The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-12-03
NICARAGUA CANAL ROUTE
II GEOLOGTCAL STUDY oFTHE CON
DITIONS.
"A Discussion on the Objection That the
Projected Route Must Traverse
Country of a Volcanic Nature.

Projected Route Must Traverse A
Country of a Volcanic Nature.
Certain phases of the Nicaragua ca
nal project, in which the geographer
and geoogist are more particularly in
terested, have thus far hardly received
more than passing consideration by the
experts who have reported upon the
undertaking. And yet these phases
deal, perhaps, more directly with the
vital existence of the enterprise than
any other, and should have received
their full measure of attention in the
first instance When, in 1850, Mr.. F.. G.,
Squier. then charge d affaires of the
United States to the republic of Cen
trail America, announced to the Amer
lean Associate ton for the Advancement
of Science that in the plain of Leon, in
Nicaragua the almighty hand has
smoothed the way for the grandest en-
terprise which human daring has con-
ceived and which human energy seems
now on the eve of accomplishing, the
opening of a ship-canal between the
oceans the late Prof. Benjamin SILL
man inquired what Importance was to
be attached to the objection that the
country traversed by the projected ca
nal was of a volcanic nature. The
facts that appertain to this inquiry are,
indeed, the crux to the problem
The Nicaragua canal in whatever
way conceived, must necessarily ira
verse the continuously volcanic tract
that binds Costa Rica with Salvador,
and this tract has been during the pc
riod of the last three-quarters of CEN
tury probably the most violently erup-
tive of any in the western hemisphere.
Indeed If the number Of active and
semi-active volcanoes occurring there,
considered in connection with the ex-
plosive manifestations which have
marked their past history, be taken as
an index of present and future potenti-
atty it might be truly said that the
region stands but little behind that
which has the reputation for greatest
catastrophe effect in the world-the
region of the Molucca seas 1t was in
the tract, in 1888, that through the
eruption of Krakatoa--a volcanic
mountain which had hitherto hardly
risen to even modest fame-was visited
upon the earth, probably the greatest
natural catastropher of which history
makes record, and of which it has thus
far been impossible to ascertain the
full physical significance. One and
more islands were completely shattered,
and the tidal wave which infringed
upon the Indian coast as the result of
the shock and the sub-oceanc dis
placement, cost the lives of between
forty and fifty thousand people. The
volcano of Cosequina, in Nicaragua,
which stands near the outlet of the Bay
of Fonseca, about sixty miles distance
from the line of the initially proposed
canal and about one hundred and fifty
miles from that of the canal now pro-
posed, went through a paroxysm SINH
lar to that of Ixrakatoa in 1885, 1t is
impossible at this late day to ascertain
-tlfe-~f,lll -lneasure-a disturbance which
this outbreak occasioned, but there can
be no doubt that it was considerable.
Prof Eduard Suess of Vienna, thus
describes the cataclysm in his monu-
mental Workable Antlitz der Erde
GS85):
The eruption of January 20, 1885, can
perhaps, properly be regarded as the
most stupendous and frightful of this |
class for centuries. So prodigious was
the mass of material elected from the |
earth's interior that Dollfuss and Mont |
serrat estimated the distributed parts
to have covered the oceanic surface
over an east and west extent of 1900 !
miles The disturbances to the |
crust were transmitted with terrifying
force northeastwatd to the islands of |
IT,, ~ t1ao p+rr o-H+ IN 70
(Translation)
M c. Willard Hayes, of the United |
States Geological Survey, who in an Of
fetal capacity, recently examined the |
region of the proposed canal, in paper
on the "Physiography of the Nicaragua
Canal Route incidentally refers to the |
explosion of Consequna as "the most |
violent recorded eruption until sur
passed by that of Krakatoa in 1888"
The history of this volcano alone, a
of only Vesuvian proportions,
but with record comprising at least
three violent eruptions, ought to have
been sufficient to ward off Squier's re-
ply to Professor Silliman "that on the
line in question there was every reason
to believe the volcanic force had pref
ty completely exhausted itself many
ages ago"
On the 18th and 18th of April, 1S49,
Mr.. Squier was himself witness to the
formation only few miles removed
from the course of the then contempla-
ted canal, of which he was an uncom-
promising advocate; and on the 14th of
1867 a second volcano was
reared up in close proximity to the first,
standing on a fissure between the vol
canoes of Plas and Orota. The Hon
A. B. Dickerson, at the time United
States minister to Nicaragua in de-
scribing this volcanic creation, states
that sin few days two craters were !
opened on the new fissure," and that
'the explosions opened assure
through the earths crust about half a
mile in length The volcano of Con- 6
which faces Cosequina from ,
he northern side of the Bay of Fonse-
va, and was thought by the time of the
of the final volume of his T
'Cosmos-to be extinct. again broke | !
tut into eruption on the 23d of Febrlla- I
", 1868, IzalcO, in Salvador which ,
,roke into existence in 1873 has been in c
continuous activity for over o century, ,
markedly contrasting in it's life history ,
With the volcano of Lake Ilopango, Z