504 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI , No. 148. 



The Eio Grande and Rio Obispo cross the canal 

 eleven and seventeen times respectively, and 

 hence must be diverted, calling for thirty miles of 

 new channels. The most formidable obstacle, 

 however, and one which leads many engineers to 

 doubt the possibihty of the maintenance, if not 

 the construction, of the canal, is the controlling of 

 the tremendous floods of the upper Chagres, — a 

 stream which, in the dry season, has a depth of 

 but two feet, but which, in the rainy season, be- 

 comes a raging mountain torrent, rising sometimes 

 in a few hours to a height of forty feet, and 

 sweeping down immense quantities of debris. The 

 projected line of the canal is first crossed by it at 

 Gamboa, at an elevation of about fifty feet above 

 the bottom of the canal ; from Gamboa to the sea 

 the canal is crossed by it twenty-nine times. It is 

 evident that some most substantial and expensive 

 works are needed to restrain or divert the flood 

 waters of the Chagres, or the canal will be ruined 

 by its irruption. An immense dam of masonry or 

 earth, or of both materials, has been proposed, 

 near Gamboa, a mile in length and from 150 to 

 200 feet high at its highest point, to impound and 

 store uj) the flood in an artificial lake, from which 

 it shall escape more gi-adually through sluices and 

 channels provided for the purpose. The storage 

 capacity of this reservoir is estimated at 6,000,- 

 000,000 cubic metres, which is not too much for a 

 watershed on which a depth of five and one-half 

 inches of rain has been known to fall in four and 

 one-half hours. The occurrence of a second tropi- 

 cal rain, before the first has had time to drain away, 

 might be disastrous. This diflicult problem, which 

 was pointed out and dwelt upon by some of the 

 delegates to the congress, but was apparently 

 passed lightly over by the majority, seems still to 

 be unsolved at the hands of the French engineers, 

 although the completion of its study has been 

 promised from year to year. 



The Panama railroad was purchased by the 

 canal company ; dwellings, hospitals, and work- 

 shops were erected ; dredges, machinery, and tools 

 were procured ; and excavating was begun. Con- 

 siderable earth and some rock have been removed. 

 Rapid progress has been promised from time to time, 

 but has not been attained ; 2,000,000 cubic metres 

 per month were hoped for, but 800,000 cubic 

 metres have not been removed in any one month, 

 and from 1881 up to May, 1885, the amount was 

 only 12,376,000 cubic metres. The amount of 

 material to be moved was first placed at 46,000,000 

 cubic metres, then 75,000,000 cubic metres, has 

 now sweUed to 125,000,000 cubic metres, and 

 good judges believe this quantity to be much 

 too low. M. de Lesseps has raised amounts as 

 follows : 50 per cent on the shares of the com- 



pany, 147,500,000 francs ; loan of 1882, 125,000,000 

 francs ; loan of 1883, 300,000,000 francs ; and 

 loan of 1884, 193,692,500 francs ; making, in all, 

 766,192,500 francs. He has now applied to the 

 French government for permission to issue new 

 canal bonds to the amount of 600,000,000 francs, 

 and proposes to call to his aid a lottery. A further 

 caU on the shareholders is also to be made. Dis- 

 count and interest charges will amount to a 

 formidable sum. One observer puts the time re- 

 quired to finish the canal at six years, another at 

 twelve, and still others at twenty and even fifty 

 years. Mr. Rodrigues fortifies his statements by 

 citations from oflicial documents, and from re- 

 ports of U. S. officers and others, who have 

 repeatedly inspected the progress of the work. 

 He does not hesitate to predict the failure and 

 bankruptcy of the present company within a short 

 time. 



The author devotes considerable space to the 

 political aspects of the question, the stand which 

 the United States has taken in the matter, the 

 Monroe doctrine and the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 

 and the serious complications which may ensue if 

 the French government shall take up officially the 

 enterprise upon the failure of the canal company. 

 The chapters given to the discussion of these 

 topics are of great interest ; but space will not 

 allow a review of them here, even if it was appro- 

 priate for these pages. 



HYPNOTISM. 

 Psychology is the last of the sciences to 

 pass from the popular and Hterary stage to the 

 technical. Time was when physics and chemistry 

 were discovering facts of so flagrant and 

 fundamental a nature, that fine ladies could 

 be startled and entertained by accounts of 

 them at dinner-parties. We have seen, in the 

 last decade, biology present, in the Darwinian 

 theory, what probably will be its last popularly 

 interesting conception, and then plunge into such 

 a labyrinth of embryological and other technical- 

 ities as only dry specialists can tread with her. 

 Psychology even now trembles on the brink. 

 Some departments are already quite intractable to 

 literary handling ; space perception, the measure- 

 ments of various discriminations, and those of 

 the time required by elementary mental processes, 

 for example. But stiU much remains in psy- 

 chology for the amateur of our generation to 

 enjoy, and it is not yet impossible for treatises 

 with some literary flavor to be written in that 

 science. But the time is short ; we seem on the 

 verge of fundamental discoveries, and when they 

 are made we must bid adieu to the simple charm, 

 the easily verified facts. Work will be carried on 



