536 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



yet been so much as thought of; the Cape Cod cutting, though for over 

 two centuries planned for, and even partially worked, has been re- 

 garded solely in the light of a commercial venture. Of all these 

 proposed canals but one has received attention from the United States. 

 This one is the cutting of the divide between the Chesapeake Bay and 

 the Delaware Eiver. In 1894 a commission, authorized by congress 

 and appointed by the president, examined numerous routes already 

 surveyed across the Maryland-Delaware peninsula, with the result that 

 they recommended the route known as the ' Back Creek ' or ' Elk Kiver ' 

 route, the most northerly of all. Much interest had been taken in a 

 projected canal in Baltimore; but it was wholly in the light of a com- 

 mercial benefit. The advantage of the route selected — though mani- 

 fest from a military standpoint — was not perceptible to the practical 

 minds of the traders of the thrifty city. The commission had been 

 required to select that one of six or eight routes (the most southerly 

 being that known as tbe 'Choptank') which should be most advan- 

 tageous in ways of commerce as well as those of war. 



Baltimore's shippers, willing enough to admit the theoretical bene- 

 fits of the route selected from a military standpoint, declared with 

 one voice that it possessed none whatever of a commercial character. 

 It would be as well, they said, if not better, to continue to come and 

 go by the old route down the Chesapeake to the capes of Virginia. 

 There was not enough public spirit in congress to incite to action from 

 any purely military considerations; the incentive of private commer- 

 cial interest being lacking, the project dropped like lead. Ten years 

 passed, and then, at the first session of the fifty-eighth congress a bill 

 was introduced in the house of representatives, and another (at the 

 second session) in the senate, both having for object the purchase by 

 the United States of the ' chartered rights ' of the ' Chesapeake and 

 Delaware Canal,' located on the line of the so-called ' Back-Creek,' and 

 the construction of a free ship-canal thereon. Both of these bills 

 failed to get past the committees to which they were referred. Again 

 in 1905 a joint resolution (introduced by Mr. Mudd of Maryland) 

 was referred to the committee on railways and canals. It appeared 

 that this measure was likely to meet the same fate as its predecessors; 

 but interest in the project was aroused in the committee, and intel- 

 ligent scrutiny; the resolution was modified to the extent that all the 

 so-called ' southern routes ' (manifestly of no utility in a military 

 sense) were eliminated, and consideration confined to the two most 

 northerly routes — the ' Back Creek ' and the Sassafras. In this shape 

 the joint resolution passed both houses; it was approved by the presi- 

 dent, and a commission was appointed to decide which of the two 

 routes was the better, in view of ' probable cost and commercial ad- 

 vantages and military and naval uses of each,' with a view to con- 

 structing by the United States of a ' free and open waterway.' 



