SKETCH OF JAMES B. EADS. 



553 



Mr. Eads claims that this system of improvement designed by him 

 is, in several respects, wholly different from any ever before proposed 

 for the treatment of a river ; it is, however, only applicable to rivers 

 flowing through alluvial deposits. 



The grandest work, however, contemplated by Mr. Eads, is the 

 ship-railway which he proposes to construct across the Isthmus of 

 Tehuantepec, for the transportation of large ships fully laden from 

 ocean to ocean. This he holds to be entirely practicable — because 

 the railway can be built wherever the canal can, at one half the cost 

 of the canal with locks, or one quarter the cost of one at tide-level ; 

 because it can be built in one third or one quarter of the time needed 

 to build a canal ; because four or five times the speed practicable 

 on a canal can be secured ; because more vessels can be carried in a 

 day over the railway than through the canal ; because the capacity 

 of the railway can be increased to suit increased needs without dis- 

 turbance ; because it will cost less to maintain and operate it than 

 to maintain and operate a canal ; because it can be built and operated 

 where the canal can not be ; because more accurate estimates can be 

 made of the cost and time needed for its construction ; and because 

 its location is the very best of all those which are proposed on the 

 American Isthmus. It is not generally known, but it is nevertheless 

 true, that the location of the ship-railway and that of the Panama 

 Canal are about twelve hundred statute miles apart, the whole immense 

 territory of Central America lying between the two. It is, therefore, 

 far superior in climate and in position to any other location. 



Besides these works, Mr, Eads has, at the request of the Govern- 

 ments and individuals particularly interested, examined and reported 

 upon the bar at the mouth of the St, John's River, Florida, the im- 

 provement of the Sacramento River, the improvement of the harbor 

 of Toronto, the improvement of the port of Vera Cruz, the improve- 

 ment of the harbor of Tampico, the improvement of the harbor of 

 Galveston, and the estuary and port of the Mersey, England, He 

 was President of the St, Louis Academy of Science for two terms, and 

 made an inaugural address in which was embodied a review of the 

 recent achievements of science, and, in another, the present knowledge 

 of the laws of light. In 1881 he made an extemporary address be- 

 fore the British Association at York, upon the improvement of the 

 Mississippi, and also upon the Tehuantepec Ship-Canal, which were, 

 by unanimous vote, ordered to be embodied in its report of the pro- 

 ceedings ; and in June, 1881, he was awarded the Albert Medal of 

 the British Society of Arts, in token of its appreciation of the services 

 he had rendered to the science of engineering — he being the first 

 American upon whom this medal had been conferred. It is now his 

 purpose to devote the remaining energies of his life, until the scheme 

 is an accomplished fact, to the prosecution of the Ship-Railway, 



