The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1891-05-14
The Nicaragua Canal.

The Nicaragua Canal.
The worlds attention has in these past
weeks been especially called to the progress
that the American Nicaragua Canal Com.
pany is making with its construction work.
For more than generation our government
has fOreseen the necessity of water pas
sage across the Central American neck that
joins North and South America. and re-
peated expeditions sent out under govern
ment auspices had long ago satisfied Amer
| lean minds that the one feasible place for
such a waterway was to be found in Mica
ragua, through utilization of the Nicara-
qua Lake and, for some distance, of rivers
| on either side of the lake. If LeSSeps and
his associates had been willing to listen to
the advice of the far better Informed and
more practical engineers and capitalists Of
the United States, their ILL fated enterprise
would never have been undertaken. The
| only possible basis upon which canal
could have been justified at Panama was,
and always must be. the basis of an open,
tide level passage. Lesseps was opposed to
the idea of locks Americans declared that
the mountain torrents of Panama would
make tide level canal impossible to pro-
tect, except at almost incOnceivable expense
for works to divert the Chagres River.
LessepS blithely ignored these difficulties
until he had spent, upon mere beginning,
far more than his original estimates for the
whole canal Then without any public &C.
acknowledgement of his fatal error. he
changed his plans and decided upon canal
with locks. But the change was confess
sion of hopeless failure; for Panama could
only have been chosen upon the theory of
straight. tide level cut.
The abandoned dredges of Panama are
now efficiently at work upon the excava-
lions for the Nicaragua canal. The route
from Atlantic to Pacific will be 1863 miles,
of which only twenty seven will be entirely
artificial. Six locks will be required; but
the modern ship canal lock-of enormous
size and operated by powerful machinery
offers very slight obstruction or delay to
navigation.
To attain the level of Lake Nicaragua, a
ship will have to be lifted, in three success
sive locks, a total distance of 112 feet. The
descent to Brito on the Pacific coast is eff
fected by means of two locks. No serious
engineering obstacles of any description OPP
pose the work that Chief Engineer MenOcal
has in hand, nor is it conceivable that'any
financial difficulties will retard the opera
tiOns of the Company of which Ex-senator
Warner Miller of New York is president.
The concession granted by the Nicaraguan
government has ten years longer to run,
and there is no good reason why three or
four years should not witness the compile
ton of the enterprise.
The great development of California and
1.-THE coast" makes the new canal impOr-
tant above all else as essentially part of
our coast line. and an avenue of the coast
ing trade. But it will also tend to enOr-
mOusly revive our trade with China and
Tanan while if will increase MANY fold orr
traffic-not only from Atlantic ports, but
also from New Orleans and Galveston
with the west coast of South America. Eu-
rope has far less need of this passageway,
because the Suez Canal affords very direct
course to Australia and tolerably direct
one to India China and Japan. But the
Nicaragua passage will have its full share
of the traffic of all countries, and will play
no small part in the advancement of human
intercourse and the growth of International
peace and amty.-Review of Reviews.