170 THE NICARAGUA CANAL. 
ceptional lift is to drop the canal at the west end of the 
summit level a distance of fifty-two feet. The dimen- 
sions and strengths of the parts of this great con- 
struction must, therefore, be specially arranged to with- 
stand great strains, but if objection is made to its size it 
is quite a simple matter to distribute this descent among 
two or three locks instead of one large one. 
It is not to be expected that estimates can be very 
exact in a great scheme of proposed work, but about 
these plans there is nothing new or strange. We have 
here a minimum of unknown quantities. The estimate 
is about fifty million dollars, and seventy-five million 
dollars is proposed for capital, but if it cost. two hun- 
million dollars, we have a tonnage in the beginning 
which will pay six per cent. upon the investment, and 
the tonnage will increase largely. There can be no 
doubt that besides the ships now needing the canal, a 
great additional commerce will be created by the exis- 
tence of such trausit. 
The scope of this paper will not permit much discus- 
sion of detail, but new advantages appear at each ex- 
amination of this locality. In the act of constructing 
the canal we are, at the same time, harnessing and 
making subservient to our needs a water power of enor- 
mous capacity; supply continuous and inexhaustible, 
with a head of one hundred ten feet of elevation. And 
this at a point where the products of the world, the raw 
materials and the manufactured, meet in their passages 
between Alaska, California, China, Australia, Peru, 
and Chili on the one hand, and Europe, Africa, and the 
United States on the other. Ata point, too, where the 
salubrity of the climate, the fertility of the surrounding 
country, will give favorable chances to great undertak- 
ings. 
What vast opportunities are here disclosed! What 
an entrepot for the coffee and sugar of Costa Rica and 
54 
