790 report — 1884. 



tial persons can doubt the justice of the conclusion of the late Admiral Becher and 

 of Mr. Major as to its identity ; there are difficulties in the interpretation of 

 Columbus' log on any hypothesis, but there is one little ' undesigned coincidence ' 

 which to my mind goes far to carry conviction. Columbus, when he sighted land, 

 was greatly in want of water, and he continued cruising about among the small 

 islands in search of it for some days. Clearly, therefore, the laguna on Guauahani 

 was not a fresh-water lake ; nor is the lagoon on "Watling Island fresh water, and 

 so it exactly meets the case. 



6. The report of Lieutenant Raymond P. Rodgers, of the United States Navy, on 

 the state of the canal works at Panama so lately as January 25 last, which has 

 doubtless been eagerly read by many present, leaves me little to say on that great 

 enterprise. Perhaps the following official returns of the amount of excavation 

 effected in cubic metres (a cubic metre is P308 cubic yards) will enable the 

 audience to realise its progress : — 



1883 



The total quantity of excavation to be done in a length of 4G-6 miles is esti- 

 mated at 100 millions of cubic metres, but the rapid augmentation of quantity 

 shows that the limit has not been attained. This is no place to speak of the 

 stimulus given by this great work to mechanical invention or the gigantic power 

 of the machines employed, which will probably receive attention in another section, 

 but I may mention the two great problems which still await solution. The first 

 is how to deal with the waters of the river Chagres; the second is how to manage 

 a cutting nearly 400 ft. deep (110 m. to 120 m.). The Chagres is a river as large 

 as the Seine, but subject to great fluctuations of volume ; it cuts the line of the 

 canal nearly at right angles, and for obvious reasons it is impossible to let it flow 

 into it. It is proposed to arrest the stream by an enormous dyke at Gainboa, 

 near the divide. It will cross a valley between two hills, and be 1,050 yards long 

 at the bottom, 2,110 yards at the top, 110 yards thick at the hase, and 147 ft. in 

 greatest height. Out of the reservoir so constructed it is proposed to lead the 

 overflow by two artificial channels, partly utilising the old hed. The cutting will 

 be nearly 500 ft. wide at the top (150 m.), with sides at a slope of \. It is pro- 

 posed to attack it by gangs or parties working on twelve different levels at the 

 same time, one each side of the summit, dividing the width at each level into 

 five parallel sections. Thus there will be 120 gangs at work together, and it is 

 confidently hoped that the whole will be really finished in 1888, the date long 

 since assigned for its completion by M. de Les3eps. There is practically no other 

 project now competing with it : for the proposed routes by the Isthmus of 

 Tehuantepec, the Atrato, and San Blav may be regarded as almost universally 

 given up ; both the latter would involve the construction of ship tunnels on a 

 scale to daunt the boldest engineer. The so-called Caledonia route has not stood 

 the test of examination. There remains but the Nicaragua route, and this, while 

 practicable enough, has failed to attract capitalists, and is environed by political 

 and other difficulties, which would leave it, if completed, under many disadvantages 

 as compared with its rival. Among the latter must be named the necessity for 

 rising by locks to the level of the Lake of Nicaragua (108 feet). 



It is very tempting to speculate on the probable consequences of bringing the 

 Hispano-Indian republics bordering on the Pacific into such early contact with the 

 energies of the Old World, but these speculations belong to politics rather than 

 geography ; moral transformations, we know, are not effected so easily as the 

 conquest over physical difficulties. 



7. Let us now turn to another quarter. This meeting cannot fail to share the 

 pride and satisfaction with which the Royal Geographical Society regards the 

 execution by Mr. Joseph Thomson of the important missions intrusted to him last 

 year, in East Africa, and to share my regret also, that he is not here to receive 



