310 THE PROPOSED AMERICAN INTEROCEANIC CANAL 



even thousands of millions of dollars are continually being 

 secured for commercial and industrial enterprises of merit. 



When M. de Lesseps visited this country in the year 1880 I 

 was invited by the American Society of Civil Engineers in my 

 then official capacity as Chief of the Bureau of Statistics in the 

 Treasury Department to compute the amount of tonnage which 

 would probably pass through an American interoceanic canal. 

 This I did, under an order of the Secretary of the Treasury, in- 

 vestigating the available sources of geographic, economic, and 

 commercial information. The work was one of considerable 

 magnitude. It was begun in the month of February and com- 

 pleted in the month of August, 1880. I reported a possible ton- 

 nage of 1,625,000 tons per annum for any one of the proposed 

 canals. Since the year 1880 seven transcontinental lines and 

 parts of lines have been completed, the facilities for transporta- 

 tion by rail have been greatly increased, there has been an enor- 

 mous development of transcontinental traffic, and, as alread}^ 

 shown, rates have greatly fallen. In a word, the general trend 

 of the evolution of transportation facilities during the last twenty 

 years has been in the direction of reducing the possible tonnage 

 of any American interoceanic canal. From a computation based 

 upon all the controlling conditions of the present day, I con- 

 clude that not more than 400,000 tons of shipping annually can 

 be confidently expected to pass through any such canal. The 

 receipts of any American interoceanic canal from tolls would 

 therefore be insufficient to meet the expenses of its maintenance 

 and administration, with nothing for interest on cost of construc- 

 tion, amounting probably to eight million dollars a year. 



During the last ten years I have from time to time plead for 

 a thorough and impartial investigation of the economic and com- 

 mercial aspects of the proposed American interoceanic canal 

 project by a commission upon which there should be placed no 

 advocate or opponent of any one of the proposed schemes, and 

 now through The National Geographic Magazine I submit 

 to the criticism and impartial judgment of geographers, econ- 

 omists, and students of commercial problems throughout the 

 world my conception of the nature and scope of a proper gov- 

 ernmental inquiry, and the main facts and conditions upon 

 which such inquiry should be based. 



