The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-02-12

mus will be hailed with universal pleasure.
The supplemental exploration of the Nicarl-
! guam and Atrato routes by competent civilian
engineers will deepen the already deep inter
est in the future canal. We may now look
forward to this exploration the consumma-
tive measure for obtaining all needed knowl-
! edge of the isthmian geography. But, in
fact, we may regard this canal problem as one
OF ages the grand issues Of which have been
practically settled and only the details left to
be considered
The Atrato route. of which 80 much has
been recently put forth TO the public, has
been carefully popularized, and the energy OF
Captain Selfridges party. who surveyed it, has
met well merited need of official encomium.
The great rival route is now almost univer-
sally conceded to be, not by Tehuantepec, but
by Lake Nicaragua. The Tehuantepec scheme
has been tacitly abandoned on the obviously
good grounds that the elevation to be sur
mounted is too great and the rainfall and
water supply of the country are insufficient for
all the levels
While heartily rejoicing in the present ar
rangement for sending the civilian and mill
tary engineers to examine and report finally
on the Atrato and Nicaraguan routes, we think
that their task can only decide engineering
points touching the great issues involved
The most momentous and controlling points
lie outside the scope of such survey, and we
apprehend the time has come to press them
home on thinking Americans.
So hx, e
most practicable routes would, rs nearly as
any estimation can decide. be about sixty mill
IONS of dollars. If We consider the necessity
OF ship tunnel on the Atrato hne its high
grade of one hundred and twenty feet end
the untried experiment of such a mammoth
excavation in the water-deluged mountains of
Columbia, the prospect is forbidding Moth
ing, certainly, would warrant 80 uncertain and
formidable an undertaking unless the Atrato
route is demonstrated to possess extraordinary
comparative advantages over that by Mica
ragua. Is this demonstrated
We can answer the question now as well as
if the present outgoing surveyors had COM
pleted their task and presented their decisions
Lake Nicaragua is a great and well main
tanned fresh water basin, more than three hun
bred miles in circuit, and admits of being
navigated by the largest sailing vessels and
steamers 1t is united with the Atlantic by
the large surplus overflow from its own foun-
tains forming the broad current of the San
Juan, and it is separated from the Pacific by a
narrow neck of land of light altitude and
needing no tunnel The utilization of the San
Juan River from the mouth, where lies the
excellent harbor of Greytown, to its issue
from the lake is assured by the best engineers.
ish trading ships used to ascend freely from
the Atlantic up to the lake, impelled by the
propitious trade winds of that latitude. And
even now the steamboat, 50 gradual is the
slope Of the coast, easily ascends the rapids.
The adaptation of the river to canalling pur-
poses is a simple engineering work and is of a
kind which has been continually demonstrated
to be feasible. Even where it has been tried
on grand scale in China it has beautifully
succeeded. The Great Canal, crossing the
Hoang-ho and Yang tse- kiang, runs from north
to south seven hundred miles, and in every
part of its course it traverses alluvial soil, but
never, at any part, is it carried through twenty
miles of country unaided by tributary rivers.
These manifest and long ago known and
established advantages of the Nicanguan route
are reinforced by others which have been
almost ignored. The ship bound from
Europe or New York to China and Japan
or to California would on her outward voyage
save from seven hundred to nine hundred
miles by taking the isthmian canal through
Nicaragua instead of the more southerly one
via the Atrato River. After entering the
Pacific at the western terminus Of the Mica
ragua Canal such vessel would at once strike
the heart of the trade Winds in which the old
navigators were wont to say they could go to
sleep and cross the Pacific. On the return
voyage the ship would take the anti-trades
north of thirty-fve degrees north latitude, and
thus she would save as much time and dis
lance as in her outward trip.
The meteorological conditions which pre-
vail along the Nicaraguan and Atrato routes
are manifesty in favor Of the former. The
Atrato River and its watershed, taking all the
data collected by meteorologists, has an an
nual rainfall of at least ninety-seven inches,
and probably in some years one hundred and
twenty inches, most of which water descends
torrentially At Cartagena Ulloa describes
the rain tempests as so impetuous in
their precipitation that ''the streets
have the appearance of rivers, and the
country of an ocean" While the original
cost of the Atrato Canal might possibly not
exceed that one by way of Lake Nicaragua the
future expenditure necessary for repairs after
the rainy season would be far greater; for,
as compared with the torrential rains of the
Atrato Valley, Nicaragua is moderately
watered. The precipitation annually does not
exceed sixty-fve inches, and even were it
twice or three times as great the tempestuous
rains would fall on only small part of the