The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-11-20
COST OF SEA LEVEL
 CANAL $23l, 100000
CONSTRUCTION SHOULD NOT TAKE MORE THAN FIFTEEN
 TEARS

Reasons Why the Hoard of Engineers
 Favored This Instead of the Lock
 cCanal-cOst Not So Much Greater
 When Everything Is Considerea--
 Departure From French PIan-By
 That Now Adopted Limon Ray yvnI
 Become One of the Greatest Harbors
 in the World.
 Washington, Nov. 1a-The board of consulting engineers of the isthmian canal commission has decided to sub- stitute Brussels for Paris as the meet ing place of the foreign members next January. The reason for this decision IS that Brussels Is more conveniently situated for several Of the members The American engineer who will eo to Brussels with the documents to k signed has not yet been chosen. Dur- lng this week committee of tbroa members of the board. with cena,a1 Dayls as their chairman, will maI,a z rough draft of the final renort 1vhs.,, es.I mnh lHen nave to be worked out in de- .slu .,lli' ana IS expected to be ready about ehe end of December.
 Ihe sea-level canal which has baan voted upon by the members. will have width at the bottom of 15O feet ax- cept Tn the Culebra cut. where tbaY width will be 200 feet. The eroatas width in the Culebra cut ;s -Aeassa,s.. to allow two ships to pass each otbar saIely between the high banks os tba canal which will be formed by tha var,, deep excavation. s1s soiy
 1ns plan as adopted by the board would make Limon Bay one os tba greatest harbors of the world
 on the Pacific side at Panana tha pians as adopted yesterday are aIso altrerent from those of the French KY r,s nal company. The French canaI and. as La Boca, and 1t was found as one of tne ditneulties that the Rio Grande Mlln It's many branches, crosses tba canal and in the rainy season inun1atas ana does great damage to the wortrs already constructed by the French therefore 1t was decided that tba ca,,a, snould be built nearer to the nt+v oe Fanama and should run between Two nils, one called sosa and the other tba Well-knoWn Ancon. Ancon is tfe hipb- CT of the two. On it the Arae48ea,,s hos pltals are built and it is one of tha I,3nst nealthful places on the isthnus. A+ tnls place the one lock necessitatad through the differences in the tidess of tne Atlantic and the Pacific will s,a pullt. This lock, however, will not re- tard the progress of ships through the canal N s1As In the first place, ships coming fron, the Pacific will have to stop some tina anyway to be visited by health oftinarS ana ny civilian authorities, and, fur- thernore, during a large part of the day this lock will be entirely open as the levels of both oceans will be eoual- I ly high At the Panama side no plans nave as yet been made for breakWa- ters.
 1 The plans for constructing a lock ca- nal at thirty feet altitude were never discussed, and from the beginning ina board was divided into the two proups of eight and five members, one in favor of the sea-level plan and the other in favor of a lock canal. A compromise plan was never brought up at any time. It can be authoritatively reiterated that none of the foreign delegates to the board came here with specific in- structions from their governments. The members of the board came here at the | bidding of the United States, and their governments gave them a long leave of absence so that they might give their | services to this country, sending them i without instructions whatever They will leave Washington by next Sunday and stay few days in New York be- fore leaving for Europe.
 l The cost of the sea-leyel canal is es- timated by the engineers at about $23O,- 00OO00 Although this amount seems much larger than the amount necessary l for the construction of the lock canal | it is claimed by the advocates of the sea-level plan to be in reality only com paratively slightly higher. It was pointed out in the meetings of the board 1 that lock canal would necessitate be- tween $50,00000O and $40,00G,0OO as pay ment for the private grounds and the lands belonging to the republic of Pan anna which would be inundated by the colSCfuctlOu QI the lOck SySISHls InlS l item, sin the view of the majority of the board, is entirely done away with by the adoption of the sea-leyel canal
 As for the time it will take to con- struet the sea-level canal, several members of the board to-day expressed the opinion that the construction Of the sea-level canal will not in reality take so very much more time than that c2 the lock canal, and that if no unexpect- ed difficulties are met with it should not require more than two or three years additional. The locks would have been so large, in their view, that even the drawing of the plans for them would have taken considerably moro than a year and the building of cement constructions calls for a higher class of Workmen than the oTdiEary la.borers used for the digging of the canal. The tropical conditions of the isthmus, the sea-level people contend, also initiate more against this class of labor The majority of the engineers take the po- sition that the building of the sea-level canal should not take more than fifteen years. It is expected that ships will be able to go through the canal under their own power. When two ships will