The Panama Canal

ranted to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a strip ten miles wide and extending three nautical miles into the sea

anama and Colon. The works, property, and personnel of the canal and railways were exempted from taxation in the cities of Colon and Panama as well as in the actual canal zone. Free immigration of the workers and free importation of supplies for the construction and operation of the canal were granted. Provision was made for the use of military force and th

nsisting of seven members, was appointed by President Roosevelt to arrange for the conduct of the great enterpris

d sanitary works required, and to supervise the execution of the same. Fourth.-To make, and cause to be executed after due advertisement, all necessary contracts for any and all kinds of engineering and construction works. Fifth.-To acquire by purchase or through proper and uniform expropriation proceedings, to be prescribed by the commission, any private lands or other real property whose ownership by the United States is essential to the excavation and completion of the canal. Sixth.-To make all needful rules and regulations respecting an econom

905 another was appointed, which was ordered to meet at Panama quarterl

egan the battle of the levels. We have seen that the French began with the idea of a tide-level canal. The New Panama Canal Company had changed to the lock or high-level plan, but the French had not advanced in t

al follows its course inland for about 26 miles, when the river valley turns sharply north-east and the canal continues straight on to the Pacific. The Chagres is not a river to be despised. The rainfall on the isthmus is very heavy, especially on the Atlantic side, where 140 inches per annum have been recorded. The isthmian rivers are all liable to quickly-swelling floods, the Chagres at Gamboa having been known to rise 35? feet in twenty-four hours. The two different types of canal involve equally different

f a huge dam for this purpose at Bohio towards the Atlantic end of the canal, and this plan had been adopted by the first American Isthmian Commission, which issued its report in 1901. I may add that the Spooner Act, which authorized the construction of a canal, also contemplated a lock or high-level waterway. As we shall see, Bohio was not in the end adopted as the site of the big dam, but Gatun, where it is now constructed, with its concrete spillway carrying away the overflow waters of the lake down the old Chagres channel to the near Atlantic.

el. The bottom of the canal at the cutting is 40 feet, so that the vertical depth of the cut on the centre line is 272 feet. The engineers of the tide-level scheme would have had not only to excavate 85 feet deeper-that is, to 45 feet below sea-level-but to make the cutting immensely wider in order to avoid the danger of disastrous landslides. This would have meant a

constructed at high-level or sea-level. Five members were appointed by European governments, and the president was Major-General George W. Davis, forme

paying due heed to the ideal perfectibility of the scheme from an engineer's standpoint, remember the need of having a plan which shall provide for the immediate building of a canal on the safest terms and in the shortest possible time. If to build a sea-level canal will but slightly increase the risk, then, of course, it is preferable. But if to adopt the plan of a sea-level canal means to incur a hazard, and to insu

nd.-Practical certainty that the plan proposed will be fe

e amount of work should be

s practicable to take the first ship across the isthmus-that is, which will in the shortest time possible secure a Panama waterway between the oceans of such a character as to guarantee permanent and ample communication for the greatest ships of our navy and for th

mparatively high-level multi-lock canal; for a lower level, with fewer locks; and for a sea-level canal. Finally, I urge upon yo

five pronounced in favour of the sea-level scheme "as the only one giving reasonable assurance of safe and uninterrupted navigation." "Such a

fidently in favour of a high-

that it can be built in much less time; that it will afford a better navigation; that it will be adequate for all its uses for a longer time, and can

Stevens, who, quite apart from all considerations of

ard. They admitted that a sea-level canal was ideally the best, but considered that the cost of making such a canal sufficiently wide w

built in half the time and at a little more than half the cost of the canal proposed by the maj

d less danger of interruption to traffic b

ge across the isthmus for la

itself or of delays to ships from the floo

e, including fixed charges, will be les

er much more easily and cheap

cted with as little or perhaps less

of consulting engineers is a most satisfactory solution of an isthmian ca

question for final decision to Congress. I

ges. But, in my judgment, the disadvantages are fewer and the advantages very much greater in the case of a lock canal substantially as proposed in the papers forwarded herewith; and a careful study of the reports seems to establish a strong probability that the following are the facts: The sea-level canal would be slightly less exposed to damage in the event of war; the running expenses, apart from the heavy cost of interest on the amount employed to build it, would be less; and for small ships the time of transit

gress directs that a sea-level canal be constructed, its direction will, of course, be carried out. Otherwise, the canal will be built on subs

e by no means silenced. Whenever any serious difficulty occurred in the construction of the canal on the lock principle their voices were heard agai