THE PANAMA CANAL. 743 
line of drainage the catch of smaller watersheds, for a width of three miles each 
side of it. 
Subjecting the tributaries of the Ohio River to such control would not be 
a difficult task for the engineer corps. Obtaining the consent of the people of 
that region, would be a much harder task for the politician. In his behalf allow 
me again to quote my statesman DeWitt Clinton: "Every judicious improve- 
ment in the establishment of roads and bridges, increases the value of land, en- 
hances the price of commodities and augments the pubUc wealth." The grand 
work of his life was the Erie Canal. The statesman who will do for the Ohio 
Valley the difficult but grand object, the complete control of its water-courses, 
in behalf of the safety, the welfare, the commerce, and the beauty of a most de- 
lightful land, will deserve the lone of a grateful people. 
THE PANAMA CANAL. 
Count de Lesseps, although now seventy-nine years of age, may live long 
enough to see the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific united by means of the 
great ship-canal across the Isthmus of Panama with which his name will be for- 
ever associated. Whether he is spared to witness the completion of this, his 
greatest work or not, he will take his place in history with Fulton and Franklin 
and the other great benefactors of mankind through whose genius the possibilities 
of commercial intercourse have been indefinitely enlarged. 
The report of Lieut. Raymond P. Rogers on the progress of the work on 
the inter-oceanic canal, which the Secretary of the Navy sent to the Senate a few 
days ago, leaves little doubt but that this stupendous work will be completed 
during the present decade, and Count de Lesseps himself thinks that it will be 
ready for ships in four years. Lieut. Rogers is of the opinion, however, that 
the colossal cuts in the Culebra section cannot be made in so short a time. Al- 
though this section is only a mile and a quarter in length, nearly thirty-three 
million cubic yards of earth and rock must be removed. 
Dredging out the harbor at Aspinwall and Panama and constructing basins 
and quays at each end of the canal constitute no inconsiderable part of the work. 
A new channel for the Chagres River must also be dug along a considerable por- 
tion of the route, so that for twenty-seven miles on the Atlantic slope there will 
be practically two canals — one for ships and one to drain off the water of the 
Chagres and its tributaries. Of course this adds immensely to the cost of the 
work. 
On the Atlantic side the difficult part of the work is to drain off the super- 
fluous water, and on the Pacific side to cut through the rocky hills. In some 
places the cuts will be sixty-two feet in depth and 117 feet wide at the top. The 
cost of excavation in these cuts is from fifty-seven cents to $1.53 per cubic yard. 
From Matchin to the Pacific, a distance of about fourteen miles, these cosdy 
cuts are quite frequent. The whole length of the canal is forty-five miles, but 
