176 THE NICARAGUA CANAL. 
knotty, perhaps impossible, problem of the Chagres 
river is still unsolved. 
Do not, I beg you, permit this showing of the Panama 
canal to influence you against any canal between the 
oceans. These facts do not surprise those who have 
studied the question. Great engineers warned Paris 
and the world of just such a disaster at the Paris con- 
gress, while they urged Nicaragua upon their atten- 
tion, as being an entirely feasible, economical engineer- 
ing project. We know why they were not listened to ; 
we know how the French clustered loyally about their 
famous de Lesseps; how he, totally ignorant of the 
topographic and climatic difficulties, flushed with suc- 
cess and impatient of contradiction would hearken to 
nothing but a French plan, executed by Frenchmen. 
Do not, therefore, let this influence your minds against 
a plan and route recognized as practicable for centuries, 
and already so closely surveyed as to leave no element 
of doubt as to its engineering qualities, its small cost, 
and its final value; for such is indeed a temperate de- 
scription of the route by way of lake Nicaragua and 
the river San Juan. 
We have now considered the three routes and methods 
before mentioned, by which the oceans may be con- 
nected: Panama, a sea-level canal, Nicaragua, a canal 
with locks, and Tehuantepec, a ship railway. 
By way of the Panama isthmus a canal with locks 
could have been constructed. It would have been ex- 
pensive; vexatious problems would have presented 
themselves in supplying water to its summit level. 
Nevertheless it was a possible, though not attractive, 
engineering problem. 
Attempts have been made, however, = disastrous at- 
tempts—to construct a canal at the level of the sea at 
this isthmus. This project, impossible as an economy, 
impracticable as an engineering scheme, has, by its 
6O 
