THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 37 
Mr. Warner prefaced his remarks by a short history of 
Panama. ‘This is the second oldest city in America, having 
been founded in 1515, and as early as 1555 a commission had re- 
ported on the possibility of making a waterway connecting the 
two oceans. The report which was made at the request of 
Charles V. of Spain, stated that it was an impossible undertaking 
and that there was no king powerful enough to do it. Nothing was 
heard of the proposition again until the middle of the last century. 
In 1855 the first railway was built across the isthmus. The first 
mention of a United States commission was in 1869. Mr. 
Warner referred briefly to the efforts of De Lesseps Company, 
who spent, or rather threw away, $275,000,000 on the undertaking. 
Their successors had sold out to the United States Government, 
and since then the whole plan of the undertaking is changed. A 
commission had been appointed to examine all the routes metion- 
ed, and this commission recommended that the Panama route be 
chosen provided a clear right of way could be obtained. This 
led up to the appointment of the last commission, of which 
Mr. Warner was a member, and as a result of whose labors and 
investigations the United States Government has . decided to 
abandon the old lock system of canal started by the French com- 
pany and construct a sea-level waterway. Just a day or two 
ago the first definite engineering plans for the construction of 
the Panama Canal were laid before the Isthmian Canal Commis- 
sion by the.Engineering Committee of that body, consisting of 
‘Commissioners Burr, Parsons and Davis. 
The principal recommendations were summed up in this reso- 
lution : 
That this committee approve and recommend for adoption 
by the commission a plan for a sea-level eanal, with a bottom 
width of 150 feet and a minimum depth of water of 35 feet and 
with twin tidal locks at Miraflores, whose usable dimensions shall 
be 1,000 feet long and 100 feet wide, at a total estimated cost of 
$230,500,000. ' 
Such estimate includes an allowance for administration, 
engineering, sanitation and contingencies, amounting to $38,450,- 
000, but without allowance for interest during construction, ex- 
