THE PANAMA CANAL. 329 



Before leaving Mr. Bigelow's exposition of errors, into which un- 

 less upon our guard we might perhaps he led, it may be observed that 

 his report, prepared after a personal inspection of the work, is one of 

 the most judicial documents published upon the subject ; and those 

 desirous of forming an impartial estimate would do well to acquaint 

 themselves with it. To indicate the importance attached by Mr. Bige- 

 low to the completion of the work we may cite the passage which 

 follows. He observes that the French, especially people of moderate 

 means, possess for several reasons extraordinary faith in De Lesseps ; 

 partly because they know that De Lesseps does not " job " with the 

 securities of the undertaking ; partly because of the financial success 

 of the Suez Canal ; and partly because the completion of the Panama 

 Canal under De Lesseps's auspices " would rank among the half-dozen 

 largest contributions ever made to the permanent glory of France." 



These references to Mr. Bigelow's report may be supplemented by 

 an extract or so from the latest report made to our Government on 

 the subject, the "Special Intelligence Report" of Lieutenant W. W. 

 Kimball, United States Navy, who inspected the works about the 

 same time as Mr. Bigelow, early in 1886.* Lieutenant Kimball says : 

 " That with a sufficient expenditure of money, time, brains, energy, 

 and human life, the canal can be finished, is self-evident, but it would 

 be idle for me to attempt to estimate the necessary quantity of all or 

 any of them. Too many of the prime data for calculation are un- 

 known quantities." 



If such a statement on the part of Lieutenant Kimball makes us 

 cautious in accepting the present, or at least recent, estimate of the 

 company as to ultimate cost, 1,200,000,000 francs, it may make us 

 equally cautious in accepting the pessimistic, larger estimates which 

 appear from time to time. 



As regards the plans Lieutenant Kimball says, " As might be ex- 

 pected of the work of the eminent engineers who have made the plans, 

 the design is almost above criticism." 



With reference to the proposed dam at Gamboa, by which the 

 freshets of the Chagres River are to be controlled, a work as to whose 

 impracticability or insufficiency much has been said, the writer ob- 

 serves, " The engineering difficulties are to me not at all patent." 



This exhaustive report is not without strictures upon the course of 

 the company in certain cases. Lieutenant Kimball, in particular, is 

 disposed to think, while holding that the plans for the control of the 

 Chagres River are practicable enough, that their execution has been 

 unadvisedly delayed ; floods have at certain points carried into the 

 excavation fresh deposits which will require to be re-excavated. f 



* The writer is indebted to Lieutenant Kimball for permission to make use of the 

 proofs of his report. 



f Since the above was written, a dispatch from Washington states that an inspection 

 of the canal was made in March by another officer of our navy, Lieutenant C. C. Rogers. 



