March 27, 1385.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



261 



dead for a quarter of a century, tlio Unite.l States Govern- 

 ment i-evivities the subject by a proposition to build, pi»y 

 for, and luaiutiiii a ship ciinal from Gi(Hti)«u to Brito, and 

 a treaty with Nicaragua providing for this is before the 

 Senate of the United States for continuation. 



The questions raised or suggested by the old project in 

 this new form — the feasibility of the ])lan, its probable 

 cost, when it can be completed, the engineering and climatic 

 dilficulties to be surmounted, its etlect upon the rival 

 schemes at Panamn and Tt-huautepec, theprnspects it opens 

 to the business world, the political complications it may 

 involve — are as interesting as they are numerous. 



The plan proposed is that of A. G. Menocal, civil engi- 

 neer of the United States Navy, who has been for years 

 deeply interested in the subject, aud who is now on the 

 ground with a party sent by the American Government, 

 making the final survey?. The canal is to have for its 

 Atlantic terminus the little city of San Juan de Nicaraguii, 

 or Grey Town. Thence a cut less than twenty miles 

 through easy, level country will bring the works to the Sau 

 Juan river, intersecting it at a point ju^t above the Rio 

 Colorado. The remainder of the San Juan will be utilised 

 up to its source. Lake Nicaragua, and then the course will 

 be straight across that body of water to the mouth of the 

 Del Medio river. Thence a cut of 16 33 miles brings it 

 to the waters of the Pacific. The entire length of 

 the canal, as proposed, is 181 -20 miles, and of this 

 il9o2 miles will be by lake or slack water. The 

 engineering difficulties, which are by no means extraordi- 

 nary, will, of course, be found in the remaining Gl Tl milesof 

 canal proper. In ascending the San Juan valley after 

 the river is reached, four dams in the river will be 

 needed, and three short stretches of canal must be dug to 

 get around rapids, the entire length of which will be 3 51 

 miles. These, however, and the locks they involve, pre- 

 sent no specially arduous problems. It is when the 

 farther side of the lake is reached, and the task of getting 

 down 134 ft within seventeen miles, through a moun- 

 tainous range, is confronted, that the real work begins. 

 Here there must be at least eight lockf, and for the first 

 five miles from the lake towards the Pacific the cut 

 necessary in the average will be over 100 ft. Thence on- 

 ward to the coast the work will be much lighter. At 

 their very worst, these obstacles to be overcome are small 

 and simple incom|iarison with the tasks at which M. Lesseps' 

 engineers are toiling 300 miles further south, and the 

 scientific sponsors of the Nicaragua plan laugh at them as 

 bagatelles. The work outlined above being done, nothing 

 remains but to fashion the little bay at Brito into a 

 harbour, and dredge out the harbour at Greytown. 

 Twenty-five years ago the latter was deep and good, but 

 has latterly become choked by deposits from the San 

 Juan river. This sediment, however, comes from the 

 portion < f the river below the point where the canal is 

 to tap it, and, once the haibour is cleaned, it will be 

 easy to stop the silt deposit by closing the old mouth of 

 the stream. The harbour works on buth sides will be 

 extensive and moderately costly, but not difficult. 



The whole question of cost is dealt with in fioures so 

 small, comjiared even with those which Paris stockholders 

 have already heard, to say nothing of those which soon 

 must come to their ears, that the marvel goes in studying 

 them that the canal they represent was not built long ago. 

 The lowest estimate of ex| ent-e is that of Mr. Childs, one 

 of the best engineers of his time, who conducted the sur- 

 veys of thirty odd years ago, and who reported that the 

 work would cost i!9,000,000. The present outside estimate 

 of Mr. Menocal is £13,000,000. Some of its other advo- 

 cates place the maximum cost at £16,000,000, but that is 



tho limit. Assume, as the Americana have generally in 

 canvassing tho subject, tliat £20,000,000 will, in round 

 numbers, bo rt quired before tho work is completed, and 

 there is still a very striking diflVienco between this 

 Nicaragua pnject and the Pan ana Canal. 



This did'erenco in cost is only cue of many advantages 

 that the noithern route seems to possess over M. do 

 Lesseps' Bcheme, but it is the most conspicuous. The 

 great French promoter announced in 1880, before tho 

 P.mama stock was ollVrcd in the market, that the contracts 

 had all been entered into to construct the canal for 

 500,000,000 francs (£20,000,000). In September last the 

 fourth iKs\ie "f bonds was made, representing an aggregate 

 sum of 7G8,G93,500 francs, and 30,497,740 trancs interest, 

 and yet this iudchtednets, in itself £7,000,000 above what 

 was to be tho entire cost of the canal, finds the work of 

 digging advanced one-fifth towards completion, with the 

 chances of a constant increase in the expenses as the years 

 go on. To be sure, the estimates of cost in tin: Nicaragua 

 scheme arc nothing but estimates, but they arc tlie results 

 of twenty surveys, aud of tho serious studies of many 

 experts, who have given years to the work, whereas M. de 

 Lesseps made his figures with a light heart, after a some- 

 what sanguine investigation of the ground. 



One i'liportant feature in the cost of the Pananca work, 

 and a most threatening element in its future, if it is to 

 have any future, is, of course, the excessive rainfall, and 

 the tendency of the Chagres river to violent freshets. At 

 the Paris Uanal Congress, it was shown that even a dam 

 along the most dangerous part of the river, over a mile long 

 and 140 ft. high, would not certainly protect the canal 

 from ravagps by flood, yet this oi.ly tolerable guarantee 

 would cost £0,000,000. What it will really cost to guard 

 the Panama Canal efiectively from this peril, if indeed it 

 can be done at all, no one knows, and, thus far, no attempt 

 has been made to determine. There is no such trouble in 

 Nicaragua, where the climate is equable, aud the rainfall 

 as moderate as it is in Italy. This leads naturally to the 

 consideration of the relative healthfulness of the two 

 sections. Remarks upon the hcalthfulness of Panama 

 may be as brief as the historic chapter on snakes in Ire- 

 land. It is the pest-house of the world. But a single 

 illustration is needed to show the diflerence. Of the thirty- 

 two persons who accompanied Dingier- to Panama, only 

 twenty were alive at the beginning of the second year, and 

 hundreds of the officials and workmen on the canal have 

 died annually. Of all the engineers, experts, and work- 

 men, who at one time and another have surveyed the 

 Nicaragua route, not one suffered physically from the ex- 

 perience, Nicaragua's mortality list is c .ntiderably below 

 the average of tropical countries ; that of Panama is far 

 and away tin: highest known. 



Of great importance, too, arc the facts that all the 

 material necessary for construction ( f locks, damn, ic, as 

 well as for the maintenance of the force engaged in tho 

 work, are close at hand in Nicaragua, which is not the case 

 at Panama ; and that this northern canal w(,uld not merely 

 furnish a short cut to the Pacific, but would open up for 

 trade, immigration, and investment a fertile and naturally 

 wealthy country. To conclude, the Nicaragua Canal can 

 be built within live } e irs, or long before the Panama Canal 

 is finished. 



The single objection to the project is that it involves at 

 least elevi'ii locks — and, no doubt, at first jjlince, the 

 Panama dream of a sea level cluncel, with only one tide- 

 lock, is much more alluring. But there are other things to 

 be considered, not least among them the fact that tolls on 

 the Nicaragua Canal can be cut much below half the 

 Panama charges, and bear the same relation to the invest- 



