The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-03-22
CANAL THAT Is
% Be BUILT
Josiah Royce Writes of Con-
ditionS of Old Ditch.
MEANS MUCH TO PEOPLE
Possibilities of Uncle Sam in
This Disturbed Country.

TO the HOSt OF new Iork declares tndt
the old French canal, which of late, the
new canal company has taken over.
gled beauty. degeneration, industry. prom
Use and failure. One first sees signs of
the canal when he awakens in the harbor
of Colon looks out over the Bay of
Luzon. Southwards, and a little west
wards from the steamers deck, is the
long point of made land where the houses
of De Lesseps and of his son were erect
ed. Here the statue of Columbus is set
up, TO point out the course of the canal
When the stranger visits this laboriously
constructed point of Columbus which was
prepared, with characteristic showiness.
as eloquent proof that the great work
was well under way. one gets his first
glimpse of the long sealevei Atlantic sec
ton of the canal. Upon the shores of the
canal there lie, in various conditions of
decay, derricks cranes, dredges, tugs and
other floating property of the old COM
pany Despite the sitting in which has
taken place in the years since work stop
ped. this section has considerable value.
1t extends from fourteen miles into the
interior, and ends near the highlands in
Bohio. The great engineering problem of
this portion has to do with tie relations
between the artificial channel and the
capricious tropical river Chagres. The
plans for finishing the canal which have
of late years received most attention all
include the construction of a dam at b.
in ha h.
Hereby the discharges of the Chagres
from above that poin are to be collected
in a lake of some 1900 acres. This lake
will constitute the channel of the canal
for some miles.
Upon leaving this artificial lake the ca
nal will pass through the great sum-
nit cutting at Culebra thus piercing the
continental divide and will then descend
through locks to the sea-level section. a
short portion of which has already been
dug out on the Pacific side. The course
of the canal will be run generally south
east from Colon to the Bay of Panama.
The plans for the height of the lake
level to be determined by the dam at Bo-
hio differ. So toe, the relation of the
Bohio lake to a still higher lake in which
be impounded ;all the plans for canal
which locks may be soner or later aban-
doned in favor of sea-level canal, with
some other set of devices for the con-
troll of the Chagres river.
No one doubts, however. that whatever
is done with the locks and the Chagres,
the canal If completed must pass through
the great summit cut at Culebra, where
the old French company met with its
final defeat. and where the deepest cut
ting has already been made. Here the
new canal company has done the most
of its work; and here, even at this mo-
ment OF the greatest suspense and mac
tivity on the Isthmus, small body of
workmen is still kept busy. How large
a proportion of the entire work Of the
canal may be regarded as already accom-
plished is matter that cannot be decided
without knowing what plan for the COM
pleting of the task is finally adopted.
Even then, estimates must greatly differ
as to the extent to which the old work
needs alteration and repair. and as the
proportion of it that can be made useful
at all for the newer plans. The most
sanguine estimates of the new canal COM
pany have represented the whole task
as fully two-fifths completed. The Walk
err Commission far reduced this estimate.
which was no doubt decidedly excessive.
On the other hand, all the fair judges
seem to agree that much of what has
been done on the Isthmus remains good
work, despite the hopeless extravaganza
of the methods by which il was accom-
plished.
The great Culebra cut has been often
described and photographed. 1t passes
directly through the divide between the
two oceans. at the point on the Isthmus
where this divide is lowest and most pene-
trable. At present it is somewhere near
a mile long. and the hill has already been
bodily removed to an average Of about
$50 or $50 feet. The sides are in some
places very steep. This defnitive slope
will be about 45 degrees The soft ma
terial OF which the upper layers OF the
cutting are composed long gave appre-
hension that the cut could not be made
to bear the floods of the rainy season Of
the Isthmus. But the rock lower down
is harder land fairly steep sides are now
regarded as distinctly feasible. The cut
when finished. will be finished with stone.
From the heat here 10 be expected
heat of which we had been much warned
in advance-we suffered no whit. There
were no mosquitoes,
4 large number OF negroes. now unem-
ployed, are waiting in the neighborhood
of the canal works at various points.
hoping for a future job. They live on
bananas. or shoot occasionally a deer in
the prolific jungle. They are. on the
whole quiet and inoffensive folk
The first question that interests me. at
the moment. Is this; Do these people.
these Colombian subjects OF varied stock
whom I see about me-, need anything
that we can hope peacefully 10 give them.
not tomorrow. nor by magic nor in a
short time. but gradually. and in strict
consistency with our obliga tons under
the treaty. and as a wholesome social
consequence Of our coming here.
This question most interests me. be-
cause this promises 20 be an unique So
cial experiment in establishing our insu-
ence both in the tropics and among the
Spanish-American brethren. Elsewhere
conquest forcibIe colonization. or other
misadveatures such as led 20 our en-
trance into our present Oriental under
takinxs. have formed the conditions up
on which the influence q northern people
in the tropics have founded But here
certain authority over a very nsrrov strip
| 81 territory viii form the definite basis
Of what as venture % hone nav prove
wide and peTvasive Indirect influence -
our civilization upon the Coiomhisns- All
DEPENDS upon how we begin upon Row
we organize. and rpon Row We combine
| forbexrance and TIE Stricsrst fidelity 70