The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-05-18
The Panama Canal Alleged to be Inn.
practicable,

practicable.
As the work upon the Panama Cana
progresses, or, more strictly, as tim,
progresses, for in reality no work ha,
| yet been done upon the canal, it be
comes more and more evident that tn,
project is impracticable. that the French
/ people have been drained of millions o.
money to no purpose, and that if the
drain goes on it will be hardly less Grim
inal than an open fraud. The engi
neers have been engaged at Panama
since January, 1881. There have beer
S26,O00,O00 already expended, moi
counting the cost of the Panama Rail
road purchase, (S17, ,00O, which
will become utterly worthless should
aSy canal be built. And yet after more
Tan two years of effort and the expend
ture of all these millions of money the
proposed canal is still in the survey and
experiment period. no real canal work
has been done. and some of the most
important and difficult problems con
nected with the construction have no,
yet been settled, although they are the
very problems upon which success de-
ponds. ...-.
A very brief review of some oil these
problems will afford convincing proofs
of the impracticability of the whole
scheme. On that part of the line where
the heavy cutting will have to lie done
there are six miles in which the cut will
vary from sixty to 224 feet. This
will be followed by four miles
averaging $50 feet. and this by four
miles averaging $50 feet. The great
est depth of cut will be $50 feet!
In the absence of any diagram of such
a cut it may be described SO that any
reader can compute for himself the
angle of the slope. The cana. itself is
to be seventy-two feet in width and the
depth in some places is to be- twenty
eight feet. A diagram would give. an
inverted pyramid seventy-two feet in
width at the bottom, 426 feet in width
at the surface, and $50 feet from the
surface to the water of the canal.
When it is remembered that a slope of
forty-five degrees would give a top
width of 792 feet the abrupt descent of
the slopes in question may be mag
ined. 1t is simply impossible that they
can stand. and it would only be a ques-
ton of dime how soon the canal would
be filed up. The cutting in the deepest
cuts is not through rock, but through
clay, saturated with water, which only
adds TO the impossibility of the work.
Even on the Panama Road. where the
slopes are not nearly so deep or per.
pendicular, engines have been buried
and tracks and the piles on which they
are laid carried away. In that wet,
clayey soil such slopes could not stand.
A buried steamer would be no more OF
novelty i'm such chasm than buried
locomotive in the Panama Railroad
cuts. and the depth of the chasm may
be imagined when the reader reflects
that these slopes rise to distance three
times higher than the masts of any
steamer. that would venture through
such trap. As compared with this the
deepest cut in the heaviest work on the
Nicaragua line is but 101 feet. largely
rock, while in the mean of the canal
the vessels would sail substantially on
the level, there being little or no slope
to the surface of the canal. and no rock.
There are other problems which two
years of investigation have not vel
settled. De Lesseps, with that same
cool audacity which led him TO imagine
that he could keep the English fleet out
Of the Suez Canal during the late wal
by simply refusing to allow it ingress,
has decided not to allow the tides at
Panama to have any effect, though every
engineer who has studied the subject.
the International Commission
Of Engineers, has decided that tide
lock will be necessary, as no ship could
be managed in such current as the
ide will create in such a narrow chan
mel. With the same audacity he pro-
poses to regulate the River Chagres by
dumping rock and earth into it and
dam, which it is expected
will control it when on the rampage. 1t
is very lively river when it gets loose.
and last fall went up forty-two feet in
twelve hours, burying even the telegraph
lines out of sight. De Lesseps seems TO
have the faith of Canute that when he
orders Nature she will obey him. 1t is
noticeable, however, that his engineers
and surveyors do not have such faith,
and that after two years of study they
have not vet settled the question of
slopes. of tide locks. and of managing
one of the most unruly rivers in Tic
world.
The only things which seem to be
settled are that, after more than two
years since the engineers and surveyors
operations, not a foot OF
the canal has been built, So. 500,0 0C
have been spent and S4,000,000 more
are Immediately due-a sum larger than
the amount required for the complete
of the Nicaragua Canal,
which can be built for about $4,000
900. In plain words, De Lesseps has
spent round SiS,000,000 to see if the
Panama Canal can be built, and those
engaged upon settling the question are
not certain yet, not having solved the
very problems which are necessary to
success. In the face of this he has made
new estimates, which far exceed the
original ones, and is preparing to call
for more subscriptions. The ,venal
French press is at work with him. and
is well paid for its efforts TO induce the
people to subscribe to the scheme As
they read nothing but their own papers
and know nothing of the warnings con-
veyed to them in the English papers,
there is danger that they may be fleeced
still further by this huge canal conf
dence game. tits surprising that the
itself does not come to their
rescue orwarn them that they are throw
ing away their money. 1t is canal
which will never be built, If it were