INTEROCEANIO CANAL. 



500 



taking. Tho sentiment was approved that tin- 

 canal should be declared absolutely neutral and 

 free to all, notwithstanding any existing state 

 of war. 



At the closing session, on the 19th of May, 

 the Congress voted in favor of tho route rec- 

 ommended by the Technical Committee. The 

 terms of tho conclusion adopted were : " Tho 

 Congress considers that the cutting of an inter- 

 oceanic canal at the tide-water level, so desir- 

 able in the interest of commerce and naviga- 

 tion, is possible; and that this ship-canal, in 

 order to secure the facilities of access and pas- 

 sage which such a channel ought indispensably 

 to afford, should take the course from tho Gulf 

 of Limon to the Bay of Panama." The plan 

 recommended by Henri Bionne was adopted 

 with greater unanimity than was expected. In 

 the division, out of 98 voters, 74 voted in favor 

 of it, and 8 against, while 16 members abstained 

 from voting. 



The routes which were submitted to the con- 

 sideration of the Congress were five in num- 

 ber: 1. The route across the Isthmus of Te- 



huantepcc, 148 miles long, and requiring 120 

 locks, taking a vessel 12 days to make tho pas- 

 sage; 2. The Nicaragua route, 180 miles in 

 length, requiring 17 locks, and taking 4$ days 

 for the passage ; for which route two projects 

 were submitted, the American plan elaborated 

 by Lull and Menocal, and one by the French 

 engineers Wyse and Reclus; 8. The route 

 across the Isthmus of Panama, length 45 miles, 

 for which the samo American engineers pro- 

 posed a canal with locks, but the French engi- 

 neers a deep tide-level cutting, with a tunnel 

 5J miles long, the plan which was adopted by 

 the Congress ; 4. The route by tho Isthmus of 

 San Bias, another project of a tide-level canal, 

 83 miles in length, and time of passage 1 day ; 

 5. The Atrato-Napipi route, with a length of 

 179 miles, requiring 3 locks, and 2 days for the 

 passage. The number of projects from which 

 the Congress had to choose was seven, or with 

 the alternate Panama plan of Wyse-Reclus, 

 eight, of which the following tabular statement 

 gives the main features of character, cost, and 

 construction : 



The Tehuantepec route lies in Mexican ter- 

 ritory, running from tho Bay of Vera Cruz in 

 the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Tehuantepeo 

 on the Pacific side. The isthmus through 

 which this route runs is extremely level and 

 low for the greater part of its breadth. Tho 

 mountainous mass of the Cordillera occupies 

 only a narrow strip on the Pacific coast. The 

 Atlantic slope is drained by the Coatzacoalcos 

 River, whose course is very sinuous, but which 

 is navigable as far as Miuatitlan, having a 

 depth of not less than 6 or 7 metres for that 

 distance, after the bar at its mouth is passed. 

 The Pacific slope is not more than 50 kilo- 

 metres in breadth, and is drained by numerous 

 small streams, which flow into a series of large 

 lagoons that extend down to the coast. Both 

 slopes are composed of alluvial soil, and are 

 easy to excavate. The mountain mass is com- 

 posed of schist and calcareous rock. At the 

 mouth of the Coatzacoalcos there is a sandy 

 shore on a substratum of stiff clay. Over the 

 bar of the river there is a depth of water of 

 4$ metres, which does not sensibly vary in tho 

 different seasons of the year. The engineer 

 Fuertes and Captain Shufeldt, commissoned by 

 the United States Government, explored this 

 route in 1871. The plan which they worked 

 out was to make tho highest level of the canal 



at the Pass of Tarifa, 223 metres above tide- 

 water, where the canal could be fed from the 

 upper course of the Coatzacoalcos with a cut- 

 ting 7 metres deep in tho pass, descending to 

 the ocean on both sides by means of 130 locks 

 divided between tho two slopes. An aqueduct 

 43 kilometres long would be necessary to con- 

 duct the water from the upper Coatzacoalcos, 

 which is here called the Corte, to the canal, 

 for which 5 kilometres of tunneling would be 

 required. The canal on the Atlantic slope 

 follows the valley of the Tarifa, then that of 

 the Chichihua to its junction with the Coatza- 

 coalcos, and, continuing along the right bank 

 of this river in the mountainous region, de- 

 parts from it afterward to rejoin it again north 

 of the Island of Tacamichapa, 50 kilometres 

 from its mouth, thence utilizing its bed down 

 to the sea. The length of the canal would be 

 280 kilometres, though tho distance to be ex- 

 ecuted would only be 230 kilometres. The 

 breadth proposed was 49 metres at the surface 

 and 18 metres at the bottom, the depth 6-6 

 metres. These dimensions, although not adapt- 

 ed to the largest ocean-going craft, were suffi- 

 cient for the American coasting vessels and for 

 nine tenths of tho other ships which would 

 use the canal. M. de Garay, who presented 

 this scheme to the Congress, suggested that it 



