330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In concluding these considerations, it may be remarked that it is 

 less than ever safe to try to fix at present the cost of the undertaking. 

 The company is considering the advisability of executing it upon a 

 less extensive and costly scale in certain respects. Possibly, though 

 the company has for the present decided against it, the lock plan may 

 be adopted, and, until such practical questions are finally settled it is 

 impossible to estimate the expense. 



Some may still ask, Is a canal or a ship-railway worth building, 

 after all ? Even Admiral Ammen intimated doubts as late as 1879, 

 after the decision of the Paris Congress, as to whether the time had 

 come to cut the Isthmus.* It may not be hard to satisfy ourselves on 

 this point. In a report submitted to the Navy Department in I860 

 by Admiral C. II. Davis, an estimate is given of the tonnage which 

 would have used a canal had one been in existence, as well as of the 

 loss inflicted upon commerce because of its lack.f The former esti- 

 mate is 3,094,070 tons, which agrees pretty well with the estimate of 

 the Paris Congress for the year 1879, if we assume the rate of annual 

 increase from 1866 to 1879 which the Congress adopted. Admiral 

 Davis's estimate of the loss annually experienced by commerce was 

 $49,530,208. These estimates, made over twenty years ago, would be 

 evidently too low for 1887. But even should we assume that in the 

 course of the past twenty years no increase of traffic had occurred, a 

 result sufficiently surprising would be arrived at. The loss to com- 

 merce in four years would amount to $200,000,000, about the cost 

 of the Panama Canal according to the estimate of the Paris Con- 

 gress. This simple calculation shows the importance of the work. 

 Mr. Bigelow, in his report, already quoted, says, with reference to 

 the Panama Canal, " Were all nations to contribute toward its con- 

 struction in any equitable proportion to the advantages they would 

 derive from it, the stock would be as difficult to obtain as the golden 

 apples of Atalanta." 



We have thus far supposed that the tonnage which would pay 

 dues to a canal, as well as the loss which the lack of a canal occasions, 

 has not increased for the past twenty years. It is true that Admiral 

 Davis's computation of this increase would lead us to exaggerated 

 conclusions. According to this estimate, the tonnage which would 

 use a canal would double every ten years. The estimated loss ex- 

 According to this dispatch, Lieutenant Rogers states in his report that the company did 

 as much work during the past year as it had done in all the preceding years which 

 seems to be an exaggeration. While he doubts somewhat that the present company will 

 be able to complete the undertaking, he thinks the ultimate completion of it is certain, 

 and he considers it better to finish the Panama Canal than to spend money on the Nica- 

 ragua project. 



* " The American Interoceanic Ship-Canal Question," by Admiral Ammen, p. 66. 



f These computations, as well as an estimate of the supposed rate of tonnage in- 

 crease, were originally made by Frederick M. Kelley and published in a pamphlet in 1859. 

 They are incorporated by Admiral Davis into his report. 



