The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-02-09
Projects for Isthmian Canals.

1.-THE way to resume is to resume"
was the cry score of years ago when
the subject of the resumption of specie
payments by the government was I'M
der discussion. The way to build the
Nicaragua Canal is to build it, is the
patriotic belief, in these times, among
q large part of the people Of the United
States. The matter Of building this
canal has been under consideration
over one hundred years, and the feeling
is ripening into conviction that it is
high time to advance from talk to deeds.
Senator Turpie of Indiana is the au-
thor of an interesting article in Har-
per's Magazine, in which he gives the
history of the various schemes for q
canal between the Pacific and the
waters of the Caribbean Sea, by the way
of San Juan river and Lake Nicaragua,
and sets forth the physical obstacles
that have hitherto appalled, enterprise
and discouraged capital when the sub
ject of building the canal has been
seriously taken in hand. In 1871 an ex-
ploration and survey of this route was
made under the authority of the Span
ish govern nent, and the Cortes ordered
and decreed that the canal should be
constructed; but the enterprise was too
great for the decaying energies of the
land from whose shores and by whose
encouragement Columbus sailed to the
discovery Of America, and which had
conquered and colonized so large part
of the two Americas and the islands of
the West Indies. Danes, Englishmen
and Frenchmen subsequently wrestled
with the project without results. In
1926 Dewitt Clinton of New York,
fresh from the honors of the achieve
ment that united the waters of the
Great Lakes with New York harbor,
caused a survey of this route to be
made for himself and associates, which
came to naught. In 1912 Cornelius
Vanderbilt and others tackled the enter
prise, and after survey involving
great expense in time and money gave
it up. When General Grant was Presi-
dent he recommended that Congress
appoint commission to examine this
route for a canal and to report upon
its expediency and cost. This commits
sion surveyed the regions of the pro-
posed canal, placed the expenditure at
$40, 100000, and there the enterprise
rested again. 1t was evidently pro-
ject which, however important and de-
sirable, was 10 be undertaken with ex-
treme caution.
The plan in each of these failed an d
suspended projects was substantially
the same. The entire length of the
waterway is 1894 miles, but 1873 miles is
by way of Lake Nicaragua and part
of San Juan river. The canal proper
involves only about 26t miles of exca-
va ion--14t miles on the Atlantic, and
- miles on the Pacific side. The place
of entry is at Greytown, at the mouth of
! the San Juan; the exit at Brito, on the
Pacific coast. The channel of the San
Juan is to be used from the lake for a
distance ,of SO miles, to the summit
level of the lake and river. At this
point the canal leaves the channel of
the river and descends by series of
locks to the level of the Atlantic. Here
the Ochoa dam is to be built across the
San Juan to store water for the locks.
Between the lake and the dam there are
four principal rapids, with rock bottom,
which must be excavated to the proper
depth for the passage of ships. The
inquiry, Why is not the lower section
of San Juan river, below the locks,
utilized for floating ships to the Carib-
bean? is answered by the statement
that this river, during the rainy season,
Is enormously swollen by tropical rains,
and after leaving the high lands around
the lake is apt to follow go.as-you-
please course to the ocean, often leav-
ing its channel and submerging the
whole country between the foot hills
and the coast. The forces of nature
have here placed in the way obstacles
80 irresistible that no amount of skill,
labor or expenditure is adequate for
their removal.
In the western division, between the
lake and the Pacific, the La Flor dam,
like the Ochoa dam in the eastern, is
the key to the situation. 1t ia an en-
oankment 80 feet high and 1900 feet