The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1904-06-12

AS II commands the only Water-paSS between the
oceans, its situation must ever render it a port to
insure passage to the Southern Ocean, and by our
possession of 1t Spanish America is severed into two"
Nelson's expedition was not a success, and England
abandoned for the time the great object which he
had in view, the making of a water-paSS between the
oceans. In 1914. Spain had a brief revival of ambi-
ton, and the Cortes gravely decreed the opening of a
canal across the Isthmus of Darien; but DEGREES do not
dig bitches, and as the Cortes neglected to provide
means nothing came of the grandiose proceedings.
In 1928. the independent Central American States
turned their attention to the subject, and sought the
cooperation of the United States; but nothing was
done toward actual construction of a canal. Three
years later, the King of The Netherlands undertook
the solution of the ancient problem, and sent General
Vervecr to America with definite orders to build a
canal. Central America was ablaze with revolutions
when Verveer arrived, and the work was deferred
until 1890, when a revolution in his own country put
an end to the scheme.
During the last sixty years many surveys of canal
routes have been made, and several promising plans
for financing the work have been tried. British
capital was ready to back the Nicaraguan project in
the SOS; but the excessive demands of the Nicara-
guam Government killed it.
In 1873 President Grant appointed an
Canal Commission, consisting of General Humphreys,
Chief of Engineers, U. S. A.; General Patterson, United
States Coast Survey, and Commodore Ammen, Chief
of the Bureau of Navigation, to examine the various
proposed routes. The Commission reported unani-
mously in favor of the Lake Nicaragua route, as sur
veyed by Chlds in 1851 and by Commander Lull
twenty years later-One OF the three routes proposed by
Gomara three centuries earlier.
1t is interesting in these days of eight-hundred-foot
ships to note that the Commission advised locks only
four hundred feet long and twenty-six feet deep.
Extreme length" said the engineers, should be
discouraged, as well for true economy as for safety
of passengers. Vessels of exceptional length can go,
as now, through the Straits of Magellan.
President Grants Commission of Engineers con-
sidered the following survey routes: Isthmus of Te-
hauntepec; Lake Nicaragua; Isthmus of Panama; San
Bias and Chepo; Caledonian and north: Caledonian
and Sucubti; Du Puydt; Cacarica and Tuyra; Atrato
and Truando; and Atrato-Napipi. The conclusion of
American engineers was that the Nicaragua route
offered greater advantages and fewer difficulties from
every point of view than any other. Tine report was
not submitted until near the end of Grants term, and
he was unable to forward the project as he intended.
The choice of routes was determined finally by De
Lesseps, who began work in 1881 on the Panama
Canal, and accomplished so much before his enterprise
ruined by extravaganza and fraud that it has
been deemed advisable to ignore the opinion of Ameri-
can commissions and take over his unfinished work
rather than invite competition and complications by
building along a more n%ortherly line.
The task of cutting through the Isthmus with crude
tools welded by human muscle alone was pronounced
by the enthusiastic Gomara. Compared with
his daring conception, the work of modern engineers.
who have at their command the power of steam
and mechanical invention, seems only child's play.