386 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



While keeping honorably the name of Commander Selfridge in our 

 thoughts, with all regret we must put out of sight a plan the success 

 of which is at best doubtful, while its cost would be relatively enor- 

 mous. 



Shall we now take up the San Bias project ? This line is the short- 

 est which joins the two oceans, but to carry it out a harbor must be 

 built on the Atlantic, and then you soon find yourself facing a moun- 

 tain-chain which has to be passed by a tunnel sixteen kilometres long ; 

 next you come to the Bayano, with elbows in its course too square to 

 be straightened out, and a bar also on the Pacific side, which it is not 

 certain could be mastered. The expense calculated for all this is four- 

 teen hundred million francs. 



The plan of a tunnel does not frighten M. Favre,* the contractor 

 of the one through the St. Gothard Mountain, nor would it frighten 

 me, especially if he were willing to undertake it ; but shipmasters do 

 not take kindly to so long a passage without fresh air and the light of 

 day ; and, although it is proposed to give electric light instead, which 

 will be as bright as day, there would still be an unconquerable antipa- 

 thy against this project. 



For these reasons I decline to accept the San Bias plan, which, 

 moreover, has only been hastily surveyed, and it is possible that a more 

 careful examination of it would bring to light other difliculties of which 

 we are not now cognizant. 



Therefore, throwing out other plans, we find ourselves in a position 

 to examine the j^roject of a tide-level canal from Colon (Aspinwall) to 

 Panama, a project which has been so patiently and courageously ex- 

 plored and worked out by Messrs. Wyse and Reclus, lieutenants of 

 the French navy. 



This plan demands two changes, important and absolutely neces- 

 sary, the success of which, while not easy, seems to me perfectly 

 certain. 



In the first place, a large part of the ship-canal must be made in the 

 valley of the river Chagres, a river so inconvenient and dangerous 

 that we must have nothing to do with it, at no matter what cost, if we 

 desire that the canal should have a regular water-level — a condition 

 absolutely necessaiy for its success. 



For this, two plans offer themselves. The first is to keep the canal 

 above any possibilities of overflow. Theoretically, nothing is easier ; 

 the railroad, now in operation between Colon (Aspinwall) and Panama, 

 which the canal should follow, and as near as possible, is above the over- 

 flow of the Chagres. By prolonging the level of this roadway to the 

 sides of the valley a winding line would be traced, bringing us to the 

 place beyond which the canal can be constructed, without danger from 



* This great engineer died at his post in the St. Gothard Tunnel, from a stroke of apo- 

 plexy, a short time after the adjournment of the Paris Congress, of which he was one of 

 the most valued members. 



