The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1898-06-26
THE ONLY KEY TO THE PACIFIC.

The recent 13,000-mile run of the battle
ship Oregon from San Francisco to Key
: West called attention to two things
garding the American nation. One of these
was that we possessed a battleship capa-
BILE of doing something no other ship of
this elias in the world had ever equalled
or approached and the other, and a less
happy thought, was that 10000 miles of the
voyage and many weeks of national anx-
iety might have been saved if we had been
less dilatory in pushing work on that key
to Americas future greatness, the Mica
rague canal.
In view of the present rush of matter
before congress it is scarcely probable that
the bill providing for the construction and
government ownership of the canal will
meet with the attention it demands. The
bill authorizes the government to secure
the right of way from the countries
through which the canal passes, to pur-
chase the property of, and pay for the
work done by, the Maritime Canal compa-
ny on the canal.
If all the effort and discussion caused by
the long voyage of the Oregon around
South America had been directed toward
the construction of the Nicaragua canal
its comparatively short length would have
ship could have been at Key West within
two weeks from the time she left San
Francisco When it is considered that to
build this canal it will only require TWEEN
ty-seven miles of excavating, it does not
speak well for American progress that the
work has been delayed so long.
LITTLE DIGGING NECESSARY.
The extreme length of the Nicaragua ca
nal from Greytown, on the Atlantic, to
Brito the Pacific port is about 1859 miles,
yet SO advantageously has the proposed
route been laid out over navigable water
courses that 142 miles of this canal is al
ready for use by the largest ocean-going
ships. The comparatively short distance
left to be excavated is not within twenty
miles of the number 1t would take to con-
meet the two oceans by the Panama canal
laid out by De Lesseps.
Since the Maritime companyS experts
laid out the proposed routs Of an estimated
cost of s70,000,000, two commissions have
been appointed by the government to go
over their work. The first of these, the
Ludlow commission, put the probable cost
of the canal at $133 200 and added that
the company,s surveyors had not made
thorough survey of the route
1t was also said that the effect of the
tropical rainfall on the axis of the canal
had not been sufficiently taken into consid-
Grafton and several plans for engineering
works prepared by the company's engineers
were criticised. 1t was recommended that
a new commission be appointed to go over
the route carefully with a new survey and
settle the disputed points.
THE PROPOSED ROUTE.
The second commission consisted of Rear
Admiral Walker, of the navy; Colonel
Hams of the engineer corps of the army,
and Professor Lewis M. Haupt, of Penn
sylvania. The commissioners went to
Greytown in the gunboat Newport, and
had q corps of 100 men, including a naval
detail and assistants from the geological
survey. These, with two gunboats for the
survey of the harbors and with the labor
ers engaged, made q force of 500 men to
push the work of gathering the required
data. When it's report is completed in all
probability some active steps will be taken
by the government to resume the construc-
ton of the canal
The proposed route begins in the ex-
tremely shallow harbor of Greytown, on
the Caribbean sea- and extends up the San
Juan river to Lake Nicaragua. From the
lake a comparatively short cutting with
unite the waters of the Atlantic with those
of the Pacific at Brito. over 121 miles OF
navigation Is already afforded ocean-gding
vessels by Lake Nicaragua and the San
Juan river AND artificial basins, created by
the erection Of dams will afford twenty
one miles more.
Perhaps the most effective problem the
engineers will have to contend with is the
making of suitable harbor at Greytown.