The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-02-13

"hen the channel tunnel was uro-
poseq-and they actually bored a mile
ana more of it before an invasion scare
in England put a stop to everything
the engineering difficulties were the
easiest disposed of. NJ. Berlier's expe-'
rience with the Seine tunnel and the
metropolitan Underground has mt in
MS hanqs new methods and a corps If
experienced 1ieutenants,, and the f.cr
that the work is SO near home will Give
the French investor confidence thai he
might. lack since Panama.
Canal of the Two Seas.
1t Is proposed, by taking advantage
of the present waterways of the inte-
rior OF France, to make a ship canal
from well-guarded port on the Allan
tic coast t. as well-guarded a port nm
the Mediterranean. From Bordeaux. uv
the Garonne river, the canal boats that
carry freight so economically through
out all France plod their way to Agen.
to Toulouse, and then through the
Canal du Midi, by great lock system
Climb and descend the watershed of the
Atlantic and Mediterranean by way off
the formidable Neck of Naurouze. be
low Carcasonne the Canal du Midi
strikes the River Aude, and then starts
on northeast along winding route 10
Beziers, completing great ccmplica-
ted system. BY way of the Aude the
canal boats descend to the Mediterra-
mean below Narbonne. The engineer
OF genius to whom France owes the
Canal du Midi-in old-time callei the
Canal de Languedoc--was that Pierre
Paul Riquet, first created Baron and
then Count of Caraman, by Louis XIV.
as long ago as 1866. His grandson
married the sister of the last Prince
de .Chimay before the direct male line
became extinct, on which event the IT,
tie was transferred to his descendants.
now properly the house of Caraman-
%nimay, into which Clara Ward, a
pretty girl from Detroit, married, only
TO abandon 1t in company of a Hunga-
ran gypsy yiolinist of the name of Ri
go. This canal of Languedoc was the
first great artificial waterway of Eu-
rope, and the seventeenth century gem
ius of Pierre Paul Riquet shines ais
| brightly as ever. The hardest task OF
modern engineers viii be to follow
him over the Neck of Naurouze, "the
black mountain" where the cuttings
| must be sixty-five feet deep. Millions
and millions 1t will cost to widen and
deepen the old canal through this
most difficult part of its route
An Enormous Undertaking.
Where the canal boats now drag
their slow way the Canal des Deux-
Mers will give passage to the heaviest
men-of-war whirled across France
through hills and valleys, not by mules.
but by steam locomotives. Thirty-two
feet deep and wide enough to permit
two warships to pass each other in IT
will be the Canal des Deux-Mers.
Contrary to what would seem the
natural Atlantic terminus, Bordeaux is
proposed to be neglected in favor of
what will be practically a new port
Arcachon, with its great natural basin,
lends itself ideally to the kind of for
| tification that would be demanded by
canal that would, by the fact of it's
existence, come to be the central
strategic feature of the country. Area
chon, when the canal Is finished, win
be the Brest of today hundred times
nagnified. Bordeaux, that could never
be made to give the necessary ease and
security to war fleet, will remain the
great commercial port 1t is. A branch
canal is to connect it with the great
canal; and, without any of the incon-
Iveniences of a naval center, it will thus
find its commercial advantages i'm
mensely increased. Today France sees
so per cent of her products carried un-
der foreign flags. Where French boats
carry 2,500,000 tons, more than 120,
100000 tons are lugged around the
world in English bottoms.
An Economic Measure.
| Another advantage of the canal as
planned by the effervescent GauI will
be to furnish work for years TO the
French workingman, to the calming of
the laboring mind and the security OF
the republic. The calculations being
| for permanent force of 10000 labor
ers, the partisans of the canal see in
the fact the putting off of the dread
labor question to better era, when
France shall be entering into the
fruits Of this very enterprise. Not a
centime OF the money will leave
France.
| Some of the estimates as TO cost are
II
milliards and a half-2, SOC. 900 francs
the accounts fiuctuate. IF the Baltic
canal, which IS only sixty miles long,
required to complete Al German Gov
ernment engineers, 10000 laborers and
220 900 horsepower during five yearsS
says NJ Verstraet, an objector tn ~
the Canal des Meux-Mers, which mis-
be five times as long, willfequire St
times as many engineers, say 205, ave
times 10000 laborers five times 220 1s5
horsepower, five times five Ses-
Then up speaks the pzftisaa Sup
pose you were going to build a street
of 100 houses. The first house would
need one architect and two years of
work But would the 100 hos es re
quira 100 architects and 100 rs two
years of work; that is to say. years
to build the street,"
The Proposed Route.
The route OF the canal is Iraight
from Arcachon to Agen On the EaroD-
ne, eighty-six miles OF easy ;utting,