly, or even chiefly, those of the relative advantages, as regards cost and ease of construction, of the Nicaragua and Panama routes; or their relative chances of competing for the trade of the world now

The construction of one or other, or of both canals, depends mainly on political considerations weighing with the Governments of the United States and of France. The power of controlling an international waterway would be of obvious advantage in case of war; the direction of such a waterway, and the receipt of the tolls levied on its traffic, would no less obviously be a great financial advantage. The phase of international rivalry which has taken the form of governmental co-operation in the enterprises of trade renders the last consideration one certain to weigh with both Governments. The political interests of the local Governments of Nicaragua and Columbia may require some slight attention, but cannot be of great importance.

It is necessary to bear this political aspect of the question clearly in mind, as the usual tendency is to regard the construction of a canal through the American isthmus as one

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the action of private investors, who of course would be exclusively influenced by the prospect of profit. But many other than financial considerations have in the past facilitated or retarded designs for the construction of this waterway, as well as its prototype, the canal between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. At the same time, the prospects of the financial success of the canals must weigh with both Governments to a great extent, though not so much as they would weigh with private investors, should the undertaking be left in whole or in part to private enterprise. These prospects depend mainly on the volume of trade

between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the route of which would be shortened; on the saving effected in the cost of transhipment; and on the existence of motives, political or purely commercial, which may be expected to determine traders to the adoption of one or other route. Among the latter is chiefly to be noted the existence of the competition of the trans-continental railway system of the United States, and the influence, direct or indirect, wielded by these powerful corporations.

A plan for cutting the narrow neck of land which connects North and South America is as old almost as the discovery of the Western World by Columbus. Nothing but that narrow strip prevented the realisation of the project of the great discoverer,-to reach India by sailing west from Europe. It is unnecessary to recapitulate the many schemes which have been projected since the time of Charles the Fifth of Spain. It would be sufficient to notice only the Nicaragua Canal projected in 1850, which became the subject of the Treaty of Washington usually styled the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, and the project for a waterway at Panama des

tined to darken the closing days of the great engineer who constructed the Suez Canal.

The Treaty of Washington refers primarily to the projected canal through Lake Nicaragua, but also applies similar provisions, as to protection and neutrality, to the canal projected through the Panama route. It will be necessary later on to refer to the effect of that treaty on the present situation of the rival projects; for the present it will be enough to note that all the schemes of construction came to no practical termination for twenty years. First among the causes of this quiescence stands, of course, the great Civil War, which naturally distracted the attention of the American people for a considerable time from peaceful enterprise. In Europe again the energy and resource of De Lesseps and his French supporters were absorbed in the Suez Canal. As an immediate consequence of that successful enterprise, men's minds were once more turned to the project of an inter-oceanic canal both in France and the United States. In 1872 the President of the United States, on the request of the Senate, appointed a Commission to consider the subject of communication by canal across, over, or near the isthmus. After a study of the surveys of the various projected routes, including that of Panama, the Commission in 1876 reported in favour of the route by Lake Nicaragua.

Notwithstanding this report, presented in 1876, no steps were made to construct the canal by way of Nicaragua, and the next scene opens in Paris. In 1879 an International Congress met in Paris under the presidency of De Lesseps to consider what should be the site of the interoceanic canal, as to the financial success of which no doubt was entertained. The preference of the United States Government for the route through

Lake Nicaragua was laid before the Congress. That route was not adopted for one reason, among many, which was regarded as decisive. Both for permanency and convenience it was deemed desirable to construct a sealevel canal on the model of that at Suez. Now no route over the isthmus is so short as the line about fifty miles long drawn north and south from Colon to Panama. Therefore, the place of De Lesseps's ill-fated project was fixed at Panama.

The history of that project need not be recapitulated. It was one long series of miscalculations: as to the nature and extent of the gigantic cutting rendered necessary by the height of the mountain-chain; the delays owing to the climate and its effects on the health of the labourers; the unexpected difficulties arising from the weak nature of the soil preventing the damming of the River Chagres, and necessitating the construction of a channel to draw off its superfluous waters; the miscalculation of the time necessary to complete the project, and the consequently inadequate period fixed in the concession granted to the French Company by the Columbian Government; the improvident financial operations in Paris and the wasteful expenditure at the isthmus, which disposed of four hundred and eightyfive millions of francs (upwards of £19,000,000), and which finally involved the collapse of this great undertaking,—all these facts are now ancient history. In 1887 the greatest miscalculation, that of time, became apparent. It was found that a sealevel canal would take at least twenty, and possibly many more, years to construct, a term exceeding that granted by the Columbian Government for the completion of the canal. Then the sea-level project was abandoned. A smaller cutting through the mountain range would take less time, and a canal with locks was

decided on. The ocean-going ships would have to climb by means of locks up one side of the mountain-range, pass through a small cutting which could be constructed in five instead of twenty years, and descend on the other side by another series of locks. The moment this course was resolved upon the Nicaragua project necessarily became a rival. If a canal with locks were to be constructed, the Nicaragua Canal was in as good a position as any other.

In 1887 an American Association was formed for the construction of a canal through Lake Nicaragua, and a concession for this purpose was obtained from the Nicaraguan Government. In 1889 an Act of Congress of the United States incorporated the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua, which has since had the direction of the project. Owing to the want of adequate financial support, however, no steps have as yet been taken, other than the construction of some preliminary works. In the same year the Commission appointed in France to carry out the liquidation of the Panama Canal made various efforts to reorganise the works of their Company. The prohibition of the intended lottery to supply the funds, and the abstention of the Government from supporting a scheme of reorganisation, have placed the project in a position of suspended animation. The official statements of the Nicaragua Company on the one hand, and of the Liquidation Commission on the other, give sufficient data for comparing the engineering difficulties and the cost of the rival schemes.

A glance at the map will show that the route by Panama is that which at first sight would present itself as the natural route dictated by the geographical situation. The American isthmus is at its narrowest point where the present works are situated. The isthmus runs east and west, the

route of the canal running north and south; the distance from the Caribbean Sea on the north to the Pacific on the south being about fifty miles. If the land here were a stretch of level country it would not have been left for the nineteenth century to dig a canal between the two oceans; it would probably have been cut in the time of Charles the Fifth. It may be taken as granted that any future attempt at completing the canal at this point will utilise the works already completed by the defunct Company; and the plan adopted by the Commission of Liquidation in 1890 may be regarded as the basis of our present inquiry. What remains to be done to carry that plan into execution? What are the engineering works to be constructed, and what would be the cost? The Commission of 1890 approved of the abandonment of the original idea of De Lesseps's project, the construction of a ship-canal at sealevel. A sea-level canal, such as the Suez Canal, requiring no locks, would of course be the ideal construction for permanence and for facilities to trade. But the Commission, in view of the fact that the concession from the Columbian Government would expire in 1899, and that a canal dug so deep as to have sea-level throughout would take not less than twenty years to construct, and might take much longer, and in view of the enormously increased cost of diverting the stream of the River Chagres which the construction of so deep a cutting in unstable soil would involve, determined to relinquish a task beyond its powers. A canal with locks is therefore the present project for completing the Panama Canal.

The plan of the proposed canal is as follows. The main chain of the Cordillera is to be cut by a channel five miles long and twenty-three feet deep at its least depth. On either side of the Cordillera, at San Pablo and

at Paraira in the valleys of the Chagres and the Grande, dams are to be constructed at a distance of twelve and a half miles from each other. Between these dams, and passing through the cutting of the Cordillera, will extend an artificial channel one hundred and thirteen feet above the level of the sea. This channel will be the middle section of the canal; in effect it will be a lake composed of the dammed-up valleys of the Rio Chagres and the Rio Grande, fed by the waters of the former. The descent from this middle section of the canal to both the oceans will be effected by means of two double lock ladders on the Atlantic side and one double ladder and two separate locks on the Pacific side. The depth of each lock will not exceed thirty-six feet. On either side of this middle section of the canal will be two sealevel sections, freely communicating with the sea. The one on the side of Colon, the northern port on the Atlantic, will be fifteen miles long; that on the side of Panama, the southern port on the Pacific, seven and a half miles long. The execution of this work would require the removal of eight million cubic metres of earth and stone, and is calculated to take about eight years to complete. The cost of construction, that is, to a reorganised Company which would not have to pay for the expenditure already incurred— has been estimated by the Commission of Liquidation at £19,432,000.

The special difficulties of construction from an engineering point of view, apart from the question of expense, are the nature of the soil, the liability of the canal to be flooded by the Chagres in the rainy season, and the climate.

As regards the nature of the soil, the report of the Commission of Liquidation states that it is too unstable and porous to stand any great strain such as the pressure of a large

superincumbent mass of artificial works, and of the water retained in these works, would entail. Hence the necessity of fixing the level of the central section of the canal at one hundred and thirteen feet above sealevel. If the central section could be raised higher, the canal could be constructed much more quickly, by obviating the necessity of cutting through the rocks of the Cordillera. The liability of the canal to be flooded by the Chagres is largely due to this low degree of resisting strength in the soil. Attempts were at one time made to dam the river, at a cost of upwards of three millions sterling, and to rely on this dam as the sole method of dealing with the superabundant waters; but experience showed that the soil would not support a dam of the height requisite to dispose of the whole of the floods in the rainy season. Consequently the present plan is to make a smaller dam, and to supplement this by constructing a channel for draining away part of the superfluous waters through another valley and into the Pacific. The climatic conditions, although serious from one point of view, can be discounted in any calculation of the difficulties in completing the work. By taking the rate of progress formerly attained as constant, sufficient allowance is made for delay due to the illness of the workers.

Although the route through Nicaragua is not the route indicated on the map as the shortest from point to point between the Atlantic and the Pacific, yet it has many favourable features. From a point twelve miles from the Pacific, two great lakes, Managua on the north-east continued by Nicaragua on the south-west, and the River San Juan flowing from the latter, form a continuous natural waterway to the Caribbean Sea. Sever the narrow neck of land on the western

side and a channel is open for the whole way, though not as yet navigable for ocean-going ships. The project of the Nicaraguan Canal Company is, therefore, to utilise this natural waterway, deepening it when necessary, and at the western side of Lake Nicaragua to construct a cutting to the Pacific.

The works proposed are as follows, beginning on the Atlantic side :—A breakwater is to be constructed at San Juan del Norte, and the harbour is to be deepened. A sea-level canal is then to be dredged in earth for about nine miles from the coast, terminated by a lock of thirty feet lift, followed at an interval of a mile by another lock of thirty-one feet lift. A dam across the small stream Deneado is to be followed by two basins, separated by another dam and a third lock of forty-five feet lift. After five miles of free navigation comes a cutting through the rock about three miles in length. Twelve more miles of free navigation is to be found in the valleys of two small rivers, the San Francisco and the Machado. Here the water is to be raised by dams and embankments, forming basins which will connect directly with the San Juan above a large dam across that river. This dam is to raise the level of the river and of Lake Nicaragua and secure free navigation of sixty-four miles and a half on the river and fifty-six miles and a half across the lake. Leaving the western shore of Lake Nicaragua, a canal through earth and rock, nine miles long and proceeding towards the Pacific, will issue into the Tola basin, with five miles and a half of free navigation obtained by damming a small stream, the Rio Grande, which flows into the Pacific. At this dam a series of locks lower the level eightyfive feet, and the canal proceeds in excavation down the valley of the Rio Grande, a distance of two miles,