The Panama Canal 



447 



6th of October, 1876, Wyse had been au- 

 thorized by a society called the ' ' Societe 

 Internationale du Canal Interoceanique' ' 

 to proceed to Central America for the pur- 

 pose of exploration. His examinations 

 were begun on the Pacific coast about 

 the middle of December, 1876, and ter- 

 minated in the first part of April, 1877, 

 a period of not more than four months, 

 during which time no part of the expe- 

 dition penetrated as far as the Atlantic 

 coast. The party, under the charge of 

 Lieutenant Reclus, spent from April 3 

 to April 20, 1878, making a survey of 

 the valleys of the Obispo, Chagres, and 

 Rio]Grande, along the lineof the Panama 

 railroad, the level-lines and cross-sections 

 being run up only to the extremities of 

 the then proposed tunnel, and not con- 

 tinuing over the divide. 



Armed with this incomplete record 

 concerning the Panama route, but with 

 a concession for building a canal which 

 embraced the whole country of the United 

 Statesof Colombia, thusincluding all the 

 proposed routes except Nicaragua and 

 Tehuantepec, Wyse reported to his com- 

 pany in Paris. 



On the 15th of May, 1879, an inter- 

 national conference was held at Paris 

 under the auspices of the Paris Geo- 

 graphical Society. The conference was 

 composed of 136 members, of whom 74 

 were of other nationalities. The con- 

 ference, which was controlled by the 

 great engineer Count Ferdinand de Les- 

 seps, who had just built the Suez Canal, 

 after mature consideration, but consider- 

 ation wherein political elements largely 

 predominated, finally concluded as fol- 

 lows: ''The conference deem the con- 

 struction of an interoceanic canal so de- 

 sirable, in the interest of commerce and 

 navigation, as possible; and in order to 

 have the indispensable facilities of ease 

 of access and use, which a work of this 

 kind should offer before all others, it 

 should be built from the Gulf of Limon to 

 the Bay of Panama." Thus the Panama 

 railroad was a prime factor in inducing 



the Paris conference toselect the Panama 

 Isthmus as the location for a canal. The 

 company which built the railroad held 

 a concession from the Colombian govern- 

 ment dated June 28, 1848. The con- 

 cession, in a slightly different form, had 

 lapsed from a French company which 

 had been unable to control the capi- 

 tal stock, and the grant was revived in 

 favor of Henry Aspinwall, John Lloyd 

 Stevens, Henry Chauncey, and their 

 associates under the name of the Pan- 

 ama Railroad Company, an organization 

 which later, in 1849, was incorporated 

 by the legislature of the state of New 

 York. Under this grant the company 

 constructed the road, and on the 27th 

 of January, 1855, it was completed and 

 the first passenger train passed over the 

 track. 



DE LESSEPS' COMPANY 



A company, of which de Lesseps be- 

 came president, was soon formed for the 

 construction a tide-level canal, and be- 

 cause of the prestige of its chief it was an 

 easy matter to obtain subscriptions to its 

 stock. Unfortunately, among the stock- 

 holders there was a large element of the 

 poorer classes in France, who believed 

 that de Lesseps would make a fortune 

 for them out of their small holdings, and 

 many of them sacrificed their little all in 

 the scheme. The capital stock of the 

 company of 300,000,000 francs ($60, 000- 

 000) was soon half taken up and work 

 began on the construction of the canal. 

 Wyse expected to be named as director 

 general of the canal, but failing to se- 

 cure what he considered his rights, a 

 coolness sprang up between him and the 

 president of the company which was 

 anything but favorable to the work. 

 Finally, in 1881, M. Reclus initiated the 

 enterprise and began clearing theground, 

 assembling the plant, and constructing 

 buildings, hospitals, etc. But troubles 

 grew more rapidly than did the canal. 

 No well- developed plans had been pre- 

 pared, and in fact hardly any one knew 



