The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-28
THE CANAL INQUIRY
MIR. TAFT nnEfEvEs INvEsTfGA-
 TON SHOULD BE RIGID.
Said to Have wrzften. His Views to Prssideat---faffer searchins for the Best Advisory EnEinesFs
 Type shassd Be Chansea.

Washington Special to New Orleans
 Times-Democrat.
 It was admitted at the White House today that President Roosevelt had re- celved a letter from Judge Taft In which the President elect outlined his views as to the character of the inves- tigation he and those who are to acc company him to the Panama Canal should make. The letter, however. will not be siven out. for the present at least.
 The understanding is that Mir. Taft believes the inquiry sh hould be rigid as to whether the plan for lock canal, if carried out, would result in water way satisfactory to the American peo- pie.
 That question, It ts understood, Is re- garded as of more importance than as to whether the cost of the work would be greatss or smaller than estimated; greater also than any question as to whether the plans acceptable to the army engineers In charge of the work will result In the production Of locks and dams that will stand. The actual digging of the waterway has got to the point whMu. If there Is to be a change from lock and dam to sea level canal, 1t must be made within the next few months The question es to type has never been definitely settled. The digging up to date has been of the kind that would have to be done no matter what type was selected
 The army engineers in charge of the work have not been asked to say whether the canal built on plans given to them, will accommodate the com merce that may reasonably be expect ed to seek that short cut from the Att lantic to the Pacific. All they have been asked is 4o whether as sn ensi- neering proposition. the plans will work. Except a few iInmaterial changes the plans now in use are those handed to Colonel Goethals when he took charge, In all his reports he has dealt only with the problems of getting out the dirt, and making safe the locks and dams provided in the plans Poli- cies, etc. have not been given to him for selection or rejection. His work has been to make the dirt fly.
 President Roosevelt Is raking the country over for engineers to send with Mir. Taft so that the President elect will have had three or four en- glneers at the White House for consult tatlon and the names of some of the engineers may be announced in Q short time. Alfred Noble and W. R. Hill are believed to be two certainties for the task. The President may have more selected, but there is no evidence that he has.
 None of fhe engineers selected to make the examination has had a 1.-the Of the experience in building locks and dams that has been had by Major Will liam Slbert, the junior army officer on the job. He is in charge of the Gatun dam work, and in tine last annual re- port of the commission what is said about the Gatun dam Is undoubtedly his view. He found underground wa ter and seepage. but in the annual re. port he tells of his purpose to build curtain walls to keep the water away from the lock walls and the dam fl r self. In addition to the curtain walls he proposes to drive sheet bling into the core Of the dam so as to make 1t secure against seepage. As to founda- tionS for lock walls and the dam he says there iB no doubt about the abil- ity of the material under them to sup. port any weight that can be placed on them. He hassbullt locks and dams for fifteen or twenty years, and with him the questions are no more didncuIt than he had to answer time and again while building locks and dams in the Ohio, Monongahela and other rivers, where the How Is many times greater than in the Chagres or any other stream in that part of the world. He has never been asked aS to whether the plan of the dam is the best that could be de- vised, but he says he can make an ab- solutely safe .canal on the projected line.