November 7, 1884. 



SCIENCE. 



435 



through Baffin's Bay to the Navigator, — a ves- 

 sel which had entered the ice through Bering 

 Strait, and saved the crew of the latter from 

 starvation ; thus for the first time solving the 

 north-west passage, and proving it impractica- 

 ble for commerce. Later, he was the first to 

 enter Suez on the locomotive from Cairo, and, 

 with the late Robert Stephenson, made a careful 

 study of the isthmus, and of the hydrographic 

 qualifications of the harbors at Suez and Port 

 Said. Subsequently he spent three seasons, 

 with a large staff at great labor and expense, in 

 making a profile of the Nicaragua route from 

 Greytown, through Lake Nicaragua, to the 

 Pacific Ocean. 



Count de Lesseps proposes to make the Pana- 

 ma canal broad enough and deep enough to 

 allow the passage of the largest ships from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific. Mr. Eads proposes to 

 construct a canal and railwa}' across the Tehuan- 

 tepec route, and, in cradles adjusted to large 

 cars, to carry the vessels from ocean to ocean 

 over this railway ; while Capt. Pirn's project 

 is to dig a canal eight feet in depth, to raise 

 the vessels by Irydraulic lifts, and float them 

 into a shallow dock on pontoons drawing six 

 feet of water, claiming that in this way a 

 vessel can cross the isthmus as quickly as hy 

 a deep-water canal, and that, by clearing the 

 ship's bottom of barnacles during the passage, 

 a further saving of time ma}' be effected. 



Capt. Pirn objects to the Panama route on the 

 grounds that the difference in the height of the 

 water at Aspinwall and Panama will render it 

 difficult, and without locks impossible, for ves-. 

 sels to enter and leave the canal ; that Panama 

 is within the equatorial calm-belt, where the 

 periodical calms continue ten or eleven months 

 in the }'ear (his own vessel, the Herald, was 

 towed 700 miles from the land before reach- 

 ing a breath of wind) , and that on this account 

 it will take a longer time for sailing-vessels to 

 go to San Francisco by the Panama canal than 

 by Cape Horn. 



He says, that, when the Panama railwa}' was 

 built, it was expected that large quantities of 

 oil would be shipped over it ; but no whaler 

 has ever reached Panama. He estimates that 

 the cost of this route will be not less than 

 §150,000,000, or nearly twice as much as that 

 of the Nicaragua route, the U. S. engineers 

 estimating the cost of the latter at $82,000,000. 

 The proposed route through Nicaragua (see 

 the accompanying chart) is by a canal from 

 Greytown to a dam to be constructed on the 

 San Juan River, from there, by the river, to 

 Lake Nicaragua, across the lake, and thence 

 by a canal to the Pacific Ocean, making a total 



distance of 173.57 miles. The surface of Lake 

 Nicaragua is 107 feet above the level of the 

 Atlantic, and the height of the land between 

 the lake and the Pacific is 147.7 feet, requir- 

 ing a cut of 40 feet to bring the canal to the 

 lake-level. This necessitates a series of five 

 locks between the Atlantic and Nicaragua, and 

 seven between the lake and the Pacific. There 

 was formerly an excellent harbor at Gre} T town, 

 but it was filled up by the silt coming down the 

 river ; and at present there are no good ports on 

 either side of the route, though it is believed 

 that the}' can be constructed at a moderate ex- 

 pense. It is proposed to change the course 

 of the river so as to prevent the silt from com- 

 ing down, and then to excavate the harbor at 

 Greytown ; while at Brito, on the Pacific coast, 

 a harbor can be made by the construction of 

 two breakwaters. 



Nicaragua is 600 miles nearer San Francisco 

 than Panama ; and, as stated, sailing-vessels 

 from the latter must make a long detour in 

 order to obtain the advantage of the monsoons ; 

 making a difference of 2,100 miles, or fourteen 

 days, in favor of Nicaragua, though on the re- 

 turn trip the difference is only about 600 miles, 

 or four days. Although tonnage by steamers is 

 increasing, } T et at the present time the tonnage 

 of sailing-vessels largely exceeds that of steam- 

 ers. The tonnage of sailing-vessels in 1877, in 

 the United States, was twice as great as that 

 of steam-vessels, though at the present time it 

 is only one-third more. 



The difference in favor of the route from 

 Nicaragua to Japan, China, and the Sandwich 

 Islands, is over 800 miles, while on the return 

 it is only 600 miles, and to India and Aus- 

 tralia, 400 miles. It is also stated that vessels 

 can sail in a shorter time from Nicaragua to 

 Valparaiso and Callao, than from Panama, al- 

 though the distance is considerably greater. 

 The saving for steamers, however, will not be 

 nearly so great, amounting onl} r to the direct 

 distance between the two Pacific termini ; that 

 is, about 1,300 miles for the round trip between 

 Panama and San Francisco, or five daj's in a 

 ten-knot steamer. 



The committee appointed by our government 

 in 1877, consisting of Gen. A. A. Humphrey's 

 (chief of engineers), Capt. C. P. Patterson 

 (superintendent of the U.S. coast-surve}') , and 

 Commodore Daniel Ammen, ' after a long, 

 careful, and minute study' of the several sur- 

 ve}'s of the various routes across the continent, 

 reported unanimously in favor of the Nicaragua 

 route as possessing " greater advantages, and 

 offering fewer difficulties from engineering, com- 

 mercial and economic points of view, than any 



