Vol. XVI, No. 10 WASHINGTON October, 1905 



6 



THE 



ATIOMAIL 

 ©(3MAIPMQ 

 MSAM 



O 



THE PANAMA CANAL* 



By Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester, U. S. N. 

 Superintendent U. S. Naval Observatory 



IT is not the purpose of this address to 

 go into the history of canal explo- 

 ration or exploitation. There are 

 a number of routes available for uniting 

 the two oceans which wash the American 

 Continent, and there is still a divergence 

 of opinion as to which is the best locality 

 for building the canal. Several routes 

 have good points, and it has been only 

 by a discussion of the pros and cons, 

 weighted for their relative values, that a 

 final conclusion has been reached as to 

 which is the best. Many years ago this 

 process eliminated all but two of the 

 routes — Panama and Nicaragua — from 

 serious consideration. 



THE PROMINENT PART TAKEN BY THE 

 U. S. NAVY 



The work of solving the canal problem 

 has fallen largely on the Navy of the 

 United States. Company after company 

 has been formed for the exploration of 

 the different sections which it seemed 

 desirable to examine, but in each and 

 every case they came to the government 

 for assistance, and their requests were 

 referred to the Navy Department. Fi- 



nally the government itself took up the 

 matter and put it under naval control. 

 The selection of the navy to perform 

 this work was a wise and economic pol- 

 icy. Its officers are educated at a scien- 

 tific school and drilled in surveying the 

 coasts of the United States as well as in 

 making surveys in all parts of the w r orld 

 covered by the voyages of naval vessels, 

 as required by the following extract from 

 the U.S. Naval Regulations, viz:- ''He" 

 (the captain) "shall, when his duties 

 and other circumstances permit, make a 

 careful survey and construct a chart of 

 any shoals, harbors, or dangers to navi- 

 gation that he may discover or find inac- 

 curately located." Such duties make 

 the naval officer well fitted for the work 

 of exploration. Not only was this an 

 enforced duty on the navy, however, 

 but willing hands were found who sought 

 to carry the American flag into and 

 across the inhospitable and almost im- 

 penetrable forests which abound in the 

 tropical regions, where Nature herself 

 has almost built a canal. 



While many spasmodic efforts were 

 made to cut the Gordian knot, about the 



*An address to the National Geographic Society, March 10, 1905. 



