12010	----	The Fourth-Dimensional Reaches of the Exposition San Francisco, 1915 By Cora Lenore Williams, M. S. Author of "As If" and Essays on "Involution" Paul Elder and Company Publisher - San Francisco Copyright, 1915 By Paul Elder and Company San Francisco To My Father and Mother Contents Lines on "Fourth-Dimensional Insight" by Ormeida Curtis Harrison. (Tissue Facing Frontispiece.) A Fourteenth Century Legend Essay on the Fourth-Dimensional Reaches of the Exposition. By Cora Lenore Williams: General Status of the Fourth-Dimensional Theory Fourth-Dimensional Aspects of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition Bibliography: Books and Poems having Fourth-Dimensional Insight Illustrations An Unborn Space. The Court of Four Seasons. From an etching by Gertrude Partington (Frontispiece) A Structure Brave. Palace of Fine Arts. From an etching by Gertrude Partington A Building Inside Out. The Court of Ages. From an etching by Gertrude Partington A Four-Dimensional Cover Design. By Julia Manchester Mackie. (Cover.) Time is, and all the detail of the world confounds The plastic mind. With multitude of shapes and sounds Do the swift elements of thought contend To form a whole which life may comprehend. Only to those of high intent Is life revealed, and quick dreams sent - Half glimpsed truths omnipotent. Out of the silence of an unborn space A spirit moves, and thought comes face to face With the immutable, and time is past, And the spent soul, done, meets truth at last. Chance, fate, occasion, circumstance, In interfused radiance Are lost. Past, present, future, all combined In one sure instantaneous grasp of mind, And all infinity unrolls at our command, And beast and man and God unite, as worlds expand. - Ormeida Curtis Harrison. A Fourteenth Century Legend Friar Bacon, reading one day of the many conquests of England, bethought himself how he might keep it hereafter from the like conquests and so make himself famous to all posterity. This (after great study) he found could be no way so well done as one; which was to make a head of brass, and if he could make this head to speak (and hear it when it spoke) then might he be able to wall all England about with brass. To this purpose he got one Friar Bungey to assist him, who was a great scholar and magician (but not to be compared to Friar Bacon); these two with great study and pains so formed a head of brass that in the inward parts thereof there was all things like as in a natural man's head. This being done they were as far from perfection of the work as they were before, for they knew not how to give those parts that they had made motion, without which it was impossible that it should speak. Many books they read, but yet could not find out any hope of what they sought, that at the last they concluded to raise a spirit and to know of him that which they could not attain by their own studies. The spirit straight obeyed, and appeared unto them, asking what they would. He told them that with a continual fume of the six hottest simples it should have motion, and in one month space speak: the time of the month: or the day he knew not. Also he told them that if they heard it not before it had done speaking, all their labor should be lost. Then went these two learned Friars home again and prepared the simples ready and made the fume, and with continual watching attended when this Brazen Head should speak. Thus watched they for three weeks without any rest, so that they were so weary and sleepy that they could not any longer refrain from rest. Then called Friar Bacon his man Miles, and told him that it was not unknown to him what pains Friar Bungey and himself had taken for three weeks space only to make and to hear the Brazen Head speak, which if they did not, then had they lost all their labor, and all England had a great loss thereby. Therefore he entreated Miles that he would watch whilst that they slept and call them if the head spake. 'Fear not (good master), I will harken and attend, upon the head and if it do chance to speak, I will call you; therefore, I pray take you both your rest and let me alone for watching this head.' * * * * At last, after some noise, the Head spake these two words: 'Time is.' Miles, hearing it to speak no more, thought his master would be angry if he waked him for that, and therefore he let them both sleep and began to mock the Head in this manner: 'Thou Brazen-faced Head, hath my master took all this pains about thee and now dost thou requite him with two words, "Time is"?' * * * * After half an hour had past, the Head did speak again two words which were these: 'Time was.' Miles respected these words as little as he did the former and would not wake his master, but still scoffed at the Brazen Head, that it had learned no better words, and have had such a tutor as his master; * * * * '"Time was!" I knew that, Brazen-face, without your telling. I knew Time was and I know what things there was when Time was, and if you speak no wiser, no master shall be waked for me.' * * * * * * * * The Brazen Head spake again these words: 'Time is past'; and therewith fell down and presently followed a terrible noise, with strange flashes of fire, so that Miles was half dead with fear. At this noise the two Friars waked and wondered to see the whole room so full of smoke, but that being vanished, they might perceive the Brazen Head broken and lying on the ground. At this sight they grieved, and called Miles to know how this came. Miles, half dead with fear, said that it fell down of itself and that with the noise and fire that followed he was almost frightened out of his wits. Friar Bacon asked him if it did not speak. 'Yes,' quoth Miles, 'it spake, but to no purpose.' General Status of the Fourth-Dimensional Theory The human mind has so long followed its early cow-paths through the wilderness of sense that great hardihood is required even to suggest that there may be other and better ways of traversing the empirical common. So it is that the fear of being proclaimed a Brazenhead has restrained me until this eleventh hour from telling of my discoveries concerning the fourth-dimensional reaches of our Exposition. That I have the courage now is due to my desire to help in its preservation; not to the end of enclosing it in a brass wall, but to lift it out of the realm of things temporal and give it permanent meaning for our thought and aspiration. Would we save our Exposition from the ravages of Time we have to exorcise that monster with the enigmatical utterances of the aforesaid Brazen Head. The philosophers are telling us that Time is the fourth dimension in the process of evolving for our consciousness. I take it that there are three stages in this evolution; the first, that of immediate experience, is subsumed by the phrase 'Time is'; the second is a passing from the concrete to the abstract through the fact that 'Time was'; and the glory of the last is visioned only when we can say 'Time is past.' While many books have been written descriptive of the Exposition, none has succeeded in accounting completely for the joy we have in yonder miracle of beauty. And this through no fault of the writers. When all has been said concerning plan and execution there is still a subtle something not spatialized for consciousness. Length, breadth, and height do not suffice to set forth the ways of our delight in it. What of this perceptual residue? Obviously to give it extension we shall have to ascribe to reality other dimensions than those of our present sense realm. Some disciple of Bergson interrupts: 'Ah, this whereof you speak is a spiritual thing and as such is given by the intuition. Why, then, do you seek to spatialize it?' And the layman out of his mental repugnance to things mathematical echoes, 'Why?' We have to answer that the process of creative evolution makes imperative the transfixion by the intellect of these so-called spiritual perceptions. Although the intuition transcends the intelligence in its grasp of beauty and truth, we may attain to the higher insight it has to offer only if the things of the spirit become known to the intellect - a point in Bergson's philosophy which the majority of his readers overlook. 'We have,' he says, 'to engender the categories of our thought; it is not enough that we determine what these are.' Bergson is preeminently the prophet of the higher space concept. We had done better to have held to Kant, for now we are not only confronted with the fourth dimension as a thought-form, but with the duty as well of furthering its creation. And in that light we have to regard what of worth and meaning the Exposition has for us. Although the scientist has found it useful on occasion to postulate the fourth dimension, he has not thought necessary as yet to put it in the category of reality; much less has the layman. Consequently the mathematician holds the sole title to its knowledge unless we recognize the claims of the medium to a fourth-dimensional insight. There is much, however, today which points to our coming to such perception as the natural result of our evolution and quite apart from geometrical abstractions or occultism. It is as though some great tidal wave had swept over space and we have, quite unbeknown to ourselves, been lifted by it to new heights. And when we have once obtained our spiritual balance we shall doubtless find that our space world has taken to itself another direction, inconceivable as that now seems. Space is more than room wherein to move about; it is, first of all, the room in which we think, and upon how we do so depends the number of its dimensions. If the attention has become 'riveted to the object of its practical interest' to the extent that this is the only good the creature knows, then is its thought-form one-dimensional even though its bodily movements are three-spaced. The great Peacock Moth wings a sure course mateward to the mystification of the scientist; the dog finds the direct road home - his master cannot tell how; Mary Antin climbs to an education over difficulties apparently insurmountable; Rockefeller knows his goal and attains it, regardless of other moral worths. For these the way is certain. They can suffer no deflection since there are no relative values, no possible choices. Their purpose makes the road one-dimensional. That the majority of persons are still feeling their way over the surface of things is attested by the general mental ineptitude for the study of solid geometry. Depth and height play little part in our physical perception. For most of us the third dimension is practically unknown beyond the reach of a few feet. A Beachey soaring aloft - why all the bravado of curve and loop? Sooner or later he will fall to his death. Ay, verily! but his is a joyous martyrdom making for the evolution of consciousness. Not always shall we crawl like flies the surface of our globe! While a man's space-world is limited by his thought, it is, on the other hand, as boundless as his thought. That the world evolves with our consciousness, is at once the philosophy of 'Creative Evolution' and of the higher space theory. Our present spatial milieu has settled down to a seemingly three dimensional finality because our thought-form has become so habitual as to give rise to certain geometric axioms. All we need in order to come to a fourth-dimensional consciousness, said Henri Poincare, 'the greatest of moderns,' is a new table of distribution; that is, a breaking up of old associations of ideas and the forming of new relations - a simple matter were it not for our mental inertia. Lester Ward speculates that life remained aquatic for the vast periods that paleontology would indicate; Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous - a duration greater than all subsequent time - for the reason that the creature had not progressed beyond the stage when it could move otherwise than in a straight line when actuated by desire for food or mate. Life was not able to maintain itself on land until it had overcome this one-dimensional limitation. A venturesome Pterodactyl was he who first essayed to make his way among the many obstructions to be found ashore! By what intuition was he impelled? It is a matter of common observation that the growth of the higher perceptive faculty is strangely concomitant with adversity. The intuitive person is a person who has suffered. When conditions press sufficiently hard, a new table of distribution may be the only means for survival. Thus we proceed to make a virtue of necessity and so come to the recognition of other values which we denominate spiritual because we have not as yet spatialized them. The caterpillar has to mount the twig to find the tender green that is his food, but, he solaces himself for the journey by thinking himself a creature of the light. Mr. Carpenter, in an interesting study of what he calls Intermediate Types, shows that the seers and spiritually-minded come to be such because they found themselves differing in some wise from their fellows, and dwelling on that difference had their minds turned inward. Progress in thought and imagination naturally followed, with the result that these were lifted above the majority and came thereby to larger vision. Failure may well be the measure of extension in a new dimension. The significance of the much fumbling and groping of earth's creatures is the desire for a larger outlook. Man has to feel his way out of a three-fold world even as the worm out of his hole. That we are hearing much of the principle of relativity is perhaps the best indication we have that the collective human consciousness is about to enter a higher dimension. So long as man knew only an absolute good was his world a definitely determined world. Now that the question of relative values obtrudes itself on every side the range of consciousness promises to be infinite. Man's interest having in these latter days become largely centered on value-judgments and estimates of worth, an exposition affords perhaps the most general application of the principle of relativity, bringing it home to the collective mind in an intimately human way as nothing else could: - With nation vying with nation and individual with individual in all of the arts and crafts of human industry, absolute standards must needs vanish, and with their going we may be able to set up such a distribution of values as will give new direction to our efforts. However that may be, the industrial competition to which, in the last analysis, the Exposition owes its inception, is pushing many aside from the beaten highways into hitherto unexplored regions of thought and endeavor, and who is to say that we may not in consequence find a direction quite at right angles to all of our wonted ways of thinking. Certainly there could be no more fitting occasion for the launching of a new thought-form than a great international exposition. The Fourth-Dimensional Aspects of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is naught: It is everywhere in the world - loud, soft, and all is said: Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought: And there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head! - Browning. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition is best seen in its fourth-dimensional aspect when approached through the Gateway of Memory. This is what one might expect, for that entrance alone has the requisite geometrical structure. You will recall having heard, I am sure, how in the fourth dimension a person may go in and out of a locked room at his pleasure with bolts and bars untouched. Broad and open as is this Gate of Memory, when you pass its portals the wall closes behind you; there is no visible opening to mark the spot of your entry. A feeling of detachment comes over you. This is augmented by the burst of light and color that flashes across the field of your vision, and for the first time you understand the purport of those 'banners yellow, glorious, golden' which 'do float and flow.' They seem to bear you on breezes of their own creating to the freedom of outer spaces. What you had taken for the flauntings of festivity are become the heralds of hyperspace. As you wend your way down the Avenue of Time you feel an inexpressive lightness, a sensation of being lifted out of yourself. The moment seems unique. Things are unrelated. There is no concern of proportion. The place is one of immediacy. You wander from the ephemeral to the ephemeral. 'Time is,' you say, in childish glee. And you hasten to assemble images as many and as disparate as possible, believing that you are drinking life at its fountain head. The outer world presents itself to your consciousness in the form of facts in juxtaposition. You read guide-books and rejoice in the acquisition of knowledge. Gradually through the perception of the same phantasmagoria comes an at-oneness with your fellows. You are caught up in the swirl of a larger self. Soon you weary of the heterogeneous. The Zone of Consciousness stands revealed in all its grotesqueness. 'Time is,' you cry, but to give thought its impulse, and you hasten on if perchance you may discover the direction of the life-principle. What you had taken for reality is but its cross-section - so does this empirical realm stand to the higher world of your spirit, even as a plane to a solid. Now you turn your attention from things to relations in the hope of getting at truth in the large. A passage in Plato comes vividly to your mind. 'For a man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason; - this is the recollection of those things which our soul once saw while following God, when, regardless of that which we now call being, she raised her head up towards the true being.' Henceforth the multiplicity that you seek is one of organization and has nothing to do with number. 'Time was,' you proclaim, that consciousness might sift out the irrelevant. As you pass from collection to collection individual fact becomes prolonged into general law and science dominates the field of thought. A thousand years are as a day when subsumed by its laws. You look at the objects of man's creating with new eyes. The displays are no longer contests of laborious industry but of vision, and faith. You see that truth has made itself manifest through the long repetition of the same fundamental theme. That which is unique and personal you are surprised to find of less value than the habit perfected by patient practice. The routine and monotony of daily toil become glorified in the light that now falls athwart your vision. You learn to substitute for your personal feeling the common impersonal element felt by the many. Your concern is not as formerly to recollect, but to symbolize. To this end you study frieze and statuary and frequent lectures. Your sense of social solidarity grows through mutual comprehension of the same truths. And again that 'vexing, forward reaching sense of some more noble permanence' urges you on. 'Time was;' you joyously affirm for man to come to the knowledge of an eternal self. But that, your tradition and education have led you to believe, is still yonder, worlds away. And you image the soul in its quest passing from life to life as you are now passing from building to building, from hall to hall. But glad the thought - there will be courts wherein you may perhaps glimpse the plan of the whole and so gather strength and purpose for another housing. All at once you know that death has no fear for you and you feel toward your present life as you do toward these Palaces of the Mundane - the sooner compassed the better. You pass from court to edifice and from edifice to court, marveling at the symmetry of plan and structure. Unity, balance, and harmony become manifest as spatial properties - you had been taught to regard them as principles of art. You wonder if art itself may not be merely a matter of right placing - the adjustment of a thing to its environment. You are certain that this is so as each coign and niche offers you its particular insight. Strange vagaries float through your mind - one's duty to the inanimate things of one's possession; the house too large for the personality of the owner; the right setting for certain idiosyncrasies; character building as a constructive process; the ideal as the limit of an infinite series - each pointing the way, as you think, to a different vista of human outlook. What then your glad surprise to find these converging toward one ideal synthesis. In anticipation of the splendor you hasten on till earth shall have attained to heaven. There it stands - 'a structure brave,' the Palace of Art, the Temple of the Soul - and you know you were made to be perfect too. Now that you apprehend the plan of the whole, symmetry takes on a vital significance for your thought. You try to recall what you learned of it in geometry. There was a folding over, you remember, and a fitting together 'congruence' you believe it was called. But that could have no meaning for solids. Stop! a folding over? Why, that implies another dimension! The two halves of a leaf can be brought together only as one or the other is lifted out of the plane of the leaf into a third dimension. So to bring two buildings into superposition when they are alike except for a reverse order of parts, would necessitate a fourth dimension and a turning inside out. Quick as the thought, the court you are in is that - a building inside out! Ah! you know now wherefor that wonderful uplifting sensation that comes whenever you enter one of these beautiful inclosures. You have passed into the fourth dimension of spatial realization. 'Time is past,' you shout aloud, and laugh to find yourself on the inside of externality. Cubism in architecture! Futurism, in very truth! You visit again the galleries of the New Art, not to scoff, but in earnest desire for enlightenment as to this thing which is so near to consciousness and yet so far. You find yourself exclaiming: 'Ah, there is something here Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer!' As you gaze at the portrayal so strangely weird in form and color you ask yourself where have I felt that, seen this, before? Immediately you are transported in memory to the midst of a crowded street. In the mad bustle and noise you are conscious only of mechanical power; of speed - always of speed. Your voice far away - 'The child, oh, the child!' A swooning sensation. Men's faces as triangles and horses with countless legs. The chaos of primal forces about youthen darkness. As the past fuses with the present you awaken to a larger privilege of life than man now knows. You feel yourself encompassed by truth, vital and strong. This art, erstwhile so baffling, stands revealed as the struggle of a superhuman entity for self-expression. The tendency toward God has to begin anew with each round of the life-spiral - that eternal circle which life pursues. Now you find yourself in the Court of the Universe. Bands of many-colored light, the white radiance of eternity, stream athwart the sky. The illumination is of the wonder that now is. How marvelously strange the sight of the world-consciousness passing over into a higher thought-form! Each individual element suffering reversal to take its proper place in the new world-order! You see positive becoming negative, negative becoming positive, and Evolution giving place to Involution - a process as yet uncomprehended by our narrow thought. And the secret of the world-struggle across the sea you know; men passing their nature's bound; new hopes and loyalties supplanting old ties and joys; the established creeds of right and wrong as they vanish in this immeasurable thirst for an unknown good. All these things you know to be the travail of the world as it gives birth to some higher entity than individual man. 'Time is past,' and as you speak a dove settles to rest upon a pediment. Therewith you are carried away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and you behold a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away. You see the holy city coming down out of heaven - her light is like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal, and the walls thereof are adorned with all manner of precious stones - and they brought the glory and the honor of the nations into it. Creative Evolution (After Bergson) Out of a sense of immediacy Comes an intuition of things forming. Pressed up by the vital urge, Mind meets matter and matter mind In mutual understanding. That which apprehends, since by the object shaped, A fitting instrument is for what itself has wrought. From the same stuff, Cut by an identical process, Thing and intellect to congruence come, In a space-world forever unfolding. No preestablished harmony this Of inner to outer realm corresponding, Nor spirit nor form by the other determined. Stranger far the genesis whereof I speak: From the universal flux, In a moment, that is ever unique, Life to new consciousness springs; Creator and created together evolve, In a time-stream continually changing. My Bibliography of Fourth-Dimensional Insight While to books I owe much, I owe still more to the beautiful people by whom I have been, like Marcus Aurelius, all my life surrounded, and particularly to my parents of large vision. Creative Evolution: Bergson. An intuition so great that if spatialized it would lead to a world of infinite dimensions. The Ethical Implications of Bergson's Philosophy: Una Bernard Sait. The New Infinite and the Old Theology: C. J. Keyser. The Fourth Dimension: C. H. Hinton. First and Last Things: H. G. Wells. The Art of Creation: Edward Carpenter. Some Neglected Factors of Evolution: Bernard. A scientific presentation of Involution, a book than which none other has more light to throw on present world problems. Primer of Higher Space: Claude Bragdon. Projective Ornament: Claude Bragdon. Paracelsus: Browning. ABT Vogler: Browning. Commemoration Ode: Lowell. The Book of Revelations. Here ends "The Fourth Dimensional Reaches of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition," written by Cora Lenore Williams, M.S., with lines on Fourth-Dimensional Insight by Ormeida Curtis Harrison; and the illustrations are from etchings done by Gertrude Partington, and the Fourth Dimensional cover design by Julia Manchester Mackie. Published by Paul Elder & Company, and printed under the typographical direction of H. A. Funke at their Tomoye Press, in San Francisco, during the month of November, Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen. 
24901	----	None 
29269	----	images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) [Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an obvious error is noted at the end of this ebook.] A SUCCINCT VIEW OF THE IMPORTANCE AND PRACTICABILITY OF FORMING A SHIP CANAL ACROSS THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. By H. R. HILL. _LONDON:_ WM. H. ALLEN, & CO., 7, LEADENHALL-STREET. 1845. W. LEWIS AND SON, PRINTERS, 21, FINCH-LANE, LONDON. ADVERTISEMENT. The following observations were thrown together as the result of communications with several gentlemen locally acquainted with the Isthmus of Panama, and who expressed to the writer their astonishment, that amidst the numerous undertakings, of more or less utility, which science has realised in our time, one so important to the whole commercial world, so easy of accomplishment, and so certain to be productive of ample remuneration to the undertakers, as a Ship Canal through that Isthmus, had not been taken up. The idle objection, that if practicable it would not have been left unattempted for the last three hundred years, they considered, would have no weight in an age in which we have seen accomplished works that in our fathers' time, nay, even within our own memory, it would have been considered madness to propose,--witness steam-navigation and railways. It is not twenty years since Dr. Lardner, the author of a popular work on the steam-engine, then supposed to be a most competent authority, declared in his lectures that the application of steam-navigation to the voyage across the Atlantic was a mere chimera. So it has been with railways. Would not any man who fifty, or even twenty years ago, had predicted that the journey from London to Exeter would be accomplished _in five hours_, have been deemed a fit tenant for Bedlam? To contend that because a great undertaking has remained unattempted for a long series of years, _therefore_ it is impracticable, is to put a stop to all improvement. At the suggestion of the friends before referred to, the writer is induced to print the following pages, with the hope of drawing to the subject of which they treat the attention of the mercantile and shipping interests. If they awaken an interest in the subject in those quarters, they will not be thrown away, and he is fully convinced that the more the subject is examined the stronger will be the conviction of the practicability of the undertaking. _23, Throgmorton Street_, _February, 1845_. A SUCCINCT VIEW, &c. From the first discovery of the American continent down to the present time, a shorter passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific ocean than the tedious and dangerous voyage round Cape Horn has been a desideratum in navigation. During the dominion of old Spain in the New World the colonial policy and principles of that jealous nation, to which Central America belonged, opposed insurmountable obstacles to any proposal for effecting this great object; but the emancipation of the Spanish Colonies, and the erection of independent States in their stead, has broken down the barrier which Spanish jealousy had erected. The rulers of these states are not devoid of discernment to perceive that the exclusion of European Nations from the shores of the Pacific would be productive of immense injury to themselves, and that by making their own territory the high-road to the countries which are becoming important marts for the commerce of Europe, they are bringing wealth to their own doors, and increasing their own political importance. In this, as in most other cases, individual and general benefit go hand in hand; for it cannot be doubted that were such a communication between the two Oceans made through Central America, it would prove of incalculable utility to all nations engaged in maritime commerce,--and sooner or later it will unquestionably be opened. This would be the shortest route from Europe, North America, and the western coast of Africa to every part of the western coast of the New World, to Australia, New Zealand, the numerous islands of the Pacific and the eastern coast of Asia,[1] as will be seen by a glance at the outline map of the world on Mercator's projection annexed to this pamphlet. The advantage of a Canal of sufficient size to allow large vessels to proceed through the Isthmus is therefore obvious. But by whom is this work to be undertaken? the question is certainly not a British one alone, although the British Trade would derive immense benefit from its solution: it is a question in which the whole commercial world is more or less interested. There must be either a combination of governments formed to defray so much each of the expense, or the work must be accomplished by a Joint Stock Company of individuals, who will indemnify themselves for their outlay by levying tolls upon those who avail themselves of the communication. As to such a combination of governments, the difficulty of procuring a sufficient grant of public money opposes a great obstacle to the realization of any such project. To private enterprize chiefly then it must be committed; yet it may reasonably be expected that such countenance and support as the governments of the principal maritime powers can give, will be readily yielded to any association that will undertake the work. There are several considerations which point out the present as the most auspicious moment for attaining the object in view. The profound peace with which Europe and the whole civilized world is now blessed, the abundance of capital in the money market, the present low rate of interest, and the difficulty of finding investments, are all favorable to the raising of the necessary funds; the immense strides which science has made in overcoming natural difficulties, once deemed insuperable, add to the means of accomplishment, while the growing importance of British Colonies in and about New Zealand, the inevitable impulse that recent events must give to the China trade,[2] and the efforts of all maritime nations to make establishments in the Polynesian Islands will render the Canal a certain source of profit and honor to those who will aid in its formation. Several parts of the Isthmus of America have been proposed for the communication between the two seas, such as the Province of Nicaragua, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, &c.; but invincible obstacles occur in all those localities, while on the contrary the Isthmus of Panama is beyond doubt the most favorable point, according to the opinion of all the scientific and practical men who have visited that part of the new world.[3] We shall proceed, therefore, to describe that Isthmus as far as is necessary for the present purpose. The Isthmus of Panama[4] may be considered as extending from the Meridian of 77° to that of 81° W. of Greenwich. Its breadth at the narrowest point, opposite to the city of Panama, is about thirty miles. The general feature of the Isthmus on the map is that of an arc, or bow, the chord of which lies nearly east and west. It now forms a province of the republic of New Granada. It may appear strange, yet it is now well known to be the fact, that although the small width of the Isthmus was ascertained soon after the discovery of America, its natural features remained entirely unknown for three hundred years. Robertson, in his History of America, states that the Isthmus is traversed in all its length by a range of high mountains, and it was reserved for our scientific countryman, Lloyd, who surveyed the Isthmus in 1828 and 1829, by direction of Bolivar, then president of the Republic of Colombia, to dispel the illusion. From his observations, confirmed by more recent travellers, it is now ascertained that the chain of the Andes terminates near Porto Bello to the east of the Bay of Limon, otherwise called Navy Bay, and that the Isthmus is, in this part, throughout its whole width, a flat country. It was also long supposed that there was an enormous difference between the rise and fall of the tide in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans on either side of the Isthmus, and that the opening of a communication between the two seas would be productive of danger to a large portion of the American continent. It is now, however, ascertained that the difference of altitude is very trifling, not more than thirteen feet at high water.[5] The prevalence of these errors may have tended, in combination with Spanish jealousy, unhealthiness of climate on the Atlantic side, the denseness of the forests, and the unsettled state of the Government for some years after the Spanish yoke was shaken off, to prevent the undertaking now proposed from being seriously considered. Panama is the principal city on the Isthmus. Its site has been once changed. When the Spaniards first visited the Isthmus in 1512, the spot on which the old city was afterwards built, was already occupied by an Indian population, attracted by the abundance of fish on the coast, and who are said to have named it "Panama" from this circumstance, the word signifying much fish. They, however, were speedily dispossessed; and even so early as 1521, the title and privileges of a city were conferred on the Spanish town by the emperor, Charles the Fifth. In the year 1670, it was sacked and reduced to ashes by the buccaneer, Morgan, and was subsequently built where it now stands. The position of the present town of Panama is in latitude 8° 57' N.; longitude 79° 30' W. of Greenwich, on a tongue of land, shaped nearly like a spear head, extending a considerable distance out to sea, and gradually swelling towards the middle. Its harbour is protected by a number of islands, a short distance from the main land, some of which are of considerable size, and highly cultivated. There is good anchorage at each of these islands, and supplies of ordinary kinds, including excellent water, which may be obtained from several of them.[6] The city of Panama was, in the 17th century, a place of great importance, but has gradually sunk into comparative insignificance. The policy of the present Government of New Granada is to restore this city to its pristine importance, and for this reason, one terminus of the intended Ship Canal should be at, or as near as conveniently may be to, this position. The natural obstacles to be overcome in forming a Canal between Panama, and the _nearest point_ of the opposite coast, which is the Gulph of San Blas (likewise called the Bay of Mandingo), render it expedient to select a position west of that line, and the happy coincidence of two navigable rivers, traversing the low lands to the west of Porto Bello, the one falling into the Atlantic, and the other into the Pacific Ocean, which may either form part of the navigation, or be used to feed the Canal, renders that part of the Isthmus the most eligible for this purpose. The rivers alluded to, are the Chagres and the Rio Grande. The town of Chagres, at the mouth of the river of the same name, is about thirty-two miles west of Porto Bello (Puerto Velo); it is situated on the north bank of the river, which falls into the Caribbean Sea. The harbour formed by the mouth of the river having been greatly neglected, has been much choked up; but it would be unnecessary to incur the expense of improving it, for Navy Bay, called also the Bay of Limon, lying immediately to the eastward of Chagres, is a large and spacious harbour, being three miles wide at the mouth, and having sufficient draught of water for the largest ships in the British Navy. The river Chagres approaches within three miles of the head of this Bay; the ground between is a dead level,[7] and all writers agree that, the difficulties of the harbour being surmounted, there is abundance of water in the Chagres. It is, therefore, proposed either to cut a Canal from Navy Bay to the Chagres, and then to ascend that river as far as its junction with the river Trinidad, and after traversing a part of the latter, to construct a canal which shall connect the Trinidad with the River Farfan, a branch of the Rio Grande, and to proceed by that river to Panama; or should the Bay of Chorrera, which is laid down in the plan, be deemed a preferable harbour, to branch off to that bay; or to make the Canal across the whole width of the isthmus, from the Bay of Limon to that of Panama, using the rivers Trinidad, Farfan, and Bernardino, and other streams which cross the line, for the supply of the Canal. The plan annexed to this pamphlet will exhibit the two lines, and the reader will perceive that a small Lake, called the Lake of Vino Tinto, may, if the first proposal is adopted, be made available, and so lessen the extent of the Canal. If the Rivers are used as a part of the Navigation, the distance between that point of the River Trinidad at which the Canal would commence, as shewn in the plan, and the point where the Farfan ceases to be navigable, is only 25 miles, and there is no high land intervening, the chain of the Andes terminating several miles to the eastward of the valley of the Chagres, as before mentioned. If the other plan be adopted, the length of the Canal will be 58 miles. Although at first sight it may appear to be a work of supererogation, to carry the Canal over that part of the Isthmus which is traversed by navigable rivers, it is by many engineers considered preferable in forming a Canal, to use the rivers in its vicinity only for the purpose of supplying the Canal with water, and not as a continuation of the inland navigation, on account of the variation in the depth of rivers from floods, or other accidents. Which of these two courses would be most expedient in the present instance, may be safely left to the determination of the engineer selected to carry out the undertaking;--it is sufficient to know that _either is practicable_, and that the expense of cutting the Canal the whole width of the isthmus would meet with a corresponding return to the undertakers. The principal difficulty anticipated in the execution of the work, arises from the unhealthiness of the climate on the Atlantic side of the isthmus--a difficulty to which the writer is by no means insensible. It has, however, been exaggerated, and by proper arrangements may be surmounted. The causes of this unhealthiness are chiefly the swampy state of the ground on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus (which the Canal itself, acting as a drain upon the surrounding country, will greatly tend to remove), and the malaria engendered by the closeness of the woods, and by the accumulation of decayed vegetable substances, which the opening of the country, incidental to the formation of the Canal now proposed, and the road afterwards adverted to, will tend to alleviate; and after all, those who have visited this part of the Isthmus, concur in stating that the mortality in the low lands about Chagres is principally owing to the imprudence of the Europeans visiting the country, in exposing themselves to the night dews by sleeping in the open air, and indulging in habits of intemperance.[8] If an association were formed for carrying out the work now projected, one of the first cares of the managers should be to erect huts or barracks for the protection of the workmen against exposure to the weather, and the appointment of a medical officer, who should be entrusted with sufficient powers to ensure obedience to his regulations. If the industry of the native population could be depended upon, there would be no want of labourers inured to the climate, but the inertness of the natives renders it inexpedient to rely upon them alone; although, working in conjunction with Europeans, and stimulated by their example, and by the love of gain, their services may, no doubt, be made available. There is, however, no difficulty in collecting from the Southern States of North America a sufficient number of Irish labourers inured to a tropical climate, as was lately clearly shewn by the formation of a railway at the Havanna, which was almost entirely constructed by this class of men. Any deficiency of labourers, it is considered, could easily be drawn from the mining districts of Cornwall, from Ireland itself, or from Scotland, or the North of England. The next consideration is the expense of constructing a Ship Canal across the Isthmus, and the probable returns. The estimates which have been made, and of which the result is given below, suppose the Canal to be cut through the whole width of the Isthmus, from the Bay of Limon to that of Chorrera, and they include a large outlay for improving the harbours formed by the two bays. The first item that would occur in an undertaking of the same nature _in this country_, would be the purchase of the land. Here a great advantage presents itself in the present enterprise; for the Government of New Granada, fully appreciating the permanent advantages to be derived to the state from the execution of a work, which it is unequal to accomplish by its own resources, has repeatedly offered to grant the land required, for 60, 70, or 80 years, according to the magnitude of the works, free of rent, or burdens of any kind, and to admit the importation, free of duty, of all materials and provisions necessary for the undertaking. EXPENSES. The expenses of cutting the Canal, and of the direction and management of a Company constituted for that purpose, up to the period of the opening of the Canal have been estimated at[9] £1,713,177 But if it be deemed expedient to raise two millions, in order to provide for any unforseen casualties, the difference will be 286,823 ---------- Total outlay £2,000,000 RETURNS. From information derived from official sources in England, France, and the United States of America, it is estimated that the tonnage of vessels belonging to those countries and to Holland, trading in countries to which the Canal through the Isthmus will be the shortest voyage, amount to 799,427 tons per annum; and there can be no doubt that the opening of the Canal would create a great extension of trade to the South Seas, as well as induce the owners of many of the vessels now using the navigation by the Cape of Good Hope to prefer the shorter voyage through the Isthmus; and when we add to this consideration, the fact that the above calculations do not include the vessels belonging to Spain, Sardinia, the Hanse Towns, and other nations of minor importance as maritime powers, but possessing in the aggregate a trade not altogether inconsiderable, nor the traffic that may be expected to flow to the Pacific from the West Indies, the British Colonies in North America, and the countries on the north east coast of South America, the tonnage of vessels that will be attracted to the Canal may be fairly estimated at 800,000 tons. A tonnage duty of $2 per ton, on 800,000 tons will produce $1,600,000, equal, at 4s. 2d., to £333,333 Allowing a deduction for the annual expenses of a sum much larger than will probably be required, say 40,000 -------- There will remain a Balance of annual profit of £293,333 This in turn will give upwards of 14-1/2 per cent. profit on the above outlay of £2,000,000. The Isthmus has recently been surveyed by M. Garella, an eminent French Engineer, whose opinions will be found in the extract from the _Moniteur_, contained in the Appendix. He was employed to make the survey by the French Government, and his official Report has not yet been made public. He differs in several material points from M. Morel, another French gentleman, who is stated to have lately surveyed the Isthmus;[10] but if the formation of a canal should be undertaken by an English company, the parties engaged in the enterprize would doubtless be guided by the English engineer whom they would employ, in the selection of the most eligible line, while the labours of his predecessors would greatly aid him in his survey. As subservient to the grand project of a Ship Canal, an improved road across the Isthmus has been projected. The abundance of hard wood to be found on the spot, would furnish a cheap material for converting it into a tram-road. The expense has been estimated by French engineers at £40,000 sterling, and the returns, even according to the present transit of goods and passengers across the Isthmus by the miserable road now existing from Cruces to Panama, would, at a very moderate toll, be enormous on that outlay. APPENDIX. The following Extracts from Authors who have treated of the Isthmus of Panama will tend to illustrate the subject of the foregoing pages. _Dampier, (1681)._ "Panama enjoys a good air, lying open to the sea-wind. There are no woods nor marshes near Panama, but a brave dry champaign land, not subject to fogs nor mists." _Humboldt, (1803)._ "It appears that we find a prolongation of the Andes towards the South Sea, between Cruces and Panama. However, Lionel Wafer assures us that the hills which form the central chain, are separated from one another by valleys, which allow free course for passage of the rivers; if this last assertion be founded, we might believe in the possibility of a canal from Cruces to Panama, of which the navigation would only be interrupted by a very few locks." _The Edinburgh Review, for Jan. 1809, Art. II. page 282._ "In enumerating, however, the advantages of a commercial nature which would assuredly spring from the emancipation of South America, we have not yet noticed the greatest, perhaps, of all,--the mightiest event probably in favor of the peaceful intercourse of nations which the physical circumstances of the globe present to the enterprise of man,--we mean the formation of a navigable passage across the Isthmus of Panama, the junction of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is remarkable that this magnificent undertaking, pregnant with consequences so important to mankind, and about which so little is known in this country, is so far from being a romantic or chimerical project, that, it is not only practicable but easy. The River Chagres, which falls into the Atlantic at the town of the same name, about 18 leagues to the westward of Porto Bello is navigable as far as Cruces, within five leagues of Panama; but though the formation of a Canal from this place to Panama, facilitated by the valleys through which the present road passes, appears to present no very formidable obstacles, there is still a better expedient. At the distance of about five leagues from the mouth of the Chagres it receives the river Trinidad, which is navigable to Embarcadero; and from that place to Panama is a distance of about 30 miles, through a level country, with a fine river,[11] to supply water for the Canal, and no difficulty whatever to counteract the noble undertaking. The ground has been surveyed, and not the practicability only, but the facility of the work completely ascertained. In the next place, the important requisite of safe harbours, at the two extremities of a Canal, is here supplied to the extent of our utmost wishes. At the mouth of the Chagres is a fine Bay, which received the British 74 gun-ships in 1740, and at the other extremity is the famous harbour of Panama." _J. A. Lloyd, F. R. S._ "It is generally supposed in Europe that the great chain of mountains, which in South America forms the Andes, and in North America the Mexican and Rocky Mountains, continues nearly unbroken through the Isthmus. This, however, is not the case: the Northern Cordillera breaks into detached mountains on the eastern side of the province of Veragua. These are of considerable height, extremely abrupt and rugged, and frequently exhibit an almost perpendicular face of bare rock. To these succeed numerous conical mountains rising out of Savannahs and plains, and seldom exceeding from 300 to 500 feet in height. Finally between Chagres on the Atlantic side, and Chorrera on the Pacific side, the conical mountains are not so numerous, having plains of great extent interspersed, with occasional insulated ranges of hills of inconsiderable height and extent. From this description it will be seen that the spot where the continent of America is reduced to nearly its narrowest limits, is also distinguished by a break for a few miles of the Great chain of Mountains, which otherwise extends, with but few exceptions, to its extreme northern and southern limits. _This combination of circumstances points out the peculiar fitness of the Isthmus of Panama for the establishment of a communication across._" _Philosophical Transactions, 1830, Part I., p. 65._ "Should a time arrive when a project of a water communication across the Isthmus may be entertained, the river Trinidad will probably appear the most favourable route. The river is for some distance both broad and deep. Its banks are also well suited for wharfs." _Philosophical Transactions, ibid, p. 66._ "The river, its channel, and the banks, which, in the dry season, embarrass its navigation, are laid down in the manuscript plan with great care and minuteness. It is subject to one great inconvenience, that vessels drawing more than 12 feet water, cannot enter the river, even in perfectly calm weather, on account of a stratum of slaty limestone, which runs at a depth at high water of fifteen feet, from a point on the main land to some rocks in the middle of the entrance of the harbour, and which are just even with the water's edge; which, together with the lee current that sets on the southern shore, particularly in the rainy season, renders the entrance extremely difficult and dangerous.... "The value of the Chagres, considered as the port of entrance for all communications, whether by the river Chagres, Trinidad, or by railroads across the plains, is greatly limited from the above mentioned cause. It would prove in all cases a serious disqualification, _were it not one which admits of a simple and effectual remedy, arising from the proximity of the Bay of Limon_, otherwise called Navy Bay, with which the river might easily be connected. The coves of this bay afford excellent and secure anchorage in its present state, and the whole harbour is capable of being rendered, by obvious and not very expensive means, one of the most commodious and safe harbours in the world. * * * * * "By the good offices of H. M. Consul in Panama,[12] and the kindness of the Commander of H. M. Ship Victor, I obtained the use of that ship and her boats in making the accompanying plan of this bay.... The soundings were taken by myself, with the assistance of the master. It will be seen from this plan, that the distance from one of the best coves (in respect to anchorage), across the separating country from the Chagres, and in the most convenient track, is something less than three miles to a point in the river about three miles from its mouth. I have traversed the intervening land which is particularly level, and in all respects suitable for a canal, which, being required for so short a distance, might well be of sufficient depth to admit vessels of any reasonable draft of water, and would obviate the inconvenience of the shallow water at the entrance of the Chagres." _Ibid, p. 68._ _Extract from the Moniteur Parisien of Monday, October 14, 1844._ "Some of the public papers in announcing the return of M. Garella to Paris, have asserted that the surveys made by that Engineer on the Isthmus of Panama have led him to conclude that the formation of a canal in that Country which should unite the two oceans is impossible. This assertion is completely erroneous. The Report that this Engineer intends to lay before the Ministers is not yet completed; but the principal results of his voyage are already known, and which far from having established the impossibility of the execution of the projected work, prove on the contrary that the soil of this portion of the Isthmus is not such as to threaten any serious obstruction to the performance of a work of the kind. "The line which has been explored by M. Garella, seems to be about 76 kilometres (46-1/2 miles) in length. Its point of termination upon the side of the Atlantic is in the Bay of Limon (Puerto de Naos) situated a little east of the mouth of the Rio Chagres, and already indicated five years ago by Mr. Lloyd, where there is a depth of water of 10 metres (35 ft. 5 in.), and where it will be easy to form an excellent port at a small expense. By this means may be avoided the village of Chagres, situated at the month of the river of that name, but of which the real unhealthiness has been so much exaggerated, as to create an unfounded alarm among too many travellers. On the Pacific Ocean the Canal should terminate at a little bay named Ensenada de Voca de Monte, situated between Panama and the mouth of the Caimito, where there is four metres (13 ft. 1 in.) depth of water at low tide, which, with 3 metres 20 centimetres (10-1/2 ft.), which represent the difference at high tide, gives a sufficient depth of water for the largest merchant ships. "The rigidly exact levellings which have been taken by M. Garella, establish that the mean level of the Pacific Ocean is two metres 80 centimetres (9 ft. 2 in.) higher than that of the Atlantic, and that the minimum point of the chain to overcome, which will be the most elevated point of the line of the work, is 120 metres (131 yards[13]) above the height of the sea at Panama. The surveys which have been made, prove at the same time that the height may be reduced to 90 metres (90 yards and a half) by a trench from four to five kilometres (between two and three miles) in length, which, although considerable, has nothing discouraging, considering the powers which science puts at the disposal of the engineer. This height will render it necessary to form 30 locks at each of the declivities. "M. Garella is convinced, as much by his own observations, as by the information that he has been able to obtain upon the spot, that all that has been said of the unhealthiness of the Isthmus has been exaggerated. Panama is, of all the towns upon the coast of America which are situated between the Tropics, the most healthy, and perhaps the only town where the yellow fever has never appeared. The interior of the Isthmus, through which water courses find a rapid passage, is equally healthy, and is inhabited by a robust and hospitable population, which, although thinly spread over a large tract of country, as in almost all the countries of Central and South America, together with that of the neighbouring countries, may amply supply the labourers necessary for the work, in case of its execution. Chagres is the only point where the climate has any degree of unhealthiness, owing to pure local circumstances; but this point will be avoided by the line contemplated by M. Garella. Then in the unhealthiness of the climate there is nothing to be dreaded for such artizans as masons and carpenters, whom it would be necessary to send out from Europe. "On the other hand the soil is of wonderful fertility. The cattle, far from being scarce in that part are, on the contrary, abundant, especially in the Canton of Chiriqui, on the Pacific Ocean, a little to the west of Panama. There will, therefore, be easily found within the country the means of provisioning a large number of workmen. "The exact estimate of the expense attending the formation of a Canal at Panama cannot be known until the report of M. Garella shall be completed. But the foregoing explanations are of sufficient weight, as a decided result of his surveys, to enable us to see that, against the undeniable utility of a Canal that should be of sufficient dimensions to allow the passage of the largest merchants' ships, we can hardly place in the balance the consideration of any expenses whatsoever, nor question the long series and increasing importance of the advantages which must arise from it." * * * * * By way of summary: the opinion of this engineer on the possibility of the formation of the Canal in question, is contained in the following lines of a letter addressed by him to the Governor of Panama, dated the 7th July, 1844, and a few days before his departure from that country, translated from the "_Cartilla Popular_," a public paper published at Panama, and written in Spanish. * * * * * "I am nevertheless partly able to satisfy your just and natural impatience, in announcing to you that a Canal across the Isthmus between the river Chagres, and a point of the coast of the Pacific Ocean, in the environs of Panama, is a work of very possible execution, and even easier than that of many Canals which have been formed in Europe." _M. Morel._ The author has been furnished with the following summary of the opinions of M. Morel, who has been a resident for some years at Panama. M. Morel is stated to have surveyed the whole line of country destined to be appropriated to a road, as well as the ground through which a Canal might be opened, and as the result of his surveys and observations, he is reported to state-- 1. That the width of the Isthmus of Panama, in _a direct line_, does not exceed 33 miles. 2. That the chain of mountains which incloses the country terminates precisely between Chagres and Panama, and forms a valley, which is crossed in all directions by numerous streams. 3. That besides those streams, four rivers of more importance, the Chagres and Trinidad, which flow into the Atlantic, and the Farfan and Rio Grande, which discharge themselves into the Pacific, in the immediate vicinity of Panama, can be made available. 4. That the soundings of the River Chagres show its depth to be from 16-1/2 to 22 feet, to its junction with the river Trinidad, the tide being felt for four miles up the last named river. The breadth of the Chagres is 220 feet from its mouth to the Trinidad. 5. That it becomes only necessary to unite these rivers by a Canal, the length of which would not exceed 25 miles, and which would be abundantly supplied by the numerous streams already mentioned. 6. That the land through which this Canal is to pass, is almost on a level with the sea, the highest point being 36 feet, thus presenting none of those serious difficulties which generally attend a work of this description.[14] 7. That the country abounds with the necessary materials for building, such as free-stone, clay, lime, and wood. 8. That there can exist no fear of a scarcity of labourers and workmen, from the number who have already been enrolled by the government of New Granada, which amounts to 4000 and upwards. 9. That the objection which has often been started against the possibility of forming a water communication across the Isthmus of Panama, founded on the difference supposed to exist between the levels of the two seas, is totally at variance with the natural state of things, the tides rising to different heights at Chagres and at Panama, thus placing the Pacific sometimes above, and sometimes below the Atlantic. Lastly, M. Morel remarks, that Baron de Humboldt, the celebrated Geographer, M. Arago, the eminent Astronomer, F.R.S., and Commander Garnier, of the French Brig of War, "Le Laurier," have proved that if there be any inequality of height, the average difference of level cannot exceed one metre (about one yard English). POSTSCRIPT. Since the foregoing pamphlet was in print, an Article has appeared in the Morning Chronicle of the 16th May, 1845, in which it is alleged, upon the authority of an Article in the _Journal des Debats_, that M. Garella has given in his Report to the French Government, and that he reports in favour of the practicability of the scheme, but that he found the lowest elevation between the two oceans to amount to, from 120 to 160 metres, and that this being, as he says, too great an elevation for a Ship Canal, he proposes an enormous Tunnel capable of allowing Frigates to pass through--that he thinks from examination of the soil, that a Tunnel of 100 feet in height above the surface of the Canal will be practicable, and might be made with a reasonable outlay of money; and that the length of the Tunnel would be 5,350 metres, and the expense of it about 44 millions of francs (£1,760,000). It is impossible to read this statement without feeling a strong suspicion that, for some object which does not appear, it is the wish of the French Government, or those who have put the statement forth, to deter others from embarking in the formation of a Canal across the Isthmus of Panama; for the recommendation of a Tunnel of 5,350 metres (about three miles) in length, and 100 feet in height, is not only preposterous in itself, as applied to a Ship Canal, but is wholly at variance with M. Garella's own letter to the Governor of Panama (ante p. 26), and with the statement of his opinions in the Article in the _Moniteur Parisien_ (ante p. 23), which Article is believed to have been written by himself. It is true that M. Garella, being a Mining Engineer (_Ingénieur des Mines_) may have a partiality for subterraneous works; and this refection provokes the observation, that it is singular that the French Government should have selected, for this very important survey, an Engineer of Mines (however eminent in his department), rather than one experienced in the formation of Canals, when it had so many of the latter at command. It is difficult to conceive that the writer of the letter to the Governor of Panama, and of the Article in the _Moniteur Parisien_ can be sincere in recommending a Tunnel; and the conclusion is irresistible, that if the Article in the _Debats_ has any foundation in the forthcoming Report, it is a stroke of policy on the part of the French Government, to discourage an undertaking which its own subjects have not sufficient enterprize to accomplish, and which it would object to see executed by other nations. In the present state of the question, it may not be immaterial to remark, that on a comparison lately made by an English Engineer of Mr. Lloyd's levels, with the survey alleged to have been made by M. Morel (the accuracy of which is necessarily impugned by M. Garella, if he asserts that an elevation of 120 metres must be overcome), it appears that the levels ascribed to M. Morel, very nearly agree with those of Mr. Lloyd, and are substantially corroborated by his survey. FOOTNOTES: [1] The reader will remember that to discover a more direct passage to India than the voyage round Africa, which the Portuguese were then exploring, was the object of Columbus' voyage which led to the discovery of America, and the present proposal is to realize the project of that great navigator. The name of "Indies" was given to his discoveries, under a belief that he had actually reached India, a name still preserved in our "West Indies."--_Robertson's America_, book ii., vol. i, pp. 70 and 124-5, (edit. of 1821). It may well excite astonishment that more than three centuries should have been allowed to elapse before the full accomplishment of this great man's undertaking. [2] The intelligent observer of passing events will not fail to see in the "signs of the times" indications that the day is not far distant when the important Empire of Japan will follow the example of China, and throw open its harbours to European commerce--a consummation devoutly to be wished--and which the present expedition to those shores, under the command of Sir Edward Belcher, is likely to accelerate. A more immediate development of commercial enterprise cannot fail to result from the opening of a Ship Canal through the Isthmus of Panama; viz., _a direct trade_ between the West India Islands, English, French, and Spanish, and the countries which have been named. From this consideration, the West India proprietors and merchants, whose property in those colonies has been of late years so much depreciated, are deeply interested in the success of this undertaking. [3] The opinions of writers who have visited the locality, will be found in the Appendix. To those of Mr. Lloyd, who was sent by Bolivar to survey the Isthmus in 1827, in particular, great weight is due. [4] It was formerly called the Isthmus of Darien, but that name has fallen into disuse among all persons who have any intercourse with that part of the globe, though still preserved in some of the atlases. [5] J. A. Lloyd, F. R. S., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1830, Part I. pp. 62, 63. [6] J. A. Lloyd, F. R. S., Geographical Society's Transactions, vol. I. [7] J. A. Lloyd. See Appendix. [8] The writer has conferred with several gentlemen who have visited the Isthmus, and who agree in this opinion. [9] It may be here stated that the Caledonian Canal, and the Canal from Amsterdam to Niewdiep, the two most expensive Ship Canals which have been made in Europe (and which approximate in magnitude the Canal now projected), were formed at a much less expense per mile than has been allowed in this estimate. [10] See Appendix, page 26. [11] Probably the Farfan. [12] Malcolm MacGregor, Esq. [13] The Canal of Languedoc is at its highest point 600 feet above the level of the sea.--_M'Culloch's Commercial Dict., Art. Canals._ [14] It may be possible to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the fact here stated by M. Morel, and the report of M. Garella, by mentioning that the latter suggests the propriety of carrying the Canal over a hill 120 yards high, and thus shortening its length, rather than to adopt M. Morel's line of survey along the flat and low lands, which is the longest of the two. THE END. W. LEWIS AND SON, PRINTERS, 21, FINCH-LANE, LONDON. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: The transcriber made these changes to the text to correct obvious errors: 1. p. 21, propably --> probably 2. p. 29, impunged --> impugned 
37124	----	A FOREWORD TO THE PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION BY JULIET L. JAMES BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA [Illustration] JANUARY, 1915 RICARDO J. OROZCO PRESS SAN FRANCISCO THE PASTEL CITY BY THE SEA There is a hill-crowned city by a silver sea, near a _Golden Gate_. For ages, the water has washed from an almost land-locked bay against this hill-crowned city, and on its northern side has created of the shore an amphitheatre stretching for some three miles to the western headlands. Behind this amphitheatre rises, in terraces, the steep hills of this water-lashed city, and in part, a forest of pines stretches to the west. Man has flanked this reach of shore by two lowering forts, and in front, across the sapphire sea, one looks onto the long undulations of hills, climaxed by grand old Tamalpais. Just three years ago, and one saw in this same low-lying shore only a marshy stretch, with lagoons working their way far into the land--the home of the sea-gull. There came a time when, had you looked closely, you would have seen coming thru the Golden Gate a phantom flotilla of caravels, freighted with clever ideas. On the vessels came, and at the prows were several noble figures: _Energy_, _Enterprise_, _Youth_, _the Spirit of the East_, _the Spirit of the West_, _Success_, and in the last caravel, the stalwart _Mother of Tomorrow_. They had dug and delved with mighty _Hercules_ and had created that great gap that has severed two continents. Then, leaving their work to be finished, they had sailed on to celebrate their triumph in the _Land of El Dorado_ the region of their desires. In a shallop in front of these floating winged vessels, riding on the waves, came Venus rowed by the fairies--in her hand the golden ball of opportunity. The _mermaids_, the _dolphins_, the little _sea-horses_ sported in the wake of these vessels, leaving a long line of foam and silver as they sped on. Over the waves they came to the _Golden Land of the Pacific_. They moored their vessels by the fort-flanked shores, and stepping out upon the haunt of the sea-gull, they moved boldly across this unsightly stretch of wave-washed shore. _Enterprise_ and _Energy_ pushed ahead: the _Fairy_ ever flitting near. At a signal from _Enterprise_ the _Fairy_ turned her wheel, Venus threw her golden ball of opportunity, and lo! out of the foam of the sea rose a Venus city with the round sea-bubbles resting on the roofs. One day a man appeared on the hill-top o'er-looking this wondrous city, and by his magic power, being filled with music, with color-music, he cast a spell, and behold a pastel city by the sea--such an one as only those who dream could think of; a city glowing with warmth of color, with a softness and mystical charm such as only the brain of _Jules Guerin_ could produce. He is the conductor of this wondrous symphony, this beautiful Mozart fantasia, and if you listen, you can hear the strains of the great beautiful melodies wafted now east, now west, now north, now south, rising to great climaxes, falling back to great chords of harmony, or, in an allegro movement, causing you almost to trip with delight in the joy of it all. Your eye is enthralled with the beauty of the coloring. One sees turquoise green domes floating in a silver-moated ether, long colonnades of glacial ice columns leading to regions beyond, where quiet silver pools throw back the mirrored glories. Battalions of daffodils holding their long sabres, stand in the _South Garden_ making ready for the great festival. Soon those daffodils will raise their golden trumpets and will sound the fanfare at the opening of the Great Jubilee, and up will spring _two hundred thousand_ wide-eyed yellow pansies to look and wonder at the marvelous beauty, and help in the hallelujah chorus that will be one great paeon of joy, one splendid hymn of praise. And the blue eucalypti against the walls will lend their voices, the yellow acacias will add their cadences; while down by the great lagoon, ten thousand periwinkles will dance for joy. Far out on the waters will be intoned to the rhythm of the waves, a chorus from white robed water-lilies who like a throng of choristers will send their anthems rippling over the sun kissed waves. The _Spirit of the East_ that has added its domes, its minarets, its soft-glowing colors will remain and join hands with the _Spirit of the West_, that strong, pulsating, energetic spirit, and the harmony produced will vibrate from the shores of the Occident to the shores of the Orient, and bring about a better understanding; a great world peace. And the world will come to listen. The great music will sound across the waters, and the world will be the better in its way of thinking, of working, of living--and all because of the great beauty. Wonderful is it to be living today, to have the opportunity of watching the beginning of this mighty growth; to be present at one of the world's greatest events. And the pastel city by the sea will not leave us, for as the years go on, whatever be our mission, the vision of this dream-city will float before us, leading us to finer, higher works, strengthening our ideals, and causing us to give only of our finest fibre. [Illustration] TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: Text in italics is indicated with underscores: _italics_. 
48924	----	JOSEPH PENNELL'S PICTURES OF THE PANAMA CANAL FOURTH EDITION JOSEPH PENNELL'S PICTURES OF THE PANAMA CANAL REPRODUCTIONS OF A SERIES OF LITHOGRAPHS MADE BY HIM ON THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA, JANUARY--MARCH, 1912, TOGETHER WITH IMPRESSIONS AND NOTES BY THE ARTIST [Illustration: ++ Decorative image.] PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1913 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY JOSEPH PENNELL PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, 1912 PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. TO J. B. BISHOP SECRETARY OF THE ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO DRAW THESE LITHOGRAPHS AND WHO WAS ALSO GOOD ENOUGH TO ACCEDE TO MY REQUEST AND READ AND CORRECT THE PROOFS FOR ME INTRODUCTION--MY LITHOGRAPHS OF THE PANAMA CANAL The idea of going to Panama to make lithographs of the Canal was mine. I suggested it, and the _Century Magazine_ and _Illustrated London News_ offered to print some of the drawings I might make. Though I suggested the scheme a couple of years ago, it was not until January, 1912, that I was able to go--and then I was afraid it was too late--afraid the work was finished and that there would be nothing to see, for photographs taken a year or eighteen months before, showed some of the locks built and their gates partly in place. Still I started, and after nearly three weeks of voyaging found, one January morning, the Isthmus of Panama ahead of the steamer, a mountainous country, showing deep valleys filled with mist, like snow fields, as I have often seen them from Montepulciano looking over Lake Thrasymene, in Italy. Beyond were higher peaks, strange yet familiar, Japanese prints, and as we came into the harbor the near hills and distant mountains were silhouetted with Japanese trees and even the houses were Japanese, and when we at length landed, the town was full of character reminiscent of Spain, yet the local character came out in the Cathedral, the tower of which--a pyramid--was covered with a shimmering, glittering mosaic of pearl oyster shells. The people, not Americans, were primitive, and the children, mostly as in Spain, were not bothered with clothes. I followed my instinct, which took me at once to the great swamp near the town of Mount Hope, where so many of De Lesseps' plans lie buried. Here are locomotives, dredges, lock-gates, huge bulks of iron, great wheels, nameless, shapeless masses--half under water, half covered with vines--the end of a great work. I came back to Colon by the side of the French Canal, completed and working up to, I believe, Gatun Lock and Dam, and spent the afternoon in the American town, every house Japanese in feeling, French or American in construction, screened with black wire gauze, divided by white wood lines--most decorative--and all shaded by a forest of palms. Through these wandered well-made roads, and on them were walking and driving well-made Americans. There were no mosquitoes, no flies, no smells, none of the usual adjuncts of a tropical town. At the end of the town was a monument, a nondescript Columbus, facing nowhere, at his feet an Indian; but it seemed to me, if any monument was wanted at Colon, it should be a great light-house or a great statue towering aloft in the harbor, a memorial to the men who, French and American, have made the Canal. Next day I started across the Continent to Panama, for I learned the Government headquarters were there, and, until I had seen the officials, I did not know if I should be allowed to work or even stay on the Isthmus. But at Gatun I got off the train, determining to do all I could before I was stopped--as I was quite sure I should be. I saw the tops of the locks only a few hundred yards away, and, turning my back on the stunning town piled up on the hillside, walked over to them; from a bridge bearing a sign that all who used it did so at their own risk I looked down into a yawning gulf stretching to right and left, the bottom filled with crowds of tiny men and tiny trains--all in a maze of work; to the right the gulf reached to a lake, to the left to mighty gates which mounted from the bottom to my feet. Overhead, huge iron buckets flew to and fro, great cranes raised or lowered huge masses of material. As I looked, a bell rang, the men dropped their tools, and lines of little figures marched away, or climbed wooden stairs and iron ladders to the surface. The engines whistled, the buckets paused, everything stopped instantly, save that from the depths a long chain came quickly up, and clinging to the end of it, as Cellini would have grouped them, were a dozen men--a living design--the most decorative motive I have ever seen in the Wonder of Work. I could not have imagined it, and in all the time I was on the Isthmus I never saw it but once again. For a second only they were posed, and then the huge crane swung the group to ground and the design fell to pieces as they dropped off. Across the bridge was a telephone station and beyond and below it the great approaches to the locks along which electric locomotives will draw the ships that pass through. There was a subject, and I tackled it at once. In the distance the already filling lake--among islands, but the highland still above the water, dotting it, crowned with palms and strange trees; dredgers slowly moved, native canoes paddled rapidly, over all hovered great birds. To the right was the long line of the French Canal, almost submerged, stretching to the distance, against which, blue and misty and flat, were strange-shaped mountains, outlined with strange-shaped trees. Bridges like those of Hiroshigi connected island with island or with the mainland. It was perfect, the apotheosis of the Wonder of Work, and as I looked the whole rocked as with an earthquake--and then another. I was dragged into the hut as showers of stones rattled on the roof as blast after blast went off near by. Soon people in authority came up--I supposed to stop me; instead it was only to show pleasure that I found their work worth drawing. These men were all Americans, all so proud of their part in the Canal, and so strong and healthy--most of them trained and educated, I knew as soon as they opened their mouths--the greatest contrast to the crowd on the steamer, who now were all tamely following a guide and listening to what they could neither understand nor see during their only day ashore. These engineers and workmen are the sort of Americans worth knowing, and yet I did not see any golf links at Gatun. The day was spent in that telephone box and on the Spillway of the Dam--a semicircle of cyclopean concrete, backed by a bridge finer than Hokusai ever imagined, yet built to carry the huge engines that drag the long trains of dirt and rock across it, to make the dam. The dam, to me, was too big and too vague to draw. And all this is the work of my countrymen, and they are so proud of their work. Yet the men who have done this great work will tell you that we owe much to the French, and that if the engineers and the Commission at Panama had not the Government, with unlimited men and money, behind them, and the discoveries in sanitary science of which the French were ignorant, we, too, would have failed. They tell you, and show you how, the French worked on the Canal right across the Isthmus, and we are carrying out the great project they were unable to complete. And we have won the admiration of the world. The sanitary problem is solved, but they tell you under the French, fever carried off a man for every tie that was laid on the Panama Railroad. This is a legend, but a true story is, that the French cared so little for their lives that with every shipload of machinery came boxes of champagne, and those who received them asked their friends to dinner--finished the bottles--and were buried in the empty box in the morning. Now there is no fever in the Canal Zone, but there is plenty of drink in and outside of it, but, I am told, "indulged in with wonderful moderation." I certainly never saw an American under the influence of it. In the evening a ride of two hours took me over the thirty miles to Panama--one of the last passengers over the old line of the Panama Railway, now buried under the waters of the growing lake. From the railroad I saw for the first time the primeval forest, the tropical jungle, which I had never believed in, never believed that it could not be penetrated save with an axe or a machete; but it is so, and the richness of it, the riot of it, the variety of it, is incredible and endless. The train puffed along, in that time-taking fashion of the tropics I should soon be familiar with, passing points of view I made notes of, for first impressions are for me always the best, and one trip like this gives me more ideas than days of personal pointing out. Finally Panama was reached in the dark; all I saw was a great hill lit up with rows of lights, one above the other, in the night. The day had not been hot, the sky was not blue or black--it was white, and filled with white clouds, though they were dark against it. There was no glare--and I had forgotten my sketching umbrella; but I never needed it. So far as I know, there is always a breeze--it is never really hot in the day--and as soon as the sun sets the trade wind rises--if it has not been blowing all day--and I could always sleep at night. It is all so unlike other hot countries--but, then, Panama is unlike other places: the sun rises and sets in the Pacific, and the city of Panama, though on the Pacific, is east of Colon, on the Atlantic. There was not a smell, or a mosquito, or a fly on Ancon Hill, but over it all was the odor of petroleum, with which the streams and marshes of the whole zone are sprayed almost daily; and this has made the Canal and saved the workers. Next morning I went to the Administration Building and presented my letters, though I did not know if I should be allowed to draw. But it seemed that everything had been arranged for me by the Commission, who, it also seemed, had been doing nothing for weeks but waiting my coming. I was clothed, fed, taken about in motor cars and steam launches, given passes on the railroad, and finally turned loose to go where I wanted and draw what I liked--and if anything happened or did not happen I was just to telephone to headquarters. The following day, donning my khaki, which I wore only once, and pocketing my pass and some oranges, I started for the locks at Pedro Miguel--pronounced, in American, Peter Megil, just as Miraflores is called Millflowers. We were all down, had breakfast, and off in the train--a jim-crow one--before the sun was up, and at Pedro Miguel station I found myself one of a horde of niggers, Greeks, Hindoos, Slovaks, Spaniards, Americans and engineers, bound for the lock, half a mile away. Here I went down to the bottom to get a drawing of the great walls that lead up to the great gates, now nearly finished. I had come at exactly the right time. These walls are surmounted with great arches and buttresses--the most decorative subject, the most stupendous motive I have ever seen--almost too great to draw. Unlike my experiences of a lifetime at other Government works, I was asked for no permit. I was allowed to go where I wanted, draw what I liked; when any attention was paid to me, it was to ask what I was working for--give me a glass of ice water--precious, out of the breeze at the bottom of a lock--offer to get me a photograph or make one, to suggest points of view, or tell me to clear out when a blast was to be fired. And the interest of these Americans in my work and in their work was something I had never seen before. A man in huge boots, overalls and ragged shirt, an apology for a hat, his sleeves up to his shoulders, proved himself in a minute a graduate of a great school of engineering, and proved as well his understanding of the importance of the work I was trying to do, and his regret that most painters could not see the splendid motives all about; and the greatest compliment I ever received came from one of these men, who told me my drawings "would work." Day after day it was the same--everything, including government hotels and labor trains, open to me. The only things to look out for were the blasts, the slips of dirt in the cut, and the trains, which rushed and switched about without any reference to those who might get in front of them. If one got run over, as was not usual; or blown up, which was unusual; or malaria, which few escaped among the workmen, there were plenty of hospitals, lots of nurses and sufficient doctors. Each railroad switch was attended by a little darkey with a big flag; of one of whom it was said he was seen to be asleep, with his head on the rails one day. The engineer of an approaching dirt train actually pulled up, and he was kicked awake and asked why he was taking a nap there. The boy replied he was "'termined no train go by, boss, widout me knowin' it"; and of another who, awaking suddenly and seeing half a train past his switch, pulled it open and wrecked all the trains, tracks and switches within a quarter of a mile; or the third, a Jamaican, a new hand, who, being told he was not to let a train go by, promptly signalled a locomotive to come on, and when he was hauled up, smilingly said: "Dat wan't no train wat yer tole me to stop; dat's a enjine." Drawing had other interesting episodes connected with it, as when I sat at work in Culebra Cut the leading man of a file of niggers, carrying on his head a wooden box, would approach, stop beside me and look at the drawing. As I happened to look up I would notice the box was labelled, _Explosives, Highly dangerous_. Then, with his hands in his pockets, he and the rest of the gang would stumble along over the half-laid ties, slippery boulders and through the mud, trying to avoid the endless trains and balance the boxes on their heads at the same time. I must say, when I read the legend on the box the sensation was peculiar. They tell you, too, that when President Taft came down to the Cut all dynamiting gangs were ordered out; but one gang of blacks was forgotten, and as the train with the President and Colonel Goethals in it passed, the leader cheered so hard that he dropped his box, which somehow didn't go off. It was interesting, too, when one had been working steadily for some time, to find oneself surrounded, on getting up, by little flags, to announce that the whole place had been mined and should not be approached; or to find oneself entangled in a network of live wires ready to touch off the blasts from hundreds of yards away, and to remember that I was behind a boulder about to be blown to pieces, and might be overlooked; or to be told I had better get out, as they were ready to blast, after a white man had got done chucking from one rock, to a black man on another, sticks of melanite, as the easiest way of getting them to him; or ramming in, with long poles, charges so big that trains, steam shovels and tracks had to be moved to keep them from being "shot up." I always kept out of the way as far as possible after the day at Bas Obispo when, standing some hundreds of yards from a blast watching the effect of showers of rocks falling like shells in the river, I heard wild yells, and, looking up, saw a rock as big as a foot-ball sailing toward me. I have heard one can see shells coming and dodge them. I know now that this is so, though I had to drop everything and roll to do it. But I don't like it; and accidents do happen, and there are hospitals all across the Isthmus with men, to whom accidents have happened, in them. But nothing happened to me. I did not get malaria or fever, or bitten or run over. I was very well all the time--and I walked in the sun and worked in the sun, and sat in the swamps and the bottoms of locks and at the edge of the dam, and nothing but drawings happened; but I should not advise others to try these things, nor to get too near steam shovels, which "pick up anything, from an elephant to a red-bug," but sometimes drop a ton rock; nor play around near track-lifters and dirt-train emptiers--for the things are small respecters of persons. But most people do not get hurt, and I never met anyone who wanted to leave; and I believe the threat to send the men home broke the only strike on the Canal. I did not go to Panama to study engineering--which I know nothing about; or social problems--which I had not time to master; or Central American politics--which we are in for; but to draw the Canal as it is, and the drawings are done. I was there at the psychological moment, and am glad I went. It is not my business to answer the question: When will the Canal be opened?--though they say it will be open within a year. Will the dam stand? Those who have built it say so. Which is better, a sea level or a lock? The lock canal is built. I did not bother myself about these things, nor about lengths and breadths and heights and depths. I went to see and draw the Canal, and during all the time I was there I was afforded every facility for seeing the construction of the Panama Canal, and from my point of view it is the most wonderful thing in the world; and I have tried to express this in my drawings at the moment before it was opened, for when it is opened, and the water turned in, half the amazing masses of masonry will be beneath the waters on one side and filled in with earth on the other, and the picturesqueness will have vanished. The Culebra Cut will be finer, and from great steamers passing through the gorge, worth going 15,000 miles, as I have done, to see. But I saw it at the right time, and have tried to show what I saw. And it is American--the work of my countrymen. JOSEPH PENNELL LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE ILLUSTRATIONS BEGIN WITH COLON AND PROCEED IN REGULAR SEQUENCE ACROSS THE ISTHMUS TO PANAMA. I COLON: THE AMERICAN QUARTER II MOUNT HOPE III GATUN: DINNER TIME IV AT THE BOTTOM OF GATUN LOCK V THE GUARD GATE, GATUN VI APPROACHES TO GATUN LOCK VII END OF THE DAY: GATUN LOCK VIII THE JUNGLE: THE OLD RAILROAD FROM THE NEW IX THE NATIVE VILLAGE X THE AMERICAN VILLAGE XI THE CUT AT BAS OBISPO XII IN THE CUT AT LAS CASCADAS XIII THE CUT FROM CULEBRA XIV STEAM SHOVEL AT WORK IN THE CULEBRA CUT XV THE CUT: LOOKING TOWARD CULEBRA XVI THE CUT AT PARAISO XVII THE CUT LOOKING TOWARD ANCON HILL XVIII LAYING THE FLOOR OF PEDRO MIGUEL LOCK XIX THE GATES OF PEDRO MIGUEL XX THE WALLS OF PEDRO MIGUEL XXI BUILDING MIRAFLORES LOCK XXII CRANES: MIRAFLORES LOCK XXIII WALLS OF MIRAFLORES LOCK XXIV OFFICIAL ANCON XXV FROM ANCON HILL XXVI THE CATHEDRAL, PANAMA XXVII THE CITY OF PANAMA FROM THE TIVOLI HOTEL, ANCON XXVIII THE MOUTH OF THE CANAL FROM THE SEA I COLON: THE AMERICAN QUARTER The city of Colon is divided into two quarters--the native, or Panamanian, and the American. The former is picturesque, but has nothing to do with the Canal and is some distance from it. The Canal cannot be seen from the city. The American quarter, in which the Canal employees live, stands on the sea shore, and is made up of bungalows, shops, hotels, hospitals--all that goes to make up a city--save saloons. All are built of wood, painted white, and completely screened with wire gauze, rusted black by the dampness, a protection from mosquitoes and other beasts, bugs and vermin. Raised on concrete supports mostly with long, gently sloping roofs, and buried in a forest of palms, the town, the first the visitor will see, seems absolutely Japanese, is very pictorial and full of character. The design, I believe, of the houses was made by the American engineers or architects. Very few of the higher Canal officers live at Colon, which is the Atlantic seaport of the Isthmus, the eastern mouth of the Canal, though Colon is west of Panama--such is the geography of the country. The mouth of the Canal will be fortified; breakwaters and light-houses are being built. For authorities on fortification it may be interesting to state that the forts will be so situated that the locks will be completely out of range of an enemy's guns. Personally I am not a believer in wars or navies. If my theories were practised there would be no need for fortifications. [Illustration] II MOUNT HOPE Near Mount Hope, which--for the French--should be called the Slough of Despond, or the Lake of Despair, is a huge swamp about a mile or so from Colon, on the left bank of the French Canal, seen on the right of the lithograph. This swamp is now filled with all sorts of abandoned French machinery. Dredges, locomotives, and even what seem to be lock gates, show amid the palms in the distance. Huge American cranes for raising this French material--which the American engineers have made use of--and discharging cargo from the ships in the French Canal--which is here finished and in use--loom over the swamp, the banks of which are lined with piers and workshops full of life--a curious contrast to the dead swamp in which not a mosquito lives, nor a smell breathes. [Illustration] III GATUN: DINNER TIME Between Mount Hope and Gatun is much more of the swamp and much more abandoned machinery, but the Canal is not to be seen from the railroad, or any evidence of it, till the train stops at the station of Old Gatun, with its workmen's dwellings crowning the hillside. I regret I made no drawing of these, so picturesquely perched. At the station of Gatun--the first time I stopped--I saw the workmen--in decorative fashion--coming to the surface for dinner. The lithograph was made from a temporary bridge spanning the locks and looking toward Colon. The great machines on each side of the locks are for mixing and carrying to their place, in huge buckets, the cement and concrete, of which the locks are built. The French Canal is in the extreme distance, now used by our engineers. [Illustration] IV AT THE BOTTOM OF GATUN LOCK There is a flight of three double locks at Gatun by which ships will be raised eighty-five feet to the level of Gatun Lake. From the gates of the upper lock--the nearest to the Pacific--they will sail across the now-forming lake some miles (about twenty, I believe) to the Culebra Cut; through this, nine miles long, they will pass, and then descend by three other flights of locks, at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores, to the Pacific, which is twenty feet higher, I believe, than the Atlantic. The great height, eighty-five feet, was agreed upon so as to save excavation in the Cut and time in completion--one of those magnificent labor-saving devices of the moment--which I, not being an engineer, see no necessity for--having waited four hundred years for the Canal, we might, as an outsider, it seems to me, have waited four more years and got rid of a number of the locks, even if it cost more money. The lithograph made in the middle lock shows the gates towering on either side. These gates were covered, when I made the drawing, with their armor plates. The lower parts, I was told, are to be filled with air, and the gates, worked by electricity, will virtually float. The scaffolding is only temporary, and so is the opening at the bottom and the railroad tracks, which were filled up and discarded while I was there. So huge are the locks--the three, I think, a mile long, each one thousand feet between the gates, and about ninety feet deep--that, until the men knock off, there scarce seems anyone around. [Illustration] V THE GUARD GATE, GATUN There is a safety gate in each lock, to protect, in case of accident, the main lock gate, just suggested, with the figures working at the armor-plate facing, on the extreme right. Beyond are the outer walls and approaches of the upper lock, and beyond these, but unseen, the lake. At the bottom is the railroad and the temporary opening shown in the previous drawing. The scale, the immensity of the whole may be judged by the size of the engines and figures. I have never seen such a magnificent arrangement of line, light and mass, and yet those were the last things the engineers thought of. But great work is great art, and always was and will be. This is the Wonder of Work. [Illustration] VI APPROACHES TO GATUN LOCK These huge arches, only made as arches to save concrete and to break the waves of the lake, are mightier than any Roman aqueduct, and more pictorial, yet soon they will be hidden almost to the top by the waters of the lake. Electric locomotives will run out to the farthest point, and from it, tow the ships into the lock. Beyond is Gatun Lake, and to the right the lines of the French Canal and Chagres River stretch to the horizon. Even while I was on the Isthmus the river and canal disappeared forever before the waters of the rapidly rising flood. All evidence of the French work beyond Gatun has vanished under water. I did not draw the Dam or the Spillway simply because I could not find a subject to draw, or could not draw it. [Illustration] VII END OF THE DAY--GATUN LOCK This was another subject I saw as the men stopped work in the evening. On the left is the stairway which most of them use, and on both sides are iron ladders which a few climb. The semicircular openings are for mooring the ships. [Illustration] VIII THE JUNGLE THE OLD RAILROAD FROM THE NEW While I was on the Isthmus the old line from Gatun to the Culebra Cut at Bas Obispo was abandoned, owing to the rising waters of the lake, which will soon cover towns, and swamps, and hills, and forests. This drawing was made looking across the lake near Gatun, with the dam in the distance, and I have tried to show the rich riot of the jungle. Below, on the old road, is a steam shovel digging dirt. The little islands, charming in line, are little hills still showing above the waters of the forming lake. [Illustration] IX THE NATIVE VILLAGE This lithograph was made on the new line, which discovered to the visitor primitive Panama, its swamps, jungles and native villages; but, owing to Colonel Gorgas, native no longer, as they are odorless and clean; but the natives, with their transformation, seem to prefer to the palm-leaf roof, corrugated iron and tin, and abandoned freight cars to live in. The huts are mostly built on piles near the rivers. In the background can be seen the strange-shaped mountains and strange-shaped trees. The white tree--I don't know its name--with the bushy top has no bark, and is not dead, but puts out leaves, Mrs. Colonel Gaillard tells me, in summer; and she also tells me the jungle is full of the most wonderful orchids, birds, snakes, monkeys and natives, and offered to take me to see them. I saw her splendid collection of orchids at Culebra, through the luxuriance of which Colonel Gaillard says he has to hew his way with a machete every morning to breakfast, so fast do plants grow on the Isthmus. Advantage of this rapidity of jungle growth has been taken to bind together the completed parts of the surface of the dam, which are covered with so much vegetation that I could not tell Nature's work from that of the engineers. [Illustration] X THE AMERICAN VILLAGE These are scattered all across the Continent, hemmed in by the tropical jungle or placed on the high, cool hill. In all there is, first, the news-stand at the station; then, the hotel--really restaurants--where on one side the Americans "gold employees" dine for thirty cents, better than they could for a dollar at home--and more decently; men, women and children. On the other, in a separate building, usually, the "silver employees" foreigners; and there are separate dining and sleeping places and cars for negroes, even on workmen's trains. The Indian has the sense and pride to live his own life down there, apart, as at home in India. There are many in the Zone. The head men in each of these towns have their own houses; the lesser lights share double ones; and I believe the least of all, bunks; but these matters didn't interest me, nor did sanitary conditions or social evils or advantages. There are also clubs, I believe, social centres, mothers' meetings, churches, art galleries and museums on the Isthmus, but I never saw them. I was after picturesqueness. Still, it is no wonder, under present conditions, that I never found a man who wanted to "go home"--and some hadn't been home for seven years, and dreaded going--and rightly. The Canal Zone is the best governed section of the United States. [Illustration] XI THE CUT AT BAS OBISPO The Culebra Cut commences near Bas Obispo--from this place--where the Chagres River enters Gatun Lake, the cut extends for nine miles, to Pedro Miguel. All between here and Gatun will be under water. The drawing was made at the bottom of the cut, and the various levels on which the excavations are made may be seen. The dirt trains, one above the other, are loading up from the steam shovels on each side of the old river bed in the centre. The machinery for shifting tracks and unloading trains is wonderful, but not very picturesque. [Illustration] XII IN THE CUT AT LAS CASCADAS This drawing shows the cut and gives from above some idea of the different levels on which the work is carried out. It is on some of these levels that slides have occurred and wrecked the work. The slides move slowly, not like avalanches, but have caused endless complications; but Colonel Gaillard, the engineer in charge, believes he will triumph over all his difficulties--which include even a small volcano--there is a newspaper story--but no earthquakes. [Illustration] XIII THE CUT FROM CULEBRA At this point the cut is far the deepest at the continental divide, and here the French did their greatest work, and here this is recorded by the United States on a placque high up on the left-hand bare mountain face of Gold Hill. The drawing was made looking towards Pedro Miguel. [Illustration] XIV STEAM SHOVEL AT WORK IN THE CULEBRA CUT This beast, as they say down there, "can pick up anything from an elephant to a red-bug"--the smallest thing on the Isthmus. They also say the shovel "would look just like Teddy if it only had glasses." It does the work of digging the Canal and filling the trains, and does it amazingly--under the amazing direction of its amazing crews. [Illustration] XV THE CUT--LOOKING TOWARD CULEBRA This is the most pictorial as well as the most profound part of the cut. Culebra, the town, is high above--some of it has fallen in--on the edge in the distance--on the left. The white tower is an observatory from near which the lithograph No. XIII of the cut was made. The drawing is looking toward the Atlantic. The engineer of the dirt train--the smoke of which is so black because the engines burn oil--climbed up to see what I was at, and incidentally told me he was paid $3,600 a year, had a house free and two months' holiday. It is scarcely wonderful he has little interest in home, but the greatest pride in "our canal," and his only hope was to be "kept on the job" and run an electric locomotive for the rest of his life. [Illustration] XVI THE CUT AT PARAISO At this point the old railroad crosses the Canal bed, and there is a splendid view in both directions. This is looking toward the same mountains as in the previous drawing, early in the morning. The mountains are covered with long lines of mist, under which nestles the American-Japanese town of Paraiso. The new line of railroad never crosses the Canal, but passes behind the mountain on the right. The scheme of having it follow the Canal through Culebra Cut has been abandoned, owing to the slides. [Illustration] XVII THE CUT LOOKING TOWARD ANCON HILL This is the view toward the Pacific from the same spot in the full stress of work. The Pedro Miguel locks are in the distance, beyond is Ancon Hill, dominating Panama, miles farther on; and to the right, between the hills, but miles still farther, beyond Miraflores lock, the Pacific. [Illustration] XVIII LAYING THE FLOOR OF PEDRO MIGUEL LOCK This is the most monumental piece of work on the Canal, and the most pictorial. The huge approaches, quite different in form from Gatun--for all the locks have character, and the character of their builders--are only arches to save concrete. Here were men enough laying the concrete floor--others swarming over the gates not yet covered with their armor plate. Beyond is the lock just shown between the gates. [Illustration] XIX THE GATES OF PEDRO MIGUEL This is the same lock nearer the gates, and shows the great length of it from gate to gate and something of its building and construction, from my point of view. [Illustration] XX THE WALLS OF PEDRO MIGUEL This was drawn from the opposite end of the lock and the great side walls topped with their concrete-making crenellations and cranes are seen. In the foreground, on the left, is one of the side openings for emptying the water from one lock to another--for all the locks are double, side by side, and ships will not have to wait until a lock is empty, as is usual, before they can enter, but, as one empties, the same water partly fills the one beside it, and so steamers will pass without waiting. Two or three small vessels can go through at the same time, as well as the largest with room to spare. [Illustration] XXI BUILDING MIRAFLORES LOCK This lock, the nearest the Pacific, is again quite different and is the work of a civil engineer, Mr. Williamson, and not of army officers, like the rest. Between the two forces, I believe, the most fierce harmony exists. The drawing shows the two locks side by side, the great cranes--they are different, too--towering above. All the ground here will be filled by a small lake between this lock and Pedro Miguel. [Illustration] XXII CRANES--MIRAFLORES LOCK These great cranes travel to and fro, and as I drew the nearest I found the lines changing, but thought there was something wrong with me. So huge were they, and so silently and solemnly did they move, that I could not believe they were moving. This is the Pacific end of the lock--the last on the Canal. [Illustration] XXIII WALLS OF MIRAFLORES LOCK The only wall in March of the approach to Miraflores may be contrasted with the similar subject No. XX--Pedro Miguel. Much as there was to be done in March, the engineer, Mr. Williamson, had no doubt it would be finished this fall; for as fast as the other locks were completed, men and machines were to be put on this. [Illustration] XXIV OFFICIAL ANCON Amid these royal palm groves work and live many of the members of the Isthmian Canal Commission--the rest are on the high hill at Culebra. To the secretary, Mr. J. B. Bishop, and to his family, I am endlessly indebted for endless help while on the Zone. Ancon is a perfect Japanese town--built by Americans--and the interiors of the houses here and at Culebra are as delightful as their owners are charming--and I know of what I speak. The large building against the ocean is the Administration Office of the Isthmian Canal Commission. [Illustration] XXV FROM ANCON HILL A road winds up Ancon Hill, passing the official residences and the hospitals, finally reaching a terrace bordered with royal palms. Below to the left is the Tivoli Hotel, and still lower and farther away, the city, while the Pacific fills the distance. This is the most beautiful spot I saw on the Isthmus. [Illustration] XXVI THE CATHEDRAL, PANAMA The Cathedral, one of a number of churches in the city of Panama, stands in a large square. The feeling of all these, with their richly decorated façades and long, unbroken side walls, is absolutely Spanish--but the interiors are far more bare--much more like Italian churches. [Illustration] XXVII THE CITY OF PANAMA FROM THE TIVOLI HOTEL, ANCON From the wing of the Government hotel in which I stayed I looked out over the city of Panama to the Pacific. If this city were in Spain, or if even a decent description of it were in a European guide-book, the hordes of Americans who go to the Canal would rave over it. As it is, not many of them (not being told) ever see it, though there are few towns in Europe with more character. But I regret to say my countrymen don't know what they are looking at, or what to look at, till they have a guide-book, courier or tout to tell them. The Government provides, I am told, a Harvard graduate to perform the latter function, and sends out daily an observation car across the Continent. The two strange, flat-topped mountains, miles out at sea, are to be fortified, and they are so far from shore, and the locks so far inland, as to be out of range--as well as out of sight--of modern guns and gunners. [Illustration] XXVIII THE MOUTH OF THE CANAL FROM THE SEA This drawing was made from the channel which leads out to the Pacific Ocean. The mouth of the Canal is on the left in the flat space between the mountains; on the right of this, the dark mass on the edge of the water is the docks and harbors; then comes the great, towering Ancon Hill, one side all dug out in terraces for dirt, much of which goes to fill in the outside of locks, which, however, will work before they are filled in. And for what other purposes the War Department are going to use this Gibraltar they alone know. The other side, a mass of palms shelters the houses of the officials, and at the foot of the hill, to the right, Panama--as beautiful as Naples or Tangier, yet hardly a tourist knows it; and--well, the Government is not running a tourist agency. The breakwater, which will connect the fortified islands miles away with the mainland, is just started in the centre. This is the first and last view of Panama--and of the greatest work of modern times, the work of the greatest engineers of all time. JOSEPH PENNELL [Illustration] Life of James McNeill Whistler BY ELIZABETH R. AND JOSEPH PENNELL The Pennells have thoroughly revised the material in their Authorized Life and added much new matter, which for lack of space they were unable to incorporate in the elaborate two-volume edition now out of print. Fully illustrated with 96 plates reproduced from Whistler's works, more than half reproduced for first time. Crown 8vo., fifth and revised edition. Whistler binding, deckle edge. $3.50 net. Three quarters grain levant, $7.50 net. +----------------------------------------------------------------- + | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. | | | | Duplicated section headings have been omitted. | | | | Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, | | _like this_. | | | | [++] indicates a caption added by the transcriber. | +------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
42603	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) SAN FRANCISCO AND THE NICARAGUA CANAL. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA, CENTRAL AMERICA, September 15, 1900. HON. GEORGE C. PERKINS, United States Senator, San Francisco, California. MY DEAR SIR: Your valued favor of August 23d requests me to contest the argument of a mutual friend entitled to our personal esteem, in regard to the Nicaragua Canal, to the construction of which he objects. The admission made by him that _his argument is not made on very broad lines_ would indispose me to reply, as the Nicaragua Canal is a national undertaking, not to be considered from a narrow standpoint. But, confident that even his narrow premises will not stand impartial investigation, I shall contest his arguments first from his restricted platform, and subsequently in the brief manner necessitated by the limits of this paper, on a broader and more patriotic basis. In examining his statement of navigable distances I note some serious errors, consequently you will find herewith a statement thereof for which I can vouch as emanating from the United States Hydrographic office. During my Central American residence I have visited various United States naval ships on this station and have found one naval lieutenant opposed to the canal. On urging him to candidly state his reason for this opposition, he at first stated that his reason was a personal one and like our friend's _not made on very broad lines_. He finally admitted that he opposed a canal because if we do not have one we shall need two navies, one on each side of the Continent; more naval officers would be necessary and his promotion would ensue much more rapidly! Although at first surprised at this view of the case I thanked him for his friendly candor, and replied that his argument as a _personal_ one was on a sound basis, much more so than the railway magnates who oppose the Canal on the erroneous ground that their overland railways will be injured thereby when I challenge anyone to cite an instance where any canal has not benefited the railways nearest thereto: notably the St. Mary's and Erie Canals in our own country. Our friend starts with the assumption that the canal is _to be constructed for the purpose of making money_. This I deny _in toto_. The United States Government will build a canal on a broader and more beneficent basis, for the _political_ and _military safety_ of our country, for the _development of its commerce and industries_ and to secure a _short cheap water_ route to and from our Pacific Ocean possessions. The Suez Canal which cost ninety-four millions was built to make money and earns 17 to 20 per cent. annually on a toll of about $1.85 per ton, whereas our Government should not charge over one dollar per ton when the Nicaragua Canal is opened and when its traffic increases, probably half a dollar per ton will pay cost of maintenance and leave a small percentage for a sinking fund. Secondly, he states "the Canal will have no business when first opened." Why not? Will freight continue to prefer ten thousand miles greater distance around Cape Horn or higher Panama Railway Route and overland railway charges? The business of the Canal will come from new interests which it will develop and from other routes which cannot compete with it in rates. Third. He asserts that it will cost no less than $150,000,000.00. How much the Canal will cost depends upon its capacity and its honest construction. Since the Maritime Canal Company figured on $80,084,176.00 for a 28-feet canal, the majority report of the United States Commission has increased the _possible_ cost, including a 20 per cent. contingency to $118,113,790 for a canal two feet deeper and much wider, with duplicate locks of increased size. But experts who have investigated the question have no fear of financial results even at the cost of one hundred and fifty millions. Fourth. I deny that it will _be much more expensive to operate than the Suez Canal_, which needs constant dredging to keep it from filling with desert sands, as against the nominal cost of operating modern locks at Nicaragua, proof of which we have in the cost of lockage at the Saint Mary's Canal, which now passes through its locks nearly three times the tonnage that uses the Suez Canal. Neither is there apprehension of difficulty in water control at Nicaragua. Nature has provided against this as any canal engineer who has examined the route can prove. _An abundance of fresh water under absolute control_ is the _striking advantage_ developed at Nicaragua, as against the Suez Canal built through an irreclaimable sand desert, constantly encroaching upon it and necessitating constant dredging. But I may remark that the Suez canal with an expensive staff expends only 8-1/2 per cent. of gross receipts for management while the cheapest and most efficient railway in the United States uses 47 per cent. of gross receipts for operating expenses, and many of our railways between 50 and 60 per cent. This is one of several reasons why a canal can afford to carry cheaper than any railway; it has practically _no wear and tear_, and _no depreciation_ to contend with. Examining carefully the animus of the paper I find only two main points to contest. First: The Nicaragua Canal will divert commerce from San Francisco and other Pacific Coast Ports. Second: It is "outrageous and inexcusable" that the Government shall create a competing route which will injure railways overland which it has already aided in construction. Having reasoned from a fallacious standpoint the conclusions are without foundation and the last one entirely regardless of the national and public interest. That the Nicaragua Canal will divert maritime commerce from San Francisco and other Pacific Coast Ports is a _fallacy_ based upon the proposition that, with the advantage of five thousand miles navigation and canal toll in their favor the merchants of Pacific Coast Ports will be unable to compete with their Atlantic Coast and European rivals. Such proposition implies an _incompetency_ which I am not disposed to admit. It is a fallacy for another reason connected with navigation. A steamship from Hong Kong to Western terminus of Nicaragua Canal, and vice versa, only increases her distance by calling at San Francisco _twenty_ miles: from Yokohama _ninety-one_ miles. The steam route from Yokohama to Brito (Western terminus of Canal) via Honolulu (practically on rhumb line) is _374 miles longer_ and from Hong Kong _367 miles longer_. These two most important ports illustrate the same fact as applicable to all other Asiatic Ports within the distance attraction of the Canal, the _divisional line_ of which from the United States Atlantic Coast is at _Singapore_. The carriage of fuel being a serious factor in steamship expense, and San Francisco being practically _a half-way port_ on a run of over ten thousand miles it _must_ become a port of call for coal and freight, for all steamships in the Atlantic Asiatic trade, unless such special limited business offers at Hawaii as will induce them to navigate nearly four hundred miles additional. Under these conditions these steamships will often handle California freight to be discharged and replaced with a _second_ freight for the Atlantic or for Asiatic Ports while coaling. The increased tonnage using Pacific Coast Ports for this reason will cheapen freights and add greatly to the business of its Ports. It cannot be claimed that steamers will prefer the longest route. Even between New York and Europe, where the shortest (or "great circle" route) infringes upon Cape Race, the transatlantic steamers run that dangerous, foggy and iceberg line, in preference to the longer _rhumb line_ further south, to save a much less distance, and they will certainly do so on the Pacific where the saving is much greater. I beg attention to the subjoined third table of distances of proving the assertions above made. That the canal will _divert_ some overland traffic from the railways is an indisputable fact. There must be a new adjustment of conditions. But there will arise with this adjustment a full compensation which will soon become _vastly more important_ than the long haul overland of a class of freights which are only carried overland to avoid the 15,000 miles Cape Horn route. In the increased, vastly more profitable _short haul_ to and from Pacific Coast tide water and in the increased passenger travel consequent upon the rapid development of the Pacific Coast our overland railways will find full compensation--the Canal will be of great benefit to them. When the short and cheap water way is available, European shipping to Pacific Ports will be largely steam freight tonnage. These steamers will load holds with English cargo and between decks with immigrants, and the Pacific Coast will rapidly settle up with these to the exclusion of Chinese. To such desirable emigration the Pacific Coast will for the first time be accessible at reasonable rates. At present the few that have the means to start for the Coast by overland railways are induced to settle in the middle West, and consequently Pacific Coast population increases very slowly. The same freight steamships will then return to Atlantic Ports, with Pacific Coast products: Cape Horn will become a memory. The United States Government has covered into its Treasury approximately $113,000,000.00 which it loaned the overland railways; the enormous land grants they keep. What "injustice or outrage" is there in _again_ using this money to build another transportation route, national in character, for the benefit of all the Republic? This is not even taxation of our people: they have been once taxed to build the overland railways. I have in mind an instance where 1,500 barrels provisions were shipped from Sioux City, Iowa, to Jersey City, lightered to the California bound ship in East River, New York; carried 15,000 miles around Cape Horn, paying rail freight Eastward, lighterage, Cape Horn freight, insurance, six months interest and San Francisco wharfage; after all these charges saving _one third on the rail freight_ westward from Sioux City to the Pacific. Freight rates eastward on Pacific Coast perishable products are even higher. You are aware that, to save the onerous westward freight charges by rail, California merchants have repeatedly shipped heavy goods by steam from our Atlantic Ports to Antwerp: thence reshipped via Cape Horn to San Francisco, paying charges before named, and would be now doing so save for Customs regulations forbidding it. It cannot be expected that freight can be carried by rail across the continent more than three thousand miles over two mountain chains and compete in cost with water transportation which under conditions most favorable to rail transportation costs only one-fifth, while, with heavy grades, the ratio is one by water to fifteen by rail. In the effort to control such freight, the overland railways are _preventing the development of the Pacific Coast_ to their own detriment and against the interests of our great country. The day will come when these railway managers will regard their opposition to the Canal as error born of _unfounded apprehension_. Even now one of the main overland railway systems is quietly friendly to the Canal. Water transportation has its limitations, mainly _cheapness at the expense of time_. Railway transportation also has its limitations, mainly _speed at increased cost_. One is the complement of the other--not properly its competitor, and by carriage of cheap and bulky freight which is frequently unprofitable to railways on a long haul, water transportation can and is being used to _aid_ railways. Even Mr. Huntington frequently shipped his railway iron around Cape Horn, as he would have done through the canal had it been available. While controlling a railway system from ocean to ocean, he bought out the "Morgan Steamship Company" between New York and New Orleans and with the advantage of this _one-third water route_, dictated terms to his railway competitors. Could he have better expressed his true appreciation of cheap water carriage and of the inter-oceanic canal? The limits of this letter forbid a full discussion of navigation distances, and besides this, distances are not fully conclusive. Considerations of traffic, ocean currents, available coaling stations, and return cargoes must be taken into account. But I shall briefly allude to prominent points in connection with navigable distances which are proven by U. S. Hydrographic Tables. Considering New York as the starting point, the _divisional line_ between Suez and Nicaragua Canal influence in Asiatic commerce is _Singapore_, which port is only 29 miles nearer New York via Suez than Nicaragua. Consequently _all Asiatic Ports north of Singapore_ are within the attraction of the American Canal for United States commerce. The immense trade of these ports is an important factor. In Australia, all ports East of and including Melbourne are much nearer New York than via Suez. New Zealand, the coasts of North and South America on both oceans and all Pacific Ocean Island groups the same. No claim to important diversion from the Suez Canal can be made, as the distance from the United States to Port Said protects it. Nor is a claim to diversion from Suez Canal needed. The Nicaragua Canal had within its zone of attraction, as shown by careful estimates in 1890, 8,159,150 tons annually. The revenue attainable therefrom will depend upon rate of toll, but at one dollar per ton, with 10 per cent. for operating expenses (or 1-1/2 per cent. more than at Suez) it will leave a safe sinking fund even on $150,000,000.00 cost, or, by an extension of time, on a greater amount. But the earnings will rapidly increase. You will note that the Suez Canal merely diverted gradually an _ancient_ commerce, the increase of which has been steady but comparatively slow. The Nicaragua Canal can depend upon an already large commerce, yet in its _incipiency_. The resources of the American continent are _undeveloped_ and its population _limited_. No man can place a limit upon the future commerce of this great division of the habitable world. Another feature in favor of the Nicaragua Canal is _the region through which it will be built_. While its length is 169 miles, it has 121 miles of free slack water and lake navigation, through a territory of unsurpassed fertility, blessed with a healthy climate. Thus, _it is not only an inter-oceanic canal but a line of inland navigation_ which will so develop the territory on each side that in a few yew years its commerce will pay the cost of maintenance. The benefit of a fresh water canal to ocean carriers of steel or iron will be obvious to experts: they will leave it with clean bottoms and boilers filled with fresh water. Its location is 11° North of the Equator and in the North East trade regions, an advantage that will enable sailing ships to avail of it. Cape Horn is twelve hundred miles South of the Cape of Good Hope and the American Canal consequently saves greater distances than the Suez or any other canal that can hereafter be constructed. The _naval_ and _political_ advantage of the Canal is a technical question regarding which my opinion is given with deference. But I find that its opponents are not found in the Government service. Military and Naval officers discuss the _advisability of fortifying_ the canal _never doubting its great importance to our country_. Quotations are available to prove that many of our greatest statesmen have been its ardent advocates, but space forbids. I may mention among these Grant, Harrison, Hayes, McKinley and Bryan as well as a nearly unanimous Senate and House are recorded in its favor. Are all these great minds dullards on the Canal question? Are they not the men who _ought to understand_ the great interests of our country, _impartially_ considered? As my advocacy for this beneficent work for a quarter of a century may be regarded as warping my judgment in its favor, I will end this already too extended reply by quoting _Archibald Ross Colquhoun_, an eminent English Engineer and Government Administrator, who, having personally examined the Nicaragua Canal route and the plans adopted for its construction, wrote a standard work _The Key of the Pacific_ (Longhams, London, 1895) which ends with the following conclusions (page 335): 1. It will render greater service to the New World than the Suez Canal does to the Old. 2. It will bring Japan, Northern China, Australasia and part of Malaysia nearer the Atlantic cities of the United States than they are now to England. 3. It will benefit America in an infinitely greater degree than it will Europe, which will only use the Canal in trading with the Pacific littoral of the two Americas, the South Sea Islands and possibly New Zealand. 4. It will divert little or no European traffic from the Suez Canal. 5. It will give an immense impulse to United States manufactures, especially cotton and iron, and will greatly stimulate the shipbuilding industry and development of the naval power of the United States. 6. It will cost more than the estimates show ($80,084,176.00 at that time) but it will have a traffic greater than is usually admitted. 7. In the interest of the world it must be neutralized, and the true policy of the United States is to forward that end and thus make this international highway a powerful factor for the preservation of peace. To the eminently conservative and disinterested conclusions of this patriotic English expert, I may be permitted to give my adherence no less than to the publicly expressed opinions of the great American statesmen whose names I have mentioned and to the practically unanimous approval of the Congress of the United States, after having actively discussed the Canal question for twenty years. With assurances of my highest esteem I beg to remain, Sir: Your most obedient servant, WILLIAM LAWRENCE MERRY. NICARAGUA CANAL DISTANCES. NEW YORK VIA NICARAGUA COMPARED WITH LIVERPOOL VIA SUEZ. New York to Singapore 11,549 m. 29 m. more. " " Hong Kong 11,308 m. 2,363 m. less. " " Yokohama 9,363 m. 5,951 m. less. " " Melbourne 10,000 m. 4,920 m. less. * * * * * New York to San Francisco {10,753 m. less than via Cape Horn. New Orleans to San Francisco {11,853 m. less than via Cape Horn. Distances saved via Magellan Straits vary between different ports, but may be approximately stated at two thousand miles. NICARAGUA CANAL DISTANCES U. S. Hydrographic Office, proving San Francisco to be on Asiatic Route to and from Brito, the Pacific Terminus of Canal. | Knots. | Knots. ----------------------------------------------------+--------+------- The shortest practicable route from | | Brito to Yokohama | .... | 7145 Brito to San Francisco | 2700 | San Francisco to Yokohama | 4536 | |--------| Therefore the distance from Brito to Yokohama | | via San Francisco is | .... | 7236 Therefore excess of route via San Francisco over | | shortest practicable route is | .... | =91= Brito to Honolulu | 4210 | Honolulu to Yokohama | 3400 | |--------| Shortest practicable route from Brito to Yokohama | | via Honolulu | .... | 7610 Therefore excess of route via Honolulu over route | | via San Francisco is | .... | 374 | |------- The shortest practicable route from | | Brito to Hong Kong | .... | 8740 Brito to San Francisco | 2700 | San Francisco to Hong Kong | 6060 | |--------| Therefore the distance from Brito to Hong Kong | | via San Francisco is | .... | 8760 Therefore excess of route via San Francisco over | | shortest practicable route is | .... | =20= Brito to Honolulu | 4210 | Honolulu to Hong Kong | 4917 | |--------| Therefore the distance from Brito to Hong Kong | | via Honolulu is | .... | 9127 | | Therefore the excess of route via Honolulu over | | route via San Francisco is | .... | 367 ----------------------------------------------------+--------+------- The conditions as to the distances in Trans-Pacific Navigation apply approximately to all United States Pacific Coast Ports. TABLE OF DISTANCES IN NAUTICAL MILES BETWEEN PORTS OF THE WORLD, and Distances Saved by the Nicaragua Canal, Compiled from data furnished by the United States Hydrographic Office. ======================================================================== BETWEEN | | | | | | |Around | Via | | |Advantage|Advantage | Cape |Magellan| Via |Via | over | over | Horn |for full|Cape of|Nica- | Sailing | Steam | for |powered | Good |ragua | Route | Route |Sailing | Steam | Hope. |Canal. | via | via |Vessels.|Vessels.| | | Cape. | Magellan | | | | | | Straits. ------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+---------+--------- New York and | | | | | | San Francisco | 15660 | 13174 | ..... | 4907 | 10753 | 8267 Puget Sound | ..... | 13935 | ..... | 5665 | ..... | 8270 Hong Kong | ..... | ..... | 13750 | 10692 | 3058 | ..... Yokohama | ..... | ..... | 15217 | 9227 | 5990 | ..... Melbourne | 13760 | 12860 | 12830 | 9862 | 3898 | 2998 Auckland, N. Z. | 12600 | 11599 | 14069 | 8462 | 4138 | 3137 Honolulu, H. I. | 15480 | 13290 | ..... | 6417 | 7063 | 6873 Callao | ..... | 9640 | ..... | 3744 | ..... | 5896 Valparaiso | 9420 | 8440 | ..... | 5014 | 4406 | 3426 | | | | | | New Orleans and | | | | | | San Francisco | 16000 | 13539 | ..... | 4147 | 11853 | 9392 Callao | ..... | 10005 | ..... | 2984 | ..... | 7021 Valparaiso | ..... | 8805 | ..... | 4254 | ..... | 4551 | | | | | | Liverpool and | | | | | | San Francisco | 15620 | 13494 | ..... | 7627 | 7993 | 5867 Auckland, N. Z. | 12130 | 11919 | 13357 | 11182 | 948 | 737 Callao | ..... | 9960 | ..... | 6464 | ..... | 3496 Valparaiso | 9380 | 8760 | ..... | 7734 | 1646 | 1026 Honolulu | ..... | 13610 | ..... | 9137 | ..... | 4473 Yokohama | ..... | ..... | 14505 | 11947 | ..... | 2558 ------------------+--------+--------+-------+-------+---------+--------- Transcriber Notes: Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. Passages in bold were indicated by =equal signs=. Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted. The tables at the end of the book has been reformatted to fit the page width. On page 2, "will he injured" was replaced with "will be injured". On page 2, "maintenace" was replaced with "maintenance". On page 2, "per centage" was replaced with "percentage". On page 3, "Nicaragura" was replaced with "Nicaragua". On page 3, "overand" was replaced with "overland". On page 7, "extention" was replaced with "extension". On page 9, "personallly" was replaced with "personally". 
31383	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) [Illustration: WILLIAM O. HUDSON President, Board of Commissioners of Port of New Orleans] FOREWORD. Oh the mind of man! Frail, untrustworthy, perishable--yet able to stand unlimited agony, cope with the greatest forces of Nature and build against a thousand years. Passion can blind it--yet it can read in infinity the difference between right and wrong. Alcohol can unsettle it--yet it can create a poem or a harmony or a philosophy that is immortal. A flower pot falling out of a window can destroy it--yet it can move mountains. If Man had a tool that was as frail as his mind, he would fear to use it. He would not trust himself on a plank so liable to crack. He would not venture into a boat so liable to go to pieces. He would not drive a tack with a hammer, the head of which is so liable to fly off. But Man knows that what the mind can conceive, that can he execute. So Man sits in his room and plans the things the world thought impossible. From the known he dares the unknown. He covers paper with figures, conjures forth a blue print, and sends an army of workmen against the forces of Nature. If his mind blundered, he would waste millions in money and perhaps destroy thousands of lives. But Man can trust his mind; fragile though it is, he knows it can bear the strain of any task put upon it. All over the world there is the proof: in the heavens above, and in the waters under the earth. And nowhere has Man won a greater triumph over unspeakable odds than in New Orleans, in the dredging of a canal through buried forests 18,000 years old, the creation of an underground river, and the building of a lock that was thought impossible. The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans History, Description and Economic Aspects of Giant Facility Created to Encourage Industrial Expansion and Develop Commerce By Thomas Ewing Dabney Published by Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans Second Port U. S. A. May, 1921 (Copyright, 1921, by Thomas Ewing Dabney). CONTENTS FOREWORD 2 THE NEED RECOGNIZED FOR A CENTURY 5 NEW ORLEANS DECIDES TO BUILD CANAL 8 SMALL CANAL FIRST PLANNED 13 THE DIRT BEGINS TO FLY 17 CANAL PLANS EXPANDED 22 DIGGING THE DITCH 27 OVERWHELMING ENDORSEMENT BY NEW ORLEANS 31 SIPHON AND BRIDGES 36 THE REMARKABLE LOCK 40 NEW CHANNEL TO THE GULF 48 WHY GOVERNMENT SHOULD OPERATE CANAL 54 ECONOMIC ASPECT OF CANAL 60 CONSTRUCTION COSTS AND CONTRACTORS 66 OTHER PORT FACILITIES 70 COMPARISON OF DISTANCES BETWEEN NEW ORLEANS AND THE PRINCIPAL CITIES AND PORTS OF THE WORLD 78 THE NEED RECOGNIZED FOR A CENTURY. There is a map in the possession of T. P. Thompson of New Orleans, who has a notable collection of books and documents on the early history of this city, dated March 1, 1827, and drawn by Captain W. T. Poussin, topographical engineer, showing the route of a proposed canal to connect the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, curiously near the site finally chosen for that great enterprise nearly a hundred years later. New Orleans then was a mere huddle of buildings around Jackson Square; but with the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France, and the great influx of American enterprise that characterized the first quarter of the last century, development was working like yeast, and it was foreseen that New Orleans' future depended largely upon connecting the two waterways mentioned--the river, that drains the commerce of the Mississippi Valley, at our front door, and the lake, with its short-cut to the sea and the commerce of the world, at the back. When the Carondelet canal, now known as the Old Basin Canal, was begun in 1794, the plan was to extend it to the river. It was also planned to connect the New Basin Canal, begun in 1833, with the Mississippi. This was, in fact, one of the big questions of the period. That the work was not put through was due more to the lack of machinery than of enterprise. During the rest of the century, the proposal bobbed up at frequent intervals, and the small Lake Borgne canal was finally shoved through from the Mississippi to Lake Borgne, which is a bay of Lake Pontchartrain. The difference between these early proposals and the plan for the Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor that was finally adopted, is that the purpose in the former case was simply to develop a waterway for handling freight, whereas the object of New Orleans' great facility, now nearing completion, is to create industrial development. Under the law of Louisiana, inherited from the Spanish and French regimes, river frontage can not be sold or leased to private enterprise. This law prevents port facilities being sewed up by selfish interests and insures a fair deal for all shipping lines, new ones as well as old, with a consequent development of foreign trade; and port officials, at harbors that are under private monopoly, would give a pretty if the Louisiana system could be established there. But there is no law, however good, that meets all conditions, and a number of private enterprises--warehouses and factories--have undoubtedly been kept out of New Orleans because they could not secure water frontage. An artificial waterway, capable of indefinite expansion, on whose banks private enterprise could buy or lease, for a long period of time, the land for erecting its buildings and plants, without putting in jeopardy the commercial development of the port; a waterway that would co-ordinate river, rail and maritime facilities most economically, and lend itself to the development of a "free port" when the United States finally adopts that requisite to a world commerce--that was the recognized need of New Orleans when the proposal for connecting the two waterways came to the fore in the opening years of the present century. The Progressive Union, later the Association of Commerce, took a leading part in the propaganda; it was assisted by other public bodies, and forward-looking men, who gradually wore away the opposition with which is received every attempt to do something that grandfather didn't do. And on July 9, 1914, the legislature of Louisiana passed Act No. 244, authorizing the Commission Council of New Orleans to determine the site, and the Board of Port Commissioners of Louisiana, or Dock Board, as it is more commonly called, to build the Industrial Canal. The act gave the board a right to expropriate all property necessary for the purpose, to build the "necessary locks, slips, laterals, basins and appurtenances * * * in aid of commerce," and to issue an unlimited amount in bonds "against the real estate and canal and locks and other improvements * * * to be paid out of the net receipts of said canal and appurtenances thereof, after the payment of operating expenses * * * (and) to fix charges for tolls in said canal." This was submitted to a vote of the people at the regular election in November of that year, and became part of the constitution. To avoid the complication of a second mortgage on the property, the Dock Board subsequently (ordinance of June 29, 1918) set a limit on the total bond issue. To enable the development that was then seen to be dimly possible, it set this limit high--at $25,000,000. NEW ORLEANS DECIDES TO BUILD CANAL. The canal for which the legislature made provision in 1914 bears about the relation to the one that was finally built as the acorn does to the oak. It was to be a mere barge canal that might ultimately be enlarged to a ship canal. Its cost was estimated at $2,400,000, which was less than the cost of digging the New Basin canal nearly a century before, which was a great deal smaller and ran but half way between the lake and river. The panic of the early days of the World War shoved even this modest plan to one side, and it was not until the next year that enthusiasm caught its second wind. Then the leading men and the press of the city put themselves behind the project once more. As the New Orleans Item said, October 22, 1915, "the lack of that canal has already proven to have cost the city much in trade and developed industry." Commenting on the "astonishing exhibition of intelligent public spirit" in New Orleans, the Chicago Tribune said that "no other city in or near the Mississippi Valley, including Chicago, has shown such an awakening to the possibilities and rearrangements that are following the cutting of the Panama canal. * * * The awakening started with the talk of the new canal." Other papers throughout the country made similar expressions. In 1915 the engineering firm of Ford, Bacon & Davis made a preliminary survey of conditions and how development would be affected by the canal. At about the same time the Illinois legislature voted to spend $5,000,000 to construct a deep water canal, giving Chicago water connection with the Mississippi River; and the New Orleans Item linked the two projects when it said, January 16, 1916, "the Illinois-Lake Michigan Canal and the New Orleans Industrial Canal are complementary links in a new system of waterways connecting the upper Valley through the Mississippi River and New Orleans with the Gulf and the Panama Canal. This system again gives the differential to the Valley cities in trade with the markets of the Orient, our own west coast, and South America." Commodore Ernest Lee Jahncke, president of the Association of Commerce, issued a statement to the press January 16, 1916, declaring that the prospect of the canal "brightened the whole business future of this city and the Mississippi Valley"; the New Orleans Real Estate Board and the Auction Exchange, in a joint meeting, urged its speedy building; and Governor Luther E. Hall, in a formal statement to the press January 16, 1916, gave his endorsement to the construction of the canal "long sought by many commercial interests of New Orleans," and said that work would probably begin in "three months." In August, 1916, the governor dismissed the Dock Board and appointed a new one. In the confusion attending the reorganization the canal project was again dropped. The New Orleans American, on August 28, 1916, attempted to revive it, but the effort fell flat, and the plan laid on ice until 1918. America had in the meantime thrown its hat into the ring, and the cry was going up for ships, more ships, and still more ships. National patriotism succeeded where civic effort had failed. New Orleans brought out its Industrial Canal project to help the country build the famous "bridge of boats." But this new phase of the plan was far from the canal that was finally built. In fact, the accomplishment of this project has shown a remarkable development with the passing years, reminding one of the growth of the trivial hopes of the boy into the mighty achievement of the man. Ships could not be built on the Mississippi River. The twenty-foot range in the water level would require the ways to make a long slope into the current, a work of prohibitive expense, and as nearly impossible from an engineering standpoint as anything can be. Early in 1918 a committee of representative Orleanians began to study the situation. This was known as the City Shipbuilding Committee. It comprised Mayor Behrman, O. S. Morris, president of the Association of Commerce; Walter Parker, manager of that body; Arthur McGuirk, special counsel of the Dock Board; R. S. Hecht, president of the Hibernia Bank; Dr. Paul H. Saunders, president of the Canal-Commercial Bank; J. D. O'Keefe, vice-president of the Whitney-Central Bank; J. K. Newman, financier; G. G. Earl, superintendent of the Sewerage and Water Board; Hampton Reynolds, contractor; D. D. Moore, James M. Thompson and J. Walker Ross, of the Times-Picayune, Item and States, respectively. On February 10, 1918, this committee laid the plans for an industrial basin, connected with the river by a lock, and ultimately to be connected with the lake by a small barge canal. Ships could be built on the banks of this basin, the water in which would have a fixed level. Mr. Hecht, and Arthur McGuirk, special counsel of the Dock Board, devised the plan by which the project could be financed. The Dock Board would issue long-term bonds, and build the necessary levees with the material excavated from the canal. The committee's formal statement summarized the public need of this facility as follows: "1. It will provide practical, convenient and fixed-level water-front sites for ship and boat building and repair plants, for industries and commercial enterprises requiring water frontage. "2. It will provide opportunities for all enterprises requiring particular facilities on water frontage to create such facilities. "3. It will permit the complete co-ordination, in the City of New Orleans, of the traffic of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, of the Intracoastal Canal, the railroads and the sea, under the most convenient and satisfactory conditions. "4. In connection with the publicly-owned facilities on the river front, it will give New Orleans all the port and harbor advantages enjoyed by Amsterdam with its canal system, Rotterdam and Antwerp with their joint river and ocean facilities; Hamburg with its free port, and Liverpool with its capacity as a market deposit. "5. It will give New Orleans a fixed-level, well protected harbor. "6. It will serve the purposes of the Intracoastal Canal and increase the benefits to accrue to New Orleans from that canal. "7. In connection with revived commercial use of the inland waterways upon which the federal government is now determined, it will open the way for an easy solution of the problem of handling, housing and interchange of water-borne commerce, and of the development of facilities for the storage of commodities between the period of production and consumption. "8. It will prove an important facility in the equipment of New Orleans to meet the new competition the enlarged Erie Canal will create. The original Erie Canal harmed New Orleans because Mississippi River boat lines could not build their own terminal and housing facilities at New Orleans." [Illustration: W. A. KERNAGHAN Vice-President RENÉ CLERC Secretary ALBERT MACKIE HUGH McCLOSKEY COMMISSIONERS Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans] This meeting made industrial history in New Orleans. The Hecht plan was studied by lawyers and financiers and declared feasible. Mr. Hecht summarized the confidence of the far-visioned men in the new New Orleans when he declared in a public interview: "I feel there is absolutely nothing to prevent the immediate realization of New Orleans' long dream of becoming a great industrial and commercial center and having great shipbuilding plants located within the city limits." And the Item said, in commenting on the undertaking (February 17, 1918): "Millions of dollars of capital will be ready to engage in shipbuilding in New Orleans the moment that piledrivers and steam shovels are set to work on the shiplock and navigation canal." It was a time of great industrial excitement. Victory was at last in the grasp of New Orleans. The eyes of the country were on New Orleans. The cry was, "Full Speed Ahead!" SMALL CANAL FIRST PLANNED. The plan, at this time, was to have a lock-sill only 16 or 18 feet deep. This would be sufficient to allow empty ships to enter or leave the canal, but not loaded. The mere building of ships was thus the principal thought, despite the rhetoric on commercial and industrial possibilities. Perhaps the leaders who were beating the project into shape were themselves afraid to think in the millions necessary to do the work to which New Orleans finally dedicated itself; perhaps they realized that the figure would stagger the minds of the people and defeat the undertaking, if they were not gradually educated up to the mark. Meeting on February 15, 1918, the Dock Board resolved unanimously to put the plan through, if it proved feasible. W. B. Thompson was president of the board; the other members were Dr. E. S. Kelly, Thomas J. Kelly, B. B. Hans and O. P. Geren. Later, E. E. Lafaye took Mr. Kelly's place on the board. The Public Belt Railroad board had in the meantime (February 13) voted to pay the Dock Board $50,000 a year; and the Levee Board (February 14) to give $125,000 a year. As the plans were increased, the Levee Board later increased its bit to $925,000. Mayor Behrman, Arthur McGuirk and R. S. Hecht laid the proposition before both bodies. Action was unanimous. Colonel J. D. Hill, speaking for the Belt Railroad Board, said: "I am glad that at last there has been outlined a plan which seemingly makes it possible to construct the canal. It will not only result in the eventual construction of a big fleet of ships, but will prepare the way for a tremendous industrial activity in other lines. The consensus has been that a navigation canal is needed to induce large manufacturers, importers and exporters to establish their factories and warehouses here. This project will be the opening wedge." Members of the Public Belt Board voting, besides Colonel Hill and Mayor Behrman (ex-officio) were Ginder Abbott, Arthur Simpson, John H. Murphy, W. B. Bloomfield, Adam Lorch, George P. Thompson, Thomas F. Cunningham, Victor Lambou, Edgar B. Stern and Sam Segari. Members of the Levee Board voting were: William McL. Fayssoux, president, Thomas Killeen, Thomas Smith, John F. Muller, James P. Williams, John P. Vezien. W. B. Thompson, president, put the matter before the Dock Board. "The idea" he said, according to the minutes of the meeting of February 15, 1918, "had always received his approval, and he thought that the mayor would recall that in the preparation, he with the city attorney, had a very considerable part in framing the same, and he had taken an active interest in the matter; he had always been in favor of the Industrial Canal, and he believed in the possibility of development of New Orleans through this, as a terminus; and it was entirely logical that the Dock Board should do all that may lie within its power to bring about the successful consummation of this project; the only doubt in his mind being as to the feasibility of the project from the financial standpoint. It seems now, however, that a plan has been devised, through efforts of the mayor and Mr. Hecht, which gives every promise of success. The co-operation of the city on behalf of the Public Belt Railroad, and of the Levee Board, apparently removed the difficulties in respect to the financial end. The Dock Board welcomes the assistance and co-operation of the city and of the Levee Board, but inasmuch as these boards are merely contributing certain amounts per year, and whereas the Dock Board is the obligor in respect of the principal of the bond issue, it devolves upon the Dock Board to use great caution before committing itself to any particular plan in a matter which so vitally affects the credit of the Dock Board, the city of New Orleans and the Levee Board. President Thompson further stated that he unhesitatingly endorsed the project and that he was sure that every member of the board agreed, and the board would be glad to give prompt consideration to the particular plan in question and reach some conclusion which will insure the realization of this great project." To estimate the probable cost of the canal, Mayor Behrman appointed the following committee of engineers: W. J. Hardee, city engineer; A. F. Barclay, engineer of the Public Belt Railroad; George G. Earl, superintendent of the Sewerage & Water Board; C. T. Rayner, Jr., engineer of the Levee Board and Hampton Reynolds, contractor. On February 22, the committee reported that, not counting real estate, a canal could be built for $2,626,876. This estimate called for a lock 600 feet long, 70 feet wide, and 18 feet deep, and a barge canal to the lake. The cost of constructing the lock was put at $1,370,660, and of digging the canal $1,256,216. This report was first received by a special committee composed of Mayor Behrman, W. B. Thompson, Col. J. B. Hill, R. S. Hecht and Major W. McL. Fayssoux. This committee referred it to the Dock Board, which adopted it February 22. Financial arrangements were completed at this same meeting. In order to have sufficient to pay for the land which would have to be expropriated for the canal, and to give some leeway, it was decided to issue bonds for $3,500,000, with an option of floating $1,000,000 more within 30 days. A financial syndicate, consisting of the Hibernia, Interstate and Whitney-Central banks of New Orleans, the William R. Compton Investment Company of St. Louis, and the Halsey, Stuart Company of Chicago, agreed to take the entire issue. The bonds were to run 40 years and begin to mature serially after 10 years. They were to bear 5 per cent interest, and to be sold at 95. They would be secured by a mortgage on the real estate of the canal site, and by the taxing powers of the state, for they were a recognized state obligation, as Arthur McGuirk, special counsel of the Dock Board, pointed out in his opinion of July 10, 1918. He added: "I am likewise of opinion that said bonds are unaffected by any limitations upon the state debt, or upon the rate of taxation for public purposes; that the said bonds are entitled to be paid out of the general funds, or by the exercise of the power of taxation insofar as the revenues, funds or property preferentially pledged or mortgaged to secure said issue may fail, or be insufficient, to pay the same." The following sat with the Dock Board and its attorneys at the meeting of February 22: Mayor Behrman, J. D. Hill of the Public Belt Railroad, R. S. Hecht, president of the Hibernia Bank, J. D. O'Keefe, vice-president of the Whitney-Central Bank, C. G. Reeves, vice-president of the Interstate Bank, W. R. Compton of the Compton Investment Company, H. L. Stuart of Halsey, Stuart and Company, W. J. Hardee, city engineer, and Hampton Reynolds, contractor. The selection of the site was left, by the state law, to the commission council. There were a number of possible routes, and the selection was made with the utmost secrecy to prevent real estate profiteering. At first the area bounded by France and Reynes streets was chosen. This was on February 28. On May 9, however, the site was changed to the area bounded by France and Lizardi streets, north from the Mississippi River to Florida Walk, thence to Lake Pontchartrain. This is a virtually uninhabited region in the Third District, through the old Ursulines tract. The site chosen for expropriation is five and a third miles long by 2,200 feet wide, 897 acres. For this land the Dock Board paid $1,493,532.24, which is at the rate of $1,665 an acre. The valuation was reached by expropriation proceedings. In the meantime, Commodore Ernest Lee Jahncke had asked to be allotted the first site on the Industrial Canal, and Doullut & Williams for the second. Both were for shipyards. The Foundation Company, which was operating a number of shipyards in various parts of the country, sent an engineer here to see if it would be feasible for the concern to build a shipyard here. Even before the piledrivers and dredges were on the job, the millions were being counted for investment in the city whose remarkable enterprise had won the admiration of the country. THE DIRT BEGINS TO FLY. Until the money for the bond issue should be available, the Hibernia Bank authorized the Dock Board to draw against it on open account. It only remained, then, to secure the authorization of the Capital Issues Committee of the Federal Reserve Board, which controlled all bond issues during the World War, to start the work. The grounds on which the authorization was requested summarize conditions that make possible a great industrial development in New Orleans, and will stand quoting. They are: "(a) Semi-tropical conditions, which make it feasible to work every day and night in the year; "(b) Admirable housing conditions which render it feasible for labor to live under most sanitary conditions in houses closely proximate to both the plants and the city, with sewerage and water connections, and with street car transportation facilities to and from the plants and to and from the amusement centers of the city; "(c) Ample labor supply and satisfactory labor conditions; "(d) Proximity to timber, steel and coal sources of supply with all water as well as rail transportation facilities thereon; "(e) State control of the canal facilities and operation of the same, not for profit, but for the economical and expeditious development of shipbuilding." Two shipyards were established on the canal. They poured millions of dollars into New Orleans. The tremendous tonnage built in the United States during the war, and the slump in foreign trade that followed the armistice, due to financial conditions abroad, have caused many shipyards throughout the United States to close down, among them one of these at New Orleans. The other one is now finishing its war contracts, and will be more or less inactive until the demands of the American Merchant Marine and business in general open up again. If they are not used for shipbuilding, they can be used for ship repairing or building barges. And it is obvious that the same conditions that made ship building an economic possibility, will encourage other industrial production, especially production that requires the co-ordination of river, rail and maritime facilities. The Canal means millions of new money to New Orleans, as its proponents said it would. On March 12, the authorization of the Capital Issues Committee was given. On March 15, the George W. Goethals Company, Inc., was retained as consulting engineers on the big job. The services of this company were secured as much for its engineering skill, proven by its work on the Panama Canal, as for the prestige of its name. The Goethals Company, co-operating with the engineers of the Dock Board, which did the work, designed the famous lock and directed the entire job. George M. Wells, vice-president of the firm, was put in active charge of the work. General Goethals made occasional visits of supervision. The dirt began to fly on June 6, 1918. Before coming to New Orleans to take up his work, Mr. Wells, acting upon instructions of the Dock Board, called at the office of the Foundation Company in New York, whose engineer had already studied the possibilities of establishing a shipyard on the canal, and guaranteed an outlet to the sea by the time its vessels should be finished. The river end of the site chosen for the canal consisted of low and flat meadow land. There were a few houses helter-skeltered about, like blocks in a nursery, but the principal signs of human life were the cows that grazed where the grazing was good, and sought refuge from the noonday beams of the sun under the occasional oaks that had strayed out into the open and didn't know how to get back. The middle of the site--several miles in extent--was a gray cypress swamp, with five or six hundred trees to the acre, and always awash. The lake end was "trembling prairie" marsh land subject to tidal overflow and very soft. [Illustration: N. O. ARMY SUPPLY BASE] [Illustration: BUILDING LAKE ENTRANCE] With dredges, spades, mechanical excavators, piledrivers and dynamite the work opened. A great force of men began to throw up by hand, the levees that were to serve as banks for the turning basin, the lock and other portions of the canal. This levee would keep the liquid material, dredged out, from running back into the excavation. The turning basin, 950 feet by 1,150 feet, was an expansion of the original industrial basin. Situated several hundred feet from the lock, its purpose is to enable ships entering the canal from the river, and passing through the lock, to turn in, as well as to furnish a site for the concentration of industries. The Foundation Company had in the meantime decided to establish a shipyard on this basin; its engineers were on the ground, and its material was rolling. One dredge was sent around Lake Pontchartrain to commence boring in from that end. This could not be done on the river end. The Mississippi is too mighty a giant to risk such liberties. The 2,000-foot cut between the river and the lock would have to be done last of all, when the rest of the canal and the lock were finished, and the new levees that would protect the city against its overflow, were solidly set. But a few hundred feet from the turning basin, was Bayou Bienvenu, which runs into Lake Borgne, part of Lake Pontchartrain, and one of the refuges of Lafitte in the brave days when smuggling was more a sport of the plain people than it is now with European travel restricted to the wealthy. So through Bayou Bienvenu a small excavator was sent to cut a passage into the turning basin, to allow the mighty 22-inch dredges to get in and work outwards towards the lake and the lock site. The problem was further complicated by the Florida Walk drainage system, which emptied into Bayou Bienvenu, and by the railway lines that crossed the site of the Canal. These railways were the Southern Railway, at the lake end, the Louisville & Nashville, at the middle, and the Southern and Public Belt near the turning basin on Florida Walk. For them, the Dock Board had to build "run-around" tracks, to be used while their lines were cut to enable the dredging to be made and the bridges to be constructed. For the drainage, the plans called for the construction of an inverted siphon passing under the Canal, a river under a river, so to speak. In the meantime, however, the drainage canal had to be blocked off with two cofferdams, to cut off the water from the city and the bayou, and enable the construction of the siphon between. Additional railroad tracks, too, had to be built to handle the immense volume of material needed for the work; roads had to be built for getting supplies on the job by truck; the trolley line had to be extended for the transportation of labor. Week by week the labor gangs grew, as the men were able to find places in the attacking line of the industrial battle. Great excavators stalked over the land, pulling themselves along by their dippers which bit out chunks of earth as big as a cart when they "took a-hold"; the smack of pile drivers, the thump of dynamite, and the whistle of dredges filled the air. Buildings sprouted like mushrooms; in the meadow, half a mile from the nearest water, the shipyard of the Foundation Company began to take form. It was the plan to finish the Canal by January, 1920. CANAL PLANS EXPANDED. Work in the meantime had begun on the commodity warehouse and wharf, another facility planned by the Dock Board to relieve the growing pains. Built on the Canal, but opening on the river, it was to perform the same service for general commodities as the Public Cotton Warehouse and the Public Grain Elevator did for those products. Though not a part of the canal plan, the construction of the warehouse at this point was part of the general scheme to concentrate industrial development on that waterway. Later, the Federal Government took over this work and gave New Orleans a $13,000,000 terminal, through which it handled army supplies. It is still using the three warehouses for storage purposes, but has leased the half-mile double-deck wharf to the Dock Board, which is devoting it to the general commerce of the port. In time, the Dock Board hopes to get at least one of the buildings. There can be no doubt but that the enterprise of New Orleans in building the Industrial Canal had a great deal to do with the government's determination to establish a depot at New Orleans. On May 30, the news came out of Washington that the Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding Company had been awarded a $15,000,000 contract by the Emergency Fleet Corporation to build eight ships of 9,600 tons each. This was the largest shipbuilding contract that had been given the South. The Industrial Canal rendered it possible. The firm of Doullut & Williams had been engaged for fifteen years or so in the civil engineering and contracting business in New Orleans. Captain M. P. Doullut had built launches with his own hands when a young man, and dreamed of the time when he would have a yard capable of turning out ocean-going vessels. The Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding Company was organized April 25, 1918, with the following officers: M. P. Doullut, president; Paul Doullut, vice-president; W. Horace Williams, secretary-treasurer and general manager; L. H. Guerin, chief engineer; and James P. Ewin, assistant chief engineer. "I feel that New Orleans is on the eve of a very remarkable development" said Senator Ransdell of Louisiana in a telegram of congratulation, "and earnestly hope our people will continue to work together with energy and hearty accord until we have gone way over the top in shipbuilding and many other lines." The expression "over the top" had not become the pest that it and other war-time weeds of rhetoric have subsequently proven. That was a time when one could still refer to a "drive" without causing a gnashing of teeth. Picking the site at the Lake Pontchartrain end of the canal, Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding Company began to erect its shipyard. The plant buildings were erected upon tall piling. As the dredges excavated the material from the cut, they deposited it on the site of the shipyard and raised the elevation several feet, so the buildings were only the usual height above the ground. Both sides of the Canal, it should be added, have been similarly raised by excavation material. It was planned that the ships from the Doullut & Williams yard should be sent out into the world through Lake Pontchartrain, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. There was ample water in the lake, without dredging, to accommodate unloaded ships of this size. But the fact that ships 400 or so feet long and drawing, when loaded to capacity, 27 feet, were to be built at New Orleans, emphasized the belief of those directing the work of the Industrial Canal that the plan on which they were working was too small. An 18-foot canal would not meet the growing needs of New Orleans. Accordingly the Dock Board instructed the engineering department to expand the plans. By June 11, 1918, the plans had been revised to give a 25-foot channel. This would accommodate all but the largest ships that come to New Orleans. The cost of such a lock and canal, George M. Wells estimated, would be $6,000,000, or $2,500,000 more than the estimate for the original canal. The Levee Board promptly raised its ante to $250,000 to guarantee the interest. When the Dock Board floated the first bond issue of $3,500,000 in February, at 95, it reserved the option to issue another $1,000,000 of bonds within thirty days, at the same rate. For $1,500,000 of the new issue, the same syndicate of banks offered 97-1/2, or two and a half points higher than for the first; but for the other million, they held the board to the original rate of 95. President Thompson reported to the Dock Board June 11 that he considered these "very satisfactory terms." He added: "We were able to secure these better prices and conditions because the bond market is in a somewhat better condition now than it was when we made the original contract." The contract was accepted on that date, and application made to the Capital Issues Committee for the necessary permission. This was given in due time, though there was considerable opposition. The opposition, said President Thompson, at the Dock Board meeting of February 26, 1919, reviewing the development of the canal plans, "was inspired by vicious and spectacular attacks of certain private interests hostile to the canal project and to the port of New Orleans." Railroads, whose right of way crossed the Canal, were the principal propagandists. They realized that the Dock Board could not be required to build their bridges over the waterway, and although the Thompson board financed the work at the time, they knew that sooner or later would come a day of reckoning. The Hudson Board has since then taken steps to collect several million dollars from these roads. But why build a canal almost large enough, only? Why build a 25-foot lock when ships drawing 30-feet of water come to New Orleans? A lock cannot be enlarged, once it is completed--and the tendency of the times is towards larger ships. Why not make a capacity facility while they were about it? [Illustration: LOCK SITE Driving Sheet Piling] [Illustration: LOCK SITE Dredges Entering] These were questions the Dock Board asked itself, and on June 29, 1918, it decided to build the lock with a 30-foot depth over the sill at extreme low water, and make the canal 300 feet wide at the top, and 150 feet wide at the bottom. To do this, would cost about $1,000,000 more, it was estimated by George M. Wells of the Goethals company--a sum which the Dock Board thought would be realized from the rental-revenues of Doullut & Williams and the Foundation Company, without increasing the second bond issue. This is the Canal that was finally built--nearly 70 per cent larger than the one that was begun and about 100 per cent larger than the one originally planned, when the newspapers and forward-looking told the people that the lack of such a canal had cost New Orleans millions of dollars in development. DIGGING THE DITCH. No rock-problem was encountered in dredging the canal. The cost was below what the engineers estimated it would be--less than thirty cents a cubic yard. But a novel situation did develop; a condition that would have sent the cost sky-rocketing if an Orleanian had not met the difficulty. Louisiana is what geologists call a region of subsidence. The gulf of Mexico formerly reached to where Cairo, Ill., now is. Washings from the land, during the slow-moving centuries, pushed the shoreline ever outward; the humus of decaying vegetation raised the ground surface still higher. This section of Louisiana, built by the silt of the Mississippi, was of course the most recent formation. Twenty thousand years ago, say the geologists, there were great forests where Louisiana now is. Among these mighty trees roamed the glyptodont; the 16-foot armadillo with a tail like the morning-star of the old crusaders, monstrously magnified; the giraffe camel; the titanothere; the Columbian elephant, about the size of a trolley car and with 15-foot tusks; the giant sloth which could look into a second-story window; here the saber-toothed tiger fought with the megatherium; mighty rhinoceroses sloshed their clumsy way, and huge and grotesque birds filled the air with their flappings. As the subsoil packed more solidly, this wilderness in time sunk beneath the waters. The Mississippi built up its sandbars again, storms shaped them above the waves, marsh grass raised the surface with its humus, and another forest grew. This, in turn, sunk. And so the process was repeated, time after time. At different depths below the surface of the ground the remains of these forests are found today, the wood perfectly preserved by the dampness. And through this tangled mass the dredges had to fight their way. It was a task too great for the ordinary type of 20 or 22-inch suction dredge, even with the strength of 1,000 horses behind it. When they met these giant stumps and trunks they just stopped. A. B. Wood, of the sewerage and water department, had already designed and patented a centrifugal pump impeller adapted to the handling of sewerage containing trash. Learning of this, W. J. White, superintendent of dredging on the Canal, asked him to design a special impeller, along similar lines, for the dredge Texas. Results from the invention were remarkable. During the thirty days immediately preceding the installation the dredge had suffered delays from clogged suction which totalled 130-3/4 hours. During the thirty days immediately succeeding installation the total of delays for the same reason was cut down to 71-1/2 hours. The average yardage was, for the earlier period, 152 an hour, of actual excavation; and for the later period, 445 an hour--an increase of almost 200 per cent. The situation had been met. This was the period when the cost of labor and material began to jump. Employers were bidding against each other for men, and the government's work practically fixed the price of supplies. George M. Wells, consulting engineer, in his report of December 9, 1918, to the Dock Board, summarized labor increases over the scale when the work was begun, as follows: Unskilled labor, 54%; pile driver men, 40%; machinists, 40%; blacksmiths, 40%; foremen and monthly, 15 to 40%--an average increase of 40%. Materials had advanced, he went on to show, as follows: Gravel, 72%; sand, 25%; cement, 10%; lumber (form), 70%; timber, 40%; piles, untreated, 40%; piles, treated, 25%. These increases, together with the expansion of the plans requiring a canal of maximum depth, instead of the pilot cut of fifteen feet, as originally planned; the insistence of the Levee Board that levees in the back areas must be raised to elevation 30; development of unforeseen and unforeseeable quicksand conditions in the various excavations; requirements of railroads for bridges of greater capacity and strength than needed; building of a power line to the Foundation Company's plant--not a Dock Board job, but one that the conditions required it should finance then; and other expenses, besides delaying the work, made another bond issue necessary to finish the job. At its meeting of February 26, 1919, President Thompson laid the matter before the board. It decided to issue $6,000,000 of bonds, for which the same syndicate of bankers that had taken the other two offered 96. Liberty bonds were then selling at a big discount, and this seemed the best terms on which the money could be secured. This gave a total issue of $12,000,000 to date, the interest on which amounted to $600,000 a year. The Levee Board raised its share of the "rental" to $550,000, to guarantee the interest; the Public Belt Railroad's $50,000 made the total complete. In the meantime ships were beginning to bulk large on the ways of the Foundation and the Doullut & Williams yards. The Foundation company launched its first, the Gauchy--a 4,200-ton non-sinkable steel ship, built for the French government--in September, 1919; and the Doullut & Williams company launched its first, the New Orleans, a steel vessel of 9,600 tons, the largest turned out south of Newport News, built for the Shipping Board, in January, 1920. These were followed by four sister vessels from the Foundation yard and seven from the Doullut & Williams plant. The former went to sea through Bayou Bienvenu and the latter through Lake Pontchartrain. The Doullut & Williams yard is a large one. Originally planning a mere assembling yard, the Foundation Company had subsequently developed the greatest steel fabricating plant in the South--so confident it was that New Orleans would carry through the project. And, too, the New Orleans Army Supply Base that Uncle Sam was building on the river end of the Industrial Canal was rapidly rising--the facility that was to double the port storage capacity of New Orleans when it was finally completed in June, 1919. The canal is 5-1/3 miles long. Between river and lock the canal prism will be 125 feet wide at the bottom and 275 feet at the top; between the lock and the lake, 150 feet wide at the bottom and 300 feet wide at the top. It is an excavation job of 10,000,000 cubic yards. Five hundred thousand flat cars would be required to carry that dirt--a train more than 4,000 miles long. By September, 1919, the canal had been entirely dredged, except for the 2,000-foot channel between the lock and river, which must be left until the last, to a width of about 150 feet and a depth of 26 feet. Since then, the labor has been concentrated upon the lock. But twenty-six feet will float a vessel carrying 6,000 bales of cotton. Full dimensions, however, will be developed, and the Canal, with a system of laterals and basins such as are found in Europe, will be an Inner Harbor capable of indefinite expansion. OVERWHELMING ENDORSEMENT BY NEW ORLEANS. When the Canal was about half finished it received the most tremendous endorsement by every interest of New Orleans in its history. The question was put squarely before the people: "Do you think it is a good thing, and you are willing to be taxed to put it across, and, if so, how much?" And the answer came without hesitation: "It is absolutely necessary to the industrial progress of the city. We must have the Canal at all costs, and are willing to be taxed any amount for it." On September 24, 1919, George M. Wells, consulting engineer, made a report to the Dock Board, showing that the last bond issue of $6,000,000 had been exhausted, and about $5,000,000 more was needed to finish the Canal. This was in the last days of the Thompson Board, and it took no action. The Hudson board entered upon its duties October 2. It comprised William O. Hudson, president; William A. Kernaghan, René F. Clerc, Albert Mackie, Thomas H. Roberts. Later, Mr. Roberts resigned and Hugh McCloskey took his place. All are sound business men, with the interests of the port at heart. They found, in the bank, only $2,067,845.37 to the Industrial Canal Account. After deducting the obligations already made there was left only $112,064.43 to continue the work. Without a public expression from New Orleans they were unwilling to incur the responsibility of issuing $5,000,000 more bonds. President Hudson called a series of meetings of the representative interests of the city to decide what was to be done. As the people of New Orleans had decided to begin the Canal in the first place, it was only right that they should determine whether the undertaking, costing five times as much as the original plan, should be carried through. The governor, the mayor, presidents of banks, committees of commercial exchanges, the president of the Public Belt Railroad, the president of the Levee Board, newspaper publishers, labor leaders and prominent business men were invited. Likewise, a general call was made to the community at large to express an opinion as to finishing the Canal. At the meeting of October 17 the city made its answer. President Hudson outlined the attitude of the Dock Board as follows: "The board has no feeling of prejudice against the completion of the Canal. We are in favor of it. We are anxious to complete it. It was fostered by the citizens of New Orleans. "The floating of the bond issue is a simple matter, if you men think we ought to do it; but where is the money for meeting the interest to come from? The $600,000 interest on bonds now outstanding is being paid, $550,000 by the Levee Board, and $50,000 by the Public Belt Railroad. The Public Belt's share is paid from its earnings; but the Levee Board's share is being paid by direct taxation on the citizens of New Orleans. Must we increase that tax? I personally won't object to any taxation as a citizen to pay my part towards financing the Canal." "I want to see the canal completed," said Governor Pleasant. "But it is up to the people of New Orleans to say whether they are willing to assume the added obligation." R. S. Hecht, president of the Hibernia Bank, and a recognized financial leader in New Orleans, then arose. "I feel," he said, "that all who have the future of New Orleans at heart must agree that we are here to discuss not whether the Canal is to be finished, but how. "Finished it must be, or our commercial future will be doomed for many years. If the Dock Board were to stop the work, it would forever kill its credit for any other bond issue that might be proposed for wharf development, new warehouses, or anything else. "The cost of the canal is a surprise to everybody. I was present when the cost was originally estimated at $3,500,000 with a leeway of $1,000,000. I said then, and I repeat now, that the canal could be financed if the people of New Orleans stood squarely behind it. "The cotton warehouse and the grain elevator cost a great deal more than the original estimates. So the Industrial Canal, though it is costing more than anticipated, because of the increased cost of material and labor and the increased size in the Canal, will, I feel sure, be justified by the development of the future. "Are we to be taxed for fifty years for our investment of $12,000,000 and get no return, or are we willing to pay a little bit more and get something worth while?" That expressed the sentiment of the meeting. [Illustration: BUILDING THE LOCK] "The people of New Orleans," said Hugh McCloskey, financier and dean of all Dock Board presidents, "have never failed to meet a crisis. It is the duty of the Dock Board to finish the Canal, no matter what the doubting Thomases may say." Similar expressions were made by Thomas Killeen, president of the Levee Board; Thomas Cunningham, of the Public Belt Railroad; D. D. Moore, editor of the Times-Picayune; James M. Thompson, publisher of the Item; B. C. Casanas, president of the Association of Commerce; L. M. Pool, president of the Marine Bank; J. E. Bouden, president of the Whitney-Central Bank; Bernard McCloskey, attorney; Frank B. Hayne, of the Cotton Exchange; Jefferson D. Hardin, of the Board of Trade; William V. Seeber, representative of the Ninth Ward; Marshall Ballard, editor of The Item. Others present, assenting by their silence, included John F. Clark, president, and E. S. Butler, member of the Cotton Exchange; W. Horace Williams, of Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding Company; E. M. Stafford, state senator; C. G. Rives of the Interstate Bank; S. T. DeMilt, president of the New Orleans Steamship Association; R. W. Dietrich of the Bienville Warehouse Corporation; Edgar B. Stern, Milton Boylan, W. H. Byrnes, J. C. Hamilton, and about thirty other representative business and professional men. Mayor Behrman, John T. Banville, president of the Brewery Workers' Union, and George W. Moore, president of the Building Trades Council, at a subsequent meeting, gave their endorsement. With only one dissenting voice, these meetings were unanimous that the Industrial Canal must be completed at all costs; that without it, the growth of the city would be seriously interrupted. The one protest was by the Southern Realty and Securities Company. It was made October 23 against the Levee Board's underwriting the interest on the new bond issue. On that date the Levee Board unanimously voted to guarantee these interest charges, amounting to $375,000 a year. This brings the total being paid by that body out of direct taxation to $925,000.00 a year. The other $50,000 is paid by the Public Belt Railroad. To provide a leeway against the engineer's estimates, the Dock Board made provision for a bond issue of $7,500,000, but actually issued only $5,000,000 worth. This was taken by the same syndicate of bankers that had taken the previous issues, but this time they paid par. That was a point on which President Hudson had insisted. The contract was accepted December 10, 1919. And the work went on, with every effort concentrated on economical construction. SIPHON AND BRIDGES. As an incident in the work of building the Industrial Canal, it was necessary to create a disappearing river. This is the famous siphon--the quadruple passage of concrete that will carry the city's drainage underneath the shipway. It is one of the largest structures of its kind in the country. A word about New Orleans' drainage problem. The city is the bowl of a dish, of which the levees against river and lake are the rim. There is no natural drainage. The rainfall is nearly five feet a year, concentrated at times, upon the thousand miles of streets, into cloudbursts of four inches an hour and ten inches in a day. In the boyhood of men now in their early thirties it was a regular thing for the city to be flooded after a heavy rain. To meet the situation, New Orleans has constructed the greatest drainage system in the world. There are six pumping stations on the east side of the river, connected with each other by canals, and with a discharge capacity of more than 10,000 cubic feet a second. The seven billion gallons of water that these pumps can move a day would fill a lake one mile square and thirty-five feet deep. Three of the canals empty into Lake Pontchartrain, the fourth, the Florida Walk Canal, into Bayou Bienvenu, which leads into Lake Borgne, an arm of Pontchartrain. Because of this drainage contamination, the lake shore front of New Orleans has been held back in its development. Yet it is an ideal site for a suburb--on a beautiful body of water, and just half a dozen miles from the business district. So the Sewerage and Water Board has been planning ultimately to turn the city's entire drainage into Bayou Bienvenu, a stream with swamps on both sides, running into a lake surrounded by marsh. The Industrial Canal crosses the Florida Walk drainage canal. This made it necessary to build the inverted siphon. A siphon, in the ordinary sense, is a bent tube, one section of which is longer than the other, through which a liquid flows by its own weight over an elevation to a lower level. But siphon here is an engineering term to describe a channel that goes under an obstruction--the canal--and returns the water to its former level. Like the famous rivers that drop into the earth and appear again miles further on, the Florida drainage canal approaches to within a hundred or so feet of the Industrial Canal, then dives forty feet underground, passes beneath the shipway, and comes to the surface on the other side, in front of the pumping station, which lifts it into Bayou Bienvenu. At first it was planned to build a comparatively small siphon, but while the plans were being drawn, New Orleans entered upon its tremendous development. The engineers threw away their blueprints and began over again. They designed one that is capable of handling the entire drainage of the city. And in April, 1920, it was finished--a work of steel and concrete and machinery, costing nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, and with a capacity of 2,000 cubic feet of water a second, 7,200,000 an hour, 172,800,000 a day. It was a work that presented many difficulties. First the Florida Walk canal had to be closed by two cofferdams. The space between was pumped out, the excavation was made, and the driving of foundation piling begun. Quicksands gave much trouble. They flowed into the cut, until they were stopped with sheet piling. The piles were from 30 to 60 feet in length and from three to five feet apart on centers. Forty-six feet below the ground surface (-26 Cairo datum) was laid the concrete floor of the siphon. The siphon is divided into four compartments. There are two storm chambers, measuring 10 by 13 feet each, one normal weather chamber measuring 4 by 10 feet, and one public utilities duct, measuring 6 by 10 feet. These are inside dimensions. The floor of the siphon is two feet thick; the roof, one foot nine inches. The whole structure is a solid piece of concrete and capable of standing a pressure of more than 2,000 pounds to the square foot. Its total length is 378 feet; the shipway passing over it is 105 feet wide and 30 feet deep. In the public utilities duct are carried the city's water pipes, cables, telephone and telegraph wires, and gas mains. The storm chambers will handle the rainfall of cloudbursts. In ordinary weather the water will be concentrated through the smaller chamber, in order to produce a strong flow and reduce the settlement of sediment to a minimum. Eight sluice gates, each 6 by 10 feet, open or close the water chambers. They are operated by hydraulic cylinders of the most approved type. For sending workmen inside the siphon to make repairs or clearing away an obstruction there are eight manholes. Four measure 6 by 13 feet, two 6 by 6 feet, and two 6 by 4 feet. As soon as the Florida Walk canal can be deepened and a few link-ups in the drainage system can be made, the entire drainage of New Orleans, in normal weather and during light storms, will, according to announcement by the Sewerage and Water Board, be sent through this outlet. During the occasional cloudbursts it will be necessary to send some of the drainage into the lake, but this will be rapidly flowing water and will sweep offshore. It means a great deal to the suburban development of the city. A year and a half the siphon was in the making. Preparations for the structure cost more than $250,000--excavation foundation, etc. The concrete alone cost $170,000. Machinery and the work of housing and installing it cost $60,000 more. Four bascule steel bridges now cross the Industrial Canal. They are the largest in the city. Three of them--at Florida Walk, for the Southern and Public Belt Railways; Gentilly, for the Louisville & Nashville; and on the lake front, for the Southern, weigh 1,600,000 pounds each--superstructure only. The fourth--at the lock--weighs 1,000,000 pounds. They are balanced by 800-ton concrete blocks and concrete adjustment blocks. Their extreme length is 160 feet; the moving leaf has a span of 117 feet. With a 30-foot right of way for railroad tracks, 11 feet for vehicles and trolley cars and four feet for pedestrians, they are designed to meet traffic conditions of a great and growing city. They will support 50-ton street cars or 15-ton road rollers--New Orleans has nothing as heavy as that now--and trains a great deal heavier than are now coming to the city. No bridge in the South will support as heavy loads. The tensile strength of the steel of which the bridges are constructed is from 55,000 to 85,000 pounds to the square inch, and they will bear a wind load of 20 pounds to the square inch of exposed surface. They are operated by two 75-horse power electric motors, 440 volts, 60-cycle, 3-phase current, which is stepped down from 2,200 volts by means of transformers. In addition, there is a 36-horse power gasoline engine, to be used if the electrical equipment is out of order. To open or close the bridges will require a minute and a half. THE REMARKABLE LOCK. Not only is the lock of the Industrial Canal one of the largest in the United States, but its construction solved a soil problem that was thought impossible. That of the Panama Canal is simple in comparison. The design is unique in many respects. The lock is a monument to the power of Man over the forces of Nature, and to the progress of a community that will not say die. Because of the great variation in the level of the river at low and high water--a matter of twenty feet--it was necessary to make the excavation, for building the lock, about fifty feet deep. In solid soil this would be a simple matter. But this ground has been made by the gradual deposit of Mississippi River silt upon what was originally the sandy bed of the ocean, and through these deposits run strata of water-bearing sand, or quicksand. This flows into a cut and causes the banks to cave and slide into the excavation. Underneath there is a pressure of marsh gas, which, with the pressure of the collapsing banks, squeezes the deeper layers of quicksand upwards, creating boils and blowing up the bottom. New Orleans has had plenty of experiences with these flowing sands in its shallow sewerage excavations. How, then, expect to make an excavation fifty feet deep? asked the doubting Thomases. It couldn't be done. The quicksands would flow in too fast. The dredges would drain the surrounding subsoil, but that wouldn't get beyond a certain depth. Furthermore, what assurance was there that the soil that far down would supply sufficient friction to hold the piles necessary to sustain the enormous weight of the lock and the ships passing through it? Undaunted by these croakings, the engineers, from test borings, calculated the sliding and flowing character of the soil, and estimated the various pressures that would have to be counteracted, balanced this with the holding power of pine and steel and concrete, evolved a plan, and began an excavation of a hole 350 feet wide by 1,500 feet long, gradually sloping the cut (1 to 4 ratio) to a center where the lock, 1,020 by 150 feet, outside dimensions, was to be built. [Illustration: INNER HARBOR--NAVIGATION CANAL Lock and Vicinity] The gentle slope of the cut was to prevent slides. It had been ascertained that the first stratum of quicksand began twenty-eight feet below the ground surface (-3 Cairo datum) and was three feet thick; the second stratum, forty-eight feet below the surface (-23 Cairo datum) and ten feet thick. Coarser sand extended eleven feet below this, from -33 Cairo datum. The second stratum of flowing sand began just below where the lock floor had to be laid. The third layer was 80 feet below the surface (-55 Cairo datum); the tips of the piling would just miss it. Excavation began in November, 1918. While the dredges were at work a wooden sheet piling cofferdam was driven completely around the lock, and about 125 feet from the edge of the bank, to cut off the first quicksand stratum. About 150 feet further in, when the excavation was well advanced, a second ring of sheet piling was driven, to cut off the second stratum, which carried a static pressure of 55 feet and was just a foot or so below where the floor of the lock would be. It was not thought necessary to cut off the third stratum. The excavation was made in the wet. When it was finished the dredges moved back into the Canal, the entrance closed, and the work of unwatering the lock site began. This was in April, 1919. There had never been such a deep cut made in this section. Consequently, the character of the soil, while it could be estimated, could not be known absolutely. And the exact pressure of the gas could not be known. The sands proved to be more liquid and the gas pressure stronger than anticipated. Quicksands ran through the sheet piling as through a sieve. The walls of the excavation began to slough and cave. The gas pressure became alarming when the weight of earth and water was taken off; sand boils began to develop at the bottom; the floor of the cut was blowing up. The fate of the Industrial Canal hung in the scale. To meet the situation the engineers pumped a great volume of water into the excavation. Its weight counterbalanced the earth pressure of the side and the gas pressure of the bottom. Then another ring of sheet piling was driven inside the other two. This one was of steel, and the walls were braced apart by wooden beams ten inches square and fifteen feet apart in both directions. This is one of the largest cofferdams of steel ever driven. As an added precaution against the danger of a blowout by the third stratum of quicksand, which had a static head of 75 feet, 130 ten-inch artesian wells were driven inside the steel cofferdam. Fifty-six similar wells were driven between the steel and the wooden cofferdams to dry out the second stratum of quicksand, as much as possible, and lessen its flowing character. In November, 1919, the work of unwatering the lock site again began. Only one foot every other day was taken off. Engineers watched every timber. It was not until January 4, 1920, that the unwatering was complete. The plan had worked. Only in one place had there been any movement--a section of the wooden sheet piling about 300 feet long bulged forward a maximum distance of three inches, when the bracing caught and stopped it. Then began the work of driving the 24,000 piles on which the lock was to be floated. They are 60 feet long and their tips are 100 feet below the surface of the ground. In March, 1920, the work of laying the concrete began. The work was done in 15-foot sections, for only a few of the braces could be moved at one time. When it was finished in April, 1921, the lock was in one piece, a solid mass of steel and stone, 1,020 feet long, 150 feet wide, and 68 feet high, weighing, with its gates and machinery, 225,000 tons, and filled with water, 350,000 tons. The concrete floor of the lock is 9 to 12 feet thick, the walls 13 feet wide at the bottom, decreasing to a two foot width at the top. Six thousand tons of reinforcing steel were used in the construction, and 125,000 barrels of cement. There are 90,000 cubic yards of concrete in the structure. Two and a half million feet of lumber were used in building the forms. Usable dimensions of the lock are 640 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 30 feet (at minimum low water of the river) deep. The top of the lock is 20 feet above the natural ground surface and 6 feet above the highest stage of the Mississippi River on record. To the top the ground will be sloped on a 150-foot series of terraces. This will brace the walls against the pressure of water within the monolith. It will be developed to a beautiful park. Heavy anchor-columns of concrete will hold the walls against the pressure of these artificial hills when the lock is empty. Traffic crosses the canal here by a steel bascule bridge 65 feet wide, with two railroad and two street car tracks, two vehicle roadways, and two ways for pedestrians. Concrete viaducts lead to the bridge. Gas and water mains, sewer pipes and telephone, telegraph and electric wires pass under the lock in conduits cast in the living concrete. Water is admitted into and drained from the lock by culverts cast in the base. These are 8 by 10 feet, narrowing at the opening to 8 by 8 feet, and closed by 8 sluice gates, each operated by a 52-horsepower electric motor. It will be possible to fill or empty the lock in ten minutes. There are five sets of gates to the lock. They are built of steel plates and rolled shapes, four and a half feet thick and weighing 200 tons each. And there is an emergency dam weighing 720 tons, which in case of necessity can be used as a gate. Four pairs of the gates are of 55-foot size; one of 42-foot. Each gate is operated by a 52-horsepower electric motor. When open, the gates fit flush into the walls of the locks. In the emergency dam is the refinement of precaution--designed as it was to save the city from overflow in the remote event of the lock gates failing to work during high water, and to insure the uninterrupted operation of the lock in normal times, if the gates should be sprung by a ship, or otherwise put out of commission. This dam consists of eight girders or sections, 80 feet long, 3 feet wide and 6 feet high. They weigh 90 tons each. They are kept on a platform near the river end of the lock. Nearby is the crane with a 300-horsepower motor, that picks up these girders and drops them into the slots in the walls of the lock. To set this emergency dam is the work of an hour. A ship passing through the lock will not proceed under her own power. There are six capstans, two at each end of the lock and two at the middle, each operated by a 52-horsepower electric motor, and capable of developing a pull of 35,000 pounds, which will work the vessels through. The lock complete, counting the bridge and approaches, cost $7,500,000. One and a half million of this is for machinery, and $56,000 for the approaches. Henry Goldmark, the New York engineer who designed the gates of the Panama Canal and the New Orleans Industrial Canal, in a letter of March 24, 1921, to the engineering department of the Dock Board, comments as follows on the remarkable lock: "I was much impressed by the uniformly high grade of construction of the lock, the systematic and energetic way in which the work was being carried on, and especially by the admirable spirit of team work, shown by the employees of the Dock Board, of different grades, as well as the contractors, superintendents and foremen. "The desire to get the best possible results in all the details, at the least cost, was manifest throughout. "The unique method used for carrying on the very difficult and risky work of excavation has attracted much professional attention in all parts of the country. Its successful completion is very creditable to all concerned, in the inception and carrying out of the method used. "The concrete work gives the impression of lightness, as well as strength, as though every yard of concrete was doing its special share of the work without overstraining, which is, of course, the characteristic of well-designed reinforced masonry. "The outer surfaces are particularly smooth and well finished, more so than in any work I have recently seen. "The erection of the gates, valves, operating machinery and the protective dam, has kept up closely with the concrete work, so that no delays need be apprehended at the close of the construction period. "The shop and field work in the lock gates is excellent. The rivet holes match well and the rivet heads appear to be tight and well formed. The gate leaves seem very straight and true." The lock was designed by George M. Wells of the George W. Goethals Company, assisted by R. O. Comer, designing engineer of the Dock Board, and approved by General Goethals. The methods employed to unwater the lock were devised by Mr. Wells. J. Devereux O'Reilly, chief engineer of the Dock Board, to November, 1919, had charge of the details of installing the unwatering and safety devices. He was succeeded by General Arséne Perrilliat, who supervised the final unwatering process. Upon his death in October, 1920, he was succeeded by J. F. Coleman & Company, in charge of the engineering department, and H. M. Gallagher, chief engineer, under whom work is being brought to a conclusion. From first to last, Tiley S. McChesney, assistant secretary and treasurer of the Dock Board, rendered intelligent and invaluable service, gathering together and holding the threads of the enterprise, and attending promptly to the multitude of details connected with the prosecution of the work. The lock was formally dedicated May 2, 1921--a ceremony that was the feature of the Mississippi Valley Association's convention in New Orleans. With the dredging of the channel between the river and the lock, a work that should be finished before January, 1922, ships will be able to pass from the Mississippi into Lake Pontchartrain. Then New Orleans can plan its next great development. [Illustration: CROSS SECTION OF LOCK] [Illustration: CROSS SECTION OF SIPHON] NEW CHANNEL TO THE GULF. George M. Wells, George R. Goethals, son of the General, Colonel E. J. Dent, U.S. district engineer at New Orleans, and other engineers who have studied the problem, say that the dredging of a channel from the Industrial Canal to the gulf through Lake Pontchartrain, or the marshes, is feasible, comparatively cheap, and maintenance would be simple. This would shorten the distance from New Orleans to the sea by about 50 miles, and would be a vast saving for ships. It is one of the objects towards which the Hudson Dock Board is working. It is Uncle Sam's recognized duty to develop and maintain harbors and channels to the sea. Distance is obviously an important factor; furthermore, the proposed new outlet would be an important link in the Intracoastal Canal, connecting with the Warrior River section of Alabama, which the government is developing between the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. A bill was introduced in the Senate in 1920 by Senator Ransdell of Louisiana, providing for the development of the proposed channel; it was not pressed because the canal was far from completed. However, every effort will be made by the Dock Board from now on to have Uncle Sam take hold. Colonel Dent has for a number of months been studying the feasible routes. He, by the way, is thoroughly convinced of the value of the Industrial Canal to the development of New Orleans, and the commerce of the nation, and has so expressed himself in public. The Pontchartrain route has been laid off, by engineers, beginning at the Canal, paralleling the south shore of the Lake Pontchartrain to the south draw of the Southern Railway bridge, thence to the Rigolets to Cat Island Pass, from there to Cat Island Channel and so to the deep water of the Gulf, a total distance of 75 miles. Soundings and surface probings have been taken at frequent intervals over the entire route. These have shown the engineers the following: Three-quarters of a mile from the south shore of the lake, and as far as the railroad drawbridge, a hard bottom is found. The material is principally packed sand, rather fine, with a small amount of clay, and occasionally some broken shells. Beyond this distance from the shore, the bottom is softer, consisting of mud mixed with sand. From the bridge over the remainder of the route, the bottom, with the exception of a few sand pockets, is soft--a blue mud with a large percentage of sand. This soft material has so much tenacity, however, that current and wave wash, which tend to fill up artificially dredged channels, would affect only the surface. The government is conducting large dredging operations in Mobile Bay, Gulfport Channel, Atchafalaya Bay and the Houston Ship Channel. An outline of the results there will show how feasible the dredging of the Pontchartrain Channel would be, and how much cheaper in comparison. The channel connecting Mobile Bay with the Gulf of Mexico has a bottom very soft for the most part, and with a small percentage of sand. Towards the outer end, the material is black mud, about equal in consistency to the softest material found in the Pontchartrain route. A sounding pole with a 4-inch disc on the end can be easily pushed three or four feet into the mud and pulled out again. Wave and current action cause the channel to shoal at the rate of 78,000 to 132,000 cubic yards per mile per year, depending on the softness of the bottom and the depth. Where the highest rate obtains, the surrounding material consists of soft mud, without a trace of sand. Experience shows that where there is a fair percentage of sand in the material adjacent to the channel bed, the shoaling is lessened. In general, the material along the Pontchartrain route contains a greater percentage of sand and is far more tenacious than that along the Mobile Bay Channel. Furthermore, the Pontchartrain route is not exposed to such strong cross currents. The Gulfport Channel is dredged through very soft material, a grayish-blue mud of oozy consistency, into which the sounding pole penetrates six feet with very little exertion. On top, a small amount of sand is found, but practically none in the lower stratum. The material is considerably softer than any encountered on the Pontchartrain route, except for one small stretch. Yet the shoaling is not great. Where the shoaling is heaviest, between the end of the pier and Beacon 10, only about 700,000 cubic yards a mile has to be dredged out every year to maintain the channel. From Beacon 10 out, the average annual maintenance is less than 200,000 cubic yards a mile. Except for the four-mile stretch west of the inner entrance to the Cat Island Channel, the bottom, on the Pontchartrain route, is harder than that of the Gulfport Channel. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the maintenance of the Pontchartrain Channel would not average as high as the outer portion of the Gulfport Channel. The Atchafalaya Bay Ship Channel, extending from the mouth of the Atchafalaya River across the shoal waters of Atchafalaya Bay, to about the 20-foot contour of the Gulf, a distance of fifteen miles, is through a material of slushy mud, with occasional thin pockets of sand. The shoaling runs from 540,000 to 1,680,000 cubic yards a mile a year. The highest rate is obtained in shallow water. Except in the stretch mentioned, the material on the Pontchartrain route is not as soft as on the Atchafalaya, nor are the depths as shoal, nor is there the exposure to cross currents. In the Houston Ship Channel, the material is composed of soft mud with a small amount of sand. A two-mile stretch through Red Fish Reef is practically self-maintaining. For the remainder of the channel, during the six years from 1915 to 1920, a total excavation of 13,574,000 cubic yards was necessary to maintain the depth. This is equivalent to 100,000 cubic yards a mile a year. In summary, then: 1. The Lake Pontchartrain route is practically unexposed to cross currents, as is the case with the Mobile Bay, Gulfport, Atchafalaya, and, to a certain extent, the outer portion of the Houston Ship Channels. 2. The material along and on the sides of the Pontchartrain route is, with the exception of a small stretch, more tenacious, and contains, in general, a greater proportion of sand than in the case of the neighboring channels mentioned. The channel could therefore be more easily maintained. Engineers estimate that a channel with a 300-foot bottom would be needed. On the south shore of the lake, the side slopes should be on the 1 to 3 ratio, with provision for a 1 to 5 ratio at the end of five years. Dumped on shore, the material would reclaim considerable frontage, and eliminate the re-deposit of this material in the channel. Through the remainder of the route, the original excavation should be made with side slopes on the 1 to 5 ratio, with provision made for a 1 to 10 ratio in five years. The dredging of the 75 miles of the Pontchartrain Channel would amount to 97,200,000 cubic yards, it is estimated by engineers. The cost would be around $10,000,000. The annual maintenance, during the first five years, would amount to 8,880,000 cubic yards--an estimate based on a comparison with the other channels into the Gulf, and the character of the material to be excavated. This estimate is considered large--but even at that, it is only 118,400 cubic yards a mile a year, and the cost would be about $750,000, according to Colonel Dent. After five years, it would be less. Another proposed route, investigated by Colonel Dent, is through Lake Borgne. A canal some miles in length, through the marsh, would connect the lake with the Industrial Canal. This route has considerable maintenance advantages over the Pontchartrain route. The character of the bottom in Borgne is more or less the same as in Pontchartrain. Sooner or later, one of these channels will be built by the government. That it has not already been begun is due to the fact that the Canal has not yet been completed, and the expected development has not taken place. But there is no doubt that it will. [Illustration: TYPICAL BRIDGE ON CANAL] [Illustration: EMERGENCY DAM CRANE] WHY GOVERNMENT SHOULD OPERATE CANAL. It is the function of the state to provide port facilities in the form of docks, piers, warehouses, grain elevators, mechanical equipment, etc. But it is the duty of the national government to improve harbors, dredge streams, dig canals for navigation and irrigation, erect levees to protect the back country, and build locks and dams when needed. These are the premises from which the Hudson Dock Board reasons that the cost of construction and maintenance of the New Orleans Navigation Canal and Inner Harbor should be assumed by Uncle Sam. It will leave no stone unturned to have him assume the obligation. The Navigation Canal is essentially a harbor improvement. It enables practically unlimited industrial development and commercial interchange. It is an important link in the Intracoastal Canal system which the government is developing to provide an inland waterway from Boston, Mass. to Brownsville, Tex., and, with the dredging of a channel through Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf, a problem which U.S. engineers have been studying for some time and an undertaking which they have found feasible, it will put the nation's second port about fifty miles closer to the sea. It has considerable military value. Its purpose is, therefore, national; the local interests are secondary. It is no new principle, this obligation of the government. That duty has been recognized by Congress since the United States was. Any rivers and harbors bill will show great and useful expenditure for waterways improvement. The Panama Canal, built by the government, is the greatest example. Coming closer home, there is south pass at the mouth of the Mississippi. A bar, with a nine-foot depth of water, blocked the commerce of New Orleans. Under the rivers and harbors act of 1875, Captain James B. Eads was paid $8,000,000 for building the famous jetties to provide a 26-foot channel. Since then, the channel has been deepened to 33 feet. In more recent years, the government began to improve southwest pass, the westernmost mouth of the Mississippi. A nine-foot bar was there, too. To increase the depth to 35 feet, the government spent, up to 1919, about $15,000,000, and is still spending. "Just as the purpose of the improvements of these channels was to bridge the distance from deep water to deep water" says Arthur McGuirk, special counsel of the Dock Board, in a report of February 23, 1921, to the Board, "so is the purpose of the Navigation Canal to bridge the distance from the deep water of the river to the proposed deep water channel of the lake." In the annual report of the chief of engineers, U.S.A., for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1919, are listed the following waterways improvements and canal developments being made by the Government: "Operating and care of canals, $3,596,566.20. "Cape Cod canal, purchase authorized, river and harbors act, August 8, 1917, cost not exceeding $10,000,000, and enlargement $5,000,000. "Jamaica Bay channel, 500 feet width, 10 feet depth, to be further increased to 1,500 feet width entrance channel and 1,000 feet interior channel, maximum depth of 30 feet, length of channel 12 miles. Approved estimate of cost to United States not to exceed $7,430,000. River and harbors act of June 25, 1910. House document No. 1488, 60th Congress. "Ambrose channel, New York harbor, appropriation new work and maintenance, $4,924,530.88, year ending June 30, 1919. "Bay Ridge and Red Hook channels, $4,471,100. "Locks and dams on Coosa River, Alabama-Georgia, $1,700,918.21. "Channel connecting Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound, act of June 13, 1902, original project, for construction and maintenance total cost $7,809,812.42. "Black Warrior river, 17 locks, Mobile to Sanders' Ferry, 443 miles. Total to date, $10,101,295.54. Indefinite appropriation. "Sabine Pass, act of June 19, 1906 and prior, channels, turning basins and jetties, March 2, 1907, and previously, total appropriations, $1,875,506.78. "Trinity River, Galveston, north, 37 miles locks and dams. Act of June 13, 1902, house document 409, 56th congress. Estimate cost complete canalization of river, revised 1916, in addition to amounts expended prior to rivers and harbors act of July, 1916, in round numbers $13,500,000. Estimated annual cost of maintenance, $280,000. "Houston to Galveston ship canal, act of July 25, 1912, and July 27, 1916. Cost, $3,850,000. Annual maintenance, $325,000. "Rock Island Rapids (Ill.) and LeClaire canal, rock excavations, etc., act of March 2, 1907, dams, 3 locks, etc., to June 30, $31,180,085.62 and $130,158.03 for 1 year maintenance. "Keokuk, Iowa (formerly Des Moines Rapids canal), old project (act of June 23, 1866), $4,574,950.00. "Muscle Shoals Canal (Tennessee River), 36.6 miles, depth 5 feet, $4,743,484.50. Exclusive of cost of nitrate plant. "Locks and dams on Ohio River, act of March 3, 1879, to act of March 2, 1907, including purchase of Louisville and Portland canal, $17,657,273.78. "Estimated cost of new work, widening Louisville and Portland canal and changes in dams, $63,731,488. Annual maintenance covering only lock forces and cost of repairs and renewals, $810,000. Act of June 25, 1920, house document 492, 65th congress, first session. Also act of March 4, 1915, house document 1695, 64th congress, second session. "Ship channel connecting waters of great lakes, including St. Mary's river (Sault Sainte Marie locks), St. Clair and Detroit rivers, locks and dams, total appropriations to June 30, 1919, $26,020,369.68. Estimate new work, $24,085. "St. Clair river, connecting Lakes St. Clair and Erie, shoalest part was 12-1/2 to 15 feet. Improved at expense of $13,252,254.00. Estimated cost of completion, $2,720,000. "Niagara river, $15,785,713.07. "Los Angeles and Long Beach harbor, $4,492,809.80. "Seattle, Lake Washington ship canal, in city of Seattle, from Puget Sound to lake; original project, act of August 18, 1894. Double lock and fixed dam. Length about 8 miles. Total appropriation to date, $3,345,500.00." These are only some of the larger projects. Of course there are a great number of such works, all over the country, constructed and maintained by the United States, sometimes alone, and again by co-operation with local authorities. New Orleans was founded because of the strategic value of the location, both from a commercial and a military standpoint. The power that holds New Orleans commands the Mississippi Valley--a fact which the British recognized in 1812 when they tried to capture it. Likewise, when Farragut captured New Orleans, he broke the backbone of the Confederacy. Mr. McGuirk, in the report to which reference has already been made, discusses the military importance of the Industrial Canal as follows: "A ship canal, connecting the river and the lake at New Orleans will be a Panama or a Kiel canal, in miniature, and double in effectiveness the naval forces defending the valley, as they may be moved to and fro in the canal from the river to the lake. On this line of defense heavy artillery on mobile mounts can be utilized, in addition to heavy ships of the line. That is to say, just as light-draft monitors, and even floats carrying high-powered rifles were used effectively on the Belgian coast; on the Piave river in Italy, and on the Tigris in Mesopotamia, so may they be used in the defense of the valley, on any canal connecting the Mississippi river and Lake Pontchartrain. Changes are constantly occurring in the details of work of defense due to development of armament, munitions and transport. The never-ending development of range and caliber has assumed vast importance, particularly with reference to the effect on the protection of cities from bombardment. Naval guns are now capable of hurling projectiles to distances of over 50,000 yards, 28 to 30 miles. For the protection of the valley we should have at New Orleans armament mounted on floating platforms which will hold the enemy beyond the point where his shells may not reach their objective, and in this operation the canal, affording means of rapid transport, will render invaluable and essential service." A country's ports are its watergates. Their local importance is comparatively small. They are important or not according to whether they are on trade routes, and easily accessible. An infinitesimal part of the trade that flows through New Orleans originates or terminates there. The back country gets the bulk of the business. The development of the harbor is for the service of the interior. It is essentially national. From every point of view, therefore, it is the duty of the national government to take over the Navigation Canal and release the monies of the state so they may be devoted to the improvement of the waterway with wharves and other works in aid of the nation's commerce. [Illustration: S. S. NEW ORLEANS First Ship Launched by Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding Co.] [Illustration: S. S. GAUCHY First Ship Launched on Canal] ECONOMIC ASPECT OF CANAL. Tied to the Mississippi Valley by nearly 14,000 miles of navigable waterways, and the largest port on the gulf coast and the most centrally situated with respect to the Latin-American and Oriental trade, New Orleans is naturally a market of deposit. The development of the river service, in which the government set the pace in 1918, is restoring the north and south flow of commerce, after a generation of forced haul east and west, along the lines of greatest resistance; and New Orleans has become the nation's second port. Its import and export business in 1920 amounted to a billion dollars. Ninety per cent of the nation's wealth is produced in the Valley, of which New Orleans is the maritime capital. It is the source of supply of wheat, corn, sugar, lumber, meat, iron, coal, cotton oil, agricultural implements, and many other products. It is a market for the products of Latin-America and the Orient. With the co-ordination of river, rail and maritime facilities, and sufficient space for development, it is inevitable that New Orleans should become a mighty manufacturing district. Such enterprises as coke ovens, coal by-product plants, flour mills, iron furnaces, industrial chemical works, iron and steel rolling mills, shipbuilding and repair plants, automobile factories and assembling plants, soap works, packing plants, lumber yards, building material plants and yards, warehouses of all kinds, etc., would be encouraged to establish here if given the proper facilities, and the Industrial Canal is the answer to this need, for under the laws of Louisiana private industries can not acquire or lease property on the river front. Even before the completion of the Canal, the dream has been partly realized--with the establishment of two large shipyards on the Canal, which otherwise would have gone somewhere else, and the building of the army supply base on the same waterway, largely due to the enterprise of the port. As Colonel E. J. Dent, U.S. district engineer, said before the members' council of the Association of Commerce, February 17, 1921, the Industrial Canal will be the means of removing the handicaps on New Orleans' foreign trade. "I hold no brief for the Industrial Canal," he continued, "but speaking as one who has no interest in it but who has studied the question deeply, I will say that five years from now, if you develop the Industrial Canal as it should be developed, you will be wondering how on earth you ever got along without it." Before the constitutional convention of Louisiana, on April 4, 1921, he elaborated this thought as follows: "The Industrial Canal will furnish to New Orleans her greatest need. It should be possible to build docks there where the entire cargo for a ship may be assembled. Under present conditions in the river it is often necessary for a ship to go to three or four docks to get a complete cargo. "Last year there passed through the port of New Orleans 11,000,000 tons of freight valued at $1,100,000,000. This required 1,000 loaded freight cars a day passing over the docks, fifteen solid trainloads of freight each day. The inbound freight was about 5,000,000 tons and the outbound about 6,000,000. This is extraordinarily well balanced for any port in the United States. This would mean about 5,000 steamers of an average capacity of 2,000 tons. "The proper place to assemble a cargo is on the docks. Last year the Dock Board allowed but seven days for assembling the cargo for a ship--only seven days for assembling 250 carloads of stuff. Then last year the Dock Board would not assign a ship a berth until it was within the jetties. These are some of the difficulties. "What New Orleans needs is 50 to 100 per cent more facilities for her port. Last summer the port of New Orleans was congested, but she held her own because other ports were congested. But that may not occur again. If you want to hold your own you must improve your facilities." Wharves can be built a great deal cheaper on the fixed-level canal, with its stable banks. And that is the only place specialized industries can secure water frontage. Sooner or later the government will adopt the free port system, by which other countries have pushed their foreign trade to such heights. Free ports have nothing to do with the tariff question. They are simply zones established in which imports may be stored, re-packed, manufactured and then exported without the payment of duties in the first place, duties for the refund of which the present law makes provision, but only after vexatious delays and expensive red tape. Precautions are taken to prevent smuggling. In the preliminary investigations and recommendations made by the Department of Commerce, New York, San Francisco and New Orleans have been designated as the first free ports that should be established. With the ample space it offers for expansion, the Industrial Canal is the logical location for the free zone. Counting the $15,000,000 contract of the Doullut & Williams Shipyard, the $5,000,000 contract of the Foundation Company Shipyard, the $13,000,000 army supply base, the Industrial Canal has already brought $33,000,000 of development to New Orleans, 60 per cent more than the cost of the undertaking. More than half of this was for wages and material purchased in New Orleans. The state has gained hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. About half the money spent on the Industrial Canal was wages; and helped to increase the population, force business to a new height, raise the value of real estate, and make New Orleans the financial stronghold of the South. What indirect bearing on bringing scores of other industries to New Orleans, which did not require a location on the waterway, the building of the Industrial Canal has had, there is no way of ascertaining. Since the work was begun the Dock Board has received inquiries from a hundred or so large enterprises regarding the cost of a site on the canal. That they have not established there is due to the fact that the Canal has not yet been completed, and the Dock Board has announced no policy. It is now working on that question with representatives of the Association of Commerce, Joint Traffic Bureau, Clearing House Association, Cotton Exchange, Board of Trade, and Steamship Association. There is no use trying to guess at what the policy will be. It is too big a problem, and must be worked out very carefully, with reference to a confusing tangle of cross-interests. Two principles have already been categorically laid down by President Hudson and endorsed by the Dock Board at an open meeting of April 5, 1921, with the commercial and industrial interests of the city, planning for the policy of the Canal: First, that the development of the Canal shall not be at the expense of the river. Wharf development will be pushed on the river to meet the legitimate commercial demands of the port. No one is to be forced on the Canal. That would hurt the port. It is not thought that such forced development would be necessary, and the Canal will be kept open for the specialized industries that can best use the co-ordination of the river, rail and maritime facilities. Second, that the control of the property along the Canal, owned by the Dock Board, will not go out of the hands of the Board. There will be long-term leases--up to ninety-nine years, but no outright sale. Furthermore, the private land on the other side of the Dock Board's property will not be allowed to be developed at the expense of the state's interests. So the frontage on the Canal will be developed before there is any extensive construction of lateral basins and slips. What will be the rate charged for a site? Will it be based on the actual cost of the Canal and its maintenance? Or will the state consider it a business investment like a road or street, and charge the property owners thereon less than the cost of construction, collecting the difference in the general progress? That, too, is a question which calls for considerable study before it can be answered. With the Industrial Canal open, sites available on long leases to business enterprise, and with our tax laws relating to the processes of industry and commerce revised and made more favorable, New Orleans will enter a period of expansion and development on a scale hardly yet dreamed of by her most far-visioned citizens, with enlarged profit and opportunity for all her people. New taxable wealth will be created rapidly. New needs for taxable property will arise. The tax burden on all will be distributed more widely and when contrasted with the earning power of such property will become less and less of a burden. This will be so because the water frontage through which the Canal is being created for the attraction of many enterprises which cannot locate on the river front, is all within the limits of the city of New Orleans. With this Canal in operation, New Orleans will possess to the fullest degree the three great systems of port operation: Public ownership and operation of the river harbor facilities; public ownership of the land and private operation of facilities on the Industrial Canal; and private ownership of the land and private operation of the facilities on the new channel to the sea. No other port in the country has the capacity for this trinity of port systems. No other port possesses such a hinterland as is embraced within the Mississippi Valley, nor so extensive and so complete a system of easy-grade railroads and navigable waterways penetrating its hinterland. No other port holds so strategic a position in the path of the new trade routes connecting the region of greatest productivity with the new markets of greatest promise in Latin-America and the Orient. [Illustration: LOCK GATE There are Ten Like This] CONSTRUCTION COSTS AND CONTRACTORS. Everything is relative. Looking at the total, some may think that the cost of the Industrial Canal is large. So it is--compared with the cost of an irrigation ditch through a 20-acre farm. But comparing the cost with the wealth it is invested to produce--has already begun to produce--it dwindles to a mere percentage. And a comparison of construction costs on the Industrial Canal with similar work done elsewhere during the same time is very much in favor of the former. Witness the following figures shown in the books of the engineering department of the Dock Board: Dredging, including the canal prism and the excavation of the sites of the bridge foundations, siphon and lock, averaged .2784 cents a cubic yard. The highest cost was in the lock section, from which 609,302 cubic yards were excavated at an average cost of .3796 cents a cubic yard. On the siphon and Florida Walk bridge section, including two other deep cuts, the 814,919 cubic yards excavated cost an average of .2607 cents a cubic yard. On the Louisville & Nashville bridge section, the 1,023,466 cubic yards excavated cost an average of .2363 cents a cubic yard. From there to the lake, 1,673,787 cubic yards, the average cost was .2411 cents. Dredging costs were below the original estimates when labor and supplies were 50 per cent cheaper. The 90,000 cubic yards of concrete in the lock cost an average of $22.50 a cubic yard. This includes cost of material, mixing, building forms, pouring and stripping forms. Mixing and pouring, from the time the material was handled from the storehouse or pile, averaged $1.20 a cubic yard. It would be hard to find cheaper concrete on a work of similar magnitude anywhere, say the engineers. On the siphon the concrete work cost more, because it was a subterranean job, with elaborate shaping. The price there was $35 a cubic yard, in place, including material and form work. To drive the 17,000 bearing piles and 7,000 traveling piles on which the lock is floated, cost an average of 15 cents a running foot. This does not include the cost of the piling. Construction steel cost .12 cents a pound, and erection around 4 cents. These were standard prices. The lock gates, weighing 5,285,000 pounds, cost $845,600, in place. This does not include opening and closing machinery. Three of the bascule bridges crossing the Canal, weighing 1,600,000 pounds each, cost $250,000 each, erected. The fourth bridge, near the lock, weighing 1,000,000 pounds, cost $200,000, erected. This is for superstructure only--it does not include the foundation. The emergency dam bridge, weighing 350,373 pounds, and its 108,256 pounds of turning machinery, cost $96,728, in place. Hoisting machinery cost $40,000 more. The eight girders of the emergency dam, weighing 90 tons each, at $240 a ton, cost $172,800. Machinery for working the ten lock gates, the eight filling gates, and the six capstans--twenty-four 52-horse power electric motors--cost $21,479, f.o.b. New Orleans. The plant for unwatering the lock, consisting of one pump with a capacity of 15,000 gallons a minute, and two with a capacity of 250 gallons each, cost, erected, $11,000. Total mechanical equipment used on the Industrial Canal weighs 14,500 tons. Its cost, including power-house, electrical connections, etc., is $1,516,000. Plant and equipment for building the Canal, including locomotives, cranes, piledrivers, dredges, tools, etc., cost $781,232. Depreciation, up to February, 1921, is set at $266,874, leaving a balance of $514,358, carried as assets. Much of this has already been sold, and more will be disposed of. Following are the firms that executed contracts on the Industrial Canal: OUTSIDE NEW ORLEANS. Lock gates and emergency dam girders: McClintic-Marshall Construction Company, Pittsburg, Pa.; designed by Goldmark & Harris Company, New York. Filling gates: Coffin Valve Company, Indian Orchard, Mass. Miscellaneous valve equipment: Ludlow Valve Company, Troy, N.Y. Capstans: American Engineering Company, Philadelphia, Pa. Mooring posts: Shipbuilding Products Company, New York, N.Y. Miter gate moving machines: Fawcus Machine Works, Pittsburg, Pa. Motors, control boards and miscellaneous electrical equipment: General Electric Company, Schenectady, N.Y. Bridge crane and bascule bridges: Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Steelton, Pa. Former designed by Goldmark & Harris Company, New York, N.Y.; latter, by Strauss Bascule Bridge Company, Chicago, Ill. Steel sheet piling: Lackawanna Steel Company, Buffalo, New York. Hoists and cranes: Orton & Steinbrenner, Huntington, Ind.; American Hoist and Derrick Company, St. Paul, Minn. Conveyor equipment: Webster Company, Tiffany, Ohio; Barker-Greene Company, Aurora, Ill. Woodworking machinery: Fay & Egan Company, Cincinnati, Ohio. Pipe: U.S. Cast Iron Pipe Company, Birmingham, Ala. Lumber and piling: Hammond Lumber Company, Hammond, La.; Great Southern Lumber Company, Bogalusa, La. Dredges: Bowers Southern Dredging Company, Galveston, Tex.; Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Company, Mobile, Ala. IN NEW ORLEANS. Cinder and earth fill: Thomas M. Johnson. Levee work: Hercules Construction Company; Hampton Reynolds. Sand and gravel: Jahncke Service, Inc.; D. V. Johnston Company. Cement: Atlas Portland Cement Company, the Michel Lumber and Brick Company being local agents. Lumber and piling: Salmen Brick and Lumber Company; W. W. Carre Company, Ltd. Coal: Kirkpatrick Coal Company; Tennessee Coal, Iron and R.R. Company. Reinforcing steel and supplies: Tennessee Coal, Iron and R.R. Company; Ole K. Olsen. Rail and track accessories: A. Marx & Sons. Concrete mixers: Fairbanks Company. Repairs and castings: Dibert, Bancroft & Ross; Joubert & Goslin Machinery and Foundry Company; Stern Foundry and Machinery Company. OTHER PORT FACILITIES. "New Orleans," says Dr. Roy S. MacElwee in his book on Port and Terminal Facilities, a subject on which he is considered an authority, "is the most advanced port in America in respect to scientific policy." The Shipping Board echoed the compliment in its report of its port and harbor facilities commission of April, 1919, when it said: "New Orleans ranks high among the ports of the United States for volume of business, and presents a very successful example of the public ownership and operation of port facilities. It is one of the best equipped and co-ordinated ports of the country." New Orleans is the principal fresh water-ocean harbor in the United States. Landlocked and protected from storms, it is the safest harbor on the Gulf Coast. Almost unlimited is the number of vessels that can be accommodated at anchor. Alongside the wharves the water is from thirty to seventy feet deep. The government maintains a 33-foot channel at the mouth of the river. The "port of New Orleans" takes in about 21 miles of this harbor on both sides of the river. This gives a river frontage of 41.4 miles, which is under the jurisdiction of the Dock Board, an agency of the state. The Board has, to date, improved seven miles of the east bank of the river with wharves, steel sheds, cotton warehouses, a grain elevator and a coal-handling plant of most modern type, together with other facilities for loading and unloading. Authority has been granted to issue $6,500,000 in bonds for increasing these facilities. Wharves, elevators and warehouses built by railroads and industrial plants on both sides of the river bring up the total improved portion of the port to 45,000 linear feet, capable of berthing ninety vessels 500 feet long. These facilities are co-ordinated by the only municipally owned and operated belt railroad in the United States, which saves the shipper much money. More than sixty steamship lines connect the port with the world markets; the government barge line, a number of steamboat lines, and twelve railroad lines connect it with the producing and consuming sections of the United States. [Illustration: BULL WHEEL Part of Operating Machinery for Lock Gates] Now nearing completion is the Public Coal Handling Plant. Built by the Dock Board to develop the business in cargo coal, it is costing more than $1,000,000.00, and will have a capacity of 25,000 tons. It is of the belt-conveyor type. The plant will be able to: 1. Unload coal from railway cars into a storage pile; 2. Unload coal from cars into steamers or barges; 3. Load coal from storage pile into steamers or barges; 4. Unload coal from barges into steamers and storage pile; 5. Load coal from barges or storage pile into cars. At the 750-foot wharf the plant can take care of three ships at one time, with a maximum loading capacity of 800 to 1,000 tons an hour. Other coaling facilities at the port are furnished by: Illinois Central Railroad: Tipple with capacity of 300 tons an hour; New Orleans Coal Company: Two tipples, capacity 150 and 350 tons an hour; floating collier to coal ships while freight is being taken aboard at the wharf, capacity 175 tons an hour; collier, capacity 150 tons an hour. Alabama and New Orleans Transportation Company: Storage plant with loading towers on Lake Borgne canal, just below the city; American Sugar Refining Company: Coal plant, capacity, 70 tons an hour, for receiving coal from barges and delivering it to boiler house; Monongahela River Coal and Coke Company: Floating collier. Fuel oil facilities for bunkering purposes are furnished by: Gulf Refining Company: Storage capacity, 100,000 barrels; bunkering capacity, 800 barrels an hour; Texas Oil Company: Storage capacity, 150,000 barrels; bunkering capacity, 1,500 barrels an hour; Mexican Petroleum Corporation: Bunkering capacity, 1,500 barrels an hour; Sinclair Refining Company: Storage capacity, 250,000 barrels; bunkering capacity, 2,500 barrels an hour; Standard Oil Company: Storage capacity, 110,336 barrels; bunkering capacity, 1,000 barrels an hour. In the Jahncke Dry Dock and Ship Repair Company, New Orleans has the largest ship repair plant south of Newport News. The plant is on the Mississippi river, adjacent to the Industrial Canal. It has a 1,500-foot wharf and three dry docks, of 6,000, 8,000 and 10,000 tons capacity, respectively. These can be joined for lifting the very large ships. It is equipped with the latest and most powerful machinery, and has been a strong factor in developing the port. The Johnson Iron Works and Shipbuilding Company likewise has facilities for wood repairing, caulking, painting and scraping of vessels, as well as iron work. It has three docks: one 234 feet long, one 334 feet long, and a small one for lifting barges and small river tugs. At the United States Naval Yard is a dock of 15,000 tons capacity. This is placed at the service of commercial vessels when private docks are not available. The Public Cotton Warehouse and Public Grain Elevator are among the most modern facilities in the country. Both plants are of reinforced concrete throughout, insuring a low insurance rate. The cotton warehouse comprises five units, with a total storage capacity at one time of 320,000 bales, and an annual handling capacity of 2,000,000. High density presses compress this cotton to 34 pounds per cubic foot, saving the exporter 20 per cent on steamship freight rates. The insurance rate on storage cotton is 24 cents per $100 a year. Cotton is handled by Dock Board employees licensed by the New Orleans Cotton Exchange under rules and regulations laid down by the department of agriculture. Warehouse receipts may be discounted at the banks. Cotton can be handled cheaper here than at any other warehouse in the country. Storage capacity of the Public Grain Elevator is 2,622,000 bushels. This is about 25 per cent of the grain elevator storage capacity of the port, but the Public Elevator handles 60 per cent of the business--proving its efficiency. Its unloading capacity is 60,000 bushels a day from barges or ships, and 200,000 bushels from cars. Loading capacity into ships is 100,000 bushels an hour--to one or four vessels, simultaneously. Fireproof and equipped with a modern dust-collecting system, this facility is considered one of the best in the country. Other grain elevators at New Orleans are operated by: Southern Railway: capacity, 375,000 bushels; Illinois Central Railroad two elevators, capacity, 2,500,000 bushels; Trans-Mississippi Terminal Railroad Company: two elevators, capacity, 1,350,000 bushels. Wharves owned and controlled by the Dock Board measure 28,872 linear feet in length, with an area of 4,230,894 square feet. Twenty of these thirty-four wharves are covered with steel sheds. Wharves operated by the railroads on both sides of the river increase the port facilities as follows: Southern Railway: Two concrete and steel covered docks, one a two-story structure; one is 150 by 1,300 feet, with a floor space of 195,000 square feet; one is 150 by 1,680 feet on the lower floor, and 120 by 1,680 on the upper, with a combined area of 453,000 square feet floor space. Illinois Central Railroad: covered wharf, 130-150 by 4,739 feet. Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Company: wharf space, 112,000 square feet; covered space, 117,200 square feet. Trans-Mississippi Terminal Railroad Company: Wharf No. 1, three berths, 281,904 square feet; No. 2, one berth, 94,350 square feet; No. 3, one berth, 100,725 square feet--most of it covered; oil wharf, 15,000 square feet. The New Orleans Army Supply Base has a two-story wharf 2,000 feet long by 140 feet wide. The lower floor of the wharf is leased by the Dock Board. Back of it are the three warehouses, each 140 by 600 feet, and six stories in height. Seven industrial plants have loading and unloading facilities on the river. The Dock Board does not lease or part with the control of these, and controls the following charges: harbor fees, dockage, sheddage, wharfage, etc. Open storage on river front contiguous to wharves totals 1,169,900 square feet. There is a great deal of potential open storage space away from the wharves and along railroad tracks, which could be reached by switches. For the storage of coffee, alcohol, sisal, sugar and general commodities, private warehouses offer a floor space of 2,000,000 square feet. Railroads serving New Orleans are: The Public Belt, Illinois Central, Yazoo & Mississippi Valley, Gulf Coast Lines, Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company, Louisville & Nashville, Louisiana Southern, Missouri-Pacific, Texas & Pacific, New Orleans & Lower Coast, Morgan's Louisiana & Texas Railroad and Steamship Company, (Southern Pacific) Southern Railway and New Orleans & Great Northern. Storage track capacity of New Orleans for export traffic totals 15,156 cars. Track facilities alongside the wharves will accommodate 600 cars. New Orleans can handle, at the grain elevators and wharves, 3,000 cars a day. Wharves are served exclusively by the Public Belt Railroad. The Industrial Canal will be similarly served. The Public Belt Railroad assumes the obligations of a common carrier, operating under appropriate traffic rules and regulations. The switching charge is $7.00 a car, regardless of the distance. On uncompressed cotton and linters, the charge is $4.50. The government barge line connects New Orleans with the Warrior River section of Alabama and the Upper Mississippi Valley, including a great deal of inland territory to which river and rail differential rates apply, as far as St. Louis. It is operating a fleet of 2,000-ton steel covered barges and 1,800 horsepower towboats. There is a weekly service. Rates are 20 per cent cheaper than rail rates. The port is supplied with some of the most modern freight handling machinery. Harbor dues and other expenses are low. The water supply, for drinking purposes and boilers, meets the strongest tests. How advantageously situated is New Orleans will be seen from the following comparison of distances: [Illustration: SHIP LOCK on the INNER HARBOR NAVIGATION CANAL at the PORT OF NEW ORLEANS THE LOCK COMPLETED] COMPARISON OF DISTANCES BY AND BETWEEN NEW ORLEANS AND NEW YORK AND PRINCIPAL CITIES. (Distances in statute miles, furnished by War Department.) New York New Orleans ---------------------------------------- Atlanta 846 498 Baltimore 188 1,184 Birmingham 1,043 348 Boston 235 1,607 Buffalo 442 1,275 Charleston 739 776 Chattanooga 846 498 Chicago 912 912 Cincinnati 781 836 Cleveland 584 1,092 Dallas 1,642 515 Denver 1,932 1,356 Detroit 693 1,100 Duluth 1,390 1,340 El Paso 2,310 1,195 Galveston 1,782 410 Indianapolis 827 888 Kansas City 1,335 867 Little Rock 1,290 487 Louisville 867 749 Memphis 1,156 396 Minneapolis 1,332 1,285 Mobile 1,231 141 Norfolk 347 1,093 Oklahoma City 1,643 856 Omaha 1,402 1,070 Pittsburgh 444 1,142 Philadelphia 91 1,281 Port Townsend 3,199 2,979 Portland, Oregon 3,204 2,746 Salt Lake City 2,442 1,928 San Antonio 1,943 571 San Francisco 3,191 2,482 Savannah 845 661 Seattle 3,151 2,931 St. Louis 1,058 701 Toledo 705 1,040 Washington, D.C. 228 1,144 COMPARISON OF DISTANCES BY WATER ROUTES BETWEEN NEW ORLEANS AND NEW YORK TO PRINCIPAL PORTS OF THE WORLD. (Distances in nautical miles, supplied by Hydrographic Office, Navy Department; land routes in statute miles supplied by War Department.) New York New Orleans --------------------------------------------------------- Antwerp 3,325 4,853 Bombay-- Via Suez 8,120 9,536 Via Cape of Good Hope 11,250 11,848 Buenos Ayres 5,868 6,318 Callao-- Via Panama 3,392 2,764 Via Tehauntepec 4,246 2,991 Cape Town 6,851 7,374 Colon (eastern end of Panama Canal) 1,981 1,380 Havana 1,227 597 Hong Kong-- Via Panama 11,431 10,830 [a] Via rail to San Francisco 9,277 8,568 Honolulu-- Via Panama 6,686 6,085 Via rail to San Francisco 5,288 4,579 Liverpool 3,053 4,553 London 3,233 4,507 Manila-- Via Panama 11,546 10,993 [a] Yokohama and San Francisco 9,480 8,771 [a] Yokohama and Port Townsend 9,192 8,972 Melbourne-- [a] Via San Francisco 10,231 9,522 Via Panama 10,028 9,424 Via Tehauntepec 9,852 8,604 Via Suez Canal 12,981 14,303 Mexico City-- By land and water 2,399 1,172 By land 2,898 1,526 New Orleans-- Land 1,372 Water 1,741 Nome, Alaska-- [a] Via San Francisco 5,896 5,187 [a] Via Port Townsend 5,555 5,335 Via Panama 8,010 7,410 Panama (western end Canal)-- Via Canal and Colon 2,028 1,427 Pernambuco, Brazil 3,696 3,969 Rio de Janeiro 4,778 5,218 San Juan, P.R. 1,428 1,539 Singapore-- Via Yokohama and Panama 13,104 12,503 Via Suez 10,170 11,560 San Francisco 3,191 2,482 Via Tehauntepec 4,415 3,191 Via Panama 5,305 4,704 Tehauntepec-- Eastern end of railroad 2,036 812 Valparaiso-- Via Panama 4,637 4,035 Yokohama-- Via Honolulu and Tehauntepec 9,243 7,995 Via Honolulu and Panama 10,093 9,492 Via Panama 9,869 9,268 --------------------------------------------------------- [a] By land and water. [b] By land. 
9647	----	The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition A Pictorial Survey of the Most Beautiful of the Architectural Compositions of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition With an Introduction by Louis Christian Mullgardt F.A.I.A. Architect of the Court of Ages Member of the Architectural Commission of the Exposition 1915 San Francisco The courtesy of the Cardinell-Vincent Company, official photographers of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, of granting permission to reproduce the selection of official photographs appearing in this volume, is gratefully acknowledged To the spirit of Community Loyalty by which greatest results are accomplished. To generous Collective Energy which unites the world's people in universal kindliness. To the wholesome people of our San Francisco, whose united efforts unconsciously disproved the impossible, this book is affectionately dedicated. L. C. M. Reflection International Expositions are independent kingdoms in their corporate relation with other countries of the world. They are phantom kingdoms wherein the people do everything but sleep. They germinate and grow with phenomenal energy. Their existence is established without conquest and their magic growth is similar to the mushroom and the moonflower; they vanish like setting suns in their own radiance. Thousands of neophytes of every race, creed and color come with willing hearts and hands to do homage and bear manna to nourish the sinews of a phantom kingdom. The National Constitution of phantom kingdoms commands that the Spirit of beauty, refinement, education, culture and frolic shall govern. The result is that they contain many palaces and shrines decorated with sculpture and painting and that the earth is studded with fountains and pools within tropical gardens. Such a Kingdom exists within a wonderful valley bordering on a great sea. It is surrounded by high velvet hills of fine contour and by many real cities. As the people look down on this phantom kingdom from the hill-tops, or from ships sailing on the water, they see Architecture nestling like flamingoes with fine feathers unfurled within a green setting. If building Phantom Kingdoms symbolizes man's highest aims on earth, then the same is true when building Real Kingdoms. Architecture and the sister arts are the most reliable barometers in recording human thought. They are direct exponents of a universal language wherein national progress is most clearly read. People who build Phantom Kingdoms look hopefully for universal approval by all mankind. L.C.M. Contents Reflection. Louis Christian Mullgardt The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition. Louis Christian Mullgardt Illustrations The Rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts--A View by Night. Hilda Van Sicklen, photo. (Frontispiece) Panorama--Exposition from Presidio Heights. W. Zenis Newton, photo Tower of Jewels--The Illumination by Night. J. L. Padilla, photo Fountain of Energy--A View in the South Gardens. W. Zenis Newton, photo Festival Hall--South Gardens and Mermaid Pool. W. Zenis Newton, photo Festival Hall--The Terrace and Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Festival Hall--Mermaid Pool in the Mist. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Palace of Horticulture--The Dome and East Entrance. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Horticulture--Dome and Spires by Night. James M. Doolittle, photo Palace of Horticulture--The Colonnade on the East. W. Zenis Newton, photo Horticultural Gardens--Floral Exhibit in the Open Avenue of Palms--View from Administration Avenue. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Education--Main South Portal. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Education--One of the Minor Entrances. Pillsbury Pictures Court of Palms--The Sunken Pool by Night. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Palms--Portal, Palace of Education. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Court of Palms--Portal, Palace of Liberal Arts. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Palms--Italian Tower from Main Portal. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Palms--In the Colonnade by Night. William Hood, photo Court of Palms--A Curve in the Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Liberal Arts--Portal, From the South Gardens. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Palace of Liberal Arts--The Tower of Jewels by Night. J. L. Padilla, photo Palace of Liberal Arts--Elephant Fountain Niche by Night. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Tower of Jewels--The Great Roman Archway. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Tower of Jewels--Colonnade, The Fountain of Youth. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Palace of Manufactures--Portal, From the South Gardens. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Flowers--Fountain, Beauty and the Beast. J. L. Padilla, photo Court of Flowers--Portal of Varied Industries. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Flowers--A Vista in the Colonnade. William Hood, photo Court of Flowers--Italian Tower from Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Flowers--The Friendly Lion at the Portal. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Palace of Varied Industries--Main Portal. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Avenue of Palms--The South Facade by Night. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Avenue of Progress--The Fine Vista to the Marina. W. Zenis Newton, photo Machinery Hall--The Central Arch in the Portal. W. Zenis Newton, photo Machinery Hall--The Colonnade in the Portal. W. Zenis Newton, photo Machinery Hall--One of the Minor Entrances. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Mines--A Lamp Niche in the Court. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Ages--The Tower by Night Illumination. William Hood, photo Court of Ages--The Fountain of Earth. Pillsbury Pictures Court of Ages--The Garden of Hyacinths. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Ages--A Glimpse from the Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Ages--A Vista in the Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of Ages--The Tower through North Aisle. W. Zenis Newton, photo Florentine Court--Palace of Transportation. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of the Universe--Through Three Great Arches. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of the Universe--Triumphal Arch, The Setting Sun. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of the Universe--Triumphal Arch, The Rising Sun. Court of the Universe--Fountain of the Rising Sun. Pillsbury Pictures Court of the Universe--Fountain of the Setting Sun. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of the Universe--The Fountain Pool and Tower. James M. Doolittle, photo Court of the Universe--Corinthian Colonnade and Gardens Court of the Universe--In the Promenade by Night. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Court of the Universe--A Niche and Urn by Night. Jesse. T. Banfield, photo Palace of Transportation--In the Corinthian Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Venetian Court--Palace of Agriculture. James M. Doolittle, photo Court of the Four Seasons--The Night Illumination. William Hood, photo Court of the Four Seasons--The Great Half Dome. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Court of the Four Seasons--The Western Archway. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of the Four Seasons--One of the Colonnade Murals. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of the Four Seasons--The Ionic Columns. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Court of the Four Seasons--The Colonnade and Lawn. W. Zenis Newton, photo Court of the Four Seasons--The North Colonnade by Night. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Food Products--The Portal from the Gardens. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Food Products--A Detail of the Main Portal. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Esplanade--North Facade, Column of Progress. W. Zenis Newton, photo North Facade--A View from the Bay. Pillsbury Pictures Palace of Food Products--A View from the Fine Arts Laguna. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Palace of Education--A View from the Fine Arts Laguna. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Palace of Education--The Half Dome of Philosophy. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Education--The Fountain in the Portal. W. Zenis Newton, photo Administration Avenue--The Fine Arts Laguna Palace of Fine Arts--The Rotunda and Laguna. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Palace of Fine Arts--The Rotunda and Peristyle. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Fine Arts--The Peristyle and Laguna Palace of Fine Arts--In the Peristyle Walk. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Fine Arts--The Rotunda from the Peristyle. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Fine Arts--The Peristyle Walk by Night. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Palace of Fine Arts--A Fountain in the Laguna. W. Zenis Newton, photo Palace of Fine Arts--A Picturesque Garden Fountain. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Palace of Fine Arts--The Garden and Fountain of Time. Jesse T. Banfield, photo California Building--Bell Tower and Forbidden Garden. California Building--The Arches of the Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo California Building--A Vista in the Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo California Building--The Forbidden Garden. Hilda Van Sicklen, photo California Building--The Semi-Tropical Garden. W. Zenis Newton, photo Netherlands Pavilion--As Seen from the Laguna. Pillsbury Pictures Italian Pavilion--The Piazzetta Venetia. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Italian Pavilion--In the Court Verrochio. James M. Doolittle, photo Avenue of the Nations--Tower of Sweden's Pavilion. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Esplanade--A View of the Foreign Pavilions. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Esplanade--A View of the State Buildings. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Zone--A Holiday Gathering The Zone The Bizarre Decorations. J. L. Padilla, photo The Fireworks--Star Shells and Steam Battery. Jesse T. Banfield, photo Zone Salvo--The Final "Big Noise." Jesse T. Banfield, photo The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition The Architecture & Landscape Gardening When San Francisco was destroyed by fire in 1906, many people predicted that the city would never be rebuilt. A great number of men and women packed their goods and chattels and hastily bade farewell to the still smoking ruins of a City That Was, firmly believing that destiny had determined that it should remain forever buried in its own ashes. There was another class of men and women who were optimists. They predicted that the city would be rebuilt, but that it would require from twenty to thirty years. There was still another class of men and women who knew by observation that it required no more time to build ten buildings than one, provided the Spirit of Energy and Determination existed, to fortify the desire. We all know now that the Spirit of Energy and Determination did abound in San Francisco--that the City did not remain buried in its own ashes, and that it did not require from twenty to thirty years to rebuild it. The City was not only rebuilt in less than ten years, but, in addition thereto, an International Exposition, surpassing all previous Expositions, was built by its people. San Francisco wisely selected for the location of this International Exposition what seemed to many to be an impossible site, for it was disorderly and uninteresting to look at. But the site was appropriately situated on the shores of San Francisco Bay--beautiful in its surroundings and most convenient alike to its citizens and visitors. It consisted of a pond and a strip of waste land and marsh land, apparently destined to remain unfilled and unorderly for years to come. The People of Energy, Determination and Desire have also made this strip of waste land permanently available. The arrangement of this Exposition is distinctive because of its Court Plan. Eight Palaces seemingly constitute a single structure, containing five distinct courts or places for large public gatherings, which are open to the sky. This colossal group of buildings, consisting of the Palaces of Education, Food Products, Agriculture, Liberal Arts, Manufactures, Transportation, Mines, and Varied Industries, is terminated east and west by Machinery Hall and the Palace of Fine Arts. To the south of this group, and on the lateral axis of the two end courts, are the Palace of Horticulture and Festival Hall. This group of eight buildings, with its Tower of Jewels, and the separate buildings, Festival Hall, the Palace of Horticulture, the Palace of Fine Arts and Machinery Hall, constitute the main structures. The buildings and gardens of Foreign Countries and of the States of the Union adjoin, at their western termination, the thirteen main structures erected by the Exposition Company. Still further west, are the Livestock Barns and Poultry Houses. The Aviation, Military and Polo Fields, including the Race Course, occupy the extreme end of the site. The amusement section, "The Zone," extends for a distance of seven city blocks eastward from the main group. President C. C. Moore of the Exposition first appointed an Advisory Architectural Board, in the fall of 1911, consisting of Messrs. Willis Polk, Clarence R. Ward, John Galen Howard, Albert Pisses and William Curlett. This Advisory Board was succeeded by an Architectural Commission, consisting of Messrs. Willis Polk, Chairman, Clarence R. Ward, W. B. Faville, George W. Kelham, Louis Christian Mullgardt (all of San Francisco), Robert D. Farquhar of Los Angeles, McKim, Mead and White, Carrere and Hastings, and Henry Bacon (all of New York); Messrs. Bakewell and Brown and Bernard R. Maybeck were subsequently commissioned as Exposition Architects. The first named nine architects constituted the permanent Architectural Commission which recommended to the Board of Directors the General Plan of the Exposition, which was substantially followed as a guide to the results accomplished. Three important elements in the design of an Exposition are represented by Planting, Sculpture, Color and Decoration. The Chiefs of these Departments were selected by the Architectural Commission at its second conference, August, 1912; John McLaren, of San Francisco, was appointed to the important position of Landscape Engineer; Karl Bitter and A. Stirling Calder of New York were appointed chief and assistant chief of the Department of Sculpture; Jules Guerin, of New York, became chief of the Department of Color and Decoration. The Chiefs of these departments attended the architects' conferences and collaborated in their deliberations. Another very important element in the design of this Exposition was represented by the Department of Travertine Texture, for the proper manipulation of colored plastic materials to give correct surface expression to all buildings and sculpture. This department was placed under the direction of Paul E. Denivelle of New York. The element of Texture as embodied in the construction of this Exposition, has again emphasized its general importance in plastic architecture. The Marina The north side of the main group is flanked by a greensward, called the Marina, which skirts the bay. This enormous green carpet is bordered by walks and roadways. The Marina affords excellent opportunity for thousands of people to view special attractions offered daily along the waterfront. War vessels and pleasure crafts are always just beyond the low Marina wall. An uninterrupted view of the bay and its northern coast line of hills and mountains, extending from the Golden Gate, west to east, as far as eye can reach, is here obtained under most favorable conditions. No one will ever forget the wonderful panorama which this Exposition faces. The South Gardens Flanking the south side of the main group is the marvelous Avenue of Palms, which appears to have existed always. It was established A. D. 1914, by John McLaren, Landscape Engineer, as part of the most colossal system of successful transplanting ever undertaken in the history of the world. The South Gardens adjoin the Avenue of Palms and extend to the Exposition enclosure along the south boundary line, where a wall fifty feet high and ten feet wide has been erected of a solid green moss-like growth, studded with myriads of tiny pink star-like blossoms. This great wall is perforated by simple arched masonry entrances, leading rough the richly planted foreground formed by the South Gardens. Basins of reflecting blue waters extend to the right and left of a central fountain of colossal proportions. The basins themselves are punctuated at their east and west ends by fountains of subordinate size, back of which are Festival Hall to the right and the Palace of Horticulture to the left, as we enter the green wall portals from the city of San Francisco beyond. To the south and west of the Foreign Countries, States Buildings and Gardens, a graceful contour of hills extends, sloping onward to Golden Gate, and having a coxcomb of pine and eucalyptus. Broad vistas of city, forests, water, hills and mountains present themselves at every point. Gray, green, blue and lavender vistas come into view through portal, colonnade, and arch. The Palace of Fine Arts This impressive unit faces the rising sun with its colorful facade. The plan of this composite structure suggests the Star and Crescent of Mohammed. The architecture shows a free interpretation of early Roman forms. It is, in fact, a purely romantic conception by Architect Maybeck, entirely free from traditional worship or obedience to scholastic precedent. Its greatest charm has been established through successful composition; the architectural elements have been arranged into a colossal theme of exceptional harmony, into which the interwoven planting and the mirror lake have been incorporated in a masterly way. The entire composition bespeaks the mind of a romanticist, whose productions are swayed more by nature's glories than by scholastic tradition. The Palace of Horticulture The appearance of this building so clearly expresses its purpose that a definition of style promptly suggests the title of Horticultural Architecture. Its decorative spire-like finials resemble the cypress and poplar. The clusters of floral ornaments and festoons reflect one of the fundamental purposes of decorative glory to which all plant life has been decreed. The bulblike glass dome is like an enormous dewdrop of beautiful proportions and iridescent color. All this beauty was conceived by Architects Bakewell and Brown, who have given full evidence of their appreciation of the purposes to which this Palace was assigned. Festival Hall This structure counterbalances the Palace of Horticulture at the east end of the South Gardens. Mr. Farquhar's interpretation of Italian Renaissance in this interesting building is replete with charming detail; it is truly expressive of its festival purposes. It is seen to best advantage when reflected in the South Garden Pool, from the circle surrounding the Fountain of Energy, and from the Court of Flowers. The Palace of Machinery This colossal structure of Roman type was designed by Architects Ward and Blohme. It dignifies the east end of the main composition in a most impressive manner. Its general character is similar to the Roman baths of Caracalla. The vestibules are particularly impressive, when viewed longitudinally. The interior Roman vaulting, formed by myriad trusses, is similarly impressive in form and scale to the interiors of renowned existing Basilicas. The surrounding tree, shrub and flower planting along the simple outer walls is rhythmically consistent with the Roman niches and entrances and lends added charm to the dignity of this tremendous structure. The cornices are especially noteworthy in their detail, scale and proportion. Outer Walls of the Group of Eight Palaces The impressive simplicity of the outer walls is enhanced by a succession and variety of portals, niches and arcades of Spanish and Italian origin of great beauty. The simple dignity of the plain travertine wall surfaces is heightened by tile-covered cornices terminated by pavilions. A rich foreground of rhythmic planting of trees, shrubbery and flowers, emphasizes the unity of the eight palaces, the corporate purposes of which have been so successfully interpreted by Architects Bliss and Faville. The typical domes surmounting the eight palaces also express the similarity of purpose for which these palaces are intended. In depicting the industrial arts, these domes lend an Oriental expression to the entire composition, consistent with the citadel character of the general scheme. The banner poles, with their Oriental streamers, and the illuminating standards, set in the foreground planting of the outer walls, lend a consistent festive character to these long facades. The Tower of Jewels The appellation "of jewels" became an addition to the original title, after the Tower was thus gorgeously arrayed. The Tower was contemplated in conjunction with the main group of palaces, as a clue to the composition, and as of vital importance to the general plan. Its composite architecture can best be defined as of White and Yellow Race derivation. It clearly indicates a mingling of the architectural characteristics of the people of the entire world, as the architects, Carrere and Hastings, probably intended. It gives definite expression to the international purposes for which this Exposition is designed. The jewel enrichments add effectively to its Oriental regal display. The Tower constitutes an indispensable integral in the unit composition. It appears to best advantage under the mysterious effects produced by Mr. Ryan's night illumination. The Court of the Four Seasons This dignified, restful court of Roman classic character, designed by Architect Henry Bacon, expresses the Season theme perfectly. The alcoves, which symbolize the Four Seasons, are admirably conceived in their relation to the entire composition. The arched side approaches of the colonnades and the colossal Roman niche at the south end together form a glorious composition which has been greatly enhanced by the arrangement of planting by Mr. Bacon. The Court of the Universe This colossal court of oval form, including the Avenue stretching to the Marina, is fundamentally Roman in architectural character, the style being largely attributable to its splendid Colonnade and Triumphal Arches. Its architectural style is also sympathetic to the Orient of the Far East along the Mediterranean, owing to its domed pavilions. The oval Sunken Garden is thickly planted with Hydrangeas, which constitute one of the most gorgeous displays at the Exposition. The Tower of Jewels and the Column of Progress at the North and South ends of this wonderful Court serve as integrals. McKim, Mead and White are the architects of this most important of all the Courts. The Courts of Flowers and Palms These two delightful courts, designed by Architect George W. Kelham, are like great alcoves in the south wall of the main group. The Court of Flowers faces Festival Hall, whereas the Court of Palms faces the Palace of Horticulture. Each court is flanked at its outer angles by towers, which form an indispensable element in the south facade and in the courts themselves. The general style is Italian Renaissance, suggestive, in the detail of its decoration and planting, of the symbolic intent of these courts. They are an important factor in the south facade of the main group. The Court of Ages This court is designed as an historical expression of the world's growth from infancy. It consists of a continuous arcade and vaulted ambulatory along four sides, and an altar-tower on its northern axis. The decorative motives employed on the surrounding arcade are of conventionalized forms of prehistoric plant and animal life, expressive of evolution. The altar-tower and fountain symbolize the human and animal passions of the theme. The Gothic type of architecture of this court has not been accredited to any preceding period. Its general character supposedly resembles Spanish or Portuguese Gothic more closely than any other known style. The Court, including its avenue extending to the Marina, was designed and modeled by the writer of this article, Louis Christian Mullgardt. Over six hundred acres are comprised in the elongated site on which the Exposition stands. Millions of people from all parts of the world have made pilgrimage to this realm of phantasy, and many thousands more are on their way, determined to bask in the radiance of Good Will toward All Mankind, which this Mecca of Peace, Enlightenment, Beauty, and Inspiration for a better and greater future gives forth. Its purposeful influence is destined to serve perpetually beneficent cause in the furtherance of unified international humanitarianism after the ephemeral vision of this Phantom Kingdom has vanished. L. C. Mullgardt. Illustrations and Descriptive Notes of the Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition Panorama Exposition from Presidio Heights From the vantage point of Presidio Heights, one may see this panorama of the Exposition and catch the symmetry of arrangement in the walls of the palaces, in the graceful lines of the towers and in the impressive contour of the domes. The effect is largely due to the ground plan, distinguished for its balance and poise, which was designed by Mr. Willis Polk and Mr. Edward Bennett. The main palaces, eight in number, are built around three courts, producing an admirable compactness and unity. To the west of this central block of buildings, is the Palace of Fine Arts, and to the east, Machinery Hall. The Palace of Horticulture and Festival Hall are located in the great South Gardens. The Zone lies in the extreme eastern wing of the grounds, and the corresponding section to the west is devoted to the Pavilions of the Foreign Nations and of the States of the Union. Tower of Jewels The Illumination by Night The Tower of Jewels, designed by Carrere and Hastings of New York City, is the centralizing and dominating feature of the Exposition. In its colossal dimensions and in the imposing dignity of its position and conception, it seeks to embody, in one triumphal memorial, the importance to the entire world of the opening of the Panama Canal; while in architecture, sculpture, mural painting, decorative ornament and inscribed tablet, it celebrates, in varying form, the glory of achievement. Classic influences inspired the great, central Roman arch, with its massive colonnades on either side and the Corinthian and Doric columns, repeated on successive tiers to the globe, upborne by four giant Atlases, which crowns the apex; but the spirit of conquest and discovery, which vitalizes the sculptured figures and mural paintings, is modern in its expression and in its historical fidelity. The Tower takes its name from the thousands of many-colored jewels so cut, polished and suspended that they reflect the sunshine with dazzling brilliancy by day and at night, under the white radiance of the searchlights, clothe the whole structure with shimmering splendor. Fountain of Energy A View in the South Gardens It was a great undertaking to transform the waste acres of marsh and mudflats into a garden which would be an appropriate setting for the Exposition palaces. Its success was due to Mr. John McLaren, whose reputation as a landscape gardener had long ago been established by his work at Golden Gate Park. Passing through the Scott Street Entrance, one sees first the South Gardens, the really spectacular feature of which is the Fountain of Energy, designed by A. Stirling Calder. Flanking this main fountain are the two smaller fountains crowned by the graceful mermaids designed by Arthur Putnam. With their lovely pools and the splendor of gushing waters, these three serve as the motif for the formal plotting of the South Gardens. Monterey pines and cypress, with acacia and a variety of flowering shrubs, are grouped with fine effect. Balustrades, ornamented with plant-filled urns, set off the great beds in which flora from widely separated parts of the world have been used. The successive plantings of flowers keep the gardens in continuous bloom--daffodils, tulips, pansies, begonias, dahlias, each in their turn. Festival Hall South Gardens and Mermaid Pool At the eastern end of the South Gardens, south of the Avenue of Palms and directly opposite the Court of Flowers which breaks the facade of the main group of buildings between the Palaces of Varied Industries and of Manufactures, stands Festival Hall, designed to furnish a center for the Exposition conventions and musical festivals. From its character, the building takes not only its name, but its architectural and decorative treatment. It was designed by Robert Farquhar of Los Angeles. The building, in its charm of line and the dignity and grace of its proportions, reflects the best mood of the French Renaissance. The great dome, with the smaller corner domes, suggests the Theatre des Beaux Arts in Paris. The graceful curve of the main portal, the Ionic columns, the decorative corridors and the fine entrances are harmoniously and effectively developed. All the sculpture, which is the work of Sherry E. Fry of Iowa, is classic in conception and happily sympathetic in its suggestion of festivity or in its lyric quality. The floral scheme, in its, lavish massing of bloom and rich color, enhances the attractiveness of the building. Festival Hall The Terrace and Colonnade The rounding sweep of portico and pillar reveals the architectural style of Festival Hall. In the sculpture and decorative friezes, an effect of airiness has been achieved. Through the graceful arches, formed by Ionic columns, one notes the impressive windows, showing the French influence. The cupola, topped by the slender figure of the "Torch-Bearer," gives an inviting charm to the side entrance, considered ornate but in accord with the architectural design of the Palace. The site of Festival Hall is somewhat raised and the slopes that lead down to the Avenue of Palms are in terraces of velvety lawn, broken by wide flights of steps. On either side of the main stairway are two sculptural groups, the "Flower Girl," before which, on one side, is placed an enticing "Pan" and on the other, a shy, girlish figure partially concealed in the shrubbery. Festival Hall Mermaid Pool in the Mist The skillful use of pools in which is secured the charming reflection of palaces and architectural structures, with the softening accompaniment of trees and shrubbery, is one of the pleasant features of the Exposition. There is enchantment in a foggy day, for one sees as in a dream, lovely vistas of courts, glimpses through consecutive arches, and always the charm of mirroring pools and lagoons, where, should there be no wind, the reflected image makes as perfect a picture as the mist-enshrouded original. Palace of Horticulture The Dome and East Entrance The huge dome, constructed almost entirely of glass, upon a framework of steel, is the prominent feature of the Palace of Horticulture. It is French Renaissance, influenced by Byzantine, and its proportions (it is one hundred and fifty-two feet in diameter and one hundred and eighty-two feet high) are almost perfect. The spires and porticos, the colonnades and entrances are replete with rococo decorations. There are garlands of girls used in the friezes at the base of the minarets, caryatides repeated in the vestibules, and everywhere a wealth of ornamentation suggestive of a bountiful harvest. The brilliancy of design is heightened by the color scheme of green and ivory used upon the lattice work and travertine material. Messrs. Bakewell and Brown of San Francisco are the architects. Palace of Horticulture Dome and Spires by Night At night, when the powerful searchlights within the dome are played upon the translucent glass, the effect is magical, the reflections weirdly changing in color and shape. The rich details of the decorations are softened in the night light. The slender shafts of the obelisks accentuate the vast proportions of the dome. Even the rare color combinations, which add so much to the appearance of the Palace of Horticulture by day, are scarcely dimmed beneath the artificial lighting. Minarets and sculptured friezes and the floral designs so abundantly used in the decoration are seen in fairy-like grace. Of this beautiful building Mr. Edwin Markham has written: "I looked at the dome of the Palace of Horticulture and saw strange colors at play within its dark green depths. Circles and clefts of blue and red and green shifted, faded and returned like hues within a fiery and living opal. It was the workshop of a maker of moons, who cast his globes aloft in trial flights." Palace of Horticulture The Colonnade on the East The caryatides, which are placed in pairs along the corridors of the Palace of Horticulture, were designed by John Bateman of New York. The balustrades, together with the ornamentations of garlands of fruits and flowers, convey the joyous note of a carnival. The ceiling of the porches is studded with domes, grilled with green latticework. From the center of these airy skylights are suspended lamps which, by night, convert the corridors into brilliantly lighted promenades. Horticultural Gardens Floral Exhibit in the Open The Horticultural Gardens, lying south and west of the Palace of Horticulture, are, in reality, exhibit gardens, where much of the display belonging to the Palace itself is placed. While the decorative quality is here less emphasized than the more educational and technical phases of horticulture, the gardens are at all times lovely with a luxuriance of bloom and with the effective massing of trees and shrubs. The display covers an area of eight acres, and experienced gardeners have united to develop the flora exhibited to a high degree of perfection. The Netherlands Gardens, the Rose Garden, with its International Rose Contest, the California Garden and others have contributed a perpetual rotation of flowering plants and shrubs in great variety and with a profusion of brilliant color. In the Forestry Court adjoining, Bernard Maybeck, the architect of the Palace of Fine Arts, has built a lumbermen's lodge of massive, rough-barked, redwood logs, but of the same charm of design and harmonious beauty of proportion which characterize his greater work. Avenue of Palms View From Administration Avenue Looking down the Avenue of Palms from Administration Avenue, a delightful picture is presented. Double rows of palms border either side of the Avenue, with ferns, and blossoming nasturtiums and geraniums planted directly in the interstices of the roughened trunks. The walls of the palaces are embowered in eucalyptus, acacia and cypress trees. Add to this the effect of gaily decorated flagpoles, with pennants and banners afloat in the breeze, and the half-mile boulevard is exhilarating to behold. Many of the shrubs and trees are common to all the palaces, but each building has been allotted a different collection of flowers and foliage-plants to add a distinctive color tone to the facade. When one examines the general sweep of the palace walls facing the Avenue, certain architectural units are noticed. Centering each building is a low dome of Byzantine design, with green roof and warm pink sides. On the corners smaller domes break the monotony of straight lines. The Tower of Jewels and the four Italian Towers complete the inspiring "walled-city" effect. Palace of Education Main South Portal The Palace of Education forms the southwest unit of the main group of buildings and fronts on the Avenue of Palms and Administration Avenue. To W. B. Faville of San Francisco was entrusted the entire exterior wall which unites in one immense rectangle the eight palaces of the main group. A plain cornice, edged with tiles, binds the upper rim throughout. With great simplicity and restraint, the wall spaces are kept bare of ornament, depending for relief on carefully spaced portals, niches and wall fountains. The south facade of the Palace of Education is broken by three beautiful doorways, of which the central is the largest and most richly decorated. The distinctive feature of the main portal is the tympanum in relief by Gustav Gerlach of New York, which pictures the various stages of education from the mother in the home, through the adolescent period, to maturity, when the student is self-taught. Below is the book of knowledge, the curtains of darkness drawn back that the light may radiate from its open pages. Above the portal's curve is a globe, typifying the world-wide scope of the exhibit within. Palace of Education One of the Minor Entrances The main portal of the Palace of Education is flanked on either side by a smaller entrance partaking of the same beauty of design, along slightly simpler lines, so that, while preserving a distinct individuality, these minor entrances enhance and enrich the main doorway and the three form a unit in their decorative treatment. The style is Spanish Renaissance, inspired by ancient models, and modified by Byzantine influences. All three show the twisted Byzantine column, those of the main entrance being more ornate. The flat, sculptured panels in relief above the smaller portals, by Charles Peters and Cesare Stea, respectively, both deal with educational subjects. The classic vases on either side of the entrances add grace and dignity, while the latticed doorways, used throughout the Exposition architecture, here effectively emphasize the Moorish note. The planting of trees and shrubs is nowhere happier than about these doorways, with the rose and mauve and smoke tones of the fresh eucalyptus growth against the ivory-tinted wall and the profusion of flowers and shrubs massed below. Court of Palms The Sunken Pool by Night Of the five chief courts of the main architectural ensemble, the two minor courts, the Court of Palms and the Court of Flowers, while lacking the more imposing size, dignity and symbolism of the three interior courts, largely compensate by their sense of intimacy, warmth and quiet charm. With their sheltered location and sunny atmosphere, due to southern exposure, and with the enchantment of architecture, sculpture, painting, color and landscape effects with which they are richly endowed, they are not only joyous and satisfying, but restful in an unusual combination and degree. Both courts were designed by George W. Kelham of San Francisco. The Court of Palms lies between the Palace of Education and the Palace of Liberal Arts; enclosed on the third or north side by the Court of the Four Seasons, it is open on its southern exposure to the Avenue of Palms and the Palace of Horticulture which lies directly opposite. It is a long oval in shape, its proportions well balanced, and its effect of dignity and quiet accented by the two sunken pools and the effective planting of palms from which the court takes its name. Court of Palms Portal, Palace of Education In architecture, the Court of Palms is Italian Renaissance. The entire length of its oval is encircled by a colonnade, pierced by three deep portals which are identical in treatment and which are especially fine examples of the Roman arch. Their dignity is enhanced by the Italian cypresses which flank them on either side. The portals open respectively into the Palace of Education on the west, the Palace of Liberal Arts on the east and the Court of the Four Seasons on the north. The colonnade is bordered by massive Ionic columns of smoked ivory, which in the entrances deepen into Sienna marble. The plain cornice which characterizes the outer walls of the exhibit palaces here takes on a richer ornamentation to conform to the ornate treatment of the Court, while it retains the parapet of red Spanish tiles above. Between the cornice and the columns is a wide and richly decorated attic or frieze where much of the detail and color which help to make the charm of the Court are massed. Court of Palms Portal, Palace of Liberal Arts The sympathy between architect, sculptor and colorist is nowhere shown to better advantage than in the richly decorated frieze surrounding the Court of Palms. Panels of veined marble in browns and pinks, deepening through rose tints to red, are bordered by festoons and garlands of fruit and flowers in varied shadings of blue and pink. Separating the panels are caryatides, flushed pink, with long, pointed, folded wings. They were designed by A. Stirling Calder and John Bateman, while the spandrels over the curve of the portals are the work of Albert Weinert, as are also the graceful, classic vases on either side of the entrances, the latter banded in low relief by dancing bacchanalian figures, while grinning satyr heads finish the curved handles. In the arch of the doorways, are three fine mural paintings, harmonizing in subject and coloring with the spirit of the Court--"Fruit and Flowers," by Childe Hassam, on the West, "The Pursuit of Pleasure," by Charles Holloway, on the east and "The Victorious Spirit," by Arthur F. Mathews, on the north. Court of Palms Italian Tower from Main Portal Terminating the colonnade at either side of the entrance to the Court from the Avenue of Palms stand the Italian Towers, distinguished by their grace of line and proportion and their skill in the use of the purest architectural forms of the Renaissance, no less than by the charming manipulation of color and ornament. By their slenderness and by simplicity of treatment they produce an effect of great height. They were inspired by the Geralda Tower of Seville. The deep-toned columns of Sienna marble used in the three Italian Portals also enrich the entrance to the towers. The prevailing pink and blue color tones which dominate the court are delightfully accentuated in the diaper pattern decorating the rectangular wall spaces of the main portion of the towers. The upper design, repeated in each of the four corners, is modeled after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens. The winged figure, "The Fairy," lightly and gracefully poised upon the topmost pinnacle, is by Carl Gruppe. Court of Palms In the Colonnade by Night The illustration shows the colonnade which encircles the entire oval of the Court. The bordering columns are Roman Ionic in dull smoked ivory. The general wall tone is the same, with panels of soft pink between the pilasters. The vaulted ceiling is blue. The plants between the columns are acacias, clipped to ball form. The swinging lamps are from old Roman models in pink and verde green. Classic figures are modeled in low relief above the arched openings. Looking north through the Court of the Four Seasons, with its long north colonnade, is a superb vista across the wide blue waters of the bay to the sweeping hills beyond. At the entrance to the court stands the only piece of sculpture not identified with the architectural treatment, "The End of the Trail," by James Earl Fraser, one of the strongest statues on the grounds and perhaps the most popular. Court of Palms A Curve in the Colonnade The careful details of the palaces and courts--the minute finishing of cornice, column, frieze and vault, the loving modeling of sculpture, the artistic planning of vistas, the inspired brushing of murals--are marvelous beyond my telling. It is an outpouring of the arts before the altar of humanity. It is a presage of what men can do when they unite in common service. The Exposition has taken a Titan stride toward this unified action for a common purpose. The artists have bent to one perfect expression, like the strings and brasses of an orchestra. Self was submersed in a composite achievement, not obliterating individuality but leaving it latitude to harmonize with others. The result is not the stenciling of a leader's mannerisms, but a blend of diverse and varied characteristics, an interweaving of sympathies, of spontaneous and ordered impressions. Here is an object lesson in the cooperative idea that will not be lost upon the world--the idea of a transcendent result obtained by a unity of noble efforts, a result that no massing of individual attempts could have achieved. --Edwin Markham Palace of Liberal Arts Portal, From the South Gardens West of the Tower of Jewels is the Palace of Liberal Arts, balancing in architectural design and embellishment the Palace of Manufactures, which lies directly east of the tower. The niches, entrances and main portals of the two build are identical. Both were designed by W. B. Faville of San Francisco. Like all the buildings of the main group, the decorative treatment is largely massed in the great doorway, which is distinctly Renaissance in architecture, Spanish in general treatment, but Roman in the massive dignity of the square, deeply-arched portal. Its style is adapted from ancient models. The coloring within the arch and in the overlaid ornament around and above it is a warm pink, effectively combined with turquoise blue and orange. The lace fan, of Moorish workmanship, above the doors, is especially beautiful in its delicate coloring and fragile texture and in the touch of lightness that it gives. The pilasters on either side of the entrance are Corinthian. The long frieze above the doorway and the figures in the niches on either side are by Mahonri Young of Salt Lake City. Palace of Liberal Arts The Tower of Jewels by Night Either by day or by night, the Tower of Jewels is the dominating center of the Exposition, epitomizing not only its entire meaning and message, but summarizing in detail its architectural development. In the main it follows the Italian Renaissance, with emphasis upon the Greek and Roman elements, while in the ornament it employs many Byzantine features. The Tower is built in seven stages, rising tier on tier, the base a magnificent Roman arch, with colonnaded courts flanking it on either side. The Corinthian columns of the colonnades are ochre and on each side of the archway, they are of Sienna marble. The sculptured figures by John Flanagan, crowning the columns above the arch, represent in four successive types the men who made Western America--the adventurer, the priest, the philosopher, the soldier. They are repeated on each face of the Tower, the "Armored Horseman" by Tonetti, on the terrace above, being repeated four times on each side. The forms used in the decorative sculpture--the eagle, the wreath, the ship's prow, the various emblems of war--all symbolize victory and achievement. Palace of Liberal Arts Elephant Fountain Niche by Night The ornamental fountain alcoves placed at intervals are important decorative features of the south walls. The shrubbery has been so grouped about the niches that the details of the fountains are partially screened. Upon closer investigation, one finds an elephant's head as the central object in one niche, alternating with a lion throughout the series. They set snugly against the pink panel just over the flaring basin of travertine wherein the water trickles. At night, these niches are flecked with shadows cast by the surrounding trees. Electric lights, concealed beneath the water, shed a warm glow upon the head of the elephant in its frame of sculptured half columns. These fountain niches, designed by W. B. Faville, are in the same Spanish style of architecture which characterizes the entire south facade of the palaces. The Tower of Jewels The Great Roman Archway Midway on the south face of the Tower of Jewels are inserted four commemorative tablets. The inscription on the panel at the left end of the colonnade reads as follows: 1501--Rodrigo de Bastides pursuing his course beyond the West Indies discovers Panama. The Panel at the left of the central arch reads: 1513--Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and discovers the Pacific Ocean. At the right of the central arch the panel reads: 1904--The United States succeeding France begins operations on the Panama Canal. The Panel at the right end of the colonnade is inscribed: 1915--The Panama Canal is opened to the commerce of the world. The Tower of Jewels Colonnade, The Fountain of Youth Beyond the colonnades and the great Roman arch, on the north face of the Tower of Jewels as it faces the Court of the Universe, are four commemorative tablets similar to those found on the south side. The panel at the left end of the colonnade is inscribed: 1542--Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo discovers California and lands on its shores. The Panel at the left of the central arch reads: 1776--Jose Joaquin Moraga founds the Mission of San Francisco de Isis. At the right of the central arch the panel reads: 1846-The United States upon the outbreak of war with Mexico takes possession of California. The Panel at the right end of the colonnade is inscribed: 1850--California is admitted to the Union as a sovereign State. Palace of Manufactures Portal, from the South Gardens The Palace of Manufactures lies directly east of the Tower of Jewels and fronts on the Avenue of Palms. In architectural design, it duplicates the Palace of Liberal Arts, the repetition giving strength and simplicity to the entire south facade. The dignified main portal is flanked on either side by two minor entrances, similarly conceived and ornamented, the lattice work within the archways relieving the solidity of the design. The composition of the Byzantine dome, with its tier of latticed windows, the "Victory"--tipped gable, the tiled slope above the arch, the bare wall spaces and the richly ornamented doorway, as seen from the South Gardens, illustrates the general construction of the main group of buildings. The dome gives height and decorative effect, the "Winged Victory" lightness and grace. The latter figure, which is repeated on the acroteria, as the gable platforms are called, of all the palaces of the main group, is by Louis Ulrich of New York. It bears, outstretched, a wreath which suggests the crown bestowed for work well done. Court of Flowers Fountain, Beauty and the Beast Between the Palace of Mines and the Palace of Varied Industries lies the Court of Flowers, enclosed on the third or north side by the Court of Ages and open on its southern exposure to the Avenue of Palms and to Festival Hall, which lies directly opposite. In its shape, a long oval, and in its location it is the eastern prototype of the Court of Palms, which breaks the wall of the main group of buildings toward its western end. Like that, it was designed by George W. Kelham of San Francisco. Both Courts are rich examples of the Italian Renaissance, with traces of Byzantine influence, and while a superficial view might pronounce them almost identical, a further study reveals marked individuality in conception and development. In each, the note of emphasis and the temperamental appeal are entirely distinct. The Court of Palms is simpler, more dignified, more conventional. The Court of Flowers is richer in ornament and suggestion, more softly brilliant in atmosphere. The prevailing color is yellow relieved by pink. Court of Flowers Portal of Varied Industries In the Court of Flowers, the colonnade encircling the entire length of its oval is bordered by Corinthian columns arranged in pairs. The smoked-ivory tone is used throughout, except in the portals, where Sienna marble gives a deep note of color. The highly ornamental floral light-standards between the columns occur elsewhere throughout the court. The cornice is edged with red Spanish tiles and above the colonnade runs a richly decorated loggia that, with its suggestion of southern influences, enhances the warm, sunny atmosphere of the court. The repeated figure of the flower-decked and garlanded "Flower Girl" is by A. Stirling Calder. A conventionalized frieze in delicately colored arabesque runs between the balcony and the columns, the prevailing motif of which is the griffin. The colonnade is broken by three portals, opening respectively into the Palace of Manufactures on the west, the Palace of Varied Industries on the east and the Court of Ages on the north. These entrances, while they do not interrupt the colonnade below, as is the case in the Court of Flowers, are made the keystones of the ornament of the upper balcony, where the triple arches, with their decorative treatment, furnish an effective break in the loggia. Court of Flowers A Vista in the Colonnade The coupled Corinthian columns are of smoked ivory. The background of the wallspaces is the same, but between the pilasters, occur panels of warm pink. The pilasters are in pairs to harmonize with the pillars bordering the colonnade. In the portals swing Roman lamps in dull blue-green. The heavy bronze lanterns, suspended from the deep-toned cream ceiling of the corridors, are Italian in design. At night, they are illumined by a soft, red glow, while the light from the standards between the columns and through the latticed doors of the entrances of the palaces is pale gold. There is no direct lighting in the court, the only other illumination being the deep red diffusive flow which brightens the Italian towers from within, so that the warm, bright charm pervading the Court by day, gives way at night to a sense of seclusion and intimacy that makes a poetic appeal equally strong. Court of Flowers Italian Tower from Colonnade The four Italian Towers, equally distant from the Tower of Jewels, two on either side, furnish the chief elements in the fine sense of balance and proportion of the south facade of the main group of palaces. Occurring in in pairs at the entrances of the Court of Palms and the Court of Flowers and employing the same architectural elements and decoration, they show a pleasing variety in detail. The towers of the Court of Flowers have more of simplicity in design and give an even greater impression of height by the arrangement of columns. The same fairy by Carl Gruppe crowns all four towers, and helps to give the name of "the fairy courts" by which they are sometimes called. By the original design these two courts were to embody the fairy lore of the Occident and of the Orient, and the Court of Flowers, with the magic of its golden blossoms and its friendly beasts, enters far into the conception. Court of Flowers The Friendly Lion at the Portal With all its loveliness of detail and witchery of color, the prevailing charm of the Court of Flowers, true to its name, lies in the effective planting of flowers and shrubs. The main path through the Court is bordered on either side by spreading lophantha trees, trimmed four feet from the ground and branching to a diameter of five feet in delicate, lacy foliage. Masses of flowers in the pervading luxuriant color-tone carpet the whole court with gold, while banks of green fill the corners and outline the borders. The six "Friendly Lions" with their conventionalized garlands, by Albert Laessle of Philadelphia, guard the three entrances, one on either side. "Beauty and the Beast," the central fountain which dominates the Court, is by Edgar Walters of San Francisco. The basin is upheld by four alternating fauns and satyrs and about the base of the fountain is a procession of beasts in low relief. The statue of "The Pioneer" by Solon Borglum, which stands at the entrance of the Court, while it bears no relation to the symbolism of the Court itself, is a companion to "The End of the Trail" which occupies the same position before the Court of Palms. Palace of Varied Industries Main Portal The central portal on the south facade of the Palace of Varied Industries is by many considered the finest doorway at the Exposition. It is a copy of the Hospital of Santa Cruz at Toledo, done in the Spanish Renaissance, of a style known as the plateresque. The rich appearance has the effect of being exquisitely chiseled with scroll-like finish, reminding one of the workmanship of a silversmith. The sculptured ornamentations of the portal are the work of Ralph Stackpole. He is most fortunate in his treatment of the industrial types. The relief panel in the tympanum represents the industries of Spinning, Building, Agriculture, Manual Labor and Commerce. "The Man with the Pick," seen on the side brackets, is a freely modeled statue, also appearing upon the portal of the Palace of Manufactures. The keystone figure typifies the Laborer, who is capable of relying on his brain. The upper group represents Age transferring his burden to Youth. Avenue of Palms The South Facade by Night Facing the Avenue of Palms is the stupendous wall formed by the Palaces of Varied Industries, Manufactures, Liberal Arts and Education. This long and imposing bulwark is over-topped by the great Tower of Jewels and the two pair of Italian Towers. The walls of the palaces, ivory tinted and shadowed by palms, eucalypti and myriad shrubs, assume a new and more wonderful aspect under the batteries of the searchlights. The towers stand out against the night sky, glowing with the hidden lights like living coals, changing to pastel tints of blue and green, most beautiful of all when the reflectors convert them into shafts of white. The lamps along the Avenue punctuate the dark masses of foliage, and the contrasting high lights on towers and domes make an artificial illumination that for sheer beauty has never been equalled. Avenue of Progress The Fine Vista to the Marina Spaciousness characterizes the Avenue of Progress, not only in its breadth but in its sweeping length. From the Fillmore Street entrance, which opens directly upon the Avenue, it appears to extend across the bay and on to the hills beyond. The Service Building is upon the left and from the opposite side comes the fanfare of the "Joy Zone." The Palace of Machinery is on the eastern side of the Avenue, and on the west are the Palaces of Varied Industries and Mines. The landscape gardening is here most successfully carried out. Dracena indivisa, a species of palm, are planted at short intervals throughout the length of the boulevard. Against the dull buff of the palace walls are banked Monterey cypress and Lawson cypress, with a heavy undergrowth of fir and spruce. The attractive lawns add a touch of formality to the impressive Avenue. Whatever effect of newness might have appeared in the walls of the great palaces is mellowed by Guerin's colors and there is a splendid atmosphere of enduring solidity, softened by the picturesque gardens. Machinery Hall The Central Arch in the Portal The Palace of Machinery extends for nearly one thousand feet along the Avenue of Progress. Its main entrance, facing the west, is composed of three splendid arches, set off by free-standing columns, which resemble weather-stained shafts of Sienna marble and are the pedestals for the sculptured figures representing the powers of "Invention," "Electricity," "Imagination" and "Steam." On the inner facade of the arches are grills of amber glass, forming a strong background for the decorative friezes and sculptured eagles, the latter being symbols which predominate throughout the Exposition. Dwarf cedars serve to magnify, by comparison, the gigantic dimensions of this entrance. Daniel Chester French's commanding statue, "The Genius of Creation," occupies a prominent place before the central arch. Machinery Hall The Colonnade in the Portal The dimensions of the main entrance to Machinery Hall are in keeping with the size of the building, which is the largest wooden framed structure in the world. Architecturally the style is after the ancient Roman, the motif being supplied by studies of the baths of Caracalla. The decorative designs in the vestibule are sculptured figures and accompanying insignia typifying the manufacture and use of machinery by man. The relief figures of the spandrels are forcefully executed. About the base of the pillars are friezes, symbolic of mechanical invention. These relief designs are the work of Haig Patigian of San Francisco. This great archway is one of the most interesting achievements, from an architectural standpoint, to be found at the Exposition. The space covered is large, yet so cleverly handled that no bareness is suggested. The coloring within the vestibule is in shades of blue, and the massive pillars supporting the three arches are toned in rich terra cotta. Machinery Hall One of the Minor Entrances Flanked by Corinthian columns which reflect, in smaller size, the great pillars of the main entrance, four minor doorways break the long western wall of the Palace of Machinery on either side of the central entrance, the architectural and sculptural design in them being similar to that of the main portal. The frieze in low relief, encircling the bases of the columns and representing the genii of mechanics, is repeated from the larger entrance, as are also the figures in the spandrels, typifying the application of power to machinery. The color treatment of these doorways is especially brilliant. The Corinthian columns simulate Sienna marble. The background in the spandrels is stained a rich orange. The shell canopy, as in other panels where it is used throughout the Exposition, is in cerulean blue, the wall space beneath it is a deep pink, while the door is the customary green. The landscape planting along the entire wall is superb. Against the ivory-tinted background, various species of evergreens are grouped with consummate skill. Palace of Mines A Lamp Niche in the Court The Court of Mines, opening directly across from the main portal of Machinery Hall, is the entrance to the inner courts from the Avenue of Progress. The effective massing of the shrubbery is enlivened by the gay banners and streamers, designed by Jules Guerin, which are one of the most stimulating decorative features of the Exposition. The walls on either side are broken by the entrance portals to the buildings, done in Italian Renaissance style. Their distinctive features are the niches on either side of the entrances, in which are placed vigorous figures, designed by Albert Weinert, and the ornamental lamps below. The court is illuminated at night by concealed light thrown on the walls from reflectors in the forms of interesting green shells resting on shapely standards. Court of Ages The Tower by Night Illumination The Court of Ages was designed by Louis Christian Mullgardt of San Francisco. Of all the Exposition courts it is the most original and imaginative in conception, the most complete in its organic, structural unity, the richest in ornament, in poetic suggestion, in the depth and dramatic appeal of its symbolism. The Court suggests many architectural periods and types, yet eludes classification under any one of them. The Gothic clearly predominates, with traces of English, Spanish, and Portuguese elements. With further hint of Romanesque, of Moorish and of French influence, these varying elements have been so fused in the imagination of the architect that the resultant creation is independent of all of them in its daring, yet restrained, originality. In the magnificent square tower at the center of its northern end, all the beauty and spiritual import of the Court culminate. Its aspiring length of line, unbroken from base to summit, faces poise and uplift, the broad, plain surfaces give nobility and strength and the exquisite richness and delicacy of the ornament give lightness and grace, while the sculpture blends and crowns the deep pervading symbolism of the Court. -Maud Wotring Raymond Court of Ages The Fountain of Earth While it is possible to find keen enjoyment in the Court of Ages for its delicate beauty and exquisite refinement alone, even the slightest study of its architectural and sculptural detail reveals a depth of underlying purpose and meaning that invites further analysis. The architect calls it "an historical expression of the successive ages of the world's growth." He suggests four stages: the nebulous world, symbolized by the central fountain, in which Robert Aitken of San Francisco has worked out a stupendous study of primeval passions. Out of chaos, come the elemental forces, Water, Land and Light. The braziers and cauldrons symbolize Fire. The two sentinel columns, flanking the tower on either side, are Earth and Air. The eight paintings, by Frank Brangwyn of London, in the corridors in great richness of color depict Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Thus the first state is indicated. The second stage is symbolized by the decorative motifs employed on the arcade surrounding the court, where on piers, arches, reeds and columns, in marvelously wrought sculptural ornament, is shown the transition from plant to animal life through kelp, crab, lobster and other sea animals and shell motifs. --M. W. R. Court of Ages The Garden of Hyacinths Following the symbolism of the Court of Ages through the first nebulous period of the world's growth, through the second, which shows the transition in successive forms of sea-plant life, the third period is reached where are illustrated the earliest forms of human, animal, reptile and bird life prevailing in the stone age. This age is indicated, in the court, by the prehistoric figure surmounting the piers of the arcade and by the first sculptured group over the entrance to the tower. The repeated arcade figures, which were designed by Albert Weinert, represent alternately Primitive Man and Primitive Woman. The perfection of the landscape planting and the skill with which it subtly accentuates the meaning of architecture and sculpture are worthy of study. In the background, close against the piers of the arcade, tall, slender Italian cypresses emphasize their rhythmic length of line. Amid a growth of tropical luxuriance stand glossy-leafed orange trees laden with fragrant blossoms and golden fruit. Balled acacias in formal rows outline the paths, while a succession of plantings has given a varying color scheme and a new perfume to each season. --M. W. R. Court of Ages A Glimpse From the Colonnade The Court of Ages is the only one of the Exposition courts which is entirely independent of outside influences. The other courts derive breadth of appeal from the fine vistas through arched gateways or along dignified colonnades. The Court of Ages is shut in upon itself by the arcaded and vaulted ambulatory which extends continuously around its four sides, and by this cloistered effect, its individual impression is deepened and intensified. Through the lovely rounded arches of this encircling colonnade, which is elevated a few feet, one looks down into the beauty of the court, or out across it to the richly fretted walls. In the curve of each arch, hang two delicately modeled lanterns. --M. W. R. Court of Ages A Vista in the Colonnade The cloistered effect of the long colonnade surrounding the four sides of the Court of the Ages is deepened by the vaulted ceiling, which, in its Roman simplicity of line, contrasts effectively with the filigreed exterior of the arcade. The only color in the court, aside from a slight use in the tower and the massed luxuriance of flowers, is found in the corridors where, between the square pilasters, the prevailing old ivory is stained pink of a deeper tone than in the other courts. The ivory pilasters are carried up into the ceiling in curving, transverse arches, while the band of blue, following their edges, leads to the rich blue depths between them. At the far end of every vista glows the riot of color in the mural paintings by Frank Brangwyn. The play of sunlight through the succession of rounded arches increases the sense of bright charm. --M. W. R. Court of Ages The Tower Through North Aisle In the North Court of Ages, leading to the Esplanade, the tower is identical with the main court, and the entire architectural treatment, while simpler, is in the same spirit. Robbed of the complex symbolism by which, in the larger court, the evolution of the lower forms of life is depicted, the higher spiritual lesson is here intensified. The sculptured groups in the tower, by Chester A. Beach of San Francisco, represent the rise of humanity through successive ages of civilization. The conventionalized lily petals decorating the summit of the tower suggest the highest forms of plant life. The delicate lace-like finials, rising from the highest points of court and tower alike, express aspiration. The chanticleers on the finials surrounding the court symbolize the dawn of Christianity. The star-like clusters of lights, raised aloft, two in the main court and four in the north court, deepen the ecclesiastical atmosphere by suggesting the golden monstrance emblematic of the rays of the sun and of the radiating presence of God, and used in the Catholic Church as a receptacle for the sacred host. --M. W. R. Florentine Court Palace of Transportation The Florentine Court and the Venetian Court lie east and west respectively of the Court of the Universe. They are sometimes called the Aisles of the Rising and the Setting Sun. While in reality only connecting avenues, the wealth or careful detail lavished upon them makes of them charming interludes between the larger and more imposing courts, and yet so skillfully do they conform to the general plan that they blend one larger court with another, without expressing a distinct individuality of their own. They were planned by W. B. Faville of San Francisco. While identical in design upon three sides, their adaptation upon the fourth side to the courts which they adjoin, east and west, and the variety in landscape effects, insure against exact duplication. The Florentine Court lies between the Court of Ages and the Court of the Universe, with the Palace of Transportation bounding it on the north and the Palace of Manufactures on the south. Its eastern wall repeats the rich decorative treatment of the Court of Ages, which it joins. Court of the Universe Through Three Great Arches When one stands in the Court of the Four Seasons, facing east, two splendid arches are seen framed by the Eastern Gateway of the Court. The first, across the Venetian Court, is the Arch of the Setting Sun, surmounted by its symbolic group of the Nations of the West. Across the vast Court of the Universe, beyond the Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun, is the triumphal Arch of the Rising Sun surmounted by its symbolic group of the Nations of the East. These magnificent modern expressions of the arches erected by the old Romans to commemorate their triumphs were designed by McKim, Mead and White, the architects of the Court of the Universe, and are richly adorned with sculpture designed by various artists. In the attics are carved appropriate inscriptions selected by Porter Garnett, which will be found on succeeding pages. There is an atmosphere of bigness about the Court of the Universe, created not only by the architectural features, but by the symbolism of the final meeting of the Nations of the World, made possible by the completion of the Panama Canal. Court of the Universe Triumphal Arch, The Setting Sun The magnificent mass of the Western Arch is heightened at night by the effective illumination. Shafts of white light from concealed projectors pick out, the sculptured group that surmounts it. The bulk of the arch catches only the rays from minor lamps within the court and upon this shadowy pedestal, the group of the Nations of the West stands out in strong relief. Below, the ceilings of the arch and corridors are brilliant from concealed lights placed within them. Court of the Universe Triumphal Arch, The Rising Sun The triumphal arches which by night gain in majesty and mysterious power, by day have the added beauty of the color manipulation and decorative treatment, which is exceedingly rich and varied. The twisted columns of Sienna marble which flank the arch, two on either side, are composite, mingling Corinthian and Ionic elements. Each column is crowned with a sculptured figure, representing the "Angel of Peace" by Leo Lentelli. Between the columns, set in a square of deep pink, is a burnt orange medallion, the figures in relief, suggesting Nature and Art, being designed by A. Stirling Calder and B. Bufano. On either side of the curve of the arch, latticed windows in green give a Moorish touch. The figures in the spandrels, representing Pegasus are by Frederick G. R. Roth. A frieze in relief, bands the arch beneath the inscription, while Cleopatra's needle, four times repeated, gives height and classic emphasis to the crenellated parapet out-lining the summit. The sculptured groups "The Nations of the East" and "The Nations of the West" are the joint work of A. Stirling Calder, Frederick G. R. Roth and Leo Lentelli. Court of the Universe Fountain of the Rising Sun In the eastern portion of the sunken garden is the Fountain of the Rising Sun. The tall, slender shaft, a column of travertine by day and a column of light by night, supports a sphere upon which is poised a statue typifying the dawn of day. Adolph A. Weinman is the sculptor of this "Rising Sun" which is so deservedly popular on account of the irresistible appeal of the youthful figure. Everything about the fountain is indicative of the vigor of youth, the energy associated with the rising of the sun. The friezes about the base represent the triumph of light over darkness, and the merry play of waters suggests perpetual activity. The concrete bowl is of goodly proportions and within the pool are sculptured figures representing mythical creatures of the ocean. Bordering the fountain are gardens, at first ablaze with rhododendrons, then massed with the pink blooms of hydrangeas, and later bright with the flowers of each successive season. Court of the Universe Fountain of the Setting Sun Quite as lovely in every detail as the preceding is the Fountain of the Setting Sun. It is in the opposite portion of the sunken garden where, when the sun is in its descent, it is shadowed by the Triumphal Arch of the Nations of the West. Crowning the pillar is the figure of a maid, her drooping wings and languorous pose denoting relaxation, a suspension of the day's toil. This statue was also modeled by Adolph A. Weinman. The supporting shaft conveys an impression of buoyancy and there are friezes above and below the bowl of the fountain similar to those of the Rising Sun. At night the columns which support these figures are aglow with concealed lights, and the beauty of the fountain is wonderfully enhanced. Court of the Universe The Fountain Pool and Tower The inscriptions on the two Triumphal Arches in the Court of the Universe are drawn respectively from Occidental and Oriental literature. It was designed that the large central panels possess a cosmical, an epical, or an elemental quality, and that the smaller panels on either side deal with abstractions, such as truth, nature or beauty. In accordance with this plan, the inscriptions on the Arch of the Setting Sun facing away from the court are as follows: The panel at the left of the attic, representing Italy, reads The world is in its most excellent state when justice is supreme.-- Dante. The panel in the center of the attic, representing Germany, is inscribed It is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a passage from the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean; and I am certain that they will do it. Would that I might live to see it--but I shall not.--Goethe. The panel at the right of the attic, representing France, reads The Universe, an infinite sphere, the center everywhere, the circumference, nowhere. Pascal. Court of the Universe Corinthian Colonnade & Gardens The inscriptions on the Arch of the Setting Sun, facing the Court, are as follows: The panel at the left of the attic, representing England, reads In nature's infinite book of secrecy a little I can read.--Shakespeare. The panel in the center of the attic, representing America, reads Facing west from California's shores, Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, I, a child, very old, over waves Towards the house of maternity, The land of migrations look afar, Look off the shores of my western sea, The circle almost circled. --Whitman. The panel at the right of the attic, representing Spain, is inscribed Truth, witness of the past, councillor of the present, guide of the future.--Cervantes. Court of the Universe In the Promenade by Night The inscriptions on the Arch of the Rising Sun, facing the Court, are as follows: The panel at the left of the attic, representing China, is inscribed They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it.--Confucius. The panel in the center of the attic, representing India, reads The moon sinks yonder in the west, While, in the east, the glorious sun Behind the herald dawn appears Thus rise and set in constant change those shining orbs And regulate the very life of this our world. --Kalidasa. The panel at the right of the attic, representing Japan, reads Our eyes and hearts uplifted, seem to gaze on heaven's radiance.-- Hitomaro. Court of the Universe A Niche and Urn by Night The inscriptions on the Arch of the Rising Sun, facing away from the Court, are as follows: The panel at the left of the attic, representing Arabia, reads He that honors not himself lacks honor wheresoe'er he goes.--Zuhayr. The panel in the center of the attic, representing Persia, is inscribed The balmy air diffuses health and fragrance, So tempered is the genial glow that we know neither heat nor cold. Tulips and hyacinths abound. Fostered by a delicious clime, the earth blooms like a garden. --Firdausi. The panel at the right of the attic, representing Spain, reads A wise man teaches, be not angry; from untrodden ways turn aside.--Phra Ruang. Palace of Transportation In the Corinthian Colonnade This promenade, formed by the vast portico of the Palace of Agriculture, is in harmony with the architectural scheme of the Court of the Universe. It is the eastern wall of the aisle leading from the the main court to the Column of Progress. The shafts of the pillars are fluted and capped after the Corinthian order. Terra cotta, mellow in tone, is the color which has been used upon the travertine material of the columns, and the walls flanking the majestic array of pillars are painted a warm pink. The height of the ceiling is intensified by its deep blue, which seems to blend with the azure of the sky, as one glimpses it through the far opening of the corridor. Masked lanterns adorn the arched ceiling; on the columns are shell-screened lamps and at night the sweep of the promenade is magnified by the indirect lighting effects. Venetian Court Palace of Agriculture The great triumphal arches of the Central Court dominate the connecting aisles on either side, the Arch of the Rising Sun forming the west side of the Florentine Court and the Arch of the Setting Sun the east side of the Venetian Court. All the splendor and dignity of architectural treatment and decorative ornament that enrich the arches as they face toward the Court of the Universe are repeated on the reverse sides. The treatment of the side walls in the Florentine and Venetian Courts is identical, displaying some of the most delightful features of the Italian Renaissance, with marked richness in the use of both color and ornament. The walls are covered with a diaper pattern in pink and warm ivory. Bright blue and deep orange stain the overhanging cornice. The great windows are latticed and bound with green, the keystone of their arches being a quaint figure with folded wings. Between the arches are inset blue Italian medallions. Between the windows are coupled Corinthian columns, their shafts richly overlaid with ornament after patterns suggested by the churches and palaces of southern Italy. The planting is profuse, with masses of green against the walls and a wealth of bloom, pink predominating in the Florentine Court and yellow in the Venetian. Court of the Four Seasons The Night Illumination The Court of the Four Seasons is the most restful, the most intimate and the most harmonious of the three main courts, an effect produced by its classic simplicity and the charm of its architecture, sculpture and planting. The long approach of the north court, which is entered from the Esplanade, is bordered by the stately colonnades of the Palace of Agriculture on the east and the Palace of Food Products on the west. The columns are Ionic, the decorative treatment of their capitals, and of the frieze above, being in fruits and grains, happily conventionalized. The green sward of the avenue is set, here and there, with fine yew trees, while tall, slim eucalypti flank the entrance to the Court. The Fountain of Ceres designed by Evelyn Beatrice Longman, by the poise of its crowning figure and by the grace and dignity of its entire outline, no less than by its classic conception and fine architectural feeling, enhances the chaste beauty of the long vista whether seen by day outlined against the misty bay and the sweep of hills beyond, or by night, silhouetted against the white rays of the scintillators which are placed on the harbor's edge. Court of the Four Seasons The Great Half Dome The theme of the Court, the fruitfulness of the changing seasons, is sympathetically rendered by architecture, sculpture and painting in happy combination. The decorative forms all employ agricultural motives, and the sculptured groups or figures and the mural paintings are variations of the same thought. In architecture, the Court, which was designed by Henry Bacon of New York, is almost severely classic, enriched in its minor details by touches of the Italian Renaissance. The Half Dome, which lies directly opposite the long northern approach, is modeled after Hadrian's villa near Rome. The decoration of the vault of the dome is influenced by the richer coloring of the Court of Palms into which it opens on its inner side, while the archway softens into lighter tones in harmony with the more delicate coloring of the Court of the Four Seasons. The fine balance of line and proportion which characterizes the Court is shown in the three sculptured figures by Albert Jaegers,--"Harvest," the seated figure which fitly crowns the half dome, blending finely with its nobility and strength of outline, and "Rain" and "Sunshine," which surmount the splendid columns of Sienna marble on either side of the dome. Court of the Four Seasons The Western Archway The east and west entrances to the Court are massive archways, most satisfying in their purity and dignity of architectural form and treatment, as well as in the superb outlook which they give on either hand. The arches are divided by Corinthian pilasters of Sienna marble. Within, their vaulted ceilings are delicately colored and modeled in faint relief after ancient classic designs, suggesting harvest scenes. The spandrels in the triangles over the curve of the arch and the four times repeated figures which serve as pilasters in the paneled attic space above, are by August Jaegers. All are gracefully molded women's figures, and all alike are emblematic of the richness of the harvest. The signs of the zodiac letter the cornice between the arches and the attic. The inscription above the eastern gateway is from Spenser's "Faerie Queene," and that over the western from "The Triumph of Bohemia" by George Sterling. The serenity and intimate seclusion of the Court are due perhaps more than to any other single feature, to the quiet, circular pool in its center, shut in by banks of shrubbery and bare of sculptured ornament. Court of the Four Seasons One of the Colonnade Murals The Court is octagonal in shape, by reason of the fountains, screened by stately rows of columns, which fill its cornet recesses. These corner fountains are distinctly Roman in inspiration, the detail being suggested by the baths of Caracalla. Between the double rows of massive Ionic columns runs the colonnade. The capitals of the columns are enriched by pendant ears of corn, surmounted by a single open flower. Above the severely treated doorways, in each recess, are two mural paintings by Milton Bancroft, picturing alternately the seasonal pleasures and pastimes and their activities or industries. The murals, with the two in the half-dome, also by Milton Bancroft, are all conventionally classic, in keeping with the spirit and atmosphere of the Court. Within the sheltered niches are the fountains of the four seasons, where the water, rose-tinted by day and a luminous green by night, slips softly and musically over three broadening semicircular terraces to the cool, green pool beneath. The sculptured groups, surmounting the terraced fountains, are by Furio Piccirilli of New York. The enclosing walls are soft pink, the line where they join the blue vault of the sky charmingly broken by the living green of luxuriant, trailing vines. Court of the Four Seasons The Ionic Columns Through the columns is a glimpse of the Eastern Gateway where, carved in three panels over the entrance, is the following inscription: So forth issew'd the seasons of the yeare, First lusty spring all dight in leaves and flowres. Then came the jolly sommer being dight In a thin cassock coloured greene, Then came the autumne all in yellow clad, Lastly came winter, cloathed all in frize, Chattering his teeth, for cold that did him chill. --Spenser. The triple panel in the attic of the Western Gateway reads: For lasting happiness we turn our eyes to one alone, And she surrounds you now. Great nature, refuge of the weary heart, and only balm to breasts that have been bruised. She hath cool hands for every fevered brow And gentlest silence for the troubled soul. --Sterling. Court of the Four Seasons The Colonnade and Lawn The harmonious impression of the Court of the Four Seasons is due largely to the faithfulness with which classic influences have controlled every detail, both in architecture and in ornament. The bulls' heads between festoons of flowers which decorate the base of the entrances into the north court, the eagles at the corners of the pylons above, and the vases repeated on the balustrade about the Court are all Roman in design. Thoroughly classic also are the wreaths of fruits and grains on the panel of the cornice and the lions' heads above. While "The Feast of Sacrifice," the superb groups by Albert Jaegers, crowning the pylons at either side of the entrance to the north court, recall the ancient custom of celebrating the close of harvest by the sacrifice of flower-garlanded bulls. The planting of the court is quiet and stately, and notably carries out its spirit, with the gray-green of foliage plants and eucalyptus trees and the gnarled stems of gray old olive trees. In its vistas from any angle or point of view, the Court is peculiarly satisfying and beautiful. Court of the Four Seasons The North Colonnade by Night To stand in the midst of this curving octagonal court and hear, above the whisper of the trees, the murmur of the four hidden fountains that gush unseen from the base of allegorical groups of statuary, glimpsed through colonnades, is to stand in Hadrian's villa of old, where we hear "Fitly the fountains of silver leap, Whose sound is as soft as the listless flow Of streams that forever linger and go Down delicate, dream-far valleys of sleep." As in a dream, one looks down the last vista to the open rotunda and crescent hemicycle of the Palace of Fine Arts beyond a lagoon that mirrors them on its surface. Rising from the rich, green massing of shrubbery and mossy banks, the rotunda lifts its proud head, encircled with garlands of symbolical figures, as above a grove of Academe. Behind it the soft red walls of the place glow like the fading embers of sunset. These courts, strung like a rope of pearls between the two poles of man's achievement--mechanics and art--are the heart of the Exposition, and in them are treasures of color and form untold. --Edwin Markham Palace of Food Products The Portal from the Gardens The north facade of the Palaces which line the Marina is bare almost to severity, except for the rich adornment of the portals, the same detail being repeated for each palace. Spanish models served as the patterns for these handsome doorways, the three fine arches, with their supporting columns, suggesting the earlier Spanish Gothic, while the decorative features reflect the Moorish influence of a later period. The motif is appropriate for the waterfront, reminiscent as it is of the epoch of the Spanish Main. This hint is carried out in the sculptured figures in the alcoves above each arch. Allen Newman modeled them, giving to his work the dash and daring of the domineering conquistadors and piratical deckhands of those stirring days. The portal here pictured leads directly to the Esplanade near the Gardens adjoining the California Building. Palace of Food Products A Detail of the Main Portal It requires several visits to the Exposition to become accustomed to the stupendous scale which has been followed, not only in the expansive landscape gardening, but in the architectural plans. In this illustration, a faint conception is afforded of the proportions of the main entrance to the Palace of Food Products. The doors themselves are of ample size, yet are dwarfed to insignificance by the lofty columns and vaulted ceiling of this delightful portal, which is a reproduction from the Spanish Cathedral of Salamanca. The great arches are decorated after the plateresque style, and the spandrels abound in garlands, horns of plenty and other goodly tokens. A Moorish note is detected in the lacy network of the latticed windows. The domed ceilings are painted blue and tints of pink and dull orange are used on the walls and columns of the portal. The Esplanade North Facade, Column of Progress The Esplanade is bounded on the north by the Marina and the sparkling waters of the Bay: The boundary line on the south is the imposing frontage formed by the north facade of the four palaces, broken by the inviting entrances to the Court of Ages, the Court of the Universe and the Court of the Four Seasons. The domes which mark these entrances loom up in fine proportions, and the entrances to the various palaces are particularly well done. Against the old ivory of the massive walls are clustering thickets of cedar, spruce, eucalyptus and clumps of low-growing shrubs. It is a rare combination--the view one has from the Esplanade. Across the Bay are the inviting hills of Marin County and equally enticing are the vistas stretching through colonnades and arches formed by the courts and palaces of the Exposition. The Column of Progress, surmounted by the "Adventurous Bowman", holds the most noticeable position on the Esplanade. North Facade A View from the Bay The Esplanade extends westward from the ferry slip, along the north facade of the main group of buildings, past the massive walls of the California building and through the States' section to the Massachusetts building. From the Bay, the dominating center of the Esplanade is the splendid Column of Progress, on either side of which lies the Spanish wall of the north facade broken only by the four magnificent and identical sixteenth-century Renaissance portals which open into the Palaces of Mines, of Transportation, of Agriculture and of Food Products. From the base of the Column of Progress, the vista stretches away, through the Forecourt of the Stars and the Court of the Universe, to the Tower of Jewels, which dominates the southern approach to the grounds. Against the sky-line are outlined the lesser spires of the Italian towers, the heavy bulk of the sculptured groups crowning the arches of the Rising and the Setting Sun, the square summit of the Tower of the Ages and the round domes of the palaces. Palace of Food Products A View from the Fine Arts Laguna The impression of unity of design in the main group of buildings is heightened by certain distinctive features which characterize all of them in common. On all, there is the central dome, which, with the repeated smaller domes on the corners, is the chief source of charm in the pronounced Oriental or Moorish effect when seen from a distance. The long, unbroken lines and wall spaces give a sense of repose and restraint and emphasize the richness and beauty of the entrances where the decoration is massed. The Palace of Food Products occupies the north-west corner of the main group of buildings. Its western exposure is Roman in design to harmonize with the Palace of Fine Arts on the opposite side of the laguna. Its dominant feature is the great half-dome, officially called "The Half Dome of Physical Vigor," which forms its west entrance. The tall Corinthian columns on either side support Ralph Stackpole's figure of "Youth" and crowning the smaller columns which line the dome are the repeated statues by Earl Cummings, portraying "Physical Vigor," from which the dome takes its name. Palace of Education A View from the Fine Arts Laguna The western exposure of the Palace of Education duplicates the same wall of the Palace of Food Products and the entire facade along the laguna is called the Roman wall, by reason of the thoroughly classic spirit in which it is conceived. The half-dome here, as there, forms the architectural keystone, and in both buildings, the three niches on either side hold the same alternating figures. While the half dome, with its entire decorative treatment, belongs more fittingly to the Palace of Education, the sculptured figures in the alcoves, by Charles R. Harley, representing alternately "Abundance" and "The Triumph of the Fields," are more in keeping with the Palace of Food Products. The north face of the Palace of Education, which opens on the Court of the Sunset, connecting Administration Avenue with the Court of the Four Seasons, duplicates the three Spanish doorways of its south facade; and in harmony with these doorways, those on the south wall of the Palace of Food Products, which look out upon the same avenue, are similar in treatment. Palace of Education The Half Dome of Philosophy The two magnificent Roman half-domes which give character to the otherwise long and bare wall space of the western facade are called in the Palace of Food Products "The Half Dome of Physical Vigor" and in the Palace of Education "The Half Dome of Philosophy." In dignity and nobility, due to massive size and strength of treatment, in beauty of modeling and restraint of decoration, this effective use of the half-dome is one of the finest architectural achievements on the grounds. The fine, strong figure by Ralph Stackpole, which surmounts the giant Corinthian columns on either side of the opening is used also at the entrance of the Palace of Food Products and here, as there, it is called "Youth," the repeated figure evidently signifying in the mind of the artist the union of intellectual and physical vigor which exemplifies the finest type of manhood. The dome takes its name from the eight times repeated female figure, representing Education, which crowns the Corinthian columns lining its inner curve. Palace of Education The Fountain in the Portal The central decorative feature within the half-domes which form the western portals of the Palaces of Education and of Food Products is, in each case, a fountain, architectural in character and of great dignity of line and beauty of modeling; Both were designed by W. B. Faville from old Italian models found in Sienna and Ravenna. Both are circular in form and built up in successive tiers, the one at the entrance to the Palace of Education being the simplest in construction and gaining more in charm and grace from the flow of the water. The interior treatment of the domes furnishes an effective background for the fountains. The vault of the ceiling is a richly colored conventionalized pattern in orange, pompeiian red and blue. The repeated Corinthian columns lining the curve are of Sienna marble. The doorways between them, with the Moorish grill above the doors, are in green, while back of the lattice work is set stained glass in deep amber. Administration Avenue The Fine Arts Laguna The Baker Street Entrance to the Exposition leads directly into Administration Avenue. The Horticultural Gardens first attract attention by their kaleidoscopic patches of blooming flowers. Then the eye travels on past the Palace of Horticulture to the massive bulwark of the Palaces of Education and Food Products in the walls of which two great half-domed portals form the principal points of interest. Across the way lies the Laguna with its reflected image of the Palace of Fine Arts, perhaps the loveliest spot in the Exposition grounds. Plants grow in the pool and the shores are lined with iris, primroses, periwinkles, pampas grass and, overtopping these, weeping willows mingled with other lovely trees and shrubs. Towards the end of the Avenue is the small but attractive Hawaiian pavilion. The tower of the California building is silhouetted against the background of the Marin hills. Administration Avenue receives its name from the fact that it leads directly to the administrative headquarters of the Exposition, located in the California building. Palace of Fine Arts The Rotunda and Laguna The Palace of Fine Arts has the finest natural setting on the Exposition grounds. Consummate skill in planning the entire architectural ensemble gave it a commanding position, at the extreme west of the group of exhibit palaces. The architect, Bernard. R. Maybeck of San Francisco, found as an asset on beginning his work, a small natural lake and a fine group of Monterey cypress. With this foundation he has created a temple of supreme loveliness, thoroughly original in conception, yet classic in its elemental simplicity and in its appeal to the highest and noblest traditions of beauty and art, revealing the imagination of a poet, the fine sense of color and harmony of an artist, and the sure hand of a master-architect in his confident control of architectural forms, of decorative detail and of the contributing landscape elements. The conception of the rotunda is said to have been suggested to the architect by Becklin's painting "The Island of the Dead" and that of the peristyle by Gerome's "Chariot Race." Across the Laguna from the Palace of Fine Arts runs Administration Avenue and the magnificent Roman wall which forms the western facade of the main group of palaces. Palace of Fine Arts The Rotunda and Peristyle The Palace of Fine Arts is, in reality, not one complete building, but four separate and distinct elements. The rotunda, an octagonal structure, forms the center of the composition. On either side is a detached peristyle which follows the curve of the gallery itself, as it describes an arc about the western shore of the Laguna, yet so successfully are they all bound together by the encircling green wall and by the other landscape elements, that an impression of satisfying unity results. The architecture, as a whole, is early Roman, with traces of the finer Greek influences. In general treatment, there is a suggestion of the Temple of the Sun at Athens, while much of the detail was inspired by the Choragic monument of Lysicrates, also at Athens. The rotunda is Roman in conception, Greek in decorative treatment. By its sheer nobility of form and of proportion, and by its enchantment of color and sculptured ornament, it dominates the entire landscape. The high spiritual quality of the architect's conception culminates in the Shrine of Inspiration, directly in front of the rotunda, as seen from across the laguna, where kneels Ralph Stackpole's lovely figure of "Art Tending the Fires of Inspiration," exquisite in its simplicity and delicate charm. Palace of Fine Arts The Peristyle and Laguna On either side of the central rotunda the peristyle of the Palace of Fine Arts encircles the shore of the laguna in a long semi-circle, formed of a row of Corinthian columns their pale green simulating age-stained marble. At each extremity of the colonnade and at intervals throughout its length are groups of four larger columns, in ochre, each group surmounted by a great box, designed to hold flowers and vines. Panels simulating pale green, veined marble are inset in these receptacles and at their corners are drooping women's figures by Ulric H. Ellerhusen representing Contemplation. Between the columns, at their bases, are also set receptacles for growing plants. In its pervading dignity, in the strength of the columns, in the rich beauty of the capitals and in the chaste refinement of the cornice, the colonnade is essentially Greek. Palace of Fine Arts In the Peristyle Walk Between the Palace of Fine Arts itself and its bordering colonnade of massive Corinthian columns runs a broad promenade which, while binding the two together, receives a sense of freedom and serenity from the open sky above. The wall of the gallery is interrupted only by the simple entrances at intervals. It is low and intimate in comparison with the great proportions of the other exhibit palaces and its height is further broken by a terrace midway, set with growing plants and shrubs. The whole effect desired by the architect is of an ancient ruin, overgrown through the centuries with vegetation. Along the edge of the roof runs a latticed Pompeiian pergola, hung with trailing vines, and the wall of the building is colored a deep pompeiian red. The immense flower urns, banded with classic figures in deep relief, bearing heavy swinging garlands, are by Ulric H. Ellerhusen. Alternating with the massed green of shrubs and plants against the wall are niches holding sculptured groups. The Roman urns which crown the square pillars marking the doors and which, in varying size, are repeated here and there about the building, are by William G. Merchant. Palace of Fine Arts The Rotunda from the Peristyle From any point in the peristyle of the Palace of Fine Arts and under any atmospheric conditions, either by day or by night; the vistas are peculiarly satisfying and charming. About the columns of the stately colonnade are blooming plants in simple, natural groups. And at intervals between the columns under the rotunda or along either end of the laguna, the outdoor gallery of sculpture finds a sympathetic background and setting. The great dome of the rotunda which crowns so many of the vistas, is stained a velvety burnt orange, with a turquoise blue-green border. Beneath, are eight panels in low relief by Bruno L. Zimm, symbolizing Greek culture and its desire for poetic and artistic expression, conceived in a deeply classic vein and executed with spirit and grace. Below the panels is an attic of pale-green marble. Flanking each pier of the rotunda are two Corinthian columns in Sienna marble, within the arches are corresponding Corinthian pilasters, and within the dome against each pier is another massive Corinthian column in marble, each one crowned with the serene and noble "Priestess of Culture" by Herbert Adams of New York. Palace of Fine Arts The Peristyle Walk by Night Of all the wonderful night effects of the Exposition grounds none are so full of haunting beauty as the vistas afforded by the Palace of Fine Arts and its surroundings. By the indirect system of illumination, an effect as of strong moonlight is produced and from concealed sources, under cornices or behind columns, a soft reflected radiance pervades peristyle and rotunda. The trees, shrubs and columns cast long, intense shadows. Through the columns may be seen the long line of the Roman wall across the laguna, its great, half-domes suffused with a mellow, golden light and in the everchanging waters between, it gleams again. From the other side of the laguna, the rotunda and the long crescent of the colonnade are seen reflected as in a mirror, and when flooded with the white radiance of the searchlights, their majestic beauty is indescribable. Palace of Fine Arts A Fountain in the Laguna Beautiful as the Palace of Fine Arts is from any viewpoint, its simplicity and noble strength are at their best when seen with a foreground of trees and water. The landscape, in its simple naturalness, is in feeling an intimate part of the building itself and so perfectly do they blend that they seem to have grown together through quiet, serene centuries. Between the columns and along the wall of the building are blooming plants and shrubs, groups of Monterey cypress and eucalyptus trees. The shores of the laguna are banked with shrubs, loosely massed, and groups of evergreens and weeping willows bend over the lake. Outlining its irregular border, broken by small promontories and inlets, thousands of blooming plants creep down to the water's edge and venture out into its placid depths--periwinkles, primroses, daffodils, heliotrope, pampas grass, white and yellow callas, Spanish and Japanese iris and myriads of others whose names and gay, nodding blossoms are more or less familiar. Fountains play in the edge of the lake, the charming spirited group here illustrated being "Wind and Spray" by Anna Coleman Ladd. Palace of Fine Arts A Picturesque Garden Fountain The graceful garden fountain shown is the work of Anna Coleman Ladd. It is located toward the north end of the building near the entrance to the peristyle. Of the general effect of the Palace of Fine Arts and of its deeper meaning, the architect, Bernard R. Maybeck, says: "There is a succession of impressions produced as one walks through the different parts of the grounds that play on the feeling and the mind, each part having its own peculiar influence on the sentiment. Along the main axis, for example, the Machinery Hall and neighborhood suggest a mixture of the classic and romantic, as you understand the terms in literature." "The Court of Ages suggests the medieval with all its rising power of idealism in conflict with the physical. The Court of the Universe suggests Rome, inhabited by some unknown placid people. The Court of the Four Seasons suggests the grace, the beauty and the peace in the land where the souls of philosophers and poets dwell." "The Fine Arts Palace suggests the romantic of the period after the classic Renaissance, and the keynote is one of sadness modified by the feeling that beauty has a soothing influence." Palace of Fine Arts The Garden and Fountain of Time In the foreground of this poetic garden scene is the foremost figure of Lorado Taft's "Fountain of Time." In sympathy with the atmospheric influence of such a vista, Bernard R. Maybeck, the architect, continues the thought of the preceding page: "To make a Fine Arts composition that will fit this modified melancholy, we must use those forms in architecture and gardening that will affect the emotions in such a way as to produce on the individual the same modified sadness as the galleries do. Suppose you were to put a Greek temple in the middle of a small mountain lake surrounded by dark, deep rocky cliffs, with the white foam dashing over the marble temple floor, you would have a sense of mysterious fear and even terror, as of something uncanny. If the same temple, pure and beautiful in lines and color, were placed on the face of a placid lake, surrounded by high trees and lit up by a glorious full moon, you would recall the days when your mother pressed you to her bosom and your final sob was hushed by a protecting spirit hovering over you, warm and large. You have there the point of transition from sadness to content, which comes pretty near to the total impression that galleries have and that the Fine Arts Palace and Lake are supposed to have." California Building Bell Tower and Forbidden Garden The California Building is the result of perhaps the most interesting combination of requirements that could be imagined--to provide a host building for the home State of a great Exposition where welcome could warmly and generously be extended to the millions of visitors, where the officials could have suitable quarters and where the fifty-two counties of the State could have their exhibits. The location set aside for the concrete development of these requirements was most stimulating. An edifice to terminate the vista looking north over a laguna of silent water flanked by the wonderful Palace of Fine Arts, and just beyond, the beautiful Bay of San Francisco with a background formed by distant Tamalpais. No style of architecture could be more appropriate to these needs than that which exists in California--an architecture romantic, peaceful, subtle and charming in its proportions. The task of adapting the Mission architecture to the requirements was given Thomas H. F. Burditt. He entered into the spirit of the old Padre builders with rare intuition, and he designed a building of impressive dignity and hospitality. California Building The Arches of the Colonnade The Mission Padres had built neither in magnificence nor in magnitude, and as both of these were requisite qualities in the construction of the California Building, they presented peculiar problems, and were treated with the thought of what one of the old Padres with a limited knowledge of architecture would have done if presented with the larger problem. So it seemed that the entrance foyer should be quiet, and massive and should form a nucleus to all parts of the building. The magnitude of the edifice was so great that all the existing Missions of California could be housed therein, and in order to show the largeness of its proportions and varied functions, each part was designed as a motif in itself and closely related to that part by which it stood. From the forecourt in replica of the Forbidden Garden of Santa Barbara, surrounded by old cypress hedges, by driveways, and walled in by cloistered arches, one can find the principal entrances to all the main divisions of the building, and also to the administrative portion which contains the executive offices of the Exposition and the official reception and banquet rooms. California Building A Vista in the Colonnade The cloistered colonnades so intimately associated with Mission architecture have been successfully handled in the Court of the California Building. The molds for the columns of the arches were made by the architect himself, to give the semblance of age and that each should differ from the other. It was most necessary to avoid mechanical regularity in any feature of the building, and in consequence all the details vary, so that no two that are exactly similar are placed near each other. The arches are made of slightly different radii, and the bells vary both in size and design. There are ten main groups of entrances, but no two of them are in any way similar, and it was through these means that the attempt was made to obtain a varied change of interest in plan, mass, silhouette and detail and the lack of precision which must have existed at the time when the old California Missions grew into being. California Building The Forbidden Garden There had grown on this location for forty odd years, a hedge of cypress, weary with its age, and groups of trees forming wonderful masses of foliage to charm the eye. This happy circumstance was cleverly utilized by the architect in designing the court of the California Building. A replica of the enclosed Garden of Mission Santa Barbara was laid out within the boundary of this old hedge and planted with old-fashioned flowers such as would have delighted the Mission Fathers. In the center is a fountain similar to that at Santa Barbara, and the quiet splash of its water adds a touch of charm and romance. The bell tower of the building throws an afternoon shadow over the garden, and within a niche in the tower stands the statue of Padre Serra overlooking this peaceful nook. California Building The Semi-Tropical Garden To the south of the California Building, off the Esplanade, lies an interesting garden filled with various species of cacti and unusual semi-tropical plants. Interspersed among these are masses of brightly blossoming dainty flowers--baby blue eyes in the spring and others, equally lovely, as the seasons change. In a sheltered nook rise the tall slender stalks of rare bamboo, sent from a private garden in Bakersfield. The massive walls of the building form a rich background. Their appearance of stability, enhanced by a slight batter--that is a slight receding from the perpendicular--is shown by a least visible thickness of three feet. These features are evident in every wall throughout the exterior of the building. Within the corridors, the floors appropriately are paved with red brick, and the ceilings are beamed and roughly finished. Netherlands Pavilion As Seen from the Laguna The Pavilion of the Netherlands is located sufficiently near the Laguna to be reflected within the pool. The high dome is adorned with four clock towers and a forest of flagstaffs and spires. K. Kromhout, who designed the building, followed the modern ideas of the present-day school of architects in Holland. The ultra style of the Pavilion fails to recall the staunch and dignified brick structures for which the Dutch are famous, but it is a striking edifice. The tiled panels are lovely and the warm colors used in the exterior decorations most attractive. When viewed from Administration Avenue, the numerous towers, fluttering pennants and harmonious colors are set oft to best advantage by the trees along the Laguna. About the building, the Hollander's love of flowers is strongly in evidence. Ten carloads of bulbs and shrubs were imported for the horticultural display. Italian Pavilion The Piazzetta Venetia The Italian Pavilion consists of a group of eight buildings, combining architectural styles of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The main entrance to the pavilion is on the west, and a broad, low flight of steps leads into the Piazza Grande, graced by a fountain by Tacca and pieces of Italian sculpture. On the left is the medieval palace, containing authentic works of art of many ages. Facing this is the Lombard palace, of the period of fourteen-hundred, used by the Italian Commissioners as a reception hall. The Royal Salon and Casa Italiana form the east wall of the main court. The inner courts are beautified with fountains and statuary groups. Covered passageways, supported by slender pillars, extend around three sides of the piazzetta, and add a delicate charm to the enclosure. The Venetian Well in the center is a characteristic note, and the stairways leading to the upper verandas, and the niches about this court, are delightful in design. The outer elevation of the main building is of the sixteenth century. Within the Casa Italiana there is an exact reproduction of the library of the S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Italian Pavilion In the Court Verrochio The arcade which connects the Etruscan Tower with the Bargello Hall separates the smaller court of the Italian Pavilion from the Piazza Grande. The most attractive feature in this ideal court is the staircase and balcony, done in the period of the fourteenth century, with a most interesting composition of the flat walls, pierced by a graceful double arch, attractively spotted with plaques and brightened by the color of the Della Robias and the geraniums blossoming through the balustrade. A delicate touch is given by the Fountain of the Winged Boy with the Fish, by Verrocchio, which occupies the center of the stone-flagged court. To the left of the staircase is a mural fresco depicting the "Return from the Crusade." Old iron-framed lanterns hang from the gray-toned ceilings of the arcades. The coloring of the walls and pillars is stone gray blended with shades of brown and grayish-blue. The vivid green of the sun-lit grass within the Piazzetta Venetia relieves the sober color scheme of this court. The balconies are lined with blooming flowers, and shrubs and plants in artistic receptacles add to its attractiveness. Avenue of the Nations Tower of Sweden's Pavilion The Avenue of the Nations extends from the Exposition group of Palaces in a diagonal direction westward to the Marina, and is lined on either side with the pavilions of the Foreign Nations. In the picture there is a glimpse of the Canadian Building to the left, and prominent in the view is the characteristic Swedish tower, typically northern, and interesting in detail. Immediately beyond is Bolivia's Palace, to an equal degree typical of the south, followed by the pinkish-toned building erected by Cuba. Denmark's Pavilion, on the left of the Avenue adjoining the Palace of Fine Arts, is distinctly individual, marked by its towers which reproduce several historic towers in Denmark, and the moat in which frogs croak at night. The interior is arranged to represent the rooms of a gentleman's country home. On the hillside to the south are several avenues about which are grouped others of the Foreign Pavilions--the picturesque gardens of Japan, the open court of France, with its Rodin bronze, and the dignified pavilions of Australia, Norway, Greece and many other nations. The Esplanade A View of the Foreign Pavilions The pavilions of the Foreign Nations are on the south side of the Esplanade, westward from the group of Exposition Palaces. In the foreground of this view is seen Canada's stately building, guarded by the massive British lions. The admirable and comprehensive exhibit within has aroused great admiration and established a standard for such displays. Beyond is the pagoda of the Chinese gardens, and the tea houses, with their roofs colored in the wonderful yellow which occurs so often in the old Chinese rugs. The slate-colored dome of Argentina's ornate Palace precedes the pinkish-toned Netherlands building seen in the distance--the rather whimsical style of the latter adding a distinct note to that section of the grounds. The park to the south is distinguished by two Oriental buildings erected respectively by Siam and Turkey. The first is an exact copy of a royal pavilion in the Garden of Maha Chakkri Palace, at Bangkok. The latter is equally typical of the East, marked with dome, minarets and spires, and includes the main pavilion and a near-by mosque and prayer tower, connected with it by a corridor. The Esplanade A View of the State Buildings The buildings erected by California's sister Commonwealths occupy the district west of the California Building, and the north line of the Esplanade to the Marina. Designed in various individual and dignified styles, surrounded with handsome lawns and beautiful gardens, they have formed a most important and interesting feature of the Exposition grounds. Many of the buildings reproduce historic landmarks. The golden dome of the Massachusetts State House is as dominant a feature at the head of the Esplanade as is the original on Beacon Street in Boston. The loggia of Independence Hall is familiar enough to bring a patriotic thrill to the heart of the loyal American, even were not the cherished Liberty Bell on view. Another Colonial feature is the Trenton Barracks, Washington's headquarters in New Jersey; and "Homewood" takes one back to Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, and Baltimore in 1802. The massive log building from Oregon is fairly representative of that state of virgin forests, notwithstanding the mistaken attempt to reproduce the classic Parthenon in such a crude medium. In this view the magnificent building for New York is in the foreground. Beyond, in the order named, are the buildings for Pennsylvania, New York City, Illinois, Ohio, Utah and Massachusetts. The Zone A Holiday Gathering The Zone, while providing excellent entertainment and relaxation, is above the standard established by the amusement sections of former expositions, many of its concessions being of an educational nature. This is notably true of the Panama Canal, which appears on the left of this picture. Because of its value as a faithful reproduction of the great work which the Exposition commemorates, many consider it as deserving a place in the main grounds. Almost equal to this in educational interest and quite ranking it in beauty are the reproductions of the Grand Canyon with its Hopi and Navajo Indians, and Yellowstone Park. Old Faithful Inn in the latter is a favorite place for social gatherings. For pure fun and gaiety, Toyland Grown Up, that whimsical conceit especially built for youngsters, old and young, has provided merriment for thousands. Of thrillers that raise the hair and make the heart beat high and without which no amusement section would be complete, the Zone announces its full quota with much rattling of machinery and many shrieks of joy. And the presence of strange peoples, one of the recognized features of these places, is also noticeable along the Zone. A Maori tribe from New Zealand, Samoans, Hawaiians, Aztecs from Old Tehauntepec, and others bring their customs and costumes from unfamiliar lands. The Zone The Bizarre Decorations There is something naive about the Zone. It presents its colossal grotesques--its gargantuan Uncle Sam, its monstrous elephants--rather with an air of acknowledging that it cannot compete with the beauty one leaves behind when one turns in under its gay flags ad lanterns. Here is frankly the spirit of abandon. To the right and left the bawling barkers shout their enticements, begging one's patronage. Up and down the street the endless patter of the feet of men and women, the wheeze of the little electrics and the blare of brassy music ebb and flow. Here and there is the dominant note of the Exposition, its pastel shades of burnt orange and red, and its indefinable blue. They flutter forth, hooped about the flagpoles with Oriental effect. Those wonderful lanterns, that delightful medieval touch which one finds through the grounds, are here employed with great effect. When one is tired of gigantic horses with ever-impending hoofs, tired of large plaster ladies whose complete poise does not entirely atone for a rather excess of buxomness, one can always turn to these reminders of the beauty that is the essential characteristic of the Exposition itself. The Fireworks Star Shells and Steam Battery Notwithstanding the excellence attained by the Exposition in the beauty of its coloring, the poetry in its courts and architecture, the mystery and glamour of its illuminations, the spectacular element could not be overlooked. This finds expression in the fireworks that are let loose on the Marina several evenings each week. Here, however, a distinct advance has been made upon the familiar pyrotechnic display of former events. The use of powerful scintillators with their colored rays playing upon smoke clouds and flying devices from exploded bombs high in the air, or upon weird shapes of steam sent out by the engine on the border of the yacht harbor, lends infinite variety and beauty. In several of the numbers the scintillators secure the effects unaided, their lights making strange figures in the heavens. "Spooks' Parade," "Aurora Borealis," "Devil's Fan," are some of the ideas suggested. Zone Salvo The Final "Big Noise" The Exposition Fireworks are under the direction of William D'A. Ryan, Chief of Illumination. On each occasion a set program is followed consisting of twenty-four numbers. At the opening, a salute of ten detonating bombs and a large rocket announce the event. This is followed by features of the scintillator lights, combinations of these with steam, with smoke bombs and with orange showers and Japanese daylight shells, and by fancy star shells, festoon rockets and candle fountains. The climax is reached in the Zone Salvo when a tremendous explosion of hundreds of detonating devices occurs, with rockets and star shells exploding in the air, the rays of the scintillator coloring the smoke clouds in brilliant hues; and amidst it all, high above, suddenly appears a beautiful American flag caught and followed by the ray of a powerful white searchlight as it floats away from sight. Here ends The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition, with an introduction by Louis Christian Mullgardt. The descriptive titles have been written by Maud Wotring Raymond and John Hamlin. Edited by Paul Elder. Published by Paul Elder and Company and seen through their Tomoye Press under the typographical direction of H. A. Funke in the city of San Francisco during the month of September, Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen. 
41987	----	"The United Seas" By ROBERT W. ROGERS [Illustration: Publisher's seal] Blessed are the pathfinders who do not fear the seas, for they have discovered that the very waters are moving toward freedom AN INTERPRETATION of the opening of the Panama Canal, commemorated by the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Copyrighted 1915 by Robert W. Rogers All rights reserved in all languages. INTRODUCTION. VISION, THE NEED OF THE HOUR We are living in a day when it would almost seem that the person who does not value vision is neither helpful nor wise. For it is a day when the people everywhere need an essential vision in order that they may gain courage to settle down to constructive effort after the close of the world war. In other words there are multitudes who feel that there is a far deeper significance to the opening of the Panama Canal as commemorated by the Panama-Pacific International Exposition than what appears on the surface. There never was an Exposition like it. There never will be another similar to it in the future. Simply because there seems to be something written between the lines. It is an Exposition in which it appears to be natural for the sanest men to be prophetic--one in which men not only behold the star of faith but also feel that the star is calling them to move toward something better, even if they have to grope their way. An obscure vision seems to be in the sky of hosts of people and they are anxious to hear the interpretations of men who are brave enough to suggest one. They are asking what does the peculiar inspiration of this Exposition mean? This book in which the commemorative chapters are written in rhythmic prose--for which the author need make no apology, in as much as Whitman and others have already blazed the way for independence of poetical expression--is given to the public with the sole object in view of conveying a message that has impressed the mind of the author. For among the many kind expressions of commendation on the prose-poem, "The United Seas," none has been more appreciated than that given by David Starr Jordan in these words, "Your prose-poem has a strong message and many striking lines. I shall be glad to see it published." Josiah Strong in one of his most recent books entitled, "The New World Life," says: "Socrates in the Phoedo compares the people of his day, to whom the lands about the Aegean were the whole world, to ants and frogs about a marshy pond. Where would one find a more fitting comparison for people of the same sort in our day? The development of a world life bids us pry out our horizon and learn to think in world terms. Facts are God's alphabet from which we may decipher tendencies and tendencies are prophetic." And this prying out of the horizon from the nation to the world--as the viewpoint of the sons of the pilgrims has been widened from a New England to a continental scope--is one of the highest responsibilities and duties of our day. Please remember then that the object of this book is to help others glimpse the vision. You may say that there is no practical power in vision. But we have been following the lure of the Golden Age and the Holy City for centuries. Visions are the only powerful things in life. And this is what the people everywhere need now; not only practical instruction but also a vision of something grander and better than what they now have, in every land; so that they will be inspired to action. I repeat it: The most necessary thing for America, the waring and neutral nations of the hour is a powerful vision of what ought to be and what can be. Men ought to arise in every country and give the people the vision. So go forward, O book, not for the sake of displaying any merit of words. But because you are winged by the mighty inspiration of the hour. Speed on and in some slight way help our international statesmen and advocates of peace to carry their message to the peoples from the nations about the seas. _Dedicated to my good wife, a lover of flowers, mountains and sea_ Table of Contents I--The United Seas Page Flowers on all Shores 10 The United Seas 11 The Words of an Eastern Sage 15 II--The Vision of The Builders Brilliants From the Tower of Jewels 18 The Jewel City 19 The Voices of Two Cities 21 III--The Coast The Threshold of Vision 24 Our Pacific Sea 25 IV--The Mariner's New Inspiration The First Trip Through the Canal 30 The Ancon 31 The Altruism of Col. Goethals 31 V--World Pioneers Land and Sea Breezes 34 The Pioneers of the World 35 The Olive Branch as an Emblem of World Peace 41 Essential Democracy 44 A Prayer for World Citizens 46 VI--World Citizens Precepts for World Citizens 48 Beatitudes for World Statesmen 51 The World's Neighborhood 53 VII--The Sea's Highest Decree What Are the Seas About 56 The Altruism of the Sea 58 VIII--Helps To Interpretation How to Become a World Citizen 62 The Key to the Vision 64 Balboa 65 A New Inspiration for Literature 66 IX--Sea To Land From Sea to Tree and Fruit 70 The Olive in Biblical History 71 The Modern Parable of the Orange Tree 77 I The United Seas FLOWERS ON ALL SHORES Not long after the opening of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Blossom Day, an annual feature in California life was observed, to be followed later by nature's offering of flowers on the shores of all nations. Here are some blossoms: * * * * * Flowers speak in all nations of hope to the fainting heart. And in the nation where flowers degenerate man cannot live. * * * * * "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels." --Whitman. * * * * * Who am I and who are you to shun the sea-born rain when trees and flowers and birds are made merry by it and never think of shelter.--Adapted from Quayle. * * * * * "Flowers and fruits are always fit gifts because a ray of beauty is appreciated all over the world; because the language of the flower can be understood in any land."--Comfort Guild. [A]THE UNITED SEAS The wise men from every land, believing That unseen good is often With great events allied unawares, Must be asked to unfold the meaning Involved in the uniting of the Earth's greatest seas. * * * * * For after aeons of isthmian neighborliness And ages of barrier'd friendship, Herculean genius has removed the mountain And stubborn nature has yielded to the union of the Pacific With the impetuous Atlantic, To be commemorated with an apocalypse of light and color, By the races assembled at the Golden Gate, Within the natural sanctuary of our Bay, Cathedralled by the mountains and the arching blue sky built o'er Immensity. * * * * * The petty Shylocks have not been invited To be there with unfilled bags for gold, Nor the sordid traffickers in human flesh, To daily swarm a city's pits of hell And by a lewd commerce augment their filthy gains. Sad wretches! They that holy hour would misfit and defame. For their hands, the jewels could finger And the pageantry their eyes could observe But their souls could never divine the sublime thought Of the bridal of two vast seas. * * * * * So give way, blind temporizers! For the seers and prophets have seen our star and have arrived Rightly to interpret the emotions struggling for utterance in that unusual hour. In these ominous words, silencing all speech: "The Human mind is Leaving the Log Cabin and Statehouse To Enter 'the Parliament of Man,' the Federation of the World." * * * * * So the true from every land, vast armies of welcome guests, they come!-- The sons of kings and nobles and the late-increasing hosts of freemen, so innumerable, To see the passing of provincial national life. * * * * * And our imagination now hears the mighty tread of pilgrims, And sees this Western paradise bestirred in final preparation for its festive attire-- Our Rocky's wide slope, within its hidden laboratories, By some chemical's new magic hastening to make more enchanting its coast-wide tribute of flowers; If possible more stately its redwoods, more mighty its hills; And our stars in the heavens are brightening their lights To welcome the long caravans from the nations, The ships from all the seas,-- To a ceremony epochal, from dawn into days worthily prolonged. * * * * * For the silvery Queen of Night will tarry in a veiled appreciation Until the powerful King of Day comes resplendent from the east, in a new vernal splendor, While the globe, electrified and cabled into hearing, With its armies momentarily halting in embarrassed meditation, Will quiver with attention at the dawn of that momentous day When it is authoritatively announced: That the tumultuous Atlantean stalwart, the first born of the east And the interminable Austral ocean, gentle empress of the west, Have been joined in the tidal grasp of a spheric wedlock Uniting two hemisphere estates. Sure to be conducive to international progress, Prophetic of a planetary brotherhood, And bravely resolute for world-peace. * * * * * Yes, in spite of war and carnage, The invincible human spirit will then escape the thralldom of a temporary despair; For in this land of hope and courage, which is a prophecy of the world to be, Where the strong sons of freedom's pioneers still breathe a bracing air, And drink a freeman's water fresh from every hill--and not human blood with warring kings-- Here, the vision so transforming, The vision of our fathers, will become the vision of all the sons of men! * * * * * Here, where reason and not hate is peculiarly creative, Where the intelligence of peace is so successful--and not the blind force of retrogressive men-- Here, the new spirit of World Democracy, still youthful like David, must be strengthened to slay the European Goliath; To defy Mar's staggering bluff and check the antiquated ambition of war. For not only will the vision of our fathers become the vision of all the sons of men, But the resolution of their heroes is also to become the purpose of the race! * * * * * So, the wise men, they too have come! Not to finger, nor to trifle; Undismayed by war or ignorance, Loyal advocates of unfailing providence, Cabined not by years nor decades-- They look out upon the ages and can trace historic movements; And for them a thousand years is no longer than a day. * * * * * They look northward toward Ambition; They look eastward toward a Manager; They look westward toward a Holy City; They look southward toward an Isthmus; They look inward and declare, "Man was born to grow, not stop!" They look throng-ward, to interpret the strange spell overcasting seers and doubters, and exclaim: "The international mind subconscious is struggling successfully here to become conscious. Yea, take the scales from your eyes and you will see That the mind of man is becoming broader And your brotherhood from a race is to be freed As the pilgrims from the nations become the pioneers of the sphere-- As they catch the prophet's vision, The Son of Man's distant vision of an essentially united earth, When they begin to think the world-thoughts, Irresistibly inspired by the spheric union of Jehovah's two vast seas." * * * * * For the universal Father, the God of the united seas, He is still the Lord of all might. And His strength is in genius, in love and in truth. THE WORDS OF AN EASTERN SAGE Charles Francis Adams, whose grandfather was one of our early Presidents and whose father was a Minister to London before the Civil War, felt with overwhelming reality the inspiration of the world vision. Mr. Adams, a man of sound judgment and of importance and distinction, a month before his recent death, in writing about the European War, made the following sage remarks: "We suddenly find ourselves thrown back an entire century. Again we are confronted by 'paper and blockades' on an almost unprecedented scale, and by 'Milan' and 'Berlin' decrees, with 'orders in council, in reserve and in response thereto. "Such a situation has got to work itself out; and, in my belief, can do so only through the complete exhaustion of those more immediately engaged. When that condition of exhaustion is fully developed the neutral powers, if in the interim they have held themselves in reserve, will be in a position effectively to intervene. The whole sea usage of nations, commonly known as 'international law,' will then have to undergo a process of fundamental revision. The basic principles only will be left; and a new system, which will include in my belief a world federation, an organized judicial tribunal and an international police must be evolved. "This is a large contract; and yet the task is one to which both legislators and publicists cannot, I think, too soon or too seriously address themselves. A great educational process is involved, and cannot be prematurely entered upon; but the time and mode of action and concrete outcome are as yet hardly foreshadowed. Under the condition, therefore, which I have thus sought to outline, it seems to me that the present is a time when those who think and feel as I do should possess their souls with patience." These are strong words. And although the time has not yet come when the definite line of action can even be foreshadowed, the people must get his inspiration. He believes that there will be a revision of international law and as has been said that there will be a world federation, a united states of the world to give expression of its rulings through an international court, with its decrees enforced by an international police force. It is going to take the sagacity of strong men to bring this stupendous achievement to pass. But because thoughtful people are beginning to think in this direction, this magnificent ideal is not an impossibility. It is to be prayed for, expected and worked for. And in every land the vision should now be given to the people. FOOTNOTE: [A] An interpretation of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, written before the opening on February 20th, 1915. II The Vision of the Builders BRILLIANTS FROM THE TOWER OF JEWELS If God is light, Edison and his disciples must have glimpsed some of His glory. * * * * * "They shall splash at a ten league canvas with brushes of comet hair."--Kipling's words that might be used in describing Jules Guerin's masterful work in painting a thousand acre canvas. * * * * * "Fair city of the sun, laved by the blue seas, glowing like a topaz within a setting of dark cradling streets, that rose tier on tier around it."--Whitaker's impression of the Exposition received upon entering the Golden Gate from the sea. * * * * * The creamy surface of the tower of jewels is studded with 125,000 great glass jewels made in Austria and safely landed in this country, which with the floods of light diffusing from concealed sources, creates an illumination that is peculiarly impressive against the background of the night's sky and often makes the Exposition grounds lighter by day than by night. * * * * * If Whitman was right when he said "dazzling and tremendous how quick the sunrise would kill me, if I could not now and always send sunrise out of me," then we do not exaggerate in saying that the sunlight has partly spoken through the builders of the Jewel City. THE JEWEL CITY Mystically inspired, Amazingly patient, tireless suppliants for the vision You have caught the ray of a true, a far distant light. And these palaces and pillars let them crumble when they their days have fulfilled. For in mind and in soul you have agonized and struggled, Until triumphantly you have evoked the very stones into utterance. And through that which decays you have spoken the eternal and the undecaying thought. * * * * * Well done, master-minded builders. For the world mind, geographically at least, it has conquered! And through this miracle of color companioning the hosts of the nations about the universe's court, With a modern Prometheus banishing the night, You are radiating the contagion of the triumph to the land and the sea. For looking southward in a vision-- The architects and sculptors have seen the first rush of the hemispheric waters, victoriously intermingling. And lo, the inspiration of an isthmian genius has here become the inspiration and joy of a race. * * * * * And the races-- Hear the dialects, see the people-- Now catching the world thought they hunger for brotherhood. And even while they laugh for brotherhood they pray For they are groping And inaudibly they are praying for more planetary builders, To express the growing consciousness of the international mind, As here materially in stone and in mortar, So invisibly in governments and a new world order, And in a brotherhood, large minded and interracial in its scope. * * * * * And we believe That the God of the United Seas will hear their petition in His way. For as intently we gaze, we can see That this apocalypse of light and color, directing upward and sympathizing throng-ward Prophesies that the races are divinely to be led into essential unity. * * * * * And even more, O path-finders! [B]We seem to see, the very pillars--emblematic of a holy shaft of light--gathering here. Radiating not only towards the skys; But also hovering, hovering, hovering, as if preparing, when the festive days are o'er. To guide to democracy's sacred task across the highways of the seas. THE VOICES OF TWO CITIES Two cities on the Western coast are heralding to the world the triumphant completion of the Panama canal. And if a certain writer is right in saying that there are seven wonders of the modern world--telephone, wireless, aeroplane, radium, and antisceptics and antitoxins, spectrum analysis and X-rays--as there were seven wonders of the ancient world, we can well add that the Panama canal is the eighth modern wonder and that it is the wonder of all wonders, ancient and modern. And it is well that nearly a year is to be given by both cities to the commemoration of this event in order that the whole world may fully feel the significance of this remarkable engineering feat to its whole life. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition held at San Francisco, from February 20 to December 4, 1915, is the national celebration authorized and sanctioned and partly financed by the government of the United States, the total investment being $50,000,000. The Exposition area covers 635 acres of ground, having a frontage of two miles on the bay immediately inside of the Golden Gate. The grounds are divided into three main divisions; the foreign section nearest to the Golden Gate, the central portion with its exhibit palaces and great Tower of Jewels rising 435 feet high and the eastern section for rest and amusement. In keeping with the world consciousness four courts are found on the grounds; the Court of the Four Seasons; Court of the Universe; Court of Abundance; Court of Palms; Court of Flowers. Every state and territory in the Union has made exhibits and in spite of the world war more than forty foreign countries are represented and co-operating in the commemoration of this most historic event. The Panama-California Exposition is held at San Diego, California, throughout the year 1915, for which the sum of $3,500,000 was raised. The grounds are embraced within a fourteen-acre park, known as "Balboa Park," being at the very heart of the city of San Diego. The Exposition is international in its scope and has exhibits from all the American countries and from some of the European and oriental nations. It has an exhibit showing the progress of man from primitive times up to the present; and also some beautiful floral and horticultural exhibits, which are making both of the expositions most attractive, many of the tourists going south from San Francisco in order that they may participate in both celebrations. FOOTNOTE: [B] An impression caught while crossing the bay at night. III The Coast THE THRESHOLD OF VISION The following prose-poem is written from the viewpoint of the national spirit, pressing toward the world vision which directly controls the thought of the previous prose-poem. For the Golden Gate, especially during the Exposition is for the quickened soul the portal--the pulling aside of the curtain through which one gets the world vision. The title, "Our Pacific Sea" might well be interpreted: Our--Democracy. Pacific--Nationality. Sea--Verging into the world-vision. Here on this shore--as prophets are, of course, doing elsewhere--we are putting our feet on the rock and looking out over the waters and into the skys. With San Diego, which is even nearer to the canal, our whole coast is peculiarly susceptible to world thought at this time. And the people who come here may forever after have an outward and upward look in their lives. Much has been written concerning the flowers, hills and climate of California, but at this time, when the world is looking toward our coast, would that more writers would reveal the thoughts that have been inspired in their minds by the sight of our great Western sea. The prose-poem itself is a denial of the thought that the Pacific is a monotonous calm--an appreciation both of its storms and serenity written after several visits to the beach in which both moods were displayed. The first three verses, the prelude, describe the impression made by the movement of the boisterous sea landward, upon the observor when first arriving at the shore. OUR PACIFIC SEA The raging of our sea! The defiant roar of its attack on rock, cliff and shore, Spreads the contagion of a mighty courage, Springing from the resolute deep. * * * * * The voices from our sea! Like an unending processional stealing on the soul from the double blue afar, The eternal bass of nature's choir, A power-inspiring undertone from profundity. * * * * * The laboring and heaving of her waves Like the toiling of all humanity at its task, Braces the will with the story Of our faithful ocean's endless day. * * * * * O, great Pacific! Often calm as a sea of glass, Who durs't say that thou cans't not live And bestir thyself with boisterous life; That thou cans't not with growing fury hugely to thy defense arise, When rebuffed by wind, by rock and cliff. Thy deep is not an incessant, idle sleep! Thou cans't heave and leap and live with ponderous life, Until thy waves, up from the bottom turning, are all afoam with terrible rage, Their salty crests mounting on tangled spray And raining back to sea a million opals. * * * * * We love our sea and thy reserve of strength, For thou art indeed the favorite of our God, For when the Son of Man spoke to the snarling waves, Thou of all waters didst best obey and heed the Master's mandate, "Peace be still." But He commanded not eternal quite and thou art somewhat falsely famed. For when necessity's hour arrives, Thou with all violent seas canst throb from deepest heart; With unrestrained power plunging to climb the skys, crushing against the rocks-- Sublimely tempestuous, majestic in rage, in fury glorious! * * * * * And after the waters' landward assault, To-day we can better ascend to observe the ocean's peace. And here, great Sea!-- How naturally hovers infinity over that hemispheric calm, As from this rocky, shore-projecting cliff We behold thy endless expanse over meridians and the world, into and behind the sky--vast, serene, stupendous. And as we gaze and worship and pray, drenched with omnipotence, We dare with highest emotions declare That God, not once but always, walks the seas. * * * * * O life giving fount, a resurrecting breeze, We cling to our sea, an army of men in cities and fields, on streams and on hills, Because thou dost live and let live. For daily thy breath kisses our shores with beauty and life, Thy varying moods are an unspeakable comfort to all manly souls. For thy grandeur holds an invisible gate of gold, Through which sails a celestial mariner, the spirit of our Father, God. * * * * * O visitors to these enchanted shores, Join the brotherhood of the brothers of the sea-- Not dreamers, but heroic men, Who love our rock-ribbed, templed hills and gigantic trees, but better yet, our sea! Take the shoes from off thy feet, For here thou art on holy ground before nature's truest Angelus, To feel the awe of power, to think as deep as truth, And leave a noble soul to uplift the homes of friends. * * * * * And deep-eyed patriots, On every shore and from every inland city, vale and hill, Look out and up, and live! In spirit journey abroad over latitudes and longitudes, the equator and the sphere, To mingle with the vision'd souls of men who gaze far out on our Pacific sea Toward the slowly rising essential Republic of the world. * * * * * Fear not, move out in ship, in thought and plan-- Brave men, move out! For on the waters of the Earth's vast deeps brotherhood has faith in Fatherhood. And the God who bound together The colonies on our New England shores Will bind together the nations about the seas, Through fearless men of faith moving toward the best The alluring best that is still to be. "The fact that man has discovered no celestial body which contains elements other than those of the earth is more than a hint of the unity of creation" and its movement towards a single purpose.--Adapted from Josiah Strong. IV The Mariners' New Inspiration THE FIRST TRIP THROUGH THE CANAL On August 18, 1914, the steamship Ancon made the first regular, continuous trip, with a complete cargo, through the canal, the steamer Cristobel making an experimental journey a few days previously. The Ancon, with Colonel Goethals on the bridge, left Colon on scheduled time, passed through the locks and within ten hours entered the waters of the Pacific at Panama. And twenty-four hours after a small fleet of ships of commerce made the passage of the canal, the opening of which the world is now celebrating on the Pacific Coast. The commendable spirit displayed by America in the opening of the canal is an indication of what may be expected in the future as far as the United States is concerned in perfecting equitable plans for international co-operation. The New York World puts it clearly in these words: "Today the canal lies open to all the nations of the world upon equal terms. The United States has acted with entire good faith, and in the observance of its treaties discriminated against none and reserved no exclusive rights to itself. Beyond the collection of tolls, which are uniform to ships of all flags, it has assumed none of the privileges of national ownership at the expense of friends and rivals in trade. It has achieved a moral triumph no less impressive than the material victory won by its engineers over nature in the piercing of the isthmus." THE ANCON Sail through, Ancon, most prophetic ship Hastening from the heavy sobbing of blood-stained seas. For thou art more than keel and hull, Than armor bearer and a man freighted deck Thou shoulds't be the Mayflower of the coming democracy of the world. * * * * * Looking through the vista Of this earth-rent canal--a telescope, Mirroring a city in the western skys-- Clearer, clearer, clearer, becomes the vision Of the alluring ideal halloed by a glowing sun. Nearer, nearer, nearer doest thou sail, Until now behold thou doest glide Out onto the Pacific, secure in peaceful freedom. Until the eastern war clouds being dispelled, On, on, on thou canst sail into the haven of the essential republic of the world. THE ALTRUISM OF COL. GOETHALS There is no more beautiful example in history of international altruism than that displayed by Col. G. W. Goethals, who will for all time be remembered as the one who successfully completed the Panama Canal. And if all men were like him in spirit the brotherhood of the nations would begin tomorrow. For when the National Geographic Society honored Col. Goethals with the presentation of a medal, at its ninth annual banquet held at Washington, D.C., which was attended by the president of the United States, his cabinet and the diplomatic representatives of every great foreign nation, these are the words--entirely free from American provincialism--that the eminent engineer used in responding to the presentation of the medal by President Woodrow Wilson: "Mr. President, it is an easier task to build the Panama Canal than it is for me to find words to express appreciation of the honor conferred upon me by the National Geographic Society and the distinguished manner in which the presentation of the medal has been made. This medal represents the satisfaction of the National Geographic Society at the practical completion of the canal and its approval of the services rendered. "Those services are not only individual services but national services. The French were the pioneers in the undertaking. But for the work that they did on the isthmus we could not today regard the canal as practically completed. But for the English we probably would not have known the means of eradicating malaria; the death rate would have been great. Among individuals we have national representatives in the Spanish and the English in our laboring force. "The canal has been the work of many, and it has been the pride of Americans who have visited the canal to find the spirit which animated the forces. * * * And so in accepting the medal and thanking the National Geographic Society for it, I accept it and thank them in the name of every member of the canal army." Goethals is truly a world citizen. And The National Geographic Magazine well defines his spirit in these terse words describing the completion of the canal: "Atlantic--Goethals--Pacific." V World Pioneers LAND AND SEA BREEZES The land is better for the sea, The ocean for the shore. --Larcom. * * * * * "The tide is rising, let the land be glad. The breathless, rollicking, happy tides, whose comings are in truth the gladness of the world!"--Quayle. * * * * * How much earth's flowers, hills, valleys and human life owe to the sea breezes. And how indispensable are the clear mountain streams to the sea, in pouring fresh water into its salty heart. * * * * * How joyful are the waters, when the earth yields up its hosts of travellers, merchants, ambassadors, missionaries, educators, homeseekers and international statesmen to relieve the lonesomeness of its wide-flowing deep. All hail to the many ships that pass by sea! * * * * * "The earth is rude, silent and incomprehensive at first-- Be not discouraged--keep on--there are divine things well enveloped; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell." --Walt Whitman. THE PIONEERS OF THE WORLD O far-seeing seers, Looking over the shoulders of empires and nations, unconsciously dwarfed with prejudice, Telescopic in vision, down the vista of the centuries, You know not how far and deep you thought, Nor what beginnings you wrought; For we hasten to crown you, the world pioneers. * * * * * Call the roll of the men whose minds have companioned with the globe! Who were these staunch henchmen of a race, Getting their inspiration from a pillared cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, And negotiating with the continents and seas of an earth? Who were these world pioneers? * * * * * Courageous Magellan, you were the first of the spheric heroes, Who with your fifteen braves looking out from an isthmian cliff, civilization's bleakest frontier, Out upon an untrailed, unsailed, trackless deep, Was the first to push away from an Astec--hugged shore, And send westward your creaking craft so mightily propelled by an explorer's tireless heart, That when at Maclan island the red man's arrow struck you to the earth, The mighty spirit of your immortal soul so fired your companion's wills, That they with invincible force encircled the globe-- Past the Celestial Empire, doubling Cape Good Hope And into Seville Roads, they came! The first to complete the voyage about the sphere! The first to exclaim, "the world, the world." * * * * * And inconquerable Cyrus Field you were one; Who by linking Valentia and New Foundland, Awakening to mutual speech two continents that were mutually dumb,-- Was, in spite of repeated breakings and the cowardly desertion of avowed friends, The first, O indomitable knight of a world's progress, To successfully lay the Atlantic cable. The first to start a conversation between two hemispheres And with initial message to yonder shores proclaim: "Europe and America are now by telegraph united To God be glory, in the highest And on earth peace and good will toward men." Indispensable pioneer, you wedded the continents as Goethals united the seas. And now the voice of man is naturalized to a sphere. It can be heard through the nations, around the world. Whether Caucasian or Mongolian--he can talk about the globe. * * * * * And distance-vanishing Fulton, you were one; Who--launching upon the waters the first steam-propelled ship, the Cleremont, From who's experimental hull leaped into existence The Savanah, the Great Eastern and Britannia, Each moving faster, faster than the one before-- Was the first to draw together the continents, like some Colossus with a shortening cord of time Until from coast range to distant shores And from distant shores to coast range Each new speeding steamer brings us closer, Making more certain the intermingling of the races preparing for the brotherhood of man. * * * * * And great Augustine, dissolute as a youth But angelic as a man, you were one; Who--the humblest and the quickest to recognize That since the day of Christ all noble men were sent, And that constrained and resolute with Paul and with Peter they had gone-- Was the first--thank God you appeared--to marshal the good men for conquest, To organize into missionary ranks the vision'd souls of the church, Dispatching spirit-armored heroes from Rome to early England's soil And preventing the annihilation of Christian hope and truth. * * * * * Noble prophet! Little did you know, O Augustine, what you had done. Unbrazened in the face, illuminated with the divine, With the crystal eye of goodness looking light and health into pagan nights, And cowering Lust's mountain hurling hosts, Followed by new recruits, since then the ranks have grown. Men have come one by one and year by year Until fifteen thousand heralded volunteers and ninety thousand native workers Now can be seen from glad heavens Missionary Ridge, offering light and character on heathen fields! Far-reaching, sea-exploring, colonizing England in its youth saved for enlightenment! Christ inspired it! But you achieved it! And today, as the oceans and the continents are united, So five hundred and sixty-five million followers are gradually demanding that the races and the peoples In essential Christianity--the good recognizing in other faiths--shall be one. * * * * * And mind-emancipating Luther, thou art one-- Fearing only God and truth. Hating naught but sham and falsehood! For traveling back from our day into medieval darkness-- (The chains, hear them rattle! But also hear them snap in a true reformers clutch Causing multitudes to rise from superstition And stand upon their feet, erect in the freedom of a simple faith)-- We there behold the pioneer of intellectual freedom, A simple monk, commanding the low-browed ignorance of a whole dark continent to think, Awakening the western world to science, to true religion and to thought; Until the mind of the sullen masses of Europe now is brooding, And in America it is voting, While the public mind of the world is becoming more and more habituated to reason for international concourse. For the Bible, the rocks and the skys are unchained, Because Luther lived and honestly dared for the truth! * * * * * These are the men--inspired by Him who altered times calendar and began an Easter day-- Who took epochal steps for the world's conquest. That directly achieved in encircling the globe. But there are others, a host of others, worthy, noble, world pioneers. * * * * * O indispensable pioneers, see them moving out in history, Just as bravely, just as necessary, often giving inspiration to the first, Most of them impelled forward by Columbus and Copernicus-- The inspirers of explorers, the pioneers of the pioneers. * * * * * Consecrated to humanity and the world, look backward and see the host of sphere-ward moving men; See the explorers--with Columbus, Balboa, Drake, Desoto opening up a new west. See the scientists--Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, daring to say that God is in life. See the philosophers--Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Kant and Eucken. See the missionaries--Judson, Carey, Thomas, Livingstone, Moffat and Morrison. See the inventors--Stevenson, Watt, Marconi, Edison and Bell. See the patriots--Solon, Savonarola, Cromwell, Henry, Lincoln and Gladstone. Mighty huers through the forests,-- See them laboring for a nation in some special task or knowledge, But incidentally and emphatically for the world. * * * * * And turn your eyes from the past to the present to observe your own world inspired sons! See them moving toward the international congress and the Hague, The greatest educators, ambassadors and financiers, See them increasing in their numbers, for they also will be counted with the world pioneers. * * * * * O Copernicus, we hail thee for announcing to timid minds that the earth, "it is a globe." O Kepler and Newton, we celebrate you for asserting it is true. O Galileo, we honor and respect you for looking superstition squarely in the face and before highest potentates declaring: "But nevertheless it does move!" We commemorate you all master-minded men, Who have announced, and explored and unified the globe. Surely these are not pygmies nor dwarfs. But in achievement, they are Titans, they are giants, They are the immortal pioneers of the world. * * * * * And these lives moving forward, have they all been lived for naught! No! A thousand times no, O far-sighted men, now enlisting for new world movements! Speak the message of the united seas with at least a prophetic international preamble And announce the coming of essential democracy for the world. [C]THE OLIVE BRANCH AS AN EMBLEM OF WORLD PEACE In history the olive has been nobly emblematic of three virtues--peace, purity and industry with its attendant prosperity. And I mention these three virtues for which the olive stands because we will never in the world establish peace unless it is preceded in community, state and nation by virile-mindedness, which is the very secret of industry and prosperity wherever they are found. Whenever the Greek looked out at a foothill mantled with an olive orchard, gently waving in the distance, a sea of bluish-green leaves; or seized upon an olive branch, he was reminded of the fact that no man was worthy of a crown of olives unless he was right-minded, peace-loving, and industrious. For, the placing of a crown of olive twigs on the brow of a person was the highest distinction that could be bestowed on a citizen who had merited well of his country. Not only were the noble-minded statesmen and poets thus honored, but also the athletes who, by scrupulous care and development of the body, gained physical victories at the Olympic games. The harmless and commendable victories of peace always result from well-developed manhood. And so on the last day of these games the victor received, in front of the temple, the crown of wild olives gathered from the sacred tree. For the olive was sacred to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and therefore of purity, peace and prosperity. Among the Romans also it had a similar significance. The olive crown of the Roman conqueror at an ovation and those of the equites at the imperial review, alike typified the gifts of peace that, in a barbaric age, could be secured by victory only. I say all history has associated the olive with these three superb virtues, wherever the olive tree has grown. But if secular history has offered the olive branch to the conqueror in honor of a peace secured through contest or war, the surprising thing about the olive in Biblical history is that it represents peace as coming directly to an individual, community, or nation because of a Christian-mindedness--a type of mind that is controlled by reason, justice, love, intelligence, and purity of thought. For, what do these striking verses in the Prophet Zechariah mean?-- "'What sees't thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold with a bowl upon the top of it and his seven lamps thereon. "'And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereon'." What do these beautiful verses mean? Simply this,--that the source of all peace, individual and international, is that type of mind which Christ and Christian statesmen have. The two olive trees, one on each side of the candlestick, stand for Christian character--one for the stern moral character of the prophet, the other for the mercy of the true religious teacher. And the candlestick stands for work, for service for mankind and the nations. And as both of the olive trees supply the light with oil, so we are not to seek for peace on earth with the sword, but by increasing the number of men whose service for humanity is controlled by Christian morality and justice, mercy, and kindness. These are the men who will bring peace. God increase the number! These are the men that providence can use to correlate the nations into essential democracy. These are the men who are worthy of a crown of olives! These are the men that we must depend upon to correct the compass of the ship of the world, as it moves forward against the besetting fury of antagonistic waters, bearing its prow day by day and year by year against the unwearied enmity of hateful waves, until it reaches the haven of essential international peace. [D]THE INEVITABLE DRIFT For the earth-- The white enfolded, or green Easter world, Warmed by nature's heart into a new bursting life-- Like the universe, the earth is a perfect spherical creation, And because the world is a sphere, the most perfect of figures, Animated and endowed with purpose and reason, It is therefore much better than all other forms. * * * * * And so man, with humanity-love and reason gifted, Feeling that he is a part of all that thrills in sod, sky or sea, Developed, demands the fullness of the globe's life as his home. And to look not beyond a continent or nation, Is barbaric, retrogressive and sinful; For He that said, to the child of every race, "be thou perfect," Thereby also commands to be naturalized to the sphere. And this, O armies and bigots is the inevitable drift! ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY It may be helpful to relate, in just a word, what is meant in this volume by essential democracy, essential united earth and similar expressions. Springing from the Christian idea that all men are created equal in the sight of God, in opportunity, it stands for that type of society in which the essential power of government is wielded by the mass of the people. The one thing that it is important to remember is that a monarchy or an oligarchy is not necessarily an antithesis of democracy--only absolutism in the form of a monarchy or oligarchy or plutocracy is an antithesis to democratic principles. Many governments which live under the standard of a republic are not democratic in spirit at all. Mexico has virtually been a despotism. The Spanish-American states, especially until recent years, were nothing but a specie of military tyranny. And France has often been only a bureaucracy in structure and in state. By essential democracy we mean the gradual triumph of the principles which emphasize the equality of man before God, and which are everywhere coming into increasing recognition throughout the world. One author says that before the middle of the nineteenth century all the great European states, with the exception of Russia and Turkey, had adopted a constitution limiting the power of the crown "and investing a considerable share of political power in the people, and in most of them a representative legislature of the parliamentary or British type was adopted." While in Switzerland, Norway and Sweden alone on the continent democracy has reached a type of true efficiency. And these triumphs must be remembered by the people for the sake of future inspiration and courage; and because it may help one to interpret the present European war as an agony incident to the progress of growth. It is true that the victory of the principle of democracy has been checked by the persisting of the military spirit in Europe and the wonderful industrial expansion in both Europe and America. In England also the triumph "has been delayed by the prevalence of aristocratic traditions which still grant privileges and rights to a social class based on berth and inherited wealth." While in American the simplicity of the colonial life and the absence of the people from the aristocratic classes of Europe promoted a vigorous and commanding growth of the democratic ideas. And this is why the nations of the world in their struggle for democracy are looking to America, because she has the most nearly of all nations realized the democratic ideal. In light of what has already been accomplished, how inspiring then becomes the lure of the ideal of world democracy. Essentially it is splendidly possible. The people crave it because it is God-born. They love to think and work and vote for that far-off divine event. And more than that the words, monarchy and oligarchy, are so out of date that they are anxious to be in spirit and letter citizens of a republic. And wherever the leaven is working thrones are in danger, because great things are going to happen on this God-guided globe, in the interest of humanity. Let it be remembered that there are fifty recognized governments in the world; and that of this number twenty-six are republics, twenty limited monarchies, with democratic features, and only four absolute monarchies. The very thought of this is an inspiration and shows that all the nations are rapidly moving in the direction of essential world democracy. A PRAYER FOR WORLD CITIZENS Our Father, who art in heaven--the God of humanity--hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in the whole earth as it is in heaven. Give the nations this day their daily bread; And forgive them their trespasses as they forgive the nations that trespass against them. And lead them not into the temptation of conquest or self aggrandizement, but deliver them through their rulers from this evil. For thine is the world kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. At the Congress of Religions held at the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893, when the question came up as to what would be an appropriate devotional appeal to be used in opening the Congress, the representatives of every religion and faith of the world unanimously agreed that the Lord's Prayer found in the Sermon on the Mount would be acceptable to all. And the one given above is an adaption from the Lord's Prayer, given in order that it may be seen how well its spirit could be adapted to world democracy. FOOTNOTES: [C] An address delivered in the interest of the peace movement a week previous to the observance of "California Ripe Olive Day." [D] Suggested by the words of Timaeus of Locris. VI World Citizens [E]PRECEPTS FOR WORLD CITIZENS Never allow the glory of the world vision to keep you from performing your daily duty, be it humble or great; remembering that you are a part of the whole and that the fullness of the world's life will not be expressed if one member of the body fails to perform its function. Remember that vision is worthless unless it helps you to take hold of the handle of service with a firm grasp and a new enthusiasm; but also that it is necessary to enter into the spirit of the world vision a few moments at the dawn of each day. * * * * * Do not be deceived into looking upon national bigotry as patriotism. For the interests of humanity are always primary to the interests of the nation. What is good for the whole world is good for each continent and government. * * * * * Begin to urge a national individualism among established nations which insists less on rights and more on duties; which recognizes that the greed for territory is the "original sin of the nations." God divided the world into nations so that they might help, not destroy each other; and when they admit this they will begin to inaugurate essential world democracy. * * * * * Cultivate the spirit of "give and take"; recognizing that there is good to be absorbed from other nations into the international life as well as from your own. Do not labor for a world peace which is to depend on "treaties, or skillful diplomacy or mutual fear and equal preparedness for war;" but for one which is based "on the common interests and sympathies and on the mutual needs and services of a world organism, in which each nation is a member of a world body-politic." * * * * * Urge a more mature development of an international conscience; remembering that an ethical standard can be established for the world as it was evolved from the individual to the tribal and then to the national standard of ethics. * * * * * Do not forget that a man of another race is not a different kind of animal than yourself. For one has well said: "The strangest thing to me is that people who are so different are so much alike." * * * * * Encourage the spread of the new knowledge which has given to us a clearer understanding of disease and through eugenics a vital interest in those racial qualities which shall improve future generations, remembering that when the bodies and minds of the races are at their best they will be more open to reason and more cordial to the spirit of harmony among the nations. * * * * * Do not be too much alarmed about the talk of foreign labor, or interracial marriage. But take up the torch of enlightenment and fulfill today's duty, remembering that in due time the co-operative council of the Occidental and Oriental mind will see that all problems are justly solved according to the best interests of the whole race. * * * * * Insist that as soon as possible there be inaugurated a permanent international court at the Hague, which shall be endowed with the power to act as well as discuss, in behalf of the interests of the whole world. * * * * * Finally, put on the whole armor of a faith in a deity which is not tribal nor national but the God of humanity, that you may be able to defeat prejudice. Stand, therefore, having your manhood girt about with a broad intelligence; having on the breastplate of righteousness wrought from the essential morality of the races. Having your feet shod with the gospel of world peace, your judgment made discreet with the gospel of contact and your soul made heroic for service by an invincible faith in a better humanity, such as was possessed by the Son of Man. BEAUTITUDES FOR WORLD STATESMEN Blessed are the poor in spirit. For in leaving the prejudice of restricted nationalism they will gain the inspiration of the world view and possess more of the kingdom of heaven. * * * * * Blessed are the meek, those possessing the childlike but world view point of Christ, for they shall inherit the environment of the earth. * * * * * Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. For the ethics of true religion is to be sifted from the chaff of superstition, and righteousness is to cover the whole earth as the waters cover the seas. * * * * * Blessed are the merciful nations. For they shall obtain mercy in return from other nations, and learn that impulsive retaliation is too costly and that patient and honorable conciliation makes for world peace and national prosperity. * * * * * Blessed are the peacemakers. For now that the nations have entered through the united seas into a neighborhood; they--by encouraging disarmament and teaching the gospel of contact as well as good will--will hasten the day when the nations can live together without war in the spirit of council and peace. * * * * * Blessed is he who is persecuted by people whose minds are filled with race prejudice, national pride and selfishness; for he has discovered the secret of seeing good in all nationalities, of detecting the soul behind the color, and shall be honored by humanity as a pioneer of international brotherhood. * * * * * Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for so persecuted they Him who said "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven and in the councils of the world. * * * * * Blessed are the pure in heart. For they shall see God as transcendant and immanent in the resurrected Christ. They shall find His spirit in all life and behold His glory wherever they journey throughout the wide world. * * * * * Blessed is this noble brotherhood of manly souls. For ye are not only the salt of the school, the city, the state and nation; but also of the earth. Yours is not the light of bigoted patriotism. But ye are the light of the world. And your city placed upon a hill cannot be hid. * * * * * Blessed are these pathfinders who do not fear the seas, for they have discovered that the very waters are resolutely moving toward freedom; and they are being led forward by a pillar of light into the promised land of the essentially unified races. THE WORLD'S NEIGHBORHOOD Remember that a new world neighborhood has been created, bringing important points on the globe into closer proximity by one-half to two-thirds of the former distance, through the short route of the Panama Canal. * * * * * Therefore, a new commandment is given to each nation, namely, "to love thy neighbor as thyself," by entering by thought and co-operation into such policies as will make for the best interest of the entire new world neighborhood. * * * * * Do not think that other nations are unapproachable. But remember that North and South America, with all Europe, "are more closely related in point of time and common interests than were the original Thirteen States when the necessities of commerce forced them to form the compact of the Union; that the two geographical extremes of the colonies were as far separated as Berlin and the Barbary States or as London and the Black Sea." * * * * * Do not think that the short route through the canal is merely a path for commerce's ships, or only a highway for navies or state dignitaries; but remember also that it is a short route to the Hague and international congresses. * * * * * And do not fail to recall that brave men opened up this international highway--not through forests or smoking prairies, but through mountains, swamps, rocks and hills--in order to hasten the day of essential world democracy. * * * * * So think clearly enough and you will surely see that the completion of the Panama Canal is virtually the discovery of a basis of essential world unity. He who walks by land or sails by sea can now read the will of God. * * * * * With increasing numbers we are now arriving at the day that Whitman speaks of in the following words: "The main shapes arise! Shapes of democracy total, result of centuries Shapes ever projecting other shapes, Shapes of turbulent manly cities, Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth, Shapes bracing the earth and braced by the whole earth." * * * * * The key that is in tune with all other keys of its own instrument is in tune with all harmony on the earth. And the man that has attuned his life to justice and liberty in the community in which he lives is in accord with freemen in every land, loves the vision of world-wide liberty and prays for its realization. * * * * * Tagore, the Hindu poet, says: "I have learned though our tongues are different and our habits dissimilar, at the bottom our hearts are one. The monsoon clouds, generated on the banks of the Nile, fertilize the far distant shores of the Ganges; ideas may have to cross from east to western shores to find a welcome in men's hearts. East is east and west is west--God forbid that it should be otherwise--but the twain must meet in amity, peace and mutual understanding; and their meeting will be all the more fruitful because of their differences; it must lead to holy wedlock before the common altar of humanity." FOOTNOTE: [E] I am indebted to Josiah Strong for some of the suggestions in these precepts. VII The Sea's Highest Decree WHAT ARE THE SEAS ABOUT? The deeper one goes into the subject of world democracy the more one is convinced of the necessity of calling to one's aid the help of true religion in formulating a world consciousness. Walt Whitman, whom many may regard as somewhat unwise in some of his utterances, was absolutely right when he intimated that world democracy could not be formulated without religion. And today there is nothing that is going to help people so effectively to grasp and feel at home with the ideal of an essential union of the nations, as the modern teaching of the immanence of God. If we are a part of the whole world, and if God is in the seas as well as the flowers and hills then we will not dread them, for they are our inspiration and helpers. Not only does the teaching of the immanence of God in the seas help the nations into closer fellowship. But what is more than that, it helps the soul of man to find in the waters a purpose. The seas themselves seem to be up to something. No man felt this secret of nature with keener appreciation than the late Prof. J. J. Blaisdell of Beloit College, Wis. For in one of his lectures, the notes of which, I still have, he says: "Nature is expressive of a purpose. And no one has gotten the good of nature until he has got the momentum of the mighty work that it is working. Its face is steadily set forward. It is not static. It is not a current running down. It is an achievement. When you stop and think of it you are led to reflect that its onward movement is so stupendous toward the working out of a far off divine event that if you should throw yourself across its track you would be annihilated in a moment. "I have stood on the shore of Lake Michigan on a stormy day in December and the rhythm of that lake seemed to be the echo of the march of the universe treading its victorious way into the future. It is about something--its face is steadfastly set to go to Jerusalem. The firmness of great souls is but its child and copy; and responded to, it is the breeder of great souls. "Now until we become alive to the expressiveness of purpose in nature, a purpose expressed in feeling and ready to lackey man in his pilgrimage, we fail to understand nature and lose much of the blessedness of living in this world. "And my simple question is, how comes about this expressiveness? Why, simply there is a person who is projecting himself through this embodiment and it is the revelation of him, just as our friends' ways express the person of the friend behind them." How grand are those words! And how helpful to men who desire the very co-operation of the seas in fulfilling their plans in unifying the races! For if Prof. Blaisdell was thus inspired with the thought of the co-operation of the waters of Lake Michigan with the historic purposes of man, what should the true freeman feel as he looks out over the Pacific? I can only tell you what I have felt in the words on the following page: THE ALTRUISM OF THE SEA Free from the intrusion of littleness, Standing on the shores of our great Western Sea, My groping thoughts, O sea, Now grapple with thy tempestuous waves. My ecstatic soul argues with thy gales for an interpretation of the message flowing clean and strong from the "million-acred meadows" of the out-lying seas. My straining ear listens to the clamorous, reiterating almost uninvokable voice of thy tides. For able to speak to man, like brooks and flowers, I am inquiring, what you are about, the knowledge of your place in the amelioration of the world? * * * * * And lo, now nature's cord is struck, The secret word is caught, And this is what I hear As again I plead, "thou are not a purposeless, lifeless plangent deep. O great sea, who's purpose doest thou fulfill? What are thou almightily about, what doing?" * * * * * "Doing!" seems to murmur its sustained voice with its rhythmic storming of my soul, "Doing! I am doing what man is doing, what the nations are evolving, what the eternal, creative spirit living within me is urging, I am resolutely moving--crest, wave, tide and ponderous deep in sympathy with world harmony, toward democracy. Moving from ponderous deep, tide, wave and crest toward distant lands. Eager--so providenced--to carry to all pagan shores, The ships, the statesmen and the life giving trade winds of democracy." * * * * * "It is true, astonishingly," I said, "Yes now I sense it and I feel it. And what an unconquerable will, what a purpose! The very shores, they tremble with its resolution, For with man even the seas are sympathically for freemen at work!" * * * * * And then looking outward and skyward, the God of our sea going fathers, the spirit of the very God of Hosts, awoke this stronger message to my thought: "Fear not, O sons of Pilgrims For the waters engulfed not Columbus' freemen when they sailed a shoreless sea, Nor was the Mayflower immeshed in the black jaws of an angry deep. And yours are ships of fate! He who omnipotently palms the oceans pilots them. To let them pass--O ships--to bear them safely on, The tides, the storms and the winds are stayed. * * * * * "Move on, move on befriended by an illimitable peace. Move on, move on to every slave desecrated shore! Move on, the harmless, but forward momentum of these tides will take you on and on. For the Creator worketh hitherto and they must work. For He hath given "to the sea His decree." Move on to Hindu, Confucian and Teutonic shores. O ships of freemen, sail on!" "Winnow me through with thy keen, clean breath Wind with tang of the sea." --Ketchum. VIII Helps to Interpretation HOW TO BECOME A WORLD CITIZEN To become a good world citizen, it is not necessary to distribute oneself by travel everywhere--although travel is most valuable--any more than it is absolutely necessary for a worthy citizen of the United States to cross the continent or have homes in both California and New York, desirable as that may be. Nor would one lose any interest in his nation--remembering that only a bigoted and selfish nationality does harm; and that even in a federation of the nations of the world each individual nation, like each individual State in the Union, would have its own interests and would have to do its part towards expressing the life of the whole. Of course with the realization of a federation of the world in the future, there would be public world citizens as well as private world citizens, just as there are public and private citizens in every nation; and the public world leaders should necessarily have a higher training, a wider experience and a broader travel than the private world citizen, judging from the standpoint of leadership alone. But independent of these things it should be remembered that every man--private or public--can acquire full world citizenship by learning to think in world terms and developing the world consciousness which makes you feel that you are a necessary part of all that exists. And this can be done by developing an unprejudiced love for humanity, by persistently opposing war, by keeping in touch with world statesmen and reading world literature, by acquiring a love for nature and the seas which comes from a faith in God, by helping to unify the world's languages and religions, by advocating constantly a central world government for the nations, by traveling when one can and by making it as easy for people to travel as possible, by attending all public meetings that deal with international movements, by never losing sight--especially in the hour of perplexity, ridicule and hardship--of the world vision which is championed on these pages and by becoming sanely religious so that you will feel that the same good spirit throbs in your breast that quickens the whole universe into harmony and beauty as well as every flower and living thing on the globe. Here are some of the exceptional world citizens. Hear them talk in their own words: Whitman: "There is no trade nor employment but the young man following it may become a hero, And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe, And I say to any man or woman, let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes." * * * * * Browning's Christian Creed: "That face far from vanishes, ever grows Or decomposes only to recompose Become my universe that feels and knows." * * * * * Emerson-- "I am the owner of a sphere Of the seven stars and solar year Of Caeser's hand and Plato's brain Of the Lord Christ's heart and Shakespeare's strain." * * * * * And so the star that shines from above moves on, calling all noble souls to move out by sea and land--with the God who shepherds us with His love and joy everywhere as the guide--to the grandest work of human history, the work of essentially unifying the globe. And as they go forward with this stupendous task, they will not forget to pluck the flowers by the wayside, look into the faces of children and take the hand of their fellows; but rather they will do it with a grander simplicity and a better humanity. THE KEY TO THE VISION The very last and most important thing that must be said on the subject of world consciousness is that man himself is the key to the vision--is that man is the fullest expression of God and that man can conquer nature and build nations, republics and a world democracy. The immanence of God in man is the secret of sanity and balance in the study of this question and also the power that is going to make the vision a reality. And I have purposely refrained from saying anything about the superb position that man holds in this mighty work in order that you might feel the grandeur of the world vision through the power of the seas; might feel the awful majesty of the vision, its divine glory--in order that people might be arrested and caught up in its mighty enthusiasm--before discovering that the secret of bringing it to pass is the wholesome secret of a simple human life. O wonder of wonders, the simple key that balances our thought and puts our feet on the earth in this hour of tremendous vision is in man himself; is right here in our own lives--is in the engineer, the educator, the missionary, the preacher, the financier, all of whom can rise superior to nature and gain dominion over the earth. Let me express what I mean in the following on "Balboa" who is so intimately associated historically with the Panama canal and with the Pacific ocean, as its discoverer: BALBOA Can a man discover a sea? Can a human eye that's sealed by a night and sun-dazed by day discover a sea? Discover, O discover a far-going, a far-coming endless, sky-meeting, infinitely finite sea? Could a Balboa discover a sea? * * * * * Yes-- A dew-drop can orb a sun. A telescope can enfold the stars of a sky. A pure heart can incarnate God. And an eye opened by fate, visioned by providence, looking out from a Panama peak can discover an endless sea! * * * * * And great explorer--could you arise and speak-- How did you feel when you discovered a sea? Did you feel like a babe first opening its eyes from marge to marge on heaven's blue skys? Did you feel like a mariner sailing the ship of the Earth out through the gates of the dawn? Did you feel like a soul just escaping from its clay out into the joy of the freedom of space into a home built from the light of the suns? Looking, looking, looking far outward, how did you feel when you first saw the sea? Descending, walking towards the shores, approaching the waters; how did you feel when, with the ineffable shock of a glorious discovery, you first touched the sea? * * * * * And great explorer--could you but speak-- What would you say to a whole coast with pilgrims from all the world inquiring of thee? What would you say, standing now at the mingling of two vast seas. Looking west, west, west until west becomes east, Looking east, east, east until east becomes west, You could not declare consistently that this is for England, for Germany or America alone. But inspired by the thought of the hour, we feel sure you would exclaim: "I--the first to touch both the hemispheric waters-- Hear me, all nations, O hear me, Claim the intermingling oceans for 'The Republic of The United Seas.'" * * * * * Yes a man can discover a sea and also cross a sea And also chart a sea and even unite the seas, And civilize and uplift all the people in the nations bordering and tributary to their shores. Made in the image of God, a little lower than the angels. He can gain full dominion over its wide flowing waters, And on the pillars of courage build essential, earthwide democracy. * * * * * Strong men, this, then is the hour's decree! Look upward in faith, move outward in service From the harbor of the present to the wide-emancipating future that is to be. A NEW INSPIRATION FOR LITERATURE A new inspiration for literature is at hand. The times, with its mighty impetus for world movements, more than ever demands a class of literature that has at its heart the world consciousness. And the man that is to write the literature, it seems to me, must familiarize himself with three master-minds: Walt Whitman, who chatted in terms of world democracy and whose spirit was as readily attuned to the earth as to the dew drop and flower. Homer, the blind bard of Greece, the masterful interpreter of the power of the oceans, who talked about the seas as easily as the ordinary man converses about village events. Christ, the child-like but universal minded Leader of the human race, who has quickened men to move toward the essential unity of the races and nations. Literature can now come to its own as never before. Writers of fiction now have a new and superb opportunity of introducing a majestic back ground to their stories. Men everywhere feel the lure of a new inspiration. They want to talk and write in grander terms, bringing new glory to the simple and common place. And they are sure to break forth in the song of a better literature, orchestral with the spirit of world consciousness and broadly sympathetic with the yearning for essential world democracy. Commerce, science and religion are active in world movements, and what a mighty help it will be toward the realization of the ideal when many writers of fiction and poetry, as well as of history and politics, begin to take advantage of this opportunity. I can think of no higher calling that can engage the attention of man than that of trying to express the inspiration of these days in a worthy literature; which shall be majestically spiritual, and will tell what the unscaled eyes see, microscoped and telescoped to find the message of nature and history thrilling with a divine life. And when the masses who have not had the opportunity to travel, catch the spirit of a world patriotism and learn to think and talk in world terms--interested not only in their city, their state, their nation, but also in their world movements,--then a world government unifying the nations will be more easily formulated. I say, when the people once glimpse the vision of world peace, world harmony (or democracy) in its full grandeur, a spirit will be aroused that all the warring kings and illegitimate trusts on earth cannot check! David Starr Jordan well says in a most capable and thorough series of articles on "How to End War" that "people under the stress of immediate excitement might vote for war, especially if told of some vicious aggression." How true that is! And we should also add that there is a cure, a substitute for this false excitement. For the excitement about war is only coarse vaudeville in comparison with the noble passion that takes hold of men's lives when they become interested in the struggle and movements that make for world harmony. And to create this higher enthusiasm--which can never be quenched when once it is kindled in a man's heart--the constructive workers need the co-operation and help of the deepest and clearest visioned men of letters in every nation. The task of reconstruction will be so stupendous that the orator, the press, the writer, must be enlisted to bring the vision to the people so that they and their rulers can be more readily led by the constructive international statesman into essential world democracy. And it is the uniting of the two hemispheric seas that so irresistibly suggests the essential union of the nations. There never was an Exposition held, nor ever will be, affording such a vision of world unity; not only because of the union of these two oceans associated with this event, but also because of the world war, which cannot avoid being interpreted by some of the most penetrating thinkers as the darkness before the dawn. Any man of clear vision who stands with Goethals at the mingling of the two hemispheric bodies of water looking through the clouds of war cannot help but speak prophetically. The world has been brought together geographically. It will also be brought into essential harmony politically and racially. The new proximity of the nations created by the canal demands it. And above all, it is the inevitable drift of things. Blessed then are the people that have the vision! And twice blessed are those who give it to others! And above all, blessed are the men who are laboring to make the vision a reality! IX Sea to Land FROM SEA TO TREE AND FRUIT The following two chapters were prepared for special occasions commemorative of typical California life. The one on "The Olive in Biblical History" was written by the author in compliance to a request from "The California Ripe Olive Day Association" to be used in the observance of the first California Ripe Olive Day, March 31st, 1915, at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The chapter on "The Modern Parable of the Orange Tree" was delivered as a special address at Porterville, California, just previous to the beginning of the harvesting of the golden fruit in that section, and is in keeping with "Orange Day" as observed at the Exposition. And it is well for us to close the book with these chapters for the world view only helps us to appreciate the inland beauty more, and the valleys with their restricted vision only prepare us in return for the world enterprises again. THE OLIVE IN BIBLICAL HISTORY In the Old Testament times the olive was recognized as the "fruit of fruits." But during the hurry and rush of Western progress a gross oversight has been committed, especially on the part of the American people, in failing to fully appreciate its value; and as a result the olive has not as yet gained its true leadership here among the elect of the trees, composed of the orange, pear, apple, pomegranate, fig, and date. But the oversight has been discovered by the pioneers of the olive industry in America, and the signs of the time indicate that the olive will be known here as it was in the Holy Land. And, with the unprecedented developments in the ripe olive industry, it has an opportunity of becoming even more favorably known than ever before. By a careful study, recall the place that the olive held in the old Promised Land and you will get a faint idea of what we mean by the rediscovery of the olive in this new Promised Land situated here on the coast of our Western empire. Where the olive originated, we do not know. Some think in Syria. Others are not afraid to say that it is as old as man himself. For not only did it grow previous to the flood, as is indicated by the dove bringing an olive leaf to the ark. But some actually maintain that it was one of the trees that grew in the Garden of Eden, wherever that may have been. And whether such an assertion is far-fetched or not, there is absolutely no reason why this wonderfully fruitful tree should not have been one of the very first trees appearing on the globe for the sustenance of human life. But wherever it came from, of this Bible students are absolutely certain--that it was the most popular tree in the Promised Land. Indeed, it seems to have been one of the inducements that led the children of Israel escaping from Egyptian captivity to move toward Canaan, the Land of Promise with an irresistible expectancy. For the Promised Land that they were to enter is described--a description which would most accurately apply to our own California--vividly in the Bible as follows: "For the Lord thy God bringeth them into a good land, a land of brooks and water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills. A land of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, of olive and honey." And not only were these freemen from Egypt encouraged by the fact that they would find the olive with other trees flourishing in the Promised Land; but they were also commanded, according to the author of Deuteronomy, to recognize its superior importance and cultivate it everywhere, in these clearly put words: "Thou shalt have olive trees through all thy coasts." And today the very names of different localities in Palestine, such as the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane--that is, Gath-Semen, which means the "oil press"--indicates the love of those people for the beautiful olive groves, which gently nodded at each other across roads and lanes when wooed by the winds, even as they do in California, this newer Land of Promise. No one saw how conspicuously and romantically the olive was associated with the early Bible history of these people, as well as the prophet Jotham, who spoke the famous fable of the olive--in which he unmistakably infers that people should recognize it as the most important of the fruits--in these striking and beautiful words, found in the book of Judges: "And Jotham went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim and lifted up his voice and said, 'Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem. * * * The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them and they said unto the olive tree, "Reign over us" (or, as one of the versions so suggestively translates the Hebrew, "Wave your branches over us").'" The olive also held a most conspicuous place in the religious life of the peoples of the Promised Land. Indeed, in the building of Solomon's temple 480 years after the Babylonian captivity, the olive wood was honored by being used in completing the most sacred parts of the edifice. The cherubims, the sacred symbols of Divine wisdom, one on each side of the oracle and each with wings five feet long extending over the temple walls, were made of the olive tree. In fact, the book of First Kings shows that the olive wood was built into most of the conspicuous parts of the temple, in these definite words: "And for the entering of the oracle, be made doors of the olive tree; the lintel and side posts were a fifth part of the wall. So was also made for the door of the temple posts of the olive tree, a fourth part of the wall." Not only was the olive given a primary place industrially and religiously; but it was also pressed into service on festive occasions of joy, commemorating historic events. It was used at the great feast of the Tabernacles, in constructing the booths, made principally of olive branches, intermingled with branches from other trees. And when spring hangs her infant blossoms on California's thousands of olive trees, rocked in the cradle of the western breeze, we will not fail to understand why Nehemiah reminds us of the early Jews' deep appreciation of the olive branch as a symbol of joy, in these words: "So the people went forth and brought them olive branches (with pine and myrtle) and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts. And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths and sat under booths, and there was very great gladness." And the Psalmist himself must have been inspired by the joy that came from the prosperity of these olive groves, when he wrote, in the one hundred and twenty-eighth Psalm: "For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands, happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy children shall be like olive plants round about thy table." Indeed, with the Greeks and Romans, the Israelites found that there was no tree that could be used for so many purposes as the olive--its fruit for food, its wood for costly decorations, its branches and blossoms for festive occasions, and its oil for medicine and light. For not only was the olive itself used, but the oil was also used for the anointing of the bodies of the sick, the captive and the dead. And the oil was likewise valued for illuminating purposes in the lamps and vessels in the tabernacle. And how highly they regarded it, we can fully understand by reading these words from Leviticus: "Command the children of Israel that they bring in to thee pure oil of olive beaten for the light to cause the lamps to burn continually." There was no spot in all of Palestine that Christ loved to frequent more than the Mount of Olives, to which he retired for meditation and rest. And why was this? It may have been because of the general outlook that he gained upon nature; which is doubtless true in part. But it was not the primary nor exclusive reason why He resorted to the Mount of Olives. For if there are tongues in trees, as well as sermons in stones, I thoroughly believe that those beautiful olive groves must have said something to His observing mind. What was it? Why did He go to the Mount of Olives? Perhaps it was because the olive is the symbol of peace. As Ovid said, "In war the olive branch of peace is in use." So the olive groves which the poet Browning says "have the fittest foliage for dreams," may have helped Him in coming from the turmoil of Jerusalem to regain calm and self-control for a warring soul. Or, as He walked through the orchards, noticing that each tree was sympathetic to the rest and that each appeared to be a neighbor to the rest, He may have been inspired by thoughts similar to those of the eloquent naturalist who said, "The trees live but to love and in all the groves the happy trees love each his neighbor." And as a result He found it more possible to return to His work with a quickened love for His fellow-men. Or perhaps suggestions for chivalrous meekness came to Him as He observed the gray foliage of the trees modestly glistening in the sunlight. It might have helped Him to say, "Blessed are the meek." It may have been that the inspiration of timeless time, the power of eternal years, was awakened in His thought by the knowledge of the marvelous age of those trees. He may have known that well cared for trees will live for three hundred years and even longer. For so great is the olive's hold on life that even when a dying tree is cut down close to the ground, its vigorous root will give birth to still another tree. Or it may have been that the Mount of Olives, clothed with green beauty, like many of our own olive-planted foothills, helped Him more to find the spiritual inspiration of nature than a trip to some other, bald and naked, mountain; helped Him to say: "All are but parts of one stupendous whole Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars and blossoms in the trees." All these inferences may be true and doubtless are in part. But--if I dare say it--it seems to me that the primary lesson that Christ learned in frequenting the Mount of Olives was the importance of fruitfulness of life. For the predominant characteristic of the olive is fruitfulness. So much so that Spencer in his "Faerie Queen" speaks of the warlike birch--"the beech for shafts," "the ash for nothing ill," "the willow for forlorn paramours;" but always and every time, he speaks of the olive as the "fruitful olive." And this is the reason why the olive should wave its branches over the other trees. For, like manna, it is a composite growth--a food, a fruit, a medicine. Always fruitful for a three-fold end; and never failing to be prolific, the trees bearing even for centuries. And this is why the prophet Jotham reports the trees as first urging the olive to become king; and why he felt disappointed when the olive tree, in the beginning, refused, saying: "Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?" For, according to the fable, the trees after consulting the fig and vine were finally compelled to temporarily enthrone the worthless bramble as king, even as Israel had selected the most incompetent man for ruler, instead of choosing the most efficient statesman who was available. But justice and good judgment would not long tolerate the rule of a worthless potentate. So they ultimately succeeded in enthroning a worthy king, in throwing away the bramble and finally crowning the olive to wave its branches modestly but worthily over the other fruit-bearing trees. THE MODERN PARABLE OF THE ORANGE TREE It is most appropriate at this season when California is just beginning to harvest its "golden crop" to open wide our eyes and find the message of these beautiful fruit bearing trees. For the Christ, who's mind was quick to pronounce a curse on idleness in the parable of the barren fig tree, would no doubt have been just as alert to have emphasized worthy success by speaking a parable of the orange tree, had there been orange groves in Palistine then as there are today. But there were no citrus trees in the Holy Land when He walked its highways and crossed through its orchards. Hence the religious worker of today has the advantage over the founder of our faith of a visual acquaintance with this luxuriant tree. Indeed this fruit has, because of its color, become the most attractive of all fruits in modern life, so universally in demand that it seems to me that the orange itself has and is still seeking interpreters. So if, with Ruskin, we can only "open our eyes and see things"--see through and back of things, I am sure that we will clarify the vision of our souls and find emphasized some abiding truths in a new parable of the orange tree. It would be informing to speak of the first orange fruit found in America--to tell in detail how the Spanish explorers gave the citrus fruit to the Indians of Florida, who in eating it dropped the seeds in the soil, making possible the wild orange groves now beautifying the valley of the Indian river. For this is the romantic story of the origin of the orange tree in America. Or it would be keenly interesting to every Californian to read about the arrival of the Franciscans in the southern part of our State, who established twenty missions in the rear of each of which was a garden where the orange, olive and fig were planted and bore fruit. Because this explains the inception of the industry in our great commonwealth and puts into our hand the key which unlocks the entrance to these modern gardens of Hesperides--these orange belts now scattered throughout our State. Or in this day when scholars are feverish to learn the origin of things, we could speak of the world's first orange trees which were found in India. From the two original spices--the bitter and sweet--which were first discovered there, we could trace the evolution of the one hundred different varieties of the citrus fruit which are found in the world today, the original fruit being imported by merchants from India into China in the ninth century and into Europe in the fifteenth century, and then finding its way to America during the period of Spanish exploration. But we prefer to be interpretive, to come closer home than this. We prefer to consider these fruit bearing orchards as an object lesson immediately at hand and to think of the labor and activity of the people co-operating with nature's forces that have made this golden crop about to be harvested possible. Thus recognizing at once the suggestion coming so eloquently from these trees that, the fundamental secret of all growth in character as well as in nature is adaption to environment and service, not the passive submission of Calvinism alone, nor the uncontrollable egotism of an unrestrained Arminianism, but the union of both, the working of God with man--spiritual co-operation, the most helpful phrase in modern religious thought. So with this primary principle as a premise let us try to interpret in detail the new parable of the orange tree. For the man that has learned its parable has found, as Dr. McClaren would say, the secret of a fine soul culture. Some days past as I stood upon an elevation commanding a view of that great area of eight thousand acres of orange groves, spreading off into the distance with its wide expanse of tree tops blended into a continuous luxuriant green and its myriads of ripening oranges nestling in the deep green back ground, like countless numbers of gold fish at the surface of a sea or like circular stars in some new sky, these were the three suggestions that came to me as I tried to learn its beautiful parable. First, the secret of a refined Christian character is an abiding sense of the reality of God, as revealed in Christ. For the finest spirits, the deepest minds and the most arresting personalities from Gladstone and Lincoln down to the ordinary citizen, have been those that have drawn their inspiration and thought from hidden sources. Just as the fruit and leaves of these trees receive their rich color from the sunbeams and absorb their health from the moisture coming from the heart of God's hills, so the cultured souls of history have received their winsome illumination of personality from a light that shineth neither by land nor sea. We realize that these trees could not grow where there is limited sunshine and a restricted water supply. Neither can men find moral maturity and health until they possess that type of mind which is characterized by spiritual reality. We know that California's far-famed orange orchards would not be possible without incessant sunlight; and that our golden fruit would never again pass through the Golden Gate to the markets of the world, if the sun did not appear to shower down upon our orchards its magic beauty gathered in its own paradise beyond the gates of the morning. But Tennyson, who had a sane knowledge and appreciation of the Sun of Righteousness, was also well aware of the secret of a beautiful life when he said of those who had not discovered it, "For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not bands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend?" At first I could not understand why the owners cultivated their orchards so incessantly. But when I was told by one of the experts that continual pulverizing of the soil made the moisture more accessible to the roots, permitted the oxygen of the air to find its way to the tree, and liberated the nitrogen in the soil so that it would be absorbed, then I saw clearly that there was a scientific reason for the constant harrowing; and felt that it might be very practical to demand that we deepen our convictions so that we can go into the fields of human life equipped with the mighty contagion of something to say that will go deeper than the ears, to harrow the inner life of patronizing listeners. For without the prophet whose harrowing words opens up a way to the nerve of conscience and quickens the deeper emotions of the soul men will not become eager to receive truth and the masses will remain proselytes of mammon and low ideals. Indeed the irresistible characters in religious service like the great singers are those who have had their hearts broken; but at the same time and as a result, their interest in righteousness deepened and their wills nourished and strengthened. These trees are peculiarly beautiful and strong because they send their roots into a well prepared soil thrilling with the liberated elements of life and their branches into God's air to woo the purity of the sunlight. And the young who are to lead us safely in the future are those whose souls have been cultured by helpful and trying experiences--those who have been taught to think deeply, to see far in vision and to act bravely because the conviction of truth and experience has liberated from the subconscious mind--or the subsoil of their lives--those elements which send through the whole man the iron of the prophet and the revealed wisdom of the apostle. One of the strange characteristics about the orange is that the tree is unusually sensitive and the fruit very hardy. Indeed the tree can be blighted by a frost that will not injure deciduous fruits so that it must be planted in localities protected by a warm climate and God's hills, and often watched and tended like an infant child. But the orange itself, which is so hardy, has an advantage over many other varieties of fruits and can be shipped into any market in the world. For the citrus fruit is not perishable in the same sense that the plums and peaches are and after being removed from the trees may be kept for weeks with advantage without being destroyed by decay or losing its beauty. I say this is rather unusual. But, to mention the second lesson of the parable, it is no stranger than the guiding of youth through the formative years into a maturity, morally beautiful and capable of vision. And it is only as the home and school, the church and state watch over these sensitive periods, protecting the young from the blights of the frosts of skepticism and sensuality that their lives will mature into characters as golden and hardy as our native fruit. Sane, honorable evangelism never excludes Christian nurture any more than the sunlight obviates the necessity of soil cultivation. The orange tree, it is true, does not tower in height and conspicuous leadership like the giant Sequoias and Redwoods--although it is said that the bitter specie of the tree occasionally acquires considerable diameter and that the trunk of one near Nice still standing in 1789 became so large that two men could scarcely embrace it. The citrus tree does not tower like Babel. But better yet, it simply bears fruit for food--which the giants of the forest fail to do--like the strong men who prefer only to be reliably useful. And this third thought suggested by our object lesson is most apparent. For with the instinct of good Americans we hasten to declare that the sight of these trees all comparatively of the same height and vibrant with the same beauty and glow of health does not suggest a monarchy, an aristocracy or even a plutocracy but rather a successful democracy; not only one of an equality of rights, because they all have access to the same sunlight and soil, but also an equality of duty because they all seek to bear fruit--a commonwealth in which every private citizen is capable of being an uncrowned king. This must have been the lesson that Ruskin interpreted from nature when he said: "A forest of all manner of trees is poor, if not disagreeable in effect, a mass of one species of trees is sublime." And thus as I stood on the highest foothill overlooking these valleys, these were the most important thoughts that were suggested to me by what I saw--the necessity of these three qualities in the forming of mature character, faith in God, the guidance and protection of friendship and education for youth, and useful service, all of which condensed into a single phrase means the co-operation of God with man in producing the beautiful fruit of a refined, symmetrical life. And then it dawned upon me that a number of other men had also learned parables from the trees. For as I looked over that great expanse of orchards to the south, detecting the irrigating streams flowing among the trees, with patches of the barren desert appearing here and there in striking contrast, the results of an abiding faith in God came to me in the words of David: "Blessed is the man that walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." And finally as I descended the foothill and came long side of an orchard and saw a barren, scrubby trunk next to a splendid orange tree vigorous and laden down with fruit, the words of Christ pressed to my lips for utterance: "By their fruit ye shall know them. * * * A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bear good fruit." It was then that I said to myself, why should not all men observe and find the helpful parable in this favorite California tree. Because we are more than mere animals we should rebel against hearing the terrible parable of a barren fig tree pronounced on our lives. But if we profit by the thoughts suggested by a modern parable of the orange tree, then our spirit will be as beautiful and wholesome as the eternal green of its leaves, our character as golden as its fruit and our deeds as numerous as its blossoms, for often the new blossoms appear before the ripe fruit has been picked from the branches. * * * * * Transcriber's Note Punctuation has been standardised. Asterisms retained as in the original text. All other errors and inconsistencies have been retained except as follows; (the first line is the original text, the second the passage as currently stands): decipher tendencies and tenencies are prophetic. decipher tendencies and tendencies are prophetic. will be another similiar to it in will be another similar to it in Nor the sordid traffickers in human fllesh, Nor the sordid traffickers in human flesh, That the tumultous Atlantean stalwart, That the tumultuous Atlantean stalwart, The raging of of our sea! The raging of our sea! Aristotle, Palto, Hegel, Kant and Eucken. Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Kant and Eucken. man was worthy of a crown of olives unles man was worthy of a crown of olives unless and that the fullness of the worlds life and that the fullness of the world's life the torch of enlightenment and fulfilll today's the torch of enlightenment and fulfill today's in the hour of perplexity, redicule and hardship in the hour of perplexity, ridicule and hardship the God who sheperds us with His love the God who shepherds us with His love Earger--so providenced--to carry to all pagan shores, Eager--so providenced--to carry to all pagan shores, I thorougly believe that those beautiful I thoroughly believe that those beautiful Jerulsalem to regain calm and self-control Jerusalem to regain calm and self-control Or, as He walked though the orchards, Or, as He walked through the orchards, the two original spicies--the bitter and sweet the two original spices--the bitter and sweet has an adavantage over many other varieties has an advantage over many other varieties 
37671	----	TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Minor typographic errors corrected. Some place names have out-of-date spellings. Photographic plates are presented on facing pages within the book and have been placed at the nearest paragraph break in this document. Chapters are preceded by a page with the chapter title printed on it; since this is repeated on the following page, such pages are omitted. THE PANAMA CANAL AND ITS MAKERS * * * * * THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS By George W. Crichfield Illustrated. Two Vols. Royal 8vo, cloth, 25_s._ THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES Edited by Martin Hume Each Volume Demy 8vo, cloth, 10_s._ 6_d._ net. VOL. I. CHILE Its History and Development, Natural Features, Products, Commerce and Present Conditions. By G. F. Scott Elliott, M.A., F.R.G.S., Author of "A Naturalist in Mid Africa." With an Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map, and many Illustrations. "An exhaustive and interesting account, not only of the turbulent history of this country but of her present conditions and seeming prospects."--_Westminster Gazette._ "Will be found attractive and useful reading by the student of history, the geographer, the naturalist, and last, but assuredly not least, the British merchant."--_Scotsman._ VOL. II. PERU Its Former and Present Civilisation, Topography and Natural Resources, History and Political Conditions, Commerce and General Development. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S., Author of "The Andes and the Amazon." With an Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map, and numerous Illustrations. "An important work.... The writer possesses a quick eye and a keen intelligence; is many-sided in his interests, and on certain subjects speaks as an expert. The volume deals fully with the development of the country, and is written in the same facile and graphic style as before. Illustrated by a large number of excellent photographs."--_The Times._ "A magnificent collection of information on this interesting country. The author's vivid and eloquent description invests it for us with some of the glamour it possessed for the Conquistadores of the sixteenth century; and on closing the book the reader feels tempted to set out at once for Peru."--_Yorkshire Observer._ IN PREPARATION VOL. III. MEXICO By C. Reginald Enock LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN [Illustration: MAKERS OF THE CANAL.] THE PANAMA CANAL AND ITS MAKERS. _By_ VAUGHAN CORNISH _Doctor of Science (Manchester Univ.), Fellow of the Royal Geographical, Geological, and Chemical Societies of London, Member of the Japan Society_ WITH MAP, PLANS, AND PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY THE AUTHOR T. FISHER UNWIN LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20 1909 (_All rights reserved._) THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE REVEREND CHARLES JOHN CORNISH, M.A. (OXON), OF FLEET, HANTS, AND SALCOMBE REGIS, DEVON, BY HIS AFFECTIONATE SON, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE I AM indebted to many persons for advice and information in connection with my study of the Panama Canal, and wish to thank particularly His Excellency the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, the Rt. Hon. Lord Avebury, Mr. Claude Mallet, C.M.G., Colonel George E. Church, Colonel George W. Goethals, chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, and his colleagues, Colonel W.C. Gorgas, M.D., Major D.D. Gaillard, Major William L. Sibert, Mr. Jackson Smith, and Mr. Bucklin Bishop. Also Major Chester Harding, Mr. Arango, Mr. G.R. Shanton, Chief of Police, Mr. William Gerig (formerly in charge of the Gatun Dam), Mr. Mason W. Mitchell, and Mr. Tracy Robinson. VAUGHAN CORNISH. _November_, 1908. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 15 CHAPTER I HISTORICAL REVIEW 23 CHAPTER II ON THE CANAL AS IT IS TO BE 45 CHAPTER III ON THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE CULEBRA CUT, AND ON THE METHODS EMPLOYED FOR EXCAVATION AND DISPOSAL OF THE SPOIL 79 CHAPTER IV THE MEN ON THE ISTHMUS 99 CHAPTER V HEALTH ON THE ISTHMUS AND THE FUTURE OF THE WHITE RACE IN THE TROPICS 119 CHAPTER VI ON THE SHORTENING OF DISTANCES BY SEA, AND ON THE STEAMSHIPS AVAILABLE FOR CANAL TRANSIT 151 CHAPTER VII THE COST OF THE CANAL 171 INDEX 179 ILLUSTRATIONS MAKERS OF THE CANAL _Frontispiece_ TO FACE PAGE STATUE OF COLUMBUS, CHRISTOBAL, COLON 18 CHRISTCHURCH, COLON 18 LOCK AND DAM SITE, GATUN 26 (The house is on the crest-line of the dam, which will extend to the hills on the right) EXCAVATING FOR THE DOUBLE FLIGHT OF THREE LOCKS AT GATUN 26 (In fine-grained argillaceous sandstone rock) RE-LOCATION OF RAILWAY ABOVE GATUN DAM 30 (The trestle embankment will run as a causeway across a bay of the lake) MOTOR TROLLEY FOR INSPECTION OF WORKS 30 (In the background are screened houses of employees) TROPICAL FOREST, WITH HEAVY GROWTH OF PARASITIC PLANTS 36 JUNGLE WITH PIPE THROUGH WHICH OIL IS CONVEYED BY GRAVITATION ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 36 CHAGRES RIVER NEAR BARBACOES 42 (In the dry season--looking down stream) CHAGRES RIVER NEAR OBISPO 42 (In the dry season) FRENCH DREDGER LAID UP 48 (Several of these have recently been put in use again) FRENCH TRUCKS PARTLY COVERED WITH FOREST GROWTH 48 (Many of these were used at first by the Americans, but are now replaced by larger ones) EXCAVATION NEAR TAVERNILLA 52 RIVER CHAGRES AND RAILWAY NEAR GORGONA 52 LIDGERWOOD UNLOADER, WINDING APPARATUS 56 _ANOPHELES_ BRIGADE OILING A DITCH 56 100-TON WRECKING CRANE, GORGONA 62 INTERIOR OF MACHINE SHOP, GORGONA 62 MACHINE SHOPS, GORGONA 66 CLUB HOUSE FOR EMPLOYEES, GORGONA 66 (Managed by the Y.M.C.A.) EXCAVATION IN THE CUT 72 PIPE FOR DIVERSION OF A RIVER, NEAR EMPIRE 72 IN THE CUT, WIDTH 500 FEET 76 IN THE CUT, LOOKING SOUTH TOWARDS CULEBRA 76 (The gorge between Golden and Silver Hills just visible) ROCK DRILL 82 (These machines bore a hole 30 feet deep in eight hours) ROCK DRILLS AT WORK IN THE CUT 82 THE CUT, LOOKING NORTH FROM CULEBRA 86 THE CUT, LOOKING SOUTH FROM CULEBRA 86 FROM CULEBRA, LOOKING EAST TO DISTANT HILLS 92 FROM CULEBRA, LOOKING EAST ACROSS THE CUT 92 (Terraces formed by landslip are just visible behind the smoke of a distant steam shovel) FROM CULEBRA, LOOKING EAST TO GOLDEN HILL 96 (Showing excavation in steps and ledges. Each ledge has carried a railway track) THE CUT AT CULEBRA, LOOKING NORTH 96 (The scarped face of Golden Hill on the right. Taken April, 1908, in the then bottom of the cut, 120 feet above Canal bottom) GANG OF WEST INDIAN LABOURERS 102 (Unloading spoil-train at Gatun) GANG OF SPANISH LABOURERS AT CULEBRA 102 (Working in the sun in April, which is one of the hottest months, less than 10 degrees from the equator. The men are wearing European kit) STEAM SHOVEL EXCAVATING SOIL AT CULEBRA 106 STEAM SHOVEL UNLOADING INTO A DIRT CAR 106 STEAM SHOVEL NEAR END OF STROKE 112 (The marks of the teeth made in a former stroke are visible on the right. Golden Hill, with the highest berm, or ledge, in the distance) STEAM SHOVEL, STROKE FINISHED, LOADED WITH SOIL 112 STEAM SHOVEL AT CULEBRA 116 SHOVEL-MEN AT CULEBRA 116 SCREENED BUNGALOW, CHRISTOBAL, COLON 122 SCREENED QUARTERS OF EMPLOYEES, CULEBRA 122 READING ROOM, EMPLOYEES' CLUB, CULEBRA 126 HALL OF EMPLOYEES' CLUB, CULEBRA 126 CUT SOUTH OF CULEBRA, LANDSLIP ON LEFT 132 LOOKING NORTH, THE SCARPED FACE OF GOLDEN HILL ON THE RIGHT 132 LOOKING NORTH FROM RAILWAY BRIDGE AT PARAISO 136 ABANDONED FRENCH MACHINERY 136 GANG OF EUROPEAN LABOURERS (IN 1907) 142 A FORMER HOT-BED OF MALARIA, NOW DRAINED 142 NEAR THE SITE OF MILAFLORES LOCKS 146 LOOKING NORTH TO CULEBRA DIVIDE FROM ANCON HILL 146 RIO GRANDE, NEAR LA BOCA 154 RIO GRANDE, FROM ANCON HILL 154 (Country north of that shown in the last photograph) LA BOCA, FROM ANCON HILL 158 ANCON CEMETERY 158 COMMISSION'S HOTEL AT ANCON 162 ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, ANCON 162 VIEW FROM SPANISH FORT, PANAMA 166 CATHEDRAL SQUARE, PANAMA 166 PALACE OF PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 174 OLD FLAT ARCH AT PANAMA 174 (Adduced as evidence of comparative freedom of Panama from destructive earthquakes) MAP OF CANAL ZONE _At end of volume_ (Showing also profile of Canal, cross section of Culebra Cut, the borings below Gatun dam, and the cross section of Gatun dam as designed in April, 1908. The design of this dam, however, is still undergoing modifications) INTRODUCTION AT the present moment the Canal Zone of the Isthmus of Panama is the most interesting place in the world. Here is gathered an army of 40,000 men engaged in the epoch-making work of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and here is the greatest collection of machinery ever massed for the accomplishment of one undertaking. If the present rate of progress continue unchecked, the Canal, it is calculated, will be opened in 1915. Then will that Isthmus, which has hitherto been a barrier between two oceans but has failed to act as a bridge between two continents, be pierced by a waterway capable of floating the largest ships now built or building. Then will the Pacific coasts of the Americas be accessible from ports on both sides of the Atlantic without the necessity of a voyage by the Straits of Magellan. Then will the distance from New York to San Francisco be shortened by 8,400 and that from Liverpool by 6,000 miles; the distance from New York to South American ports will be shortened by an average of 5,000 and that from Liverpool to these ports by an average of 2,600 miles: then for the first time Yokohama on the north and Sydney on the south will be brought nearer to New York than to Liverpool or Antwerp, and then will New Orleans and the ports on the Mexican Gulf be brought nearer than New York, by sea, to San Francisco, South America beyond Pernambuco, Australia, and Japan. [Illustration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS, CHRISTOBAL, COLON.] [Illustration: CHRISTCHURCH, COLON.] No one who cares to know the greater things which are shaping the world can now afford to be ignorant of what is happening on the Isthmus of Panama. In the former days of unstable companies the student of affairs might decline to occupy himself in the study of an undertaking of which the fruition was doubtful. Now, however, that the Government of a great nation have put their hands to the plough the furrow will be driven through. The United States have acquired complete ownership and control of the Canal and of a strip of land five miles wide on either side, called the Canal Zone. The small State of Panama, in which this zone is situate, has placed itself under the protection of the United States. The Government of Great Britain has by a treaty ratified in 1901 waived the treaty right which it formerly enjoyed to share with the United States the control of any trans-Isthmian canal. The Isthmus has been freed from those pestilences which were the greatest obstacles to human effort, and the engineering difficulties are no longer beyond the scope of modern science. * * * * * Having first visited the Canal works at the beginning of 1907, I decided to make upon the spot a careful examination of the whole undertaking. For this purpose I visited Washington and made application through the proper channel to the Department of State, which kindly consented to further the inquiry. A set of the published documents was supplied to me, and I proceeded from New York to the Isthmus by the R.M.S.P. _Magdalena_, arriving at Colon April 12, 1908. Here Colonel Goethals, chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, provided me with a letter to those concerned to furnish all information, and proposed that I should make my way about unattended and pursue my inquiries independently. I was thus enabled to converse with perfect freedom with the rank and file, while drawing freely on the special information possessed only by the heads of departments. For the benefit of readers in England I may explain that these circumstances were to me of especial importance on account of the doubts thrown by American writers, and also by Americans of repute in conversation, upon the reliability of official and other information supplied to the American public on the burning topic of the Isthmus. As an Englishman, and therefore standing outside American party politics, and as a scientific student not engaged in commerce or political life, I came to the study of the subject without prepossessions. This at least was my happy state when I arrived in Washington in March last. When I left for the Canal Zone a month later I was filled with gloomy forebodings that I might after all find a rotten state of affairs on the Isthmus. It was with intense relief that I found that I had what is called in America "an honest proposition" to deal with. As my doubts hitherto had been due to the patriotic anxiety of their compatriots, I am sure Colonel Goethals and his colleagues will forgive me for this frank statement of my difficulties and their solution. Any Englishman, accustomed to see the work of our own soldiers and civil servants in the Crown Colonies or in Egypt, would recognise in the officers of the corps of Engineers and of the Army Medical Corps who are in charge of the Canal Zone men of a like high standard of duty. As this account is written not only for my own countrymen but also for readers on the other side of the Atlantic, I should be glad, if it be possible, to convince of my own _bona-fides_ those anxious patriots who find it difficult to believe any good report from Panama. It may tend in this direction to state that I travelled and sojourned at my own charges, and that I went out on an independent inquiry. That I had promised to give an account of the Canal works to my brother geographers in London was my only undertaking, and the acceptance of a free pass on the Panama Railway my only financial obligation either in Washington or on the Isthmus. In order properly to understand the present and future of the Canal undertaking, it is necessary to give a short account of the history of Isthmian communication, for the conditions which now face the American Government and the Commission are not solely due to present physical causes, but also to previous events. CHAPTER I HISTORICAL REVIEW THE conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 completed their capture of the trade routes between Western Europe and the East Indies. The East Indian trade had long been a source of great enrichment to European merchants. It was especially suited to the restricted carrying power of those times, the products (such as pepper) being small in bulk and high in price. The maritime nations therefore sought sea routes to the Indies in pursuit of this trade, and it was Columbus himself, in his efforts to open up a western route to the Indies and China, who discovered the Bay of Limon in 1497. He and his successors sought for a strait or channel which should open the way to the East Indies. Cortes sought for the strait in Mexico. Others sought as far north as the St. Lawrence, which was supposed to afford a route to China. No opening could, however, be found nearer to the Equator than the Straits of Magellan (1520), and the hopes of a short route westward to the Indies were disappointed. An Isthmian canal was talked of even in the days of Charles V. of Spain to open the route to the East Indies. In those days of small vessels, the river channels would have served for a great part of the traverse, so that the scheme was not so wild as it may seem. [Illustration: LOCK AND DAM SITE, GATUN.] [Illustration: EXCAVATION FOR LOCKS, GATUN.] The purpose, therefore, of the first proposal for piercing the Isthmus was for shortening the distance to the Indies and China. The discovery of the nearer riches of Peru, however, illustrated the fact that the Isthmian barrier has its uses as well as its inconveniences. Porto Bello and Panama were fortified, ships were launched from the latter port for the Peruvian traffic, the treasure was carried across the Isthmus under escort and shipped to Spain. The treasure-ships, indeed, were liable to attack on the Caribbean, but the Isthmian barrier proved an important safeguard to the Peruvian possessions of Spain. In the next century, the seventeenth, the importance of the Isthmian land route declined, owing to the fact that Spain was no longer able to secure even moderate safety for her ships on the Caribbean. In the present days, when the importance of naval power is so well understood, it is hardly necessary to enlarge upon the significance of this fact, and its bearing upon the problems presented by the Panama route to-day. The project of an Isthmian canal for the purpose of trade between Europe and Asia continued to be agitated, but the inducements were inadequate to overcome the obstacles. In the middle of the nineteenth century, for the second time, it was the need of improved communication between the east and west of the American Continent which provided a sufficient inducement to improve the Isthmian route. At this time the Government of the United States were much occupied with projects of trans-Isthmian communication, particularly by canal, not with a view to Transpacific commerce, but with the object of improved communication between the east and west of their own territory. In 1846 a treaty was made with the State of New Grenada (afterwards Colombia) with a view to providing facilities for transport in the war between the United States and Mexico. In its most important provision it is similar to the present treaty between the United States and the new Republic of Panama, viz., the United States guarantee the sovereignty of the State in question over the Isthmian territory. Hence the Isthmus was thus early constituted a Protectorate of the United States. But at this time it was generally thought that Lake Nicaragua provided the best route for a trans-Isthmian canal. The Pacific seaboard having recently acquired importance to the United States, the Government desired to further the canal project on that account. The only practicable Atlantic terminal of a Nicaraguan canal lay within territory over which Great Britain had long exercised control. Further, the Pacific Coast of Canada had recently acquired importance to the eastern provinces and to the home country, and access thereto was extremely difficult. The outcome of these circumstances was the conclusion in 1850 of the celebrated Clayton-Bulwer treaty between the United States and Great Britain, which was duly ratified by Congress. By this instrument it was agreed that neither Government should ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control of any canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, nor erect fortifications commanding the same. This treaty remained in force until 1901, and I shall have to refer to it again. Meanwhile the great rush of gold-seekers to California had supplied the needful stimulus to a scheme, already mooted, of an Isthmian railway terminating at Panama. In spite of the enormous difficulties entailed by the pestilential climate, the undertaking was completed in 1855. This achievement, originating in New York, was the work of W.H. Aspinwall, Henry Chauncey, and John L. Stephens. [Illustration: RE-LOCATION OF RAILWAY ABOVE GATUN.] [Illustration: MOTOR TROLLEY FOR INSPECTION OF WORKS.] It was undertaken independently of any canal scheme, but it exercised a profound effect upon the fate of subsequent schemes. The facilities which the railway afforded determined de Lesseps's choice of route, and de Lesseps ploughed so deeply that those who came after him have found themselves constrained to follow his furrow. The "New World" is in fact no longer new, and its statesmen now have to solve problems presenting historical as well as physical factors. The American Civil War interrupted the prosecution of canal schemes, but the examination of routes was recommenced by the United States Government in 1866, a Commission finally reporting in 1876[1] in favour of the Nicaraguan route. [1] The report, however, was not published until 1879. In 1869 the Suez Canal was opened for traffic. Immediately, the route by Panama ceased to be the shortest from Europe to any part of the East Indies. The importance of that route to Asia was thus greatly reduced as far as Europe was concerned, but, relatively, its importance to the United States was increased, for the Suez Canal does not shorten the Asiatic voyage from New York, Boston, or New Orleans to the same extent as it does for European ports. The Old World had been severed into halves by the enterprise of one man, and that man no potentate, but merely one possessing the gift of persuasion. By his achievement, which was immediately crowned by financial success, Ferdinand de Lesseps suddenly became possessed of powers such as are not always at the disposal of the Governments even of great countries. He decided himself to sever the barrier between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, convened a "Congress" at Paris in 1879, and inaugurated in 1881 the _Compagnie Universelle du Canal Inter-océanique de Panama_. He had decided to adopt the Panama route on account of the facilities afforded by the railway. The money was mainly subscribed in France. The American railway company was bought out at the enormous price of $25,500,000, and in the course of the next eight years a large part of the work required for a tide-level canal was well executed on sound lines by the genius of the French, who are excelled by none in the arts of the civil engineer. The exact proportion which the French work bears to that since accomplished by the American Government will be shown later. The engineers now on the Isthmus are full of praise for the work of the French engineers, and their wonder daily grows both at its quantity and its ingenuity. It is only those at a distance, or ill-informed, who have belittled these achievements. Unfortunately, the French engineers were not properly supported. De Lesseps, if he were ever a practical man, had certainly ceased to be so since his first great success. A practical man is one who counts the cost of everything he is about to do. De Lesseps no longer counted cost. He had become as one believing in his star. His actions remind us of those of some of the great conquerors whose early successes have led them to undertake impossible campaigns. The question has been discussed if any human character can stand more than a certain share of success and yet retain a sound judgment. Certainly the character of de Lesseps was not equal to the strain. The expenditure was awful--$300,000,000 in eight years, _i.e._, more than three times the sum for which the Suez Canal was constructed. The Company went into liquidation in 1889. Much had been embezzled. Much, it is said, had been spent in purchasing the silence of voices which would otherwise have been raised against a Europeanised canal. The affairs of the Company were taken over by the New Panama Canal Company, who continued to administer the railway, and, with small means, did excellent work for the next twelve years in keeping the machinery and the works from deterioration, in excavations at the summit, and above all in extending the scientific examination of the country so as to obtain much-needed data for the construction of the high-level canal which was now proposed in place of de Lesseps's project of a tide-level waterway. In 1869 President Grant, in a message to Congress, had recommended the construction of an Isthmian canal under the sole control of the United States, and popular opinion since that time, if not before, has always strongly held that if a canal be made it should be exclusively under that control. It was not the least of de Lesseps's imprudences that he proceeded with his project in spite of warnings on this matter. In 1898 an event occurred which made the American nation feel that an Isthmian canal was necessary, and that it must be under their exclusive control. At the outset of the war with Spain, the _Oregon_, one of the best of America's small fleet of battleships (we write of ten years since), was lying in the Pacific. She had to steam more than 13,000 miles to reach Key West, and the whole nation was in a state of nervous tension for many weeks pending her junction with the main fleet. It seemed at the time that the Panama route could hardly be obtained for a canal under purely American control, and a further investigation of the Nicaraguan route was ordered--that route which had been preferred by the American experts before de Lesseps intervened. The New Panama Canal Company had by this time brought their labours to the point where it seemed practicable to appeal to the investing public of the world for funds to construct a high-level Panama canal. To do this in the face of a Nicaraguan canal, undertaken as a national affair by the United States, would have been hopeless: they therefore laid their detailed plans before President McKinley. A Commission was accordingly appointed by Congress to inquire into the best route for an Isthmian canal "under the control, management, and ownership of the United States."[2] The report was presented to Congress on December 4, 1901, rather more than two years later, and is a document of great historical and scientific interest. The quarto volume of 688 pages is accompanied by a portfolio of 86 maps, plans, and panoramic views. The last of these, showing the mountainous skyline of the Isthmus east of Colon, with altitudes marked, illustrates in a striking manner the conclusion of the Commission that the San Blas route, or any route east of Colon, would involve a ship tunnel. These routes are dismissed as impracticable on account of the altitude of the divide. The Nicaraguan and Panamanian are found to be the only practicable routes, and the details of both are fully discussed. The high-level canal was preferred by the Commission to the sea-level at Panama, and on the Nicaraguan route only a high-level canal is possible, so that in this respect the two routes were considered to be on a par. [2] Act of Congress approved by President, March 3, 1899, Commission appointed June 10. [Illustration: TROPICAL FOREST WITH PARASITIC GROWTHS.] [Illustration: PIPE CONVEYING OIL ACROSS THE ISTHMUS.] The relative advantages of the two routes are carefully set out in the report, the general tenor of which is favourable to that by Panama. Nevertheless, the Commission recommend that the Nicaraguan route be adopted, on account of the excessive valuation which, they state, was placed by the New Panama Canal Company on their works and property. The value of these, including the Panama Railway, was estimated by the Commission at $40,000,000. The New Panama Canal Company, learning that the Commission had thus reported, cabled an offer to sell at this price, and the Commission accordingly sent in a supplementary report in favour of the Panama route. By June 28, 1902, the "Spooner" Act had been passed and ratified, authorising the President to purchase the canal works at this price, and to acquire from the Republic of Colombia the necessary rights for the control of a Panama canal, then to be constructed; but in the event of his not being able to acquire such control, then to proceed with the Nicaraguan project. Meanwhile, by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, ratified by the Senate December 16, 1901, Great Britain had waived the right of joint control of any Isthmian canal which she had held since the ratification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in 1850. It remained therefore only to negotiate a treaty with Colombia. The treaty of 1846 with New Grenada afforded a precedent as far as the question of control was concerned, and the negotiations appear to have been related mainly to the question of price. A treaty was negotiated by officials of the two Republics, by which the United States was to pay a sum of $10,000,000 to Colombia, and after nine years an annual sum of $100,000. This was confirmed by Congress but rejected by the Colombian Senate, and negotiations came to an end with the adjournment of that body, October 31, 1903. Three days later the Province of Panama renounced its allegiance to Colombia. Another three days, and the independence of the New Republic was recognised and guaranteed by the United States. In less than a fortnight afterwards a treaty was signed at Washington by which the United States acquired complete ownership and control of the proposed canal for the sum of $10,000,000 and an annual payment of $250,000, to commence nine years afterwards. This treaty was ratified at Panama December 2, 1903, and by the United States Senate February 23, 1904. One significant point must be mentioned with reference to the Panamanian revolution. The inability of Colombia to make an effective effort to assert its power on the Isthmus was due to naval weakness in the absence of communication by land. No army could march through the tropical forests which still isolate the Canal Zone from South America, and control at Colon and Panama still depends upon sea power. Thus, at last, the United States owns and controls its Canal Zone. We will now state precisely the position in which that nation stands in reference to this matter, and then we may leave the work of the diplomats to consider the task of the engineers. _The National Status of the Canal._ The position which will be held by the United States in relation to other Powers is foreshown in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain and in Article XXIII. of the treaty with Panama. The Hay-Pauncefote treaty is in supersession of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. The latter stipulated that no fortifications should be erected controlling the Canal. In the Hay-Pauncefote treaty this clause is omitted. On the other hand, it is stated in Article III., § 2, that "the Canal shall never be blockaded, nor shall any right of war be exercised nor any act of hostility be committed within it." Hence, the reader may have remained in doubt whether the United States Government had intended to reserve to themselves the right to fortify. However, the terms of the subsequent treaty with the Republic of Panama answer this question, for after stating in Article XVIII. that the Canal shall be opened in accordance with all the stipulations of the treaty of 1901 with Great Britain, Article XXIII. states that "the United States shall have the right to establish fortifications." As a matter of fact, such fortifications are to be constructed, and the plan of the Canal has been adjusted to the requirements of military defence. There have been, among public men in the United States, two schools of thought on the vital question of the defence of the Canal. One school has held that the best safeguard was to be obtained by leaving the Canal unfortified (as is the case with the Suez Canal), and by the establishment of a general Convention, by which all the Powers, including the United States, should bind themselves to respect the neutrality of the Canal and leave it inviolate. Other public men preferred forts, guardships, and a garrison. The general public in the United States, on the other hand, appears to have unanimously held that an international guarantee would be ineffectual and, moreover, derogatory. As we have seen, the popular view has prevailed, but traces of the antagonistic and incompatible notion of internationalisation remain in the language of the treaties. This is not surprising when we recollect that the first draft of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was drawn up with a view to neutralisation, according to the precedents afforded by the Suez Canal. Thus we find that Article III. commences with the words: "The United States adopts as the basis of the neutralisation of the Canal ..."; and in Article XVIII. of the treaty with Panama we find: "The Canal when constructed, and the entrances thereto, shall be neutral in perpetuity...." [Illustration: CHAGRES RIVER NEAR BABACOES.] [Illustration: CHAGRES RIVER NEAR OBISPO.] What then are we to understand by the term "neutral" as applied to the Panama Canal in war time? I suppose the meaning to be that if there be a war to which the United States is not a party, the Canal will be used by belligerents in exactly the same way as was the Suez Canal, _e.g._, in the Russo-Japanese War, and that the Government of the United States has pledged itself to see that such neutrality is preserved. But if there be a war in which the United States is a party, the circumstances of fortification and operation by the United States in fact render it impossible for the other belligerent to use the Canal, and are intended[3] to have that effect. This being so, the United States is preparing to defend the Canal from attack. Thus it is important to the proper understanding of the undertaking on which the United States Government has embarked that we should clearly realise that the Canal is only neutral in a restricted sense. The commercial status of the Canal, however, is similar to that of Suez, in that by Article III., § 1, of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, "The Canal shall be free and open[4] to the vessels ... of all nations ... on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or otherwise." [3] See Report of Canal Commission, 1897, p. 168. [4] In Article XVIII. of the treaty with Panama this clause is cited, with the addition "and the entrances to the Canal." CHAPTER II ON THE CANAL AS IT IS TO BE BETWEEN Colon and Panama the American Isthmus is about 36 miles across as the crow flies, and is therefore nearly, though not quite, at its narrowest. In this portion of its sinuous course both coasts trend north of east and Panama lies nearly south-east of Colon. The Isthmus in general is a very confused mass of hills and mountains. It is crossed by no transverse trench (such as sometimes occurs in mountainous regions), neither by the trough provided by down-folded strata, nor the rift valley produced by fracture and foundering of rock. A low-level transverse can only be found by following up the course of a river, crossing the divide, and following the course of another river downwards to the other ocean. From the vicinity of Colon, by following up the valley of the River Chagres, we are led in precisely the required direction, _i.e._, directly towards the Pacific, for nearly two-thirds of the way. The distance from the head of Limon Bay, following the curves of the valley, is 26 miles to this place, Obispo, and for the greater part of the distance the river flows in a broad valley of deep alluvial deposits. [Illustration: FRENCH DREDGER LAID UP.] [Illustration: FRENCH TRUCKS PARTLY COVERED WITH FOREST GROWTH] At the point mentioned, the Chagres abruptly changes its course, and, if followed towards its source, will be found to be flowing from north-east to south-west. Moreover, it is now confined to a narrow valley, with steep hills of rocky substance on either side, and its gradient becomes much greater than hitherto. The course of the Canal cannot therefore follow the Chagres valley further. Fortunately, the valley has led us not only a long distance towards the Pacific, but to a place where the dividing ridge only attains an elevation of about 300 feet above sea-level. Striking from Obispo straight for the Bay of Panama, we come in 9 miles to the low alluvial plain of the Rio Grande, which leads straight to the sea in another 6 miles. Thus, from shore to shore, the course of the Canal along this route is 41 miles; but to reach deep water 4-1/2 miles must be dredged beneath the sea at either end, so that the total length of the artificial waterway is 50 miles. Of the land-course less than a quarter, or about 9 miles, is hill country, and most of this is less than 200 feet above the sea. The United States has been committed to this route by the long chain of circumstances already narrated. Whatever type of canal was to be constructed along this route, there were certain excavations which must necessarily be done. These were, firstly, dredging the sea channels, and secondly, making a cut through the solid rocks of the divide. Thus, although de Lesseps started operations upon inadequate data, yet most of the work done by the first Panama Canal Company is available, either for the tide-level canal proposed by de Lesseps or for the 85-foot-level canal now being made by the United States. Similarly, the New Panama Canal Company, although hampered by many uncertainties, continued to work at the Culebra Cut, as it is called, that is to say, the trench through the rocky hills which separate the alluvial valleys of the Chagres and the Rio Grande. Thus the works taken over by the United States in 1904 were available for any type of canal, and the decision to adopt the 85-foot-level was not taken until 1906. Even now, or in April, 1908, at the time of my visit, when so much work has been done upon the locks, many of the rank and file of the employees still cherish the hope of a tide-level canal, and there are not wanting well-informed people, both on the Isthmus and in the States, who, while accepting the high-level scheme as inevitable, regard a tide-level canal as essentially a better thing. Let us resume our description of the Isthmus, in order that we may be in a position to understand the conditions with which the engineers have to deal. The practicability of the Panama route is due to the fact that rivers have already done a great part of the excavation, and if desert conditions had supervened--if there were, as at Suez, practically no rainfall--the construction of a tide-level canal would be simply the excavation of a trench in dry material, which would be filled by the inflowing waters of the sea. A tidal lock being added to regulate the ebb and flow at Panama (for the Atlantic side is tideless), the canal would be complete. But as things actually are, the rainfall on the Isthmus is very heavy, particularly on the Atlantic side, where it reaches 140 inches[5] per annum, and the rivers have at all times considerable bodies of water, and during the rainy season (commencing in May) are subject to sudden and violent freshets. The Chagres at Gamboa has been known to rise 35-1/2 feet in 24 hours.[6] Suppose then that a tide-level trench were suddenly formed across the Isthmus, as by a convulsion of nature. We should then see the rivers pouring into this fjord in a number of cascades of various height. Of these the greatest would be the Chagres cascade, entering from the east near Gamboa and Obispo. The height of the waterfall would be 46 feet in the driest season and as much as 80 feet in occasional floods.[7] [5] Abbot, "Problems of the Panama Canal," p. 96. [6] _Loc. cit._, p. 146. [7] Abbot, _loc. cit._, p. 116. [Illustration: EXCAVATION NEAR TAVERNILLA.] [Illustration: RIVER CHAGRES AND RAILWAY NEAR GORGONA.] In order therefore to make a tide-level canal, some means must be found for disposing of the waters of the Chagres and other rivers. De Lesseps's tide-level project was rather an aspiration than a plan. He proposed to conduct the waters of the Chagres to the sea by other channels. The magnitude of this task would be scarcely less than that of cutting the Canal itself. The other rivers on both sides of the Canal would likewise require diversion channels, so that the final result would be roughly the formation of three channels, of which the centre one would be for navigation. The Board of Consulting Engineers summoned by President Roosevelt in 1905 to advise the Isthmian Canal Commission recommended, in a majority report, a tide-level canal as practicable and best fulfilling the national requirements, defined by the Spooner Act of 1902. But whereas they had detailed schemes for high-level canals before them, they were in the matter of the sea-level project at the disadvantage of having to act in a constructive capacity and elaborate the details of a scheme before they could criticise it. Moreover, five of the eight who constituted the majority were European engineers, who returned to their duties as soon as the report was drafted. The report of the minority in favour of the 85-foot-level scheme having been adopted by Congress in 1906, all available engineering talent has for the last two years been devoted to improving the details of this scheme. The tide-level project of the majority of the Board has had no such advantage, and the difficulty of estimating the relative advantages of the two schemes is therefore all the greater. Both schemes depend for their success upon the security of dams. The tide-level scheme has a dam at Gamboa, near Obispo, thus making a lake of the upper waters of the Chagres, whose surface would be 200 feet above sea-level.[8] The floodwater would partly be accommodated in the lake by reason of the great height of the dam above low-water stage, and partly by running the excess into the Canal, by which it would escape to the sea, generating currents which the Board calculated would not attain an injurious velocity. [8] Report, Board of Consulting Engineers, p. 205. Streams entering the Chagres in its lower reaches would be dammed back or diverted--a considerable, but not momentous, undertaking. The three great objections to the scheme appeared to be:-- 1. The extra cost, and above all the extra time, required to complete the immensely greater quantity of excavation required for the last 85 feet; 2. The fact that the artificial lake was to be above the Canal, so that, if the dam burst, the Canal might be ruined; and, 3. That the velocity of currents in the Canal due to discharge of the surplus waters might perhaps be a serious drawback to navigation in a narrow channel. It will be seen presently that the second disadvantage is offset by corresponding disadvantages in the dam required for the high-level canal. As for the cost, that has always been an unknown quantity, and, I think, has always been a secondary consideration. The fear of undue delay seems to have been the principal deciding factor in favour of the high-level scheme. Rival expert opinions that the majority of the Board of Engineers had under-estimated the time required for the tide-level canal were adopted by those in authority, and mainly on this account, I think, the high-level scheme became law. Since visiting the Isthmus a second time, and inspecting the work in the great Cut between Empire and Paraiso, it has seemed to me that there is an objection to the tide-level project which did not fully appear in the early stages of the work, viz., that the behaviour of the rock might involve the engineers in ever-increasing difficulties as the depths increased. The opinion which had been held by many that the difficulties would diminish with the depth did not seem to me to be justified up to that time. [Illustration: LIDGERWOOD UNLOADER, WINDING APPARATUS.] [Illustration: _ANOPHELES_ BRIGADE OILING A DITCH.] Next let us see what are the special difficulties of the high-level project. This also depends for its success mainly on the efficacy of one dam, which is now being made at Gatun. It will hold up the waters not only of the Chagres but of its tributaries, to a level of 85 feet above mean tide, and the area of the lake thus to be formed is shown on the map. The Chagres will be ponded back far above the point where it enters the Canal, and thus will be effectually tamed. The flood-waters will be spread over an area of about 164 square miles--for Lake Gatun will be twice the size of Lago Maggiore and about four-fifths that of the Lake of Geneva,[9] and ships, in the ample waterway, will not be troubled by currents. [9] The size, in fact, will not differ greatly from that of the principal basin of the Lake of Geneva, all above the _petit lac_, or narrow part at the Geneva end. A good idea of this area is obtained by recalling the well-known view over the waters of this lake from the _quai_ at Ouchy. A flight of three locks at Gatun will raise ships to the level of this lake in coming from the Atlantic, and one lock at Pedro Miguel and two at Milaflores will lower them to the level of the Pacific. It has been claimed that if the Gatun dam burst the consequences would be less disastrous than if the Gamboa dam burst, but there is in reality little to choose between the two catastrophes. The great blot on the high-level scheme is that the great Gatun dam is not founded on solid rock. The Gamboa dam of the tide-level project would have been founded throughout on hard rock, from which it could have been built up of masonry so that the structure should be part and parcel of the rocky framework of the globe itself. The Gatun dam as recommended in the minority report, on the other hand, was designed to consist essentially of a mass of earth dumped upon an alluvial plain so as to fill up a gap of 2,000 yards between two ranges of hills, the gap through which the Chagres escapes to the Atlantic. Thus the Gatun lake was to be held up as a glacier lake is held by a moraine blocking a valley. We shall presently describe the high-level canal as it is to be, from which it will be seen that it will provide a magnificent waterway, but before concluding the present section I must mention the special point in which it will be inferior to a tide-level canal. This is for purposes of defence. A fortress has to be preserved from capture, but not from damage. The locks, however, must be preserved from serious damage, which demands far more elaborate protection. Such protection, moreover, has to be provided at two positions (Gatun and Milaflores) about 30 miles apart. _The High-level Canal as it is to be._ The Spooner Act, the law under which the Canal is being constructed, enacts that it shall be "of sufficient capacity and depth as shall afford convenient passage for vessels of the largest tonnage and greatest draft now in use, and such as may reasonably be expected." Accordingly the following dimensions have been selected:-- 1. A minimum depth of 41 feet. The Suez Canal has a depth of 31 feet[10] admitting of the passage of ships with a draft of 27 feet.[11] The channel of this canal is now being deepened, so that by 1915 it is hoped that a depth of 36 feet[12] will be obtained. The Kiel Canal has a depth of 30 feet. The average draft of the Cunard s.s. _Mauretania_, the largest ship now afloat, is about 32 feet, but she is stated to draw, when fully laden, about 37 feet, and there are comparatively few harbours in the world which she could enter fully loaded. [10] Report, Board of Consulting Engineers, p. 175. [11] "Four Centuries of the Panama Canal," p. 436. [12] _Daily Telegraph_, June 18, 1908. 2. A minimum bottom width of 200 feet in the Culebra Cut. The minimum bottom width, or width at a depth of 31 feet, in the Suez Canal is 108 feet. The bottom width of the Kiel Canal is 72 feet.[13] [13] Report, Board of Consulting Engineers, p. 173. 3. Each lock will have a usable length of 1,000 feet and a width of 110 feet. The locks of the Kiel Canal have an available length of 492 feet and width of 82 feet. The _Mauretania_ has a length of 790 feet and beam of 88 feet. 4. The minimum radius of the curves is 5,577 feet (1,700 metres).[14] This curve, however, does not come in the Culebra Cut, where the bottom width is to be 200 feet, but north of Bas Obispo, where the bottom width is 500 feet. Most of the curves have a radius of 9,842 feet (3,000 metres). [14] _Vide_ p. 205 of General Abbot's "Problems of the Panama Canal" (1907). Slight changes in the projected course are made from time to time, so that this figure is subject to slight modification. In the Suez Canal,[15] outside Lake Timsah, there are five curves with a radius of 2,000 metres, or a little more, which are being enlarged to 2,500 metres (8,202 feet). The usual bottom width in these curves was 184 feet, but this is being increased to about 230 feet. The Kiel Canal has four curves with a radius of 1,000 metres (3,284 feet). [15] Report, Board of Consulting Engineers, p. 178. A reference to the accompanying plan (_vide_ Map, end of volume) of the Panama Canal will show that most of the curves are situate in Gatun lake, where the width of the canal proper is large, and where the spread of shallower waters secures better steerage. Thus the high-level Canal is not only deep and wide, but also much freer from troublesome curves than might be supposed from a casual inspection of its course. The details of the bottom width of the high-level Canal in its different parts are as follows:-- Feet. From the Atlantic entrance to Juan Grande (27 miles) 1,000 Juan Grande to Bas Obispo 500 Bas Obispo to a point about half-way between Empire and Culebra 300 Culebra Cut nearly to Pedro Miguel lock (about 4 miles) 200 Pedro Miguel to Pacific entrance 500 [Illustration: 100-TON WRECKING CRANE, GORGONA.] [Illustration: INTERIOR OF MACHINE SHOP, GORGONA.] Limon Bay being shallow, the deep water where a battleship can freely navigate or manoeuvre lies outside a line joining Colon Lighthouse with Toro Point, and at a distance of 7-1/2 miles from Gatun locks. From this distance the lock-excavation can now be plainly discerned from the deck of a ship without the aid of a glass. Here, when the Canal is complete, a ship will enter the buoyed channel of the submarine portion of the Canal, but this part of the channel does not lead directly towards the locks, which are not visible upon the face of the water. Moreover, they are presently hidden altogether by the land. Not until Mile 5, near Mindi, is reached does the course of the Canal, by a slight bend, open up the locks to uninterrupted view, and at this point the ship is already confined between banks. When the foot of the flight of three locks is reached a vessel will no longer proceed under her own steam, but be warped through. The length and width of the locks has already been stated. The maximum lift will be 32 feet, or about 4 feet more than in any other locks at present in use. As the width (110 feet) is much greater than that of existing locks, it follows that the lock gates will be far larger than any now in use. The vessel has to pass through a flight of three succeeding locks. Parallel with this is a second flight of three locks, so that two ships could be simultaneously put through either flight in the same, or in opposite, directions. Each lock through which the vessel passes on her upward course is provided with two pairs of mitre gates, _i.e._, double-swinging doors, but the uppermost lock has in addition a rolling gate near the lower end. This is a precaution against the breaking through of the upper folding doors by a ship coming down, _i.e._, from the Pacific side. An emergency gate is also being designed, a sort of swing bridge, to close the upper entrance to the flight of locks, for Gatun, Pedro Miguel, and Milaflores. It is hoped that a vessel will be put through all three locks at Gatun in 50 minutes, to which must be added some delay in approaching. Coming from the Atlantic the water of the Canal will be smooth, and the vessel somewhat sheltered, so that there should be no difficulty. Approaching from the lake there may be some roughness, but anything more than a fresh breeze is rare, and the lake will be practically free from currents, so that the approach should present little difficulty. The Pacific side is always calm, so that no difficulty of approach or exit is to be anticipated there on account of either winds, waves, or currents. Our vessel, having been locked up to the broad surface of Lake Gatun, proceeds under her own steam and at a fair rate of speed across that lake, slowing down to about 4-1/2 miles per hour for the 9 miles of Culebra Cut, which will thus occupy two of the 8 or 10 hours in which it is hoped to accomplish the whole transit. On this basis it is calculated that 40 ships could be put through in 24 hours from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or two fleets of 20 ships if passing simultaneously in opposite directions. A 10-hour transit of the 50-mile channel is about the same rate of progress as that in the Suez Canal, where, though there are no locks, the speed has to be kept low on account of the friable nature of the banks. It is evident that the time of transit cannot yet be certainly known to an hour or two, but a considerable margin beyond the above estimate would enable the passage to be made between dawn and dusk of the tropical day. At Pedro Miguel our vessel passes through one lock on her way down to the Pacific, and at Milaflores through two locks. Each of these three locks has, of course, a duplicate alongside, permitting, as at Gatun, the simultaneous passage of a companion vessel, or of one passing in the opposite direction. In case of repairs to one set of locks the parallel set would maintain the waterway. The lift of the lower lock at Milaflores is variable, depending upon the level of the tidal water in the last reach of the Canal. The extreme range of the tide at La Boca, the Pacific entrance to the Canal, is 20 feet; that is to say, low water during "spring" tides is 10 feet below the average sea-level. During low tide on the Pacific side, therefore, the water in the Canal stands 95, instead of 85, feet above that sea. Hence the maximum lift of 32 feet already stated, for 32 � 3 = 96. [Illustration: MACHINE SHOPS, GORGONA.] [Illustration: CLUB HOUSE FOR EMPLOYEES, GORGONA.] Beyond the Milaflores locks our vessel enters a reach of the Canal which is exposed to the ebb and flow of the tide and _which will be confined within banks or levees as far as La Boca_. In this respect the plan and the section are both, unfortunately, misleading. The La Boca lock and dam have been abandoned, and no Sosa lake will therefore come into existence, the lowest lock being, as I have said, at Milaflores. I have thought it better to reproduce the existing maps as they stand rather than to attempt a re-draught which would necessarily be imperfect. Our vessel, then, below Milaflores is in a tidal channel and will be subject to some tidal current. By designing this channel so as to avoid a bottle neck, and by giving it a width of 500 feet, the calculated current will, however, not exceed 1 foot per second. The La Boca site for locks was found to be much too exposed to gun fire and other modes of attack from the sea, whereas the Milaflores site is not only distant about 5 miles from the shore, but is well sheltered both by hills near it and by the position of the hilly eminences of the shore line. It will be seen from the map that the dredged sea channel by which our vessel will reach deep water on the Pacific passes to the west of the Isle of Naos instead of to the east, as was proposed in the earlier plans. * * * * * Returning now to the Gatun locks. The mitre sill of the top lock is 37 feet above mean sea-level, _i.e._, 48 feet below the surface of the lake, which is 85 feet above mean sea-level. But the bottom of the lake here is only about 5 feet above sea-level, the total depth of water immediately above the locks and dam being 80 feet. It follows that, in the extreme case of both gates of one of the top locks (as well as the roller gate) being wrecked, the level of the water in the lake can only fall to the level of +37, which would leave a depth of 32 feet immediately above the dam. Ships of large draft could therefore lie there without being stranded. Moreover, the lake is so large that the outflow through the broken locks would only lower the level 2 feet _per diem_, so that more than three weeks would elapse before the water sank to the level of the mitre sill. Again, the channel provided by the broken lock would be so small that in the Canal below the calculated current which would result from the outflow would have a velocity of only 3-1/2 miles per hour. Above the Pedro Miguel and Milaflores locks there is not the same surplus depth of water, so that vessels might be grounded if the locks were broken. Moreover, as there is no wide-spreading lake above Pedro Miguel, the outflow of water would generate a somewhat swift current above the lock, which might be a source of danger to ships. This circumstance serves to enforce the apparent paradox that the great area of Lake Gatun is in several respects an element of safety, not, as the layman might suppose, of danger. The hydrostatic pressure upon the dam depends, of course, solely upon the depth of water, not upon the area of the lake, while the greater the contents of the reservoir the more nearly stagnant are its waters. As there is to be no lock at La Boca, the dams shown there on the plan and profile will not have to be constructed, so that it is not necessary to deal with the questions to which they formerly gave rise. In the vicinity of the locks at Pedro Miguel and Milaflores, however, dams have to be constructed to hold up the water. At both places the dams will be short, and will be founded upon hard rock,[16] and in each case the head of water to be held up will only be about 40 feet, instead of 80, as at Gatun. The construction of the dams at Pedro Miguel and Milaflores is not, therefore, regarded with anxiety. [16] "Canal Zone Pilot," pp. 316-317. The great Gatun dam remains the one important experiment in the whole scheme of the high-level Canal, and much attention is being devoted to the planning of this work. The alluvial foundation is a disadvantage shared by the Bohio site formerly chosen, and all other sites in the lower Chagres valley; so that, having decided upon the Panama route, and a high-level canal, there appears to be no alternative to the construction of a dam upon this kind of bottom. The details of the proposed structure, as elaborated in April, 1908, were as follows:-- The length of the great earthen dam at Gatun is 7,700 feet, its breadth no less than 2,060 feet. The weight of the dam per linear foot is more than 60 times the horizontal pressure of the water in the lake, so that the pressure could not move the whole mass; and the weight of the dam is spread over such a great width that it is not thought that the ground will sink beneath it. The form of the plan and section is shown on the map, and an idea of the topography may be obtained from the photographs, which I took in April, 1908. The south-eastern end of the dam abuts on the hill of hard, fine-grained, argillaceous sandstone in which the lock-site is being excavated. The dam, according to these plans, is not to be merely superposed upon the surface, as originally proposed in 1905. Embedded in its earthy mass there is to be a puddled core, and a trench will be excavated to a level of 40 feet below the sea (-40 feet) for the lower part of this core. Nor is this all that is to be done to check seepage beneath the earthen dam. From the bottom of the trench excavated for the puddled core, sheet piling, made of 4-inch timbers, is to be driven down for another 40 feet, so that sheet piling and puddled core together will form an impervious barrier to -80 feet; that is to say, 80 feet below the surface-level of the sea, or about 85 feet below the lowest natural surface of the ground. The puddled core is carried up through the earthen dam to the level of +90, that is to say, 5 feet above the level of the lake, which is to be 85 feet above sea. The crest of the dam will be +135 feet, _i.e._, 50 feet above the level of the lake; this excess of height being to provide top weight for increased stability of the whole structure, and also for the purpose of compacting the underlying material. The underwater slopes of the earthy materials have been reduced from the 1:3 of 1905 to 1:5. On the other hand, it has been decided that the width of 2,625 feet given in 1905 was in excess of utility, and that a reduction of between 500 and 600 feet can be made without loss of strength or efficiency. [Illustration: EXCAVATION IN THE CUT.] [Illustration: PIPE FOR DIVERSION OF A RIVER, NEAR EMPIRE.] About half way across the valley occurs a low hill, on which a house is shown in the photograph. This hill is on the crest-line of the dam, and is useful as giving support to the sides of the regulating channel which will be excavated in it. The material of the hill, however, is not the hard argillaceous sandstone of the lock site, but merely alluvial. The regulating works themselves will be built of concrete: a solid mass built up to +69 feet, and on this piers will be constructed 8 feet in thickness, between which will be the sluice-gates. By their means the level of the lake will be prevented from rising unduly in flood time. The capability of the dam to maintain the waters of the lake at a sufficient level in the dry season depends upon their not finding a ready way either through the dam itself or below it. The construction of the dam is believed to guarantee its own practical impermeability. Not only is there a puddled core, but the mud, sand, and rocks of which the principal mass will be composed will be laid down in the manner best calculated to secure compactness. With regard to underground flow, there is an underlying bed of indurated clay which is regarded as sufficiently impervious, and wherever the puddled core and piling are imbedded in that clay it may, I think, be assumed with some confidence that the leakage will be unimportant. On referring to the section (map), however, it will be seen that there are in the valley two old river gorges, which to a depth of 200 and 260 feet are filled only with gravel, sand; sand, shells, and wood; clayey sand, and so forth. These gorges, measured on the section shown in the figure, have widths of about 1,200 and 500 feet respectively at the depth to which the sheet piling goes, and extend about 120 and 180 feet below. How much water may escape by these gorges it is difficult to say. This leads us to the next division of our subject. _On the Supply of Water Available for the Needs of the High-level Canal._ The construction of the Suez Canal was a work of excavation pure and simple. The construction of any kind of canal across the Isthmus of Panama involves another task, second only in importance to the primary work of excavation, viz., that of regulating the rivers. In the case of a sea-level canal the problem would have been how to get rid of their waters, particularly in the rainy season. In the actual case of an 85-foot-level canal, the regulation of the rivers, particularly of the Chagres, presents two aspects, viz.:-- (1) In the wet season, disposing of the surplus waters. (2) In the dry season, conserving water supplied by the rains so as to meet the waste caused (_a_) by locking, (_b_) by evaporation, (_c_) by percolation. The arrangements for taming the torrents of the Chagres and its tributaries have already been described. They are, briefly, the construction of the Gatun dam and its spillway. Turning to the other aspect of the problem, I have to answer the question, What is the guarantee that there will be sufficient water in the dry season? [Illustration: IN THE CUT, WIDTH 500 FEET.] [Illustration: IN THE CUT, LOOKING SOUTH TOWARDS CULEBRA.] Probably there is no problem of the Panama Canal which has received more prolonged and careful study than this. From the outset the French engineers commenced collecting data relating to the hydrology of the Isthmus, and when funds grew low, and the proposed level of the canal began to rise, the matter received ever-increasing attention. The _Comité Technique_ of the New Panama Canal Company commenced in 1894 elaborate investigations to determine the catchment area, the amount of rainfall, and the discharge of rivers. Brigadier-General Henry L. Abbot (late Corps of Engineers, U.S.A.), whose investigations upon the Mississippi are known the world over, was a member of this Committee of the New Panama Company until the work was taken over by the Government of the United States, for whom he continued to act; and he was a member of the Board of Consulting Engineers, signing the minority report in favour of an 85-foot-level canal in January, 1906. A continuous study for seven years is an advantage enjoyed by few of the American engineers, and the book on "Problems of the Panama Canal" published by General Abbot in 1905 (new edition 1907) deals very fully and ably with the hydrology and meteorology of the Isthmus. The observations were continued under the direction of Don Ricardo M. Arango, who has also a long experience on the Isthmus. I shall not attempt to summarise the mass of data upon which the authorities rely in their calculation that there is a sufficient water supply for the needs of the Canal during the dry season, contenting myself with showing, as above, that in this department of study, which more than all others connected with the Canal demands long experience, this requisite has in fact been secured. Yet whatever depends upon climate is liable to unexpected accidents, and personally I regard as an important safeguard the fact that at Alhajuela, on the Chagres, 9 or 10 miles above Obispo, there is an excellent site for a dam, which would form a reservoir where some of the surplus water of the wet season could be stored, and supplied to the Canal as required. The details for such a dam were elaborated in connection with one of the earlier plans of the Canal, so that the necessary data would be immediately available in case its construction should become necessary in the future. _Harbours and Fortifications._ There are no storms in the Bay of Panama, and but little additional protection from weather is needed there for shipping. The entrance to the Canal being at La Boca, a new city will grow up there. This will be the second westward migration of the terminal port, the present city of Panama lying between Old Panama and La Boca. Colon is exposed to northers, and protection against the heavy sea which then rolls in will have to be provided. Whether this will be done by breakwaters or by forming an interior basin is not yet decided, and the cost of this part of the Canal works is therefore not yet known. The Canal, as already stated, is to be fortified; but I made no inquiries as to the location or character of the proposed fortifications, a matter which I regarded as outside my province. The cost of fortifications is included in the provision made by Congress for the Canal. CHAPTER III ON THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE CULEBRA CUT, AND ON THE METHODS EMPLOYED FOR EXCAVATION AND DISPOSAL OF THE SPOIL REFERENCE once more to the plan and profile on the map will show at a glance the length and position of the rocky divide, the whole of which is termed the Culebra Cut, from the name of the town near the highest point. The proposed form and dimensions of this cut, throughout the 5 miles of the greatest height, is also shown (the section adopted at the commencement of 1906), and the stage reached in April, 1908, is shown by the photographs. The line drawn across the above section at a level of 120 feet above bottom (160 feet above sea), shows the general level of the bottom of the workings at Culebra itself at the time the photographs were taken. A narrow pilot cut, only, was then 20 feet lower. [Illustration: ROCK DRILL.] [Illustration: ROCK DRILLS AT WORK IN THE CUT.] All that part of the section below this line (+160) remained to be excavated. Most of the rock above this line has been removed, but not all, for the final width is not, of course, reached at any level until the central portion has been excavated below that level. The level of the original rock line shown in this section was +275, _i.e._, 235 above canal bottom, so that the photographs show excavation of 115 feet of rock. There was, however, soil above the hard basaltic rock, of varying thickness--removed to the slope 1:2 as shown on the section. The highest original surface of the soil on the centre line of the Canal (between Golden Hill and Silver Hill at Culebra) was +312 feet,[17] so that the photographs in which Golden Hill appears show a total excavation of 152 feet along the centre line. As this line passed along a saddle between the two hills, the original surface at the sides was considerably higher, so that the total height shown in the photographs from the bottom of the cut to the highest berm, or ledge, on Golden Hill is considerably more than 152 feet. [17] The profile at end of volume shows the stage of excavation when the height here had been reduced to +210. The bottom of the Canal will be 272 feet below the original saddle, and its depth below this berm, which is seen on the photograph, is considerably more. Thus will the gorge appear when the excavation is finished and before the water is allowed to flow in. When full, the surface of the water will be 227 feet below the original saddle, and the passenger on a vessel will gaze upon the scarped banks of a somewhat greater height than this. For a tide-level canal, not only would the depth be 85 feet greater, but, as the slope could not be made steeper, the width of the whole cutting would be correspondingly increased. With reference to the slope of the sides, it is important to note that it has not been found practicable to adhere always to the proposed section, which has to be made flatter, thus considerably increasing the amount of excavation required. The behaviour of living rock is not susceptible of the precise specification which can be applied to quarried stone on the one hand or loose gravel on the other. Mechanically it is complex, both on account of its structure and of the _rôle_ which water plays in its economy. In the case of the Culebra rock, the volcanic dykes by which it is traversed have altered the nature of the rock in their vicinity, and the part played by water is considerable, owing to the wetness of the climate. Moreover, the rock does not remain wholly unchanged when exposed to air, but deteriorates by "weathering," a chemical and physical process which proceeds much faster in an equatorial climate than in the temperate zones. The climate, however, has a compensating action, in so far as the rapid growth of vegetation soon clothes and protects the scarped slopes, thus acting as a "revetment." * * * * * Alighting at Culebra station on the Panama Railway, and proceeding to the western side of the cut, one obtains the most impressive view of the Canal works, and this is the spot usually visited by travellers and tourists. I first stood there in January, 1907, and returned in April, 1908. The impressions obtained were very different on these two occasions. In January, 1907, after two and a half years of American occupation, what struck me most was the enormous mass of material which had been removed by the French companies, and the comparatively insignificant appearance of the American excavations, which could readily be distinguished from the older work, already coated with vegetation. It was then that I began to appreciate the heroic labours of the French engineers, whose achievements under circumstances of great difficulty are being daily more and more appreciated and praised by their successors. Turning to study the progress of work, I watched with delight the operations of the 100-ton steam shovels, which at a distance, when the human hands are not seen, appear endowed with volition, and remind the spectator of elephants at work. The cars were loaded with surprising celerity, and the dirt-train was hauled off to the distant dump by an old Belgian locomotive, part of the machinery taken over from the New Company. But then the hitch came--there were no cars to take the place of those already filled, and the steam shovel was idle. Looking round, I found that many other steam shovels and their crews were idle from the same cause, the machinery for transportation not having been provided in proper proportion to the machinery of excavation. That the time required for the completion of the rock-cut was limited by the possible rate of transportation of spoil, and not by that of excavation, had long been known, and the report of the Board of Consulting Engineers contains elaborate diagrams of space available for shovels and for tracks. It was apparent, therefore, that the organisation of the work was not yet perfected. In like manner, as far as I could judge during my first short visit, the West Indian labour was not yielding the best results, owing to white foremen and coloured labourers not being in perfect harmony. [Illustration: THE CUT, LOOKING NORTH FROM CULEBRA.] [Illustration: THE CUT, LOOKING SOUTH FROM CULEBRA.] While, however, the fighting force, so to speak, of the Isthmian army was obviously imperfect in many respects, great results had evidently been achieved by the auxiliary services. The Department of Sanitation had already made the Isthmus healthier than most equatorial countries, food and quarters were excellent, law and order were well maintained. On the first day of my second and prolonged visit, April, 1908, fifteen months later, I went at once to the same spot on the Culebra Cut opposite to Golden Hill and again surveyed the scene of operations. The change was enormous. The gorge below me was greatly enlarged, the shape of the hills altered, the face of the landscape changed. As I gazed into the deep trench below, the thought flashed across my mind, "If my life be spared a few years longer, I will sail through this on a ship." The reason of the great change was readily apparent: organisation had now been perfected. In the first place, the whole width of the cut was laid down in railway tracks, tier above tier at the different levels, so that the view was like the approach to the metropolitan terminus of one of the world's great railways. Up and down these tracks there came and went without ceasing the spoil-trains, now composed of larger trucks than formerly, with new and ingenious devices for rapid unloading. The number of steam shovels visible was much larger than in 1906, yet they were kept constantly busy, and all the time the drilling machines were at work boring holes for charges of dynamite, and gangs of men were completing the preparations for explosions in other holes already made.[18] Yet if the eyes were raised for a moment from the busy scene below, they rested on a silent wilderness of tropical forest, stretching unbroken to the horizon. I stayed until, at the approach of sunset, the work of the shovels ceased, and hundreds of men swarmed out of the Cut, and sought their quarters and the evening meal. But all was not over for the day, for now, when the Cut was cleared, the shot-firing began. At intervals there occurred a deafening explosion, the earth trembled as in a considerable, but preternaturally short, earthquake, and masses of rock rolled down the slopes, disintegrated and ready for the shovel-man when he should arrive next morning. I paid many visits to the Cut, between Empire and Pedro Miguel, but oftenest at Culebra itself. The sight never palls, and is one of the wonders of the world. The Pyramids are another wonder of the world which in common with many thousands in all ages I have thought it worth going to see--but to go to Culebra is as if one were privileged to watch the building of the Pyramids. Yet how few go to the Isthmus on purpose to see these things, and, _mirabile dictu_, how few Americans! How is it that this people, so enthusiastic in all that relates to national achievement and addicted to foreign travel, does not include the Isthmus among its many recognised places of pilgrimage? Of the Americans whom I met on the Zone there was scarcely one who had come voluntarily for pleasure. The hotel accommodation, it is true, is limited, but it is more than sufficient for present needs, and is good, as hotels in the tropics are reckoned. Moreover, Panama is now one of the healthiest places in the Equatorial Zone. English tourists going out to the West Indies by the Royal Mail are generally able to cross the Isthmus and see something of the work while their ship is unloading at Colon; but I would venture to suggest, to such of these as care to follow the world's progress, that they should make arrangements beforehand to step off at Colon, cross to Panama, put up there, visit thence the Canal works at various points, and proceed by their next ship. The West Indian tourist season coincides with the dry season on the Isthmus. At Panama the mosquito is almost an extinct animal, and though the heat there is sometimes trying, a run up to Culebra brings one to a dry and bracing atmosphere where a fresh breeze is almost always blowing. [18] During 1908 no less than one million dynamite charges were exploded. The steam shovel is the principal agent of excavation. It scoops out loose soil directly, but the basaltic rock has to be broken up first by blasting. One shovel will load 1,200 cubic yards of such materials upon the cars within the working day of 8 hours, an amount equal to 600 two-horse loads. For accelerating transportation railway trucks provided with flaps are used, which make of the whole train a single platform. At the rear of the train is a plough which can be drawn by a wire rope attached to a drum carried on a special car in the fore part of the train. When the train arrives at the dump the drum is started, and the plough, advancing, clears the 320 cubic yards of earth and rock from the 16 cars in 7 minutes. This is the Lidgerwood Unloader. Another important piece of machinery is the track-shifter, which picks up and relays the railway lines of the ever-shifting spoil-tracks. This remarkably successful contrivance was invented by an employee on the Isthmus, and is moreover manufactured there in the great workshops at Gorgona. [Illustration: FROM CULEBRA, LOOKING EAST TO DISTANT HILLS.] [Illustration: FROM CULEBRA, LOOKING EAST ACROSS THE CUT.] From Bas Obispo to Pedro Miguel, which constitutes the Cut, is a distance of about 9 miles, and excavation is so planned that a summit is maintained at Lirio, near Culebra, about half-way between these two points. On the north slope are[19] 21 steam shovels, loading cars on 14 tracks. These, when loaded, are hauled down-grade to the northern dumps at Tavernilla and elsewhere, or to the site of the Gatun dam, which is also a dump. Nearly 4,000 cubic yards of rock are carried to the dam daily, a distance of about 24 miles. The return up-grade is made with empty cars. On the southern slope about the same number of steam shovels are at work, the spoil being taken to the southern dumping grounds on the Pacific side, including the trestle dump for the breakwater to Naos Island. The spoil-trains follow one another at intervals of about three minutes, and if, from any cause, delay occur, the steam shovels, and indeed the whole process of excavation, is brought to a standstill. Any cause of delay is therefore reported at once by telephone to the Superintendent of Transportation at Empire, and all energies are at once directed to clearing the way. On the Isthmus everything gives way to the spoil-train, as in a city to the fire-engine. An excellent lesson both in the complexity and urgency of the transportation is afforded by a run through the Cut on a motor trolley in company with the Superintendent of the Department of Excavation. Constantly shunted from one track to another, and occasionally having to retreat, much ingenuity is required to thread a way among the spoil-trains, but even the almost invaluable time of the Superintendent himself is sacrificed rather than any delay should occur to the "dirt" train, as it is usually called. It is this dirt which stands between the American nation and the realisation of their long cherished scheme, and nowhere is the classical definition of dirt as "matter in the wrong place" so appropriate as on the Isthmus. [19] This is for July, 1908. * * * * * Let us now see how much matter has been removed, and how much dirt remains which has yet to be removed. I will give first the totals of what has been got out in both dry and wet way, both in the Canal prism itself and for auxiliary works. TOTAL EXCAVATIONS IN CONNECTION WITH THE PANAMA CANAL.[20] Cubic Yards. By the French Companies about 81,548,000 By the American Isthmian Canal Commission up to the end of June, 1908 40,923,533 ----------- 122,471,533 [20] Canal Record, July 8, 1908. Much of the work of the French Companies, however, consisted in dredging out sea-level channels at both ends of the Canal, whereas the principal American work has been rock-excavation in the Culebra Cut--or _the_ Cut, as it might equally well be called. The figures relating to the Cut are:-- EXCAVATION BETWEEN BAS OBISPO AND PEDEO MIGUEL, _i.e._, "THE CULEBEA CUT," 9-1/2 MILES. Cubic Yards. By the French Companies 22,600,000 By the American Commission to end of June, 1908 20,125,185 ----------- Total excavated in the Cut 42,725,185 Remaining to be excavated 37,973,063 ----------- 80,698,248 so that at the end of last June the Cut was half cut through, one quarter having been done by the French Companies and one quarter by the American Commission.[21] [21] The total excavation for the prism of a sea-level canal was calculated by the Board of Consulting Engineers at 231,026,477 cubic yards. This statement by itself, however, would give a very inadequate idea of the rate at which the excavation is now proceeding, for of the total taken out by the Commission since 1904, 11,000,000 cubic yards were due to the work of the 12 months prior to June last. It will be seen from what has gone before that the rate of progress is now even greater than in the year June, 1907-May, 1908, for the daily output from the Cut for July, 1908 (55,427 cubic yards), works out at 1,441,102 cubic yards, allowing 26 working days of that month, which, moreover, is a wet month, when work is much retarded. [Illustration: FROM CULEBRA, LOOKING EAST TO GOLDEN HILL.] [Illustration: THE CUT AT CULEBRA, LOOKING NORTH.] _On the Date of Completion of the Canal._ Colonel Goethals, Chief of the Commission, when examined early in 1908 at Washington, declined to bind himself to a date for completion, or to an estimate of cost; nevertheless, it is not difficult to calculate the date of completion from the actual rate of progress on the assumption that all goes well. The year 1915 is thus arrived at by the authorities for the calculated, though not promised, completion. This is based primarily upon the rate of excavation possible under the restrictions imposed by the narrow gorge along which the spoil has to be transported. It has been also calculated that the constructive works, the locks and dams, would require about the same time as, but not longer than, the excavations. This just balance between the time required for the two elements, excavation and building, was one of the arguments employed in favour of the 85-foot-level canal, as securing "the utmost practicable speed of construction"[22] which could be obtained in a canal "affording convenient passage for vessels of the largest tonnage." [22] See address by President Roosevelt to Board of Consulting Engineers, September 11, 1905. Report of the Board, p. 12. * * * * * One of the most impressive features on the Isthmus at the present time is the great workshop at Gorgona, where repairs of all kinds are done, and large machines such as the track-shifter are actually built. As I passed from machine shop to boiler shop, smith shop, car shop, pattern shop, and so on, I felt myself back among the circumstances of one of the great manufacturing towns, and forgot for the time my actual surroundings. It was with a feeling akin to surprise that, on quitting the foundry, I found myself on the fringe of the tropical forest, now darkening with the shadows of the swift-descending sun. I may here note by the way that the furnaces of the foundry produced considerable relief from the effects of the tropical heat, which that day was somewhat oppressive. _Relaying the Panama Railway._ Reference to the map at the end of the volume will show how considerable is the task of reconstructing the Panama Railroad--what embankments have to be formed, circuits made, and (near Milaflores) a tunnel bored. The track, too, is being doubled, and the rolling stock has been greatly improved. The passenger cars are both comfortable and relatively cool, and the double journey from Pacific to Atlantic Ocean and back again can be pleasantly performed between luncheon and dinner. Much of the verdant forest land on which I have gazed with so much delight from the windows of the cars will soon cease to be land at all. It will be drowned beneath the waters of Lake Gatun; virgin forest, cultivated patch, squatter's hut, villages, and even small towns will disappear, their sites submerged by water, and presently to be covered by the silt of rivers. CHAPTER IV THE MEN ON THE ISTHMUS _West Indian Labour._ THE success of sanitation, and the modern facilities for storage of food, have greatly simplified the task of obtaining an adequate supply of navvies for the pick and spade work. In the United States the American-born, particularly the majority who are of Anglo-Saxon stock, now form an aristocracy of labour, and for the last fifteen years or so have performed but little of the pick and spade, or ordinary navvy's, work. In the Southern States the unskilled labour is mainly performed by the American negro. Elsewhere the pick and spade work is done by new immigrants, some of whom settle, and some go home with their savings. They are largely from Southern and Central Europe, many being Italians, and in the extreme West there are Japanese also. [Illustration: GANG OF WEST INDIAN LABOURERS.] [Illustration: GANG OF SPANISH LABOURERS AT CULEBRA.] The Commission, however, did not recruit in the United States, in order not to disturb the labour market there, but sought elsewhere for the supply of unskilled labour. At first they relied almost entirely upon the West Indian negro, who formed the majority of the navvies employed under the French Companies. The Commission, however, were profoundly dissatisfied with the result. In December, 1906, they reported that-- "Another year's experience with negro labourers from near-by tropical islands and countries has convinced the Commission of the impossibility of doing satisfactory work with them. Not only do they seem to be disqualified by lack of actual vitality, but their disposition to labour seems to be as frail as their bodily strength." Nevertheless, they are still employed in undiminished numbers on the Isthmus, and the tone of the authorities towards them has changed. This change is noticeable both in the official publications and also in the conversation of the foremen immediately in charge. With regard to the latter, I found a great difference of tone between January, 1907, and April, 1908. The improved relations with the West Indians is due to two causes, relating to the alleged lack of vitality and of industry respectively. The lack of strength was found to be due largely to improper diet, and most of the West Indians are now provided with proper cooked meals, as is done in the case of American and European employees. In order to ensure their profiting by this provision, however, the charge for meals in the case of West Indians is deducted from wages. The result of supplying a nourishing diet has been a marked increase in working strength as shown by output. In respect of disposition to labour there has also been an improvement. This is shown both by the absence of animadversion in later official reports, and also by the changed tone of the foremen and other Americans in immediate control of the West Indians, when questioned on the subject. In January, 1907, I heard little but disparagement, while in April, 1908, a much more favourable account was given. To one who has seen something of both the United States and of the West Indies, the reason for the improved state of affairs was easily understood, viz., the American foremen and others in charge had begun to understand the type of men with whom they were dealing. Accustomed to the character of the American negro, and to the conventions which regulate intercourse with the coloured man in the United States, they did not at first recognise that the West Indian was a distinct type, and accustomed, at any rate in the British Colonies, to very different social relations towards the white man. The handling of a gang of negroes from the tropics is an art which has had to be learnt. The Barbadians are reported to be, generally speaking, the best of the West Indian workmen, except the men from some of the country districts of Jamaica, who are their equals. Although the climate and products of the Isthmus are so similar to those of their own islands, comparatively few of these employees settle there, but return to the homes they love so well. It cannot but be gratifying to an Englishman to find that those who come from the British islands are proud of their citizenship and pleased to greet him as a fellow-subject. There are about ninety negro policemen on the Zone, most of whom were originally trained by English officers in the Jamaica Constabulary. They are highly spoken of by the Chief of Police, who finds that they know both when to arrest and when not to arrest. They are also of much service to the new arrivals of their own colour, who refer to them for all information. The ordinary West Indian labourer receives 10 cents gold (about 5d.) per hour and free quarters. Deducting the 30 cents _per diem_ charged for meals, he receives 50 cents (2s. 1d.) for an 8-hour day, besides food and lodging. [Illustration: STEAM SHOVEL EXCAVATING SOIL AT CULEBRA.] [Illustration: STEAM SHOVEL UNLOADING INTO A DIRT CAR.] The total number actually at work on the Isthmus has been-- June 30, 1907. On the Canal Works 14,606 On the Panama Railroad 4,979 ------ Total 19,585 and on June 30, 1908, the number on the Canal Works alone was 16,078. The total number on the roll is, of course, considerably more than 20,000, as there are necessarily absentees every day owing to sickness, accident, or other cause. _European Labour on the Isthmus._ In 1906 the number of European labourers on the Isthmus was insignificant, and the Commission, at that time profoundly dissatisfied with the West Indians, issued invitations for proposals to furnish 2,500 Chinese labourers, with the privilege of increasing the number to 15,000.[23] Nothing came of this scheme, however, while, on the other hand, the already improved, and still improving, conditions on the Isthmus enabled the Commission to obtain a largely increased supply of European labour. While the supply of West Indians was maintained constant, or only slowly increased, the additional force required was therefore obtained from Europe. The following figures show this:-- _European Labourers actually at Work on_ June 30, 1906 500 June 30, 1907 4,317 June 30, 1908 4,913 [23] Report of the Isthmian Canal Commission, 1906, p. 14. A few Russian and Baltic folk came, but appeared unable to stand the work, and the few French who arrived did not take to pick and spade. The majority were from Greece, Italy, and Spain, each of these countries sending at first about the same number. The Greeks proved to be physically inferior to the Italians and Spaniards, and their number in April, 1908, was only about 300. The Italians, physically excellent, and standing the climate well, were found somewhat intractable. A large proportion were migrant labourers, who had become somewhat prone to collective action when dissatisfied, and their numbers in April, 1908, had been reduced to 500 or 600. The Spaniards, mainly Galicians and Castilians, were found to be quite equal to the Italians in physique and health, and to give far less trouble, a fact which is attributed partly to the circumstance that most of them came directly from their villages. They are reported to be sober, patient, civil, and quick to learn. The number employed in April, 1908, was about 5,000, so that the Spaniards constituted about five-sixths of the European force, which numbered in all slightly over 6,000. The figures given above for those at work on certain days are considerably less, there being always a number absent from one cause or another. That the Spaniard is not oppressed by the tropical heat was apparent to me when watching gangs at work near mid-day at about the hottest time of year, viz., the last weeks of the dry season, towards the end of April. Clothed in European kit, wearing velveteen trousers and with only a cap for head-covering, these men showed no signs of distress, or even discomfort. They showed, in fact, less sign of being heated than Americans of apparently British or other Northern descent engaged upon less laborious work. The ordinary European labourer, in addition to free quarters, receives 20 cents gold per hour, or $1.60 per 8-hour day; more when working overtime. He is charged 40 cents _per diem_ for his three meals, served in the European mess, which leaves $1.20 as a _minimum_ net wage _per diem_, or a little less than 30s. per week; but many earn more, and it should not be difficult under these conditions for a labourer to save £5 a month. I was informed of one instance of a Spanish labourer saving £10 per month, but such virtue must be rare. The Spaniard shows no sign of settling upon the Zone. Sometimes he goes on to railway work in Brazil; more often he returns home with his savings. _Skilled Labour on the Isthmus._ The skilled labour on the Isthmus has from the outset been mainly done by white Americans, but there are still on the "Gold Roll," as it is termed, some Europeans. New rules reducing the maximum length of leave have, however, made these posts less attractive to those whose homes are at a greater distance, and by an order of February 8, 1908, all future appointments on the Gold Roll shall be American citizens, if the special services required can be obtained in the United States; and in the event of any reduction of force, preference shall be given to American citizens. The duties being various, the pay necessarily differs, but, taking free quarters into account, is higher than in the United States, as is of course necessary in a distant and tropical land. Since the industrial difficulties of 1907-8 there has been considerable competition for these billets. An 8-hour day is established by law for employees on the Gold Roll, the quarters are excellent, and the three meals a day provided at a fixed charge are up to the standard of a good hotel. Indeed, the opportunity to share these meals, supplied in large airy rooms, screened by gauze but open to the breeze, made my task on the Isthmus much lighter. From almost any part of the Canal I could reach one of the Commission "hotels" for meal-time, and for 50 cents (2s. 1d.) obtain better food than I have generally been able to get in the tropics at a much higher price. I took pleasure also in my company, for, if I may be permitted to say so, the skilled mechanic of the United States has always seemed to me a most attractive representative of his nation; and here particularly so, where one is in touch with his work. Moreover, each man's job on the Isthmus is part of a vast undertaking, the progress of which he can watch, which fires his enthusiasm, and makes him feel that he has a reward beyond his wage in the privilege of participating in national achievement. [Illustration: STEAM SHOVEL NEAR END OF STROKE.] [Illustration: STEAM SHOVEL, STROKE FINISHED, LOADED WITH SOIL.] I should like in this place to add a word of tribute to the great courtesy and kindness which they show towards ladies, a circumstance which did much to render pleasant the excursions which my wife took on the Isthmus, sometimes in my company and sometimes alone. The number of Americans on the Gold Roll in January, 1908, was about 6,000, the total number of employees on the rolls of the Commission and of the Panama Railroad being then approximately 43,000. The total number of employees actually at work on January 29, 1908, was On the Canal works 25,367 On the Panama Railroad 6,557 ------ Total 31,924 _The Responsible Officials and the Scheme of their Organisation._ The responsibility for Canal construction under the conditions laid down by Acts of Congress is vested in the President of the United States, within the limits of the money which has so far been voted. The President appointed a Commission in 1905 to carry out the work. The first chief engineer appointed was Mr. John F. Wallace, who arrived on the Zone June 28, 1904, accompanied by Colonel Gorgas, U.S.A., head of the Sanitation Department. Mr. Wallace was in favour of a tide-level canal. In April, 1905, the President appointed a second Commission in place of the first, with a changed _personnel_,[24] but Mr. Wallace was retained as chief engineer, and, moreover, became a member of the second Commission. [24] Colonel Gorgas, head of the Department of Sanitation, has remained, however, through all changes. See _post_, Chapter V. He, however, resigned, June 26, 1905, and his place was taken by Mr. John F. Stephens, who arrived on the Zone July 27th. At this time there was panic throughout the Isthmus[25] owing to the prevalent sickness, and resignations were so numerous that it was difficult to carry on work at all, and engineering operations were partly suspended for a time. When the sanitary conditions improved, however, work was resumed with vigour. This second Commission proposed that the work should be put out to contract, and bids were invited. It was under this Commission that the 85-foot-level canal became law. Mr. Stephens was in favour of this form. He resigned early in 1907, his resignation taking effect on April 1st, and at the same time the President for the second time reorganised the Commission. [25] See Report of the Governor of the Canal Zone, 1905, p. 30, and "Sanitation in the Canal Zone," by W.C. Gorgas, M.B., Colonel, _Journ. Am. Med. Assoc._, July 6, 1907, vol. xlix. The third Commission, appointed April 1, 1907, which is that under which the work was being carried on at the time of my second visit, differs from its predecessors in that its members are resident on the Zone. Thus the members of the Commission are the actual executive, the chairman of the Commission being himself chief engineer. The other important difference between the present and the former organisations is the fact that almost all the important departments are now under officers of the United States Army, and in one instance of the Navy. The chairman and chief engineer, Lieutenant-Colonel George W. Goethals, of the Corps of Engineers, had previous experience of the Isthmus, having been engaged upon work connected with fortification. With respect to the other officers of engineers, the significance of the appointments lies not in their being military men, but in their being permanent Government servants. The Government of the United States, unlike that of his Britannic Majesty, does not possess a large Civil Service whose members remain in the public employment through all changes of political parties. In the absence of any considerable body corresponding, for instance, to our Indian Civil Service, the Government of the United States frequently relies upon the Corps of Engineers for the supervision of great public works. At the time of my second visit the scheme of organisation was as shown in the following table:-- GENERAL ORGANISATION OF DEPARTMENTS. -----------------------------+--------+--------------------------- | Men | Excavation and Dredging | 12,359 | Major D.D. Gaillard Locks and Dams | 9,340 | Major Wm. L. Sibert Machinery and Buildings[26] | 2,164 | H.H. Rouseau, U.S.N. Labour, Subsistence, and } | | Quarters } | 2,048 | Jackson Smith (resigned) Material and Supplies | 1,220 | W.G. Tubby Sanitation | 2,449 | Colonel W.C. Gorgas Civil Administration | 451 | J.C.S. Blackburn Panama Railroad | 6,619 | W.G. Bierd -----------------------------+--------+--------------------------- [26] Now merged in other departments. [Illustration: STEAM SHOVEL AT CULEBRA.] [Illustration: SHOVEL-MEN AT CULEBRA.] Technically the Panama Railroad is not a department, but practically the construction of the Canal and the reconstruction of the Railroad are worked as parts of a single scheme. In addition to the above are some smaller divisions, reporting directly to the Chairman, such as that of Accounts. The office of the Purchasing Officer is situate in Washington, practically all the supplies being obtained in the United States. This officer also reports to the Chairman resident on the Zone. The numbers given above are subject to continual fluctuation, and are quoted more for the purpose of showing the general proportions of the different parts of the undertaking than to give an exact total of the force employed. Some account has already been given of the activities of the men employed on excavation, on locks and dams, and on the railway. Those entered under the Department of Machinery and Buildings are charged not only with this work in the Zone, but also with the paving and other improvements in the cities of Colon and Panama. The Department of Sanitation also undertakes the hygiene of these two cities, no small part of its responsibilities. The Republic of Panama provides the cities with police, who are Panamanians. The police force of the Isthmian Canal Commission (Department of Civil Administration) numbers 200, of whom 88 are the West Indians already mentioned and the remainder white Americans. The force is numerically small, but the power to deport all undesirable persons is of great assistance. Moreover, as the Zone is practically inaccessible except from the ports of Colon and Panama, a fairly complete watch can be kept on all entries. After making due allowance for all these advantages, however, one cannot but be impressed, not only by the order, but by the respectability of the Isthmus, which is singularly free from anything unseemly. A scattered force of 200 would be insufficient to deal with tumult among so large a population of men, but there is maintained at Obispo, a central point, a force of about 350 United States Marines. The work of the Department of Sanitation is of such primary interest and importance, especially to geographers, that I deal with it separately in the next chapter. CHAPTER V HEALTH ON THE ISTHMUS AND THE FUTURE OF THE WHITE RACE IN THE TROPICS _Yellow Fever._ THE cities of Colon and Panama have never been particularly unhealthy to the Panamanian born, whether white or coloured, or to the West Indian stranger. This population has merely been subject to the malaria common to equatorial towns, especially when in the neighbourhood of swamps, and to the evils which attend imperfect sanitation in a hot climate. The intervening country is very malarious in the low-lying parts, less so on the hilly divide, differing in no way from other similar localities in the same latitude. [Illustration: READING ROOM, EMPLOYEES' CLUB, CULEBRA.] [Illustration: HALL OF EMPLOYEES' CLUB, CULEBRA.] The reputation of the Isthmus of Panama as a death-trap is due to the sickness which (previous to 1906) has always been prevalent among white strangers, and most other visitors, and particularly to the high percentage of death from yellow fever. To this short, sharp, and most deadly disease the native-born is immune; hence the affairs of the city of Panama have gone on well enough for centuries, as far as the residents are concerned, except that travellers by the Isthmian route tarried no longer than they could help. Whenever large numbers of strangers have congregated on the Isthmus, as during the Californian gold-rush, the construction of the railway, and the Canal construction of the French Companies, there has been an epidemic of yellow fever among them, and a very large proportion of cases have terminated fatally. The immunity which the West Indian negro enjoys from this disease gave him a superiority over other labourers on the Isthmus which, since the extinction of the disease, is no longer his. During the American occupation of Havana, after the American-Spanish War, yellow fever broke out among the strangers, and the mere cleaning up of the city, though carried out with military thoroughness, had no effect in checking the disease. A medical board was sent to study the matter. This was in 1900, four years after Major Ronald Ross, of the Indian Medical Service, had discovered the cause of malaria. Ross had proved that the cause of malaria in man was the presence in his blood of an organism introduced by the attack of the _anopheles_ gnat (or mosquito), and that the species was only poisonous to man if it had itself become infected with the germ of this organism in biting a man suffering from malaria. Thus man and _anopheles_ act alternately as hosts to the organism, which apparently requires their co-operation for the continuance of its species. Gnats, or mosquitoes, as they are indifferently termed, being thus under more than suspicion as an immediate cause of tropical fevers, the medical board turned their attention to them, and Mr. Reed, a member of the board, tracked the yellow fever to another gnat, the _stegomyia_, and, aided by the heroic devotion of his assistants, proved beyond shadow of doubt that this disease is due to the activity of another minute organism, which lives a double life in man and _stegomyia_. Mere contact with the clothing, &c., of yellow-fever patients was proved to be no source of infection. The _stegomyia_ lives three months. It becomes dangerous only by imbibing the organism through attacking man during the first three days of yellow fever, and, even then, twelve days elapse before its bite is infectious. Six days after a man has been bitten by an infectious _stegomyia_ he develops yellow fever, and for the next three days (as has been already said) he is infectious to the _stegomyia_. During the American occupation of Cuba attempts were made to obtain immunity from yellow fever, but it was found impossible to regulate the disease when voluntarily communicated by the bite of the mosquito, and at present immunity is only enjoyed by persons who inherit the privilege. The _stegomyia_ does not breed in open swamps or large bodies of water, but needs shelter, and is also incapable of sustaining a long flight. It breeds chiefly in and near towns, depositing its larvæ upon the surface of cisterns or stagnant pools. Colonel W.C. Gorgas, M.D., took charge of the Department of Sanitation of the Commission in July, 1904. "The experience of our predecessors," he writes,[27] "was ample to convince us that unless we could protect our force against yellow fever and malaria we would be unable to accomplish the work." [27] "Sanitation in the Canal Zone," by W.C. Gorgas _Journ. Am. Med. Assoc._, July 6, 1907, vol. xlix. [Illustration: READING ROOM, EMPLOYEES' CLUB, CULEBRA.] [Illustration: HALL OF EMPLOYEES' CLUB, CULEBRA.] At this time there was but little yellow fever on the Isthmus, and, in spite of the arrival of a large number of non-immunes, no alarming outbreak occurred during the first ten months. During April, 1905, however, the administration building in Panama, in which worked some 300 non-immune employees of the Commission, became infected. In that month there were 9 cases and 2 deaths; in May, 33 cases and 8 deaths, of which 21 cases and 2 deaths were among employees of the Commission. In June there were 19 deaths from yellow fever on the Isthmus, and in July 13. The Commission reported[28] that:-- "A feeling of alarm, almost amounting to panic, spread among the Americans on the Isthmus. Many resigned their positions to return to the United States, while those who remained became possessed with a feeling of lethargy or fatalism, resulting from a conviction that no remedy existed for the peril. There was a disposition to partly ignore or openly condemn and abandon all preventive measures. The gravity of the crisis was apparent to all." [28] Annual Report, 1905, p. 30. Colonel Gorgas writes[29] of this time:-- "We could readily see that if the conditions as they existed in 1905 were to continue the Canal would never be finished." And he adds that:-- "The Executive Board of the Commission itself, as late as June, 1905, stated that the sanitary work of the Isthmus had been a failure and recommended that the _personnel_ be changed and other methods tried. But the Supreme Authorities ... gave us steady support, and by the following December yellow fever had disappeared from the Isthmus." [29] "Sanitation in the Canal Zone." The total deaths among employees of the Commission from yellow fever during the 12 months October 1, 1904, to September 30, 1905, was 37, among about 17,000.[30] The total from yellow fever among the whole population, including Canal employees, during the four months May 1 to August 31, 1905, was 47, while the number of deaths from malaria during the same period was 108. The effect of malaria in impairing physical efficiency was even more in excess than these figures indicate, for the fatal cases are a small proportion of the whole in malaria, and a very large proportion in yellow fever. The moral effect of the imminence of the more sudden and fatal form of disease was, however, as these reports show, much the greater, and it was this moral effect which caused the crisis above described. [30] In 1883-84 the French Company lost by yellow fever 66 men out of about the same number of employees. * * * * * Previous to February, 1905, the Department of Sanitation had done little to improve the hygienic conditions of Colon and Panama, chiefly owing to the opinion until then maintained by the legal advisers that there was no authority to expend money in those cities, which are not within the Canal Zone. In April the yellow fever broke out; the number of men employed by the Department of Sanitation was increased to the huge total of 4,100, and the battle with yellow fever began in earnest. All cases were either transported to screened buildings, or, if left in their own homes, these were carefully screened with fine-meshed copper gauze. The object of this isolation was to prevent the patient from infecting healthy _stegomyia_ mosquitoes. Every dwelling in Colon and Panama was thoroughly fumigated with pyrethrum powder or with sulphur, and then cleared of dust and refuse, which, with the insensible but not always dead mosquitoes, was then burnt. The complete, and, it is hoped, final freedom from yellow fever in Colon and Panama has been obtained by means of a proper water supply and universal paving with brick or cement, as well as the supply of proper drainage. Formerly water for domestic use was stored in cisterns, tanks, tubs, jars, and so forth, and, after rain, water stood stagnantly in a thousand ruts and holes in the unpaved squares, streets, and lanes. These breeding-places of the _stegomyia_ have now been done away with completely in Panama, and almost completely in Colon. The latter city is so low-lying and flat, and subject to such heavy rainfall, that pools of stagnant water will form. They can, however, be oiled, which kills the larvæ, and, moreover, it is Panama, and not the wind-swept, salt-saturated, town of Colon, which has been the chief source of yellow fever. The last case of the disease in Panama occurred in November, 1905, and in May, 1906, there was an isolated case in Colon. The infection is considered to be at an end in a city three months after the last case, that being the lifetime of _stegomyia_. After this period, all infected _stegomyia_ having died, those that remain are powerless for harm. Nevertheless, the stringent measures for their destruction are not relaxed, as, while _stegomyia_ exists, the germ, if re-introduced, will be rapidly disseminated. Thus the yellow fever, having taken toll for four hundred years of those who crossed the Isthmus, has been completely eradicated by. Colonel Gorgas and his assistants. It is a triumph of science and of despotic government combined; and only in this combination can preventive medicine achieve full success. There is one other aspect of the yellow fever campaign which must be mentioned before going on to describe the fight with malaria. Yellow fever, unlike malaria, does not occur in all tropical countries. Its home is the West Indies, Central, and parts of South, America, and, before its extinction in Havana, it has been a serious scourge in the Southern United States. In the New World cases have occurred as far north as Quebec, in Europe cases have occurred in Wales and France, and there have been serious epidemics in Spain. It has never been known east of Genoa, whether in Europe or elsewhere. Thus in Africa it is known on the west but not on the east coast. The fact that it is unknown in India is very remarkable, seeing that _stegomyia_ is a very prevalent variety of mosquito there. It follows from this that if yellow fever once got hold in India it would probably spread and might work great havoc. The same is true of China in an even greater degree, for such preventive measures as have been taken in Panama would be far more difficult to carry out in the great cities of India, and altogether impracticable in those of China. Thus, as Colonel Gorgas has pointed out, if the Canal had been constructed in spite of yellow fever, and if that disease had been allowed then to persist at Panama, the disease might not improbably have been carried to Asia, for the three months of life of _stegomyia_ is ample for the voyage. In this event the Panama Canal might have proved a curse rather than a boon to mankind. [Illustration: CUT SOUTH OF CULEBRA, LANDSLIP ON LEFT.] [Illustration: LOOKING NORTH, THE SCARPED FACE OF GOLDEN HILL ON THE RIGHT.] _Malaria._ The campaign against malaria has been conducted on somewhat different lines. The _anopheles_, which transmits that disease, deposits its larvæ in clean water where grass and algæ grow, and is therefore almost entirely a mosquito of country districts. But Colon and Panama, both small cities, are exposed to the disease, as are about seventeen little towns and forty villages for labourers along the line of the Canal. As the flight of _anopheles_ is not more than one hundred, or possibly two hundred yards, the working population can be in great measure protected from their attack by destroying the breeding places for such a distance on either side of the dwelling and working places. This in itself is a large task, which could not be carried out in a short time, and while in progress the Sanitary Department relied mainly upon the erection of buildings completely screened (including the verandahs) with fine copper gauze, which effectually shields the employees against mosquito attack within doors, and therefore during the particularly dangerous hours of night. In addition, the employees are supplied with quinine, and recommended to take three grains daily while in health. This "cinchonises" the blood and renders it unwholesome to the malarial parasite. The effect of screening is shown by the following example from the report of the Commission, December, 1906:-- "The first shipload [of European labourers] arrived during the dry season, when mosquitoes were most scarce, and were quartered in unscreened buildings. Within six weeks of their arrival 33 per cent. of these labourers had been taken sick with malaria. The second shipload arrived during the rainy season, and were quartered in a camp not 200 yards distant from that of their predecessors. The buildings of the camp were screened. Sickness among the men was infrequent, and when they had been upon the Isthmus six weeks it was found that only 4 per cent. had found their way to the hospitals." * * * * * The destruction of larvæ, and of their hiding places, is commenced by the clearing of grass and bushes, which are cut down with the _machete_, a short cutlass with which the Panamanian is very expert, _machete_ work being, indeed, the principal _rôle_ in which the Panamanian is employed by the Commission. Also ditches are cleaned out, and heavy oil poured upon the water in trenches and pools, and land-crabs are caught and the holes in which they dwell are filled in or oiled. Finally the soil is drained, which is the only means of making the ground permanently unfit for mosquito breeding. Subsoil draining is the best, a tile drain being put in; for, even in concreted gutters, pools will form, owing to accidental obstruction, and remain sufficiently long for the deposition and hatching of the larvæ. Such is the work of the _anopheles_ brigade, and the _stegomyia_ brigade carry out similar operations, in the neighbourhood more particularly of Panama. With regard to the effect of these operations upon the numbers of the mosquitoes I may narrate my own experience. I arrived at Colon first in January, 1907, and spent one or two nights on board my ship. This was two years and a half after the commencement of the mosquito campaign, and the officers of the ship congratulated themselves upon the absence of the swarms of mosquitoes which formerly attacked them at night on their vessel. I found, however, that although there was no swarm of mosquitoes, such as I have seen, _e.g._, when on board ship in the harbour of Colombo, Ceylon, yet that the individuals who remained certainly caused me discomfort, and I think some subsequent indisposition. In April, 1908, however, during two days at Colon, I did not so much as see a single mosquito. [Illustration: LOOKING NORTH FROM RAILWAY BRIDGE AT PARAISO.] [Illustration: ABANDONED FRENCH MACHINERY.] At Panama, in January, 1907, my wife and I stayed in the Commission's screened hotel on Ancon Hill, not caring to face the dirt and squalor of the old city. In April, 1908, finding the city properly paved, drained, and plumbed, we took up our quarters at the Hotel Central in the town, where we spent a fortnight in perfect health; and although this building, not being under the Commission, is unscreened, I was only bitten by mosquitoes, to my knowledge, twice during that time, and this without subsequent ill effect. I may add that the picturesque surroundings, not unlike those of some city on the Mediterranean, greatly enhance the pleasure of a stay on the Isthmus, now that they can be enjoyed without squalid accompaniments. I did not, except on one or two nights, even draw the mosquito curtains. Out of doors, in the city of Panama, I was not bitten once, though I was attacked once or twice by solitary mosquitoes when walking on roads or paths with shrub or jungle adjoining. This was near the end of the dry season. When the rains commence a greater number of mosquitoes must be expected. Natives of the Isthmus and the West Indies are not immune from malaria, and in 1904-5 about one-half of the inhabitants who were examined proved to have the parasite of malaria in their blood. As the _anopheles_ becomes infectious through biting a malarious man, it is evident that such a dissemination of the parasite throughout the blood of the human population renders mosquitoes especially dangerous. In the same proportion as the population becomes less malarious, so the mosquitoes become less dangerous, and theoretically a millennium is possible in which man and _anopheles_, mutually purged of the malarial organism, may live happily together. Unfortunately, a malarious man it is believed remains infectious to _anopheles_ for no less than three years, instead of the three days' limit of yellow fever, and this greatly increases the difficulty of exterminating malaria. During 1906, with a force of 26,000, there were 21,739 cases of malaria admitted to the Commission Hospitals, and the death-rate from this disease was among whites 2 per thousand, among negroes 8 per thousand. In 1907, with a force of 39,000, there were 16,753 cases, the death-rate among whites being 3 per thousand and among negroes 4 per thousand. The increase among whites was due to the greater proportion of the European labourers, whose circumstances are different from those of the skilled artisans and the "screened" clerical staff of Americans. The total death-rate from all causes in 1907 is shown below:-- --------------------------------------------------------- | Average | Total | Annual Death | Number. | Deaths. | Rate per | | | Thousand. --------------------+---------+---------+---------------- White Employees | 10,709 | 179 | 16.71 Black Employees | 28,634 | 953 | 33.28 |---------+---------+---------------- Total | 39,343 | 1,132 | 28.77 --------------------------------------------------------- --but accidents account for a considerable proportion of the deaths. During the same period the average number of American women and children in Commission quarters was 1,337, among whom occurred nine deaths, an average annual death-rate of 6.73 per thousand. In addition to malaria there is one other disease which proves fatal to considerable numbers of employees, attacking principally the black labourers. This is pneumonia, to which are attributed altogether 328 deaths as against 154 from malaria. It appears that special research is needed into the cause and prevention of this disease among negroes in the tropics. * * * * * In 1907 no less than 71,000 persons arrived on the Isthmus, all of whom had to pass the Commission doctor at the entrance port. All but transients are vaccinated on arrival, and great watchfulness is exercised against the introduction of any new disease from abroad. Thus, when bubonic plague broke out at Guayaquil, the Department of Sanitation commenced a campaign against rats as a precaution against the spread of the disease (which is propagated by the rat flea) in case quarantine measures failed to keep it out. Again, when one or two cases of rabies recently occurred on the Isthmus, all dogs for whom an owner could not be found were at once destroyed. _Life on the Isthmus, and on the Future of the White Man in the Tropics._ The Canal Zone now being healthy, the life of the Americans is a cheerful as well as a busy one. The climate, to which the local diseases used to be attributed, is not by any means wholly bad. There are really two climates, that of the Atlantic seaboard and that of the Pacific side. Colon is somewhat trying on account of the humidity, but a healthy trade-wind blows. The town of Panama, though receiving much less rain, is also somewhat humid, owing to there being less breeze. The temperature, however, is lower than that of the great cities of the United States, even in the North, during summer heat-waves, the hours of sunshine are shorter, and the general feeling of oppression is, I think, distinctly less. The Ancon suburb, where the Commission buildings are situate, is free from the humidity of the low-lying city. The high lands at or near Culebra, where a large part of the American population now resides in screened wooden buildings, enjoy in the dry season a bracing climate, a fresh dry wind blowing across the divide, imparting a sense of exhilaration, which is heightened by the fine scenery, the pleasant scents of the surrounding woodland, and the ordered activity of the life. Amidst such circumstances the Canal official finds it easy to work hard. I noticed in this a great contrast to the condition ten years ago at Ismailia, the headquarters of the Suez Canal Administration. This place, before Major E. Ross's discoveries, suffered severely from malaria, and the officials of the Administration, some of whom had resided there for twenty years or more, were in many cases saturated with malarial poison. Work for them was a burden, bravely borne indeed, but taken up each day with a sigh. I spent about a fortnight there in a hot season conducting some investigations upon the forms and movement of drifting sand-dunes. I suffered during part of the time from fever, and only kept on working with an effort, whereas on the Isthmus I enjoyed more than usual vigour. At Culebra, indeed, the dry season is so bracing that the arrival of the rains is welcome for the soothing effect of greater humidity, as well as on account of diminished dust. The white woolly cloud or mist which then wraps round the hill-tops is no longer the "white death," as it was called in the days of the French Company, when the vapours were credited the poison which really lurks in the mosquito. Even now, however, there is an increase in the number of mosquitoes, and some increase in malaria, when the rains come. [Illustration: GANG OF EUROPEAN LABOURERS (IN 1907).] [Illustration: A FORMER HOT-BED OF MALARIA, NOW DRAINED.] Not only do the men look well, but the women and children also. The women in general have the same appearance as in the United States; perfectly dressed, as always, quiet in manner, and apparently happy, though occasionally somewhat bored. To the wife, not having the absorbing interest of the Canal work, the Isthmus is generally less interesting than to her husband, but of late there have grown up organisations for promoting intellectual and other social intercourse which are rapidly relieving the threatened ennui. The children, on the other hand, look actually happier and stronger than they do in the cities of the United States. They are in the open air all day, for sunstroke is rare on the Isthmus; they are bronzed, active, fearless in bearing, and apparently thoroughly satisfied with themselves and with their surroundings. Even when within doors they are still in a sense in the open air, for the windows are unglazed, and the houses are constructed so as to secure a free circulation of air. It has been said that the possession of India taught the English the value of the cold bath, an institution which has been slowly adopted from us by other Northern nations in Europe. Perhaps the possession of the Canal Zone will lead to the salutary open-window habit, which is not yet general in the United States. The Commission clubs for gold-employees at the principal stations are commodious structures, admirably designed for social recreation; their management is entrusted to the Young Men's Christian Association. There are well-equipped reading and writing rooms and gymnasia, mainly used by the men, but the interests of the women and children are not neglected, and for the last playrooms are provided. The large halls are used for entertainments and for meetings of the numerous benevolent "secret" societies which have been so important a factor in the preliminary organisation of American society in newly settled territories. In the clubs only "soft" drinks are provided, but I can testify to their excellent effects. The question whether the white race can make a home in the tropics depends ultimately upon the tropical baby--upon his own health and that of his mother. The American occupation is still recent, but as far as experience goes it seems that the white children born on the Isthmus have not shown unusual delicacy, and the mothers have made a normal, though sometimes rather slow, recovery from confinement. The views of Colonel Gorgas upon the future of the white race in the tropics deserve quotation. He writes[31]:-- "I think the sanitarian can now show that any population coming into the tropics can protect itself against these two diseases [malaria and yellow fever] by measures that are both simple and inexpensive; that with these two diseases eliminated life in the tropics for the Anglo-Saxon will be more healthful than in the temperate zones; that gradually, within the next two or three centuries, tropical countries, which offer a much greater return for man's labour than do the temperate zones, will be settled up by the white races, and that again the centres of wealth, civilisation and population will be in the tropics, as they were in the dawn of man's history, rather than in the temperate zone, as at present." [31] "Sanitation in the Canal Zone." In this connection I may perhaps be permitted to refer to an interesting suggestion made in the course of conversation by Colonel Gorgas, although I omitted to inquire if it had been published. This suggestion was that the records of the movements of great armies under the rulers of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt indicate that malaria did not then exist in the nearer East, and that malaria, like yellow fever, was once a local disease. [Illustration: NEAR THE SITE OF MILAFLORES LOCKS.] [Illustration: LOOKING NORTH TO CULEBRA DIVIDE FROM ANCON HILL.] From what I have seen as tourist and traveller (not as resident) in the West Indies and in the Orient, I have arrived at the following tentative conclusions, viz.:-- That the debilitating effect which the tropics have been observed to exercise upon those who come from temperate regions has been due mainly to the presence of certain diseases which can be done away with. That the rapid deterioration of the white stock which is usually noticed in the tropics, especially near the equator, is mainly due to the same cause. But that Anglo-Saxons cannot perform nearly the same amount of hard bodily labour in a constantly hot climate as they can in the temperate zone, and Anglo-Saxon immigrants never will be able to do so. In this I think the Mediterranean races--at all events the Spaniards and Italians--are our superiors. Whether the descendants of Anglo-Saxon stock who have settled in a tropical country purified from tropical diseases will be able to support continued hard bodily labour better than their immigrant ancestors is a matter about which we have at present no direct evidence. It may possibly be worth noting, however, that some years ago, when wintering in Manitoba, I found that some of the farmer immigrants from England felt the cold more as the years went by, but that their children born in the country were unaffected by it. It is the case that in the tropics, particularly in the equable equatorial belt, many evils of the temperate zone are avoided, chiefly those due to cold and to sudden changes of temperature. It is this equatorial belt of equable temperature and heavy rainfall that I chiefly have in mind, for it comprises those vast regions of prolific vegetation which appear capable of supporting so large a population. The white man already rules, or has marked off for rule, the whole of the equatorial belt, but who is to be the peasant cultivating this belt? In those parts of tropical Asia already peopled by industrious Orientals there can never be a white peasantry. Equatorial Africa presents great differences in different parts with respect to native population, and the question of a possible future for white peasantry is there a complicated one. In South America, however, there are vast equatorial regions either wholly unpeopled, or sparsely inhabited by tribes of that Indian stock which has elsewhere proved so slight an impediment to the establishment of the white labourer. Served by a system of rivers unrivalled elsewhere in equatorial regions, already partitioned among Christian Governments, and for the most part uninhabited, the forests and savannahs of Equatorial South America offer the readiest field for the establishment on a vast scale of a white peasantry under the equator. By clearing the scrub within one or two hundred yards of his cottage, and by employing wire screens, the cultivator can protect himself against malaria, and his crops come not once, but several times a year. If the Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian peasant were to turn his attention to this field, instead of, or in addition to, that of navvy work, great things might come of it. The circumstance that South America is a Roman Catholic continent, where the Latin races are dominant, would enormously favour the experiment. On the Zone, the Spanish labourer works in order to save and to depart, the _milieu_ being foreign to him and unattractive. In a Latin State it would be different. In writing of the possibilities of the white race in the equatorial zone it is understood that the problem relates to the lowlands. There are, of course, favoured highlands, such as those of Colombia, where the temperature is at the same time moderate and equable and the climate appears admirably adapted to white men. A healthy city life in the tropics would be easily attainable in a new country settled wholly by white people and under a medical despotism. The general, but non-specialist, opinion upon the Isthmus is not as sanguine as that of Colonel Gorgas upon the hygienic future of the white race in the tropics. The general opinion among Americans seems to be that, as far as they are concerned, they would, if engaged in the tropical parts of South or Central America, avail themselves of the improving means of transit to revisit frequently the United States, and would rely upon such vacations in higher latitudes for the retention of their native vigour. CHAPTER VI ON THE SHORTENING OF DISTANCES BY SEA, AND ON THE STEAMSHIPS AVAILABLE FOR CANAL TRANSIT _The Shortening of Distances by Sea._ AS the sole object of a ship canal is to shorten sea distances, the figures given in this section are of primary importance to a proper understanding of the subject. The figures here given are those for steamships following the actual or prospective routes. They are adopted from the figures supplied to the Canal Commission from the United States Hydrographic Bureau and are expressed in nautical miles. It is perhaps not wholly superfluous to warn the reader that the apparent relative distances as shown on charts of the world, especially those on the usual Mercator projection, are very different from the real relative distances. Moreover, it is impossible to see correctly the relative distances between places far apart on a globe, for the foreshortening of the rounded surface produces distortion. By applying a measuring tape to the globe the true relative distances can be readily ascertained. This is a salutary exercise and serves to correct the erroneous notions which tend to fix themselves in the minds of all of us owing to the appearance of the surface of the globe on the plane of the paper or on the plane of vision. Such a measurement of shortest distances would give a very fair notion of the actual reductions due to the Suez and Panama Canals, but there would still be considerable differences between these figures and the distance calculated from the actual courses pursued by steamships, which in what follows will be referred to simply as "the" distance between ports. [Illustration: RIO GRANDE, NEAR LA BOCA.] [Illustration: RIO GRANDE, FROM ANCON HILL.] The most notable effect of the Panama Canal will be the reduction of distance between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of North America. Taking New York as our port of reckoning on the Atlantic, the distance thence to Panama and all ports north thereof on the Pacific seaboard of Central and North America will be reduced by 8,415 miles. The reduction of distance from New York to the Pacific ports of South America, on the other hand, is not constant, but varies from the above maximum of 8,415 miles at Panama to a minimum of about 1,004 miles at Punta Arenas (in the Straits of Magellan). The _average_ shortening on this coast is therefore 8,415 + 1,004 ------------- = 4,709 miles. 2 The actual shortening to Iquique, the nitrate port in Chile, is 5,200 miles. We shall not be far out in saying briefly that the distance between New York and South American Pacific ports will be shortened by an average of 5,000 miles. The Canal shortens the distance between the Pacific coast of the Americas and the ports of Europe also, though in a lesser degree. Thus, taking Liverpool as our example (and the reductions are much the same for London, Antwerp, or Hamburg), the Canal will shorten the distance to Panama and all ports on the coast to the north by a constant quantity, viz., 6,046 miles. The reduction to Pacific ports south of Panama is not a constant but a variable quantity, ranging from the above maximum of 6,046 miles at Panama itself to zero at a point between Punta Arenas and Coronel (the most southern industrial port of Chile). We may put the average shortening of distance between Liverpool and South American Pacific ports at about 2,600 miles. Viewing the whole matter from the standpoint of the Pacific ports of the Americas, we see an absolute commercial advantage accruing to them all in the diminished distance to the Atlantic and Gulf ports of North America and to the ports of Europe. Viewing the matter from the standpoint of the Atlantic and Gulf ports of North America--to fix our ideas we will say from the standpoint of New York--we see the same absolute advantage _plus_ a competitive advantage, in that the reduction is greater for New York than for Liverpool (_i.e._, Europe). As the world is at present constituted, steamers from New York and from Liverpool proceeding to these Pacific ports all pass Pernambuco, in Brazil, near the easternmost point of South America, not far south of the equator. This port is 4,066 miles from Liverpool and 3,696 miles from New York, so that, by sea, San Francisco is only 370 miles nearer to New York than to Liverpool. But Colon is 4,720 miles from Liverpool and only 1,961 from New York, so that _viâ_ the Canal all the Pacific ports of the Americas are 2,759 miles nearer to New York than to Liverpool. * * * * * Let us next consider the Canal as the starting place for Transpacific voyages, the _rôle_ for which it was originally projected in the sixteenth century. In those days the Isthmus of Suez was firmly held by the hostile Moslem, and even if a canal had then been open there, it would not have been available for the commerce of Christian Europe. Thus the discovery of a strait, or the cutting of a canal, at the Isthmus of Panama would at that time have opened to Europeans a shorter seaway to the Orient. But now that the Suez route has been opened for ships, the _Panama Canal will not bring any port in Australia or the East Indies, nor any ice-free port in Asia or Asiatic Islands, nearer to any European port_. Of all ports on the west, that is to say the Old World or "Oriental" side, of the Pacific, only those of New Zealand and some in Siberia will be brought nearer to Liverpool, and that to an insignificant amount. [Illustration: LA BOCA, FROM ANCON HILL.] [Illustration: ANCON CEMETERY.] Distances are, however, much diminished between New York and both the northern and the southern ports of the Oriental Pacific coasts, as the following table shows:-- New York to-- Reduction. Yokohama { by Suez 13,564 } 3,729 miles. { by Panama 9,835 } Shanghai { by Suez 12,514 } 1,629 miles. { by Panama 10,885 } Sydney { by Cape of Good Hope 13,658 } 3,806 miles. { by Panama (_viâ_ Tahiti) 9,852 } Melbourne { by Cape of Good Hope 13,083 } 2,656 miles. { by Panama (_viâ_ Tahiti) 10,427 } Wellington,{ by Straits of Magellan 11,414 } 2,542 miles. N.Z. { by Panama (_viâ_ Tahiti) 8,872 } Since the Canal does not reduce the distances between these places and Europe (except slightly in the case of Wellington), the competitive gain of New York is equal in all cases to the absolute gain in distance. The following figures show the distances from New York to Hong Kong and Manila by the Suez and Panama routes:-- New York to-- Reduction. Hong Kong{ by Suez 11,655 { by Panama 11,744 Manila { by Suez 11,601 } { by Panama, _viâ_ San Francisco } 16 miles. { and Yokohama 11,585 } { by Panama, Honolulu and { Guam 11,729 Ports on the mainland of Asia in these latitudes are of course nearer to New York by way of Suez. The opportunities of a port for commerce obviously depend in a great measure upon the centrality of its position with reference to the other ports of the world. Let us see how Liverpool and New York were originally situated in this respect, and how far their situations are altered first by the opening of the Suez route and secondly by that of Panama; remembering also that the changes introduced by the canals have about the same effect on Antwerp or Hamburg as on Liverpool. Prior to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 the route to Asia and Australia was _viâ_ the Cape of Good Hope from both Liverpool and New York. This gave Liverpool an advantage of 480 miles for all Asiatic and Australian ports as well as for the East Coast of Africa. For most of South America and all the Pacific coast of the Americas the route was _viâ_ Pernambuco, and New York had an advantage of 370 miles. Suez being open but Panama still closed, the route to Asia is _viâ_ Gibraltar for both Liverpool and New York. New York is distant 3,207 miles and Liverpool 1,283 from that place, so that Liverpool has an advantage of 1,924 miles instead of 480 on the voyage to all Asiatic ports, a competitive benefit of 1,444 miles resulting from the opening of the Suez Canal. The voyage to Australia from New York being still made _viâ_ the Cape of Good Hope, while that from Liverpool is most shortly made by Suez, Liverpool is 1,622 miles nearer by the canal and 480 by the Cape, thus obtaining a benefit of 1,142 miles when the Suez route is taken. The opening of the Panama route leaves unchanged the relative distances to the Atlantic coast of South America, to Africa, and to Asiatic ports south of Shanghai; but it is New York and not Liverpool which is now the nearer port to Yokohama, Sydney, and Melbourne; and Wellington, New Zealand, formerly nearly equidistant, is placed 2,739 miles nearer to New York than to Liverpool. With reference to Northern China, however, it is to be noted that, although the Panama route shortens the distance between New York and Shanghai by 1,629 miles, Liverpool will still be the nearer to Shanghai by 295 miles, assuming the New York vessel to call at San Francisco. [Illustration: COMMISSION'S HOTEL AT ANCON.] [Illustration: ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, ANCON.] These facts are illustrated by the figures given on the next page. Nearer to New York than to Liverpool by {New York _viâ_ Panama, } { San Francisco and by } { Great Circle 9,835} Yokohama {Liverpool _viâ_ Suez, Aden, } 1,805 miles. { Colombo, Singapore, } { Hong Kong and } { Shanghai 11,640} {New York _viâ_ Panama } { and Tahiti 9,852} Sydney {Liverpool _viâ_ Suez, Aden, } { Colombo, King George's } 2,383 miles { Sound, Adelaide and } { Melbourne 12,234} {New York _viâ_ Panama } Wellington,{ and Tahiti 8,872} N.Z. {Liverpool _viâ_ Panama and } 2,759 miles.[32] { Tahiti 11,631} [32] Liverpool to Colon, 4,720; New York to Colon, 1,961: difference, 2,759, the subsequent routes being identical. Let us take a chart of the world and examine the portion comprised between the parallels of 40° North and 40° South and the meridians of 120° East and 160° East of Greenwich. This band, in which are included Japan and Korea, Shanghai and the Philippines, New Guinea and most of Australia, is of particular interest in relation to Canal trade. Let us take the standpoint, not of Europe or of America, but of traders residing in this area. Near its western margin the Suez and the Panama routes to New York are equal in length. Near its eastern margin, which lies, however, outside Japan and Australia and only passes among small islands, the Suez and Panama routes to Liverpool are of equal length. On a line rather west of the centre and running from rather west of north to rather east of south, all places are equidistant from New York and Liverpool--the latter _viâ_ Suez, the former _viâ_ Panama. It needs no prophet to foresee interesting commercial developments in a region where the alternative routes and alternative sources of manufacturing supply offer almost equal allurements. I must also draw attention to the position of New Orleans and other ports on the Gulf of Mexico in relation to the Canal. At present New Orleans by sea is further than New York from Valparaiso and San Francisco, Yokohama and Shanghai, but it is 581 miles nearer to Colon. Hence, when the Panama Canal is open it will be 581 miles nearer than New York to those ports, and to Sydney, Melbourne, and Wellington. Thus, as the Mississippi waterway is improved, an increasing proportion of the manufactures and other products of the great Mississippi basin will find their way to foreign markets _viâ_ the Gulf ports, and an increasing proportion of imports will find their way to the Mississippi basin through these ports.[33] [33] Among West Indian ports affected by the Canal, Kingston, Jamaica, must be particularly mentioned. Now situate at the entrance of a _cul de sac_, it will then be placed in a position of much greater centrality for the world's commerce, and astride the route from Colon to the North American Atlantic ports. Thus the importance of Jamaica as a constituent of the British Empire will be enhanced. May the opening of the Canal increase the prosperity of our fellow subjects who have suffered so greatly from hurricane and earthquake! In dealing with the shortening of sea routes it was shown that the greatest reduction was that between the two coasts of North America, but even so the sea route remains longer than that by land, so that the question of commercial advantage is not settled by a mere statement of sea distances, and the indisputable and undiluted advantages of the Canal route for the Atlantic and Gulf ports of North America are those of commerce with the Pacific coast of South America, with New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Northern China, Manchuria, and Eastern Siberia. * * * * * From the naval point of view, however, the results of shortening the sea distance from New York to San Francisco are scarcely diminished by the fact of railway communication, since only crews and stores, and not warships, can be transported by rail. In order to understand the effect of the Canal upon the naval position of the United States the student of affairs must, in addition to the information given above, examine the positions relatively to the Canal of the possessions, particularly the insular possessions, of the United States and of other naval Powers. This will enable him to gauge for himself the more permanent factors which determine the value of the new line of communication, the opportunities it affords for concentrating force where wanted, and the responsibilities of defence which it entails. With the aid of a fairly good atlas this can easily be done by anyone acquainted with the general facts of naval power at the present time. The geographical facts, which are perhaps the only ones beyond question or dispute, are sufficiently simple. [Illustration: VIEW FROM SPANISH FORT, PANAMA.] [Illustration: CATHEDRAL SQUARE, PANAMA.] _On the Steamships Available for Canal Transit._ The Isthmian Canal Commission, in the Report of 1899, distinguishes between the commercial and the industrial benefits of the Canal, meaning by the former term the increased carrying of goods, and by the latter the development of production induced by improved facilities of carriage. The tables of distances already given show the _potential_ commercial advantages, and how they are distributed in different measure among different countries, and these figures have all the permanence which makes geographical figures of such enduring importance. But the actual commercial advantage of a ship canal depends equally upon a second factor, viz., the available ship-tonnage. Supposing a Panama Canal to be open at the present time, there would be hardly any United States ships to use it, except in transport between home ports from which ships flying foreign flags are debarred. The transport to South America, New Zealand, Australia, Northern China, and Japan would necessarily be almost wholly carried on by ships of other nations, especially British. The absence of an American merchant marine trading with foreign ports is indeed a circumstance without parallel among other nations engaged in modern manufacture. Many interesting facts relating to this strange phenomenon were put on record in the debates of the United States Senate in the early part of 1908.[34] [34] _Congressional Record_, February 24, 1908. At that time there was not one steamship flying the flag of the United States between her ports and those of Brazil, the Argentine, Chile, or Peru. The three steamships of the Oceanic Line formerly plying to Australia were then laid up in the harbour of San Francisco, being unable, although subsidised for mails by the United States Government, to compete with foreign vessels. There were, however, three United States steamers plying from Puget Sound to Japan and China, occasionally reaching the Philippines. The mails from New York and the other Atlantic ports of the United States to Brazil and the Argentine go _viâ_ Europe, so that in this important matter New York is actually 3,000 miles further than Europe, instead of being 370 miles nearer to those countries.[35] [35] Senator Gallinger, _loc. cit._ In the same debate Senator Depew said that ships receiving the United States mail subsidy, the only form of subsidy given, have to be American built, manned by Americans, and the diet of the sailors as prescribed by law. He added that-- "The labour unions have rightly and properly taken care of their wages. The result is that the cost in wages and food to run American ships under American conditions across the Pacific is double that of European or Japanese steamers." The relative cost of operating American and European vessels was given by the Hon. Elihu Root, Secretary of State, in an address delivered November 30, 1906,[36] as follows:-- The operation of an American steamship of 2,500 tons costs $18,289 per annum more than that of a British ship of this tonnage, or $7.31 more per ton; and The operation of an American steamship of 3,500 tons costs $15,315 per annum more than that of a German ship of the same size, or $4.37 more per ton. [36] Address to Mississippi Commercial Congress, Kansas City, revised by Mr. Root and published _Nat. Geogr. Mag._, 1907, vol. xviii. pp. 61-72. Thus it is evident that, in spite of geographical advantages, there are at present some grounds for the extreme opinion sometimes expressed in the United States that the Canal is being built with American money for the use of Europe--and, one may add, of Japan. What attempts may be made to remedy this state of things, and what effects such attempts may have, are matters on which I shall not stay to speculate. CHAPTER VII THE COST OF THE CANAL OF the existing canals for ocean-going ships, that of Suez was built by a company as a commercial undertaking to earn dividends by tolls. It cost $90,000,000. The Manchester Ship Canal was partly commercial, partly industrial, _i.e._, the large contribution of the city of Manchester was made not as a financial speculation, but in order to promote an undertaking likely to develop the industries of the city. This canal, partly commercial, partly industrial, cost $75,000,000. The Kiel Canal has further a military purpose, providing a short line of communication for warships. It cost $40,000,000. The Panama Canal is commercial, industrial, and military, and will cost more than all the above put together. [Illustration: PALACE OF PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA.] [Illustration: OLD FLAT ARCH AT PANAMA.] Up to June 30, 1908, the United States Government have spent $126,047,062 on the Panama Canal, made up as follows:-- Payment to New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000, and to Republic of Panama $10,000,000 $50,000,000 Expenditure on work prior to July 1, 1907 43,172,408 Expenditure on work July 1, 1907-June 30, 1908 32,874,654 ----------- Total 126,047,062 The amount authorised to be appropriated by the Act of June 28, 1902, was $135,000,000, plus $50,000,000 purchase money, that is to say, $185,000,000 in all, for "the canal, harbours, and defences." What the total cost will be is unknown, but Colonel Goethals stated in evidence (January, 1908) that the Canal would cost at least $250,000,000, and possibly as much as $500,000,000. The combined cost of the Suez, Manchester, and Kiel Canals has been $205,000,000. The following important ship canals have been completed for smaller sums:-- U.S.S. St. Marie (somewhat more than) $6,000,000 Canadian ditto nearly 4,000,000 Amsterdam 10,000,000 Corinth (about) 5,000,000 Cronstadt (about) 10,000,000 Welland (Lake Erie-Lake Ontario) 24,000,000 ---------- Total 59,000,000 Adding these figures to those already given, we have a grand total of $264,000,000 for the cost of nine of the greatest existing ship canals, which is about the same as the lowest current official estimate for the final cost of the Panama Canal. In the case of a commercial company undertaking such a work as the Panama Canal, the charge for compounded interest increases as the unremunerative years advance at an appalling rate, which would surprise anyone not versed in the cumulative capability of figures which increase in "geometrical progression." Fortunately it is not necessary for the United States to reckon the cost of the Canal in this way, and the Government have been in a peculiarly advantageous position for financing the Canal. The bonds bear interest at 2 per cent., and in December, 1907, were slightly above 103. As all American banks have to deposit gold with the United States Treasury it evidently pays to take up and deposit these bonds, which reckon as gold, receiving 2 per cent. interest. Moreover, the small amount of securities with Government guarantee in America renders such issues convenient, so that the Government can raise money more cheaply than with us, although for industrial purposes the rates may be higher. At the present time the payments of Government pensions in connection with the Civil War are yearly diminishing at a rapid rate. Finally, there has been in the Treasury a large surplus of cash. Thus from one cause and another the expenditure already incurred has not yet been felt. * * * * * As I write the last lines of the account in which I have endeavoured to state the salient facts relating to a great undertaking at only moderate length, I recall our departure from Colon harbour on the R.M.S. _Orinoco_ homeward bound. I confess that after the Canal Zone most places seem only half alive, and I long to be back where one can watch human activities so great and so intelligent, while the spirit is soothed by the balmy air which blows warm and fragrant from the tropical forest. May the arduous labours of the Isthmian Canal Commission be crowned with success! INDEX A Abbott, Brigadier-General Hy. L., 76 Alhajuela, 77 America, South, possibilities for white peasantry, 148-9 _Anopheles_ mosquito, _see also_ Malaria, 132, 137 Antwerp, port of, _see_ Distances Arango, Mr. R.M., 77 Aspinwall, W.H., and colleagues construct Panama Railway, 30 Asiatic ports, _see_ Distances Australia, _see_ Distances B Barbadians as labourers, 104 Bohio, abandoned site of dam, 70 C California, rush of gold-seekers to, 29 Canal, Panama, national and commercial status defined, 39-43 " " tide-level schemes, 52, 54-55 " " curvatures of, 60 " " time of transit through, 64 " " date of completion, 95-6 " Suez, opened 1869, 30 " " effect on value of Panama route, 30 " " dimensions and cost, 59, 173 Caribbean Sea, Spain unable to protect her ships in, 27 Chagres, River, course of, 48 " " sudden rise of, 51 Charles V. of Spain, canal project, 26 Children, white, health of, on Isthmus, 143 Climate of the Isthmus, 140-2 Clubs for employees, 143 Colombia (formerly New Granada), treaty with United States, 1846, 28 " Senate of, does not accept offer of United States, 1903, 38 " want of sea-power, 39 Colon, protection from "northers," 78 " yellow fever in, 129 Columbus discovers Bay of Limon, 25 Commission, Isthmian Canal, Report of 1901, 36-37 " " " a second appointed, 113 " " " a third appointed, 114 Congress, appoints Isthmian Canal Commission, 1899, 25 " "Spooner" Act of, 37-58 Congress, Act of, sanctioning 85-foot-level canal, 1906, 53 Constantinople, conquest by Turks, 1453, 25 Contract Construction of Canal, proposed by Second Commission, 114 Cortes searches for a strait, 26 Culebra, view of works from, described, 84-90 " Cut, form and dimensions of, 81-84 " " amount excavated in, 94 Currents in Canal advanced as objection to tide-level scheme, 55 " tidal, below Milaflores, 66 D Dam, Bohio, abandoned, 70 " Gamboa, controlling feature of tide-level scheme, 54, 57 " Gatun, as proposed in minority report of Board of Consulting Engineers, 56-58 " " plans of, April, 1908, 70-74 " Milaflores, 69 " Pedro Miguel, 69 De Lesseps, Ferdinand, forms First Panama Canal Company, 1879, 31 " " plan for tide-level canal, 52 Depew, Senator, on the cost of operating American ships, 168 Dimensions of Panama and other Canals, 59-61 Distances, Shortening of, by Suez Canal, 160 " " " by Panama Canal, 153-165 " " " to Pacific Coast of North America, 155, 156 " " " to Pacific Coast of South America, 155, 156 " " " to Asiatic ports, 158, 159, 161, 162 " " " Australian and New Zealand ports, 158, 161, 162 E Employees, number of, on Canal Zone, 112 Engineers, French, ability of, 32 " Board of Consulting, Majority Scheme for tide-level canal, 53-55 " " " " Minority Scheme for high-level canal, 56-70 " names of chief, 113-115 " Corps of, U.S.A., and public works, 115 Excavation, amount of, by French Companies, 94 " " " by American Commission, 94 F Fever, Yellow, 121-132 " " geographical distribution of, 130-131 " Malarial, _see_ Malaria Floods of the Chagres River, 51 " control of, 54 Forests, tropical, insulate the Canal Zone, 39 Fortifications for defence of the Canal, 40, 78 French Companies, excavation accomplished by, 94 " Engineers, ability of, 32 " Investors, 31-32 G Gallinger, Senator, on the lack of U.S. steamships trading with foreign ports, 167-8 Gamboa, site of controlling dam of the tide-level scheme, 54 Gatun dam, _see_ Dam " Lake, 56, 69 " locks, _see_ Locks Germany, steamships of, cost of operating as compared with American steamships, 169 Goethals, Colonel George W., Corps of Engineers, 20 " " " " appointed Chairman of Commission and Chief Engineer, April, 1907, 115 "Gold Roll," _see_ Labour, skilled " " Europeans on, 110 Golden Hill, highest original level at, 82 Gorgas, Colonel W.C., M.D., head of Department of Sanitation, 113, 125, 126, 130 " " " " on the future of the white race in the tropics, 144-5 Gorgona, workshops at, 97 Grant, President, recommends construction of Isthmian Canal, 1869, 34 Greeks as labourers, 107 Gulf ports, _see_ Distances H Hamburg, _see_ Distances Harbours, at terminals of Canal, 78 Havana, yellow fever at, 123 Hotels, Commission's, for employees, 111 I Indies, East, original objective of Canal project, 26 Ismailia, effect of malaria at, 14 Italians as labourers, 107, 108 " as peasantry in the tropics, 149 J Jamaica, effect of Canal on position of, 164 Jamaicans as labourers, 104 " as policemen, 105 Japan, steamships of, to use Canal, 169 " _see_ Distances K Kiel Canal, dimensions of, 59-61 " " cost, 173 Kingston, _see_ Jamaica L La Boca, tide at, 65 " " scheme for locks abandoned, 67 Labour on the Isthmus, Chinese proposed, 106 " " " West Indian, 101-106 " " " European, 106-110 " " " skilled, 110-112 " white, in tropical countries, 140-150 " Panamanian, 134 Limon, Bay of, discovered by Columbus, 25 Liverpool, _see_ Distances Lock at Pedro Miguel, depth of water above, 68 " gates described, 63 Locks, dimensions of proposed, 60, 62 " at Gatun, distance from deep water, 62 " " Gatun, course of Canal below, 62 " " depth of water above, 68 " at Milaflores, variable lift of, 65 Longitude, meridians between which distances _viâ_ Suez and Panama are equal, 162 M McKinley, President, 35 Magellan, Straits of, discovered 1520, 26 Malaria, 132-137, 146 Manchester Ship Canal, cost of, 173 Manila, distance from New York _viâ_ Suez and _viâ_ Panama, 159 Marines, U.S., force of on Isthmus, 118 _Mauretania_, s.s., dimensions of, 59, 60 Meteorology of Isthmus, 76 Mexico, war of United States with, 28 Milaflores, _see_ Dams and Locks Mississippi, basin of, 164 N Naos, Isle of, 67, 92 New Granada, treaty of U.S. with, 28 New York, _see_ Distances New Zealand, _see_ Distances Nicaragua, canal route through, 28, 37 O Obispo, change in course of Chagres River at, 48 _Oregon_, battleship, voyage of, 1898, 34 Organisation, efficiency of, in 1907 and 1908 compared, 86-88 P Panama Canal Company, First, formed 1879, 31 " " " " in liquidation 1889, 33 " " " New, formed, 33 " " " " accepts offer of $40,000,000, 37 " " " " work of, 50 " Isthmus of, topography, 47 " Province of, revolts, 38 " Railway, completed 1855, 29 " " purchased by First P. C. Company, 32 " " relaying of, 97 " Republic of, independence guaranteed by U.S., 38, 39 Pedro Miguel, _see_ Dams and Lock Peru, Spanish possessions in, protected by Isthmus, 27 Police, force of, 117 Pneumonia among negroes in the tropics, 139 Plague, bubonic, 139 R Rainfall on the Isthmus, 51 Reed discovers cause of yellow fever, 124 Rio Grande, valley of, 49 Ross, Ronald, discovers cause of malaria, 123 Roosevelt, President, 53, 96 Root, the Hon. Elihu, 168 S St. Lawrence, the, a supposed route to China, 26 San Blas route, 36 Sanitation, Department of, 118, 125, 128, 133, 139 Sea-power, importance of, in Isthmian affairs, 39 Societies, benevolent, in the Canal Zone, 144 Spaniards as navvies and as peasantry in tropics, 108-110, 149 Spanish War, voyage of _Oregon_ during, 34 Steam shovel, rate of loading by, 91 Steamships available for Canal transit, 165-169 " relative cost of operating American and European, 169 _Stegomyia_ mosquito, mode of infection by, 124 Stephens, John F., chief engineer 1905-1907, 113-114 T Tide, range of, at La Boca, 65 Tolls on the Panama Canal equal for all nations, 43 Tourists, attractions for, on the Isthmus, 89 Track-shifter, the, 91 Transportation of spoil in Culebra Cut, 91-93 Treaty between U.S. and New Granada, 1846, 28, 38 " " " Great Britain (Clayton-Bulwer) 1850, 29 " " " Great Britain (Hay-Pauncefote) 1901, 19, 37, 40 " " " Republic of Panama, 1903, 39, 40, 42 Tropics, future of white race in, 140-150 U United States, civil war in, interrupts Canal scheme, 30 Unloader, the, for dirt-cars, 91 W Wages on the Isthmus, _see_ Labour Wallace, John F., chief engineer, 1904-1905, 113 Water supply for high-level canal, 74-77 West Indians, relations with American employers, 102-104 " " immunity from yellow fever, 122 " " _see also_ Labour White race, future of, in tropics, 140-150 Women, white, life of, on Isthmus, 142 Y Y.M.C.A. and management of clubs, 144 Z Zone, the Canal, 19 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. [Illustration: MAP OF CANAL ZONE.] 
7348	----	Panama-Pacific International Exposition The Jewel City: Its Planning and Achievement; Its Architecture, Sculpture, Symbolism, and Music; Its Gardens, Palaces, and Exhibits By Ben Macomber With Colored Frontispiece and more than Seventy-Five Other Illustrations Introduction No more accurate account of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition has been given than one that was forced from the lips of a charming Eastern woman of culture. Walking one evening in the Fine Arts colonnade, while the illumination from distant searchlights accented the glory of Maybeck's masterpiece, and lit up the half-domes and arches across the lagoon, she exclaimed to her companion: "Why, all the beauty of the world has been sifted, and the finest of it assembled here!" This simple phrase, the involuntary outburst of a traveled visitor, will be echoed by thousands who feel the magic of what the master artists and architects of America have done here in celebration of the Panama Canal. I put the "artists" first, because this Exposition has set a new standard. Among all the great international expositions previously held in the United States, as well as those abroad, it had been the fashion for managers to order a manufactures building from one architect, a machinery hall from another, a fine arts gallery from a third. These worked almost independently. Their structures, separately, were often beautiful; together, they seldom indicated any kinship or common purpose. When the buildings were completed, the artists were called in to soften their disharmonies with such sculptural and horticultural decoration as might be possible. The Exposition in San Francisco is the first, though it will not be the last, to subject its architecture to a definite artistic motive. How this came about it is the object of the present book to tell,--how the Exposition was planned as an appropriate expression of America's joy in the completion of the Canal, and how its structures, commemorating the peaceful meeting of the nations through that great waterway, have fitly been made to represent the art of the entire world, yet with such unity and originality as to give new interest to the ancient forms, and with such a wealth of appropriate symbolism in color, sculpture and mural painting as to make its great courts, towers and arches an inspiring story of Nature's beneficence and Man's progress. Much of Mr. Macomber's text was written originally for The San Francisco Chronicle, to which acknowledgment is made for its permission to reprint his papers. The popularity of these articles, which have been running since February, has testified to their usefulness. In many cases they have been preserved and passed from hand to hand. They have also won the endorsement of liberal use in other publications. It is proper to say, however, that similarity of language sometimes indicates a common following of the artists' own explanations of their work, made public by the Exposition management. Mr. Macomber has revised and amplified his chapters hitherto published, and has added others briefly outlining the history of the Exposition, and dealing with the fine-arts, industrial, and livestock exhibits, the foreign and state buildings, music, sports, aviation, and the amusement section. Apart from the smaller guides, the book is thus the first to attempt any comprehensive description of the Exposition. Without indiscriminate praise, or sacrificing independent judgment, the author's purpose has been to interpret and explain the many things about which the visitors on the ground and readers at home may naturally wish to know, rather than to point out minor defects. For the general exhibit palaces, anything more than a brief outline of their contents would fill several books. But the chapter entitled "The Palace of Fine Arts and its Exhibit, with the Awards," supplies such an account of the plan of the galleries and of the important works therein as will furnish a clear and helpful guide to this great collection. The awards of the Fine Arts juries, just announced, have been incorporated in the account, while a full list of the grand prizes, medals of honor and gold medals also follows the chapter. With the artists thus named are noted the rooms where the works of each may be found. The Appendix offers a practical aid to the study of the "Exposition Art" in the list there given of the mural paintings and sculptures which form the notable decorations of palaces and gardens. With these are cross-references to the pages in the text where they are described. In selecting the photographs here reproduced, the aim has been not so much to show exhibits as to illustrate the plan, architecture and decorative art of the Exposition, and to indicate the advance which it scores over its predecessors. The pictures, with their full "underlines," will aid those who have not yet visited the Exposition to apprehend its spirit and much of its unprecedented beauty. Cross-references from text to illustrations increase their helpfulness. But even these abundant illustration can do little more than suggest how far the artistic achievement is the finest yet seen in America. No book can adequately represent this World's Fair. Its spell is the charm of color and the grandeur of noble proportion, harmonizing great architectural units; its lesson is the compelling value, demonstrated on a vast scale, of exquisite taste. It must be seen to be understood. John H. Williams. San Francisco, July 15, 1915. Contents I. Motive and Planning of the Exposition II. Ground Plan and Landscape Gardening III. The South Gardens IV. "The Walled City": Its Great Palaces and their Architecture, Color and Material V. The Tower of Jewels VI. The Court of the Universe VII. The Court of the Ages VIII. The Court of the Seasons IX. Courts of Flowers and Palms X. The Fountains XI. The Palace of Machinery XII. The Palace of Fine Arts and its Exhibit, with the Awards XIII. The Exposition Illuminated XIV. Music at the Exposition XV. Inside the Exhibit Palaces XVI. The Foreign Pavilions XVII. The State Buildings XVIII. The Live-Stock Exhibit XIX. Sports and Games; Automobile Races; Aviation XX. The Joy Zone Appendix: Lists of Sculptures, Mural Paintings, and Artists. Roster of the Exposition. Index. Illustrations Unless otherwise noted, these are from photographs by the official photographers, the Cardinell-Vincent Company. Roman Arch of the Setting Sun, Color Plate from Photo by Gabriel Moulin Ground Plan of the Palace of Fine Arts Aeroplane View of the Exposition, Photo copyrighted by Gabriel Moulin Avenue of Palms The South Gardens The Palace of Horticulture Festival Hall--George H. Kahn Map of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition "Listening Woman" and "Young Girl," Festival Hall South Portal, Palace of Varied Industries--J. L. Padilla Palace of Liberal Arts Sixteenth-Century Spanish Portal, North Facade "The Pirate," North Portal "The Priest," Tower of Jewels The Tower of Jewels and Fountain of Energy "Cortez"--J. L. Padilla Under the Arch, Tower of Jewels Fountain of El Dorado Column of Progress--Pacific Photo and Art Co. "The Adventurous Bowman" Arch of the Setting Sun--J. L. Padilla Frieze at Base of the Column of Progress (2) The Court of the Universe and Arch of the Rising Sun "Earth" and "Fire" (2) "The Rising Sun" and "The Setting Sun" (2) Tower of the Ages--J. L. Padilla Fountain of the Earth--J. L. Padilla "Air," one of Brangwyn's Murals The Court of Seasons Arch in the Court of Seasons--George H. Kahn Court of Flowers, Detail--Pacific Photo and Art Co. "The End of the Trail"--J. L. Padilla "The Pioneer" The Court of Palms. Portal between the Courts of Palms and Seasons--Pacific Photo and Art Co. Fountain of Summer--J. L. Padilla The Mermaid Fountain Fountain of "Beauty and the Beast" The Palace of Machinery Palace of Machinery, Interior Vestibule, Palace of Machinery--Gabriel Moulin Palace of Fine Arts Open Corridor, Palace of Fine Arts Detail of Rotunda, Palace of Fine Arts Colonnade, Fine Arts, and Half-Dome, Food Products Palace --J. L. Padilla "The Mother of the Dead" "High Tide; the Return of the Fishermen"--Gabriel Moulin "Among the White Birch Trunks"--Gabriel Moulin Tower of Jewels at Night--J. L. Padilla "The Outcast" "Muse Finding the Head of Orpheus" Palace of Fine Arts at Night--Paul Elder Co. Tympanum, Palace of Varied Industries Tympanum, Palace of Education "The Genius of Creation" Pavilions of Australia and Canada (2),--H. W. Mossby, J. L. Padilla Pavilions of France and the Netherlands (2) Rodin's "The Thinker"--Friedrich Woiter A Court in the Italian Pavilion The Pavilion of Sweden Pavilions of Argentina and Japan (2) The New York State Building--Pacific Photo and Art Co. California Building Illinois and Missouri (2) Massachusetts and Pennsylvania (2) Inside the California Building Oregon and Washington (2) Aeroplane Flight at Night The Jewel City I. Motive and Planning of the Exposition The Panama Canal a landmark in human progress--Its influence through changes in trade routes San Francisco determines, in spite of the great fire, to celebrate its completion--Millions pledged in two hours-- Congressional approval won--The Exposition built by California and San Francisco, without National aid--Only two years given to construction-- Fifty millions expended. Human endeavor has supplied no nobler motive for public rejoicing than the union of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Panama Canal has stirred and enlarged the imaginations of men as no other task has done, however enormous the conception, however huge the work. The Canal is one of the few achievements which may properly be called epoch-making. Its building is of such signal and far reaching importance that it marks a point in history from which succeeding years and later progress will be counted. It is so variously significant that the future alone can determine the ways in which it will touch and modify the life of mankind. First of all, of course, its intent is commercial. Experts have already estimated its influence on the traffic routes. But these experts, who can, from known present conditions, work out the changes that will take place, that are already taking place, in the flow of commerce on the seven seas, cannot estimate the effect those changes will have on the life of the people who inhabit their shores. Changes in trade routes have overwhelmed empires and raised up new nations, have nourished civilizations and brought others to decay. From the days when merchants first followed the caravan routes, nothing has so modified the history of nations as the course of the roads by which commerce moved. Huge as was the Canal as a physical undertaking alone, it is not less stupendous in the vision of the effects which will flow from it. In this vision, the Western shore of the United States feels that it looms largely. No small part of the benefits of the Canal are expected to fall to the Pacific States. Long before it was completed, the minds of men in the West were filled with it. Its approaching completion appealed to everyone as an event of such tremendous significance as to deserve commemoration. Thus when R. B. Hale, in 1904, first proposed that the opening of the waterway should be marked by an international exposition in San Francisco, he merely gave expression to the thought of the whole West. The Canal is a national undertaking, built by the labor and money of an entire people. It is of international significance, too, for its benefits are world-wide. The Exposition thus represents not only the United States but also the world in its effort to honor this achievement. San Francisco and California have merely staged the spectacle, in which the world participates. An international exposition is a symbol of world progress. This one is so complete in its significance, so inclusive of all the best that man has done, that it is something more than a memorial of another event. It is itself epochal, as is the enterprise it commemorates. It bears a direct relation to the Canal. The motive of the Exposition was the grandeur of a great labor. Completed, it embodies that motive in the highest expression of art. It took eleven years to prepare for and build the Exposition. The first proposal in 1904 was followed by five years of discussion of ways and means. Two years were occupied in raising the money and winning the consent of the Nation, and then four years more in planning, building, and collecting the exhibits. The first plans were interrupted, but not ended, by the most terrible disaster that ever befell a great city--the fire of 1906, which wiped out the entire business portion, with much of the residence section, of San Francisco, and destroyed hundreds of millions of wealth. Before that year ended, and while the city was only beginning its huge task of rebuilding, it again took up its festival idea. A company was formed, but, until reconstruction was largely out of the way, it was impossible to do more than keep the idea alive. In October, 1909, the idea began to crystallize into a definite purpose. In that month President Taft, at a banquet at the Fairmont Hotel, declared that the Canal would be opened to commerce on January 1, 1915. That announcement gave the final impulse to the growing determination. The success of the Portola celebration that summer had given the city confidence in its ability to carry out a great festival undertaking. In fact, it was at a meeting of the Portola committee that the first move was made toward the organization that later became effective. A mass-meeting in the Merchants' Exchange, on December 7, 1909, ended in a resolve to organize an exposition company. This found such strong popular support that at a second mass-meeting on April 28, 1910, $4,089,000 was subscribed in less than two hours. In two months the subscription had risen to $6,156,840. Governor Gillett called the California legislature in special session in August to submit to the people constitutional changes enabling San Francisco to issue exposition bonds in the amount of $5,000,000, and the State to raise another $5,000,000 by special tax. In November the people of State and city voted the two amounts. That placed a minimum of $16,000,000 to the credit of the Exposition Company and assured the world that California meant business. Then followed the struggle for Congressional approval. New Orleans demanded the right to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. All the resources of both cities were enlisted in a battle before Congress that drew the attention of the Nation. Three times delegations went from California to Washington to fight for the Exposition. California won, on January 31, 1911, when, by a vote of 188 to 159, the House of Representatives designated San Francisco as the city in which the Panama-Pacific International Exposition should be held in 1915 to commemorate the opening of the Canal. During this struggle California gave her word that she would not ask the Nation for help in financing the Exposition. The promise has been kept. The Government has not even erected a national building. It has, however, helped in material ways, by granting the use of portions of the Presidio and Fort Mason reservations, by sending naval colliers to bring exhibits from European countries, and by becoming one of the heaviest exhibitors. The national exhibits include three companies of marines encamped on the grounds, and the battleship Oregon anchored off the Marina. After Congress had acted, half a year was spent in choosing a site. It was at first expected that the Exposition would be built in Golden Gate Park. A compromise among advocates of different sites was reached on July 25, 1911, when a majority vote of the directors named a site including portions of Golden Gate Park, Lincoln Park, the Presidio, and Harbor View. Before 100,000 people President Taft broke ground for the Exposition in the Stadium of Golden Gate Park. But it was not long before the choice settled finally on Harbor View alone. The work began with the organization of the architectural staff. The following architects accepted places on the commission: McKim, Mead and White, Henry Bacon, and Thomas Hastings of New York; Robert Farquhar of Los Angeles; and Louis Christian Mullgardt, George W. Kelham, Willis Polk, William B. Faville, Clarence R. Ward, and Arthur Brown of San Francisco. To their number was later added Bernard R. Maybeck of San Francisco, who designed the Palace of Fine Arts, while Edward H. Bennett, an associate of Burnham, of Chicago, made the final ground plan of the Exposition group. When San Francisco had been before Congress asking national endorsement for the Exposition here, the plans which were then presented, and on which the fight was won, were prepared by Ernest Coxhead, architect, of this city. These proposed a massed grouping of the Exposition structures, around courts, and on the Bay front. They were afterwards amplified by Coxhead, and furnished the keynote of the scheme finally carried out. While the Exposition belongs not to California alone, but to the whole world, it is pleasant to find that so much of what is best in it is the work of Californians and San Franciscans. The architects perfected the plan in 1912. At the same time the actual work of preparing the site was completed with the filling of the tide-land portions by hydraulic dredgers and the removal of the standing buildings. In the same year the department chiefs were named and began their work. John McLaren, for many years Superintendent of Golden Gate Park, was put in charge of the landscape engineering; W. D'A. Ryan was chosen to plan the illumination, and Jules Guerin and K. T. F. Bitter were placed at the heads of the departments of color and sculpture. With these details behind, the ground-breaking for Machinery Palace in January, 1913, marked the beginning of the final stage. In the two years that remained it was necessary only to carry out the plans already perfected. No other exposition has been so forehanded. When the gates opened on February 20, 1915, to remain open till December 4, the Exposition was practically complete. Some of the exhibitors had not finished their installation; some of the foreign nations were not ready, but the Exposition had kept a promise made two years before to have its own work done on time. This achievement was quite unprecedented. It is the more remarkable in that the record was made by a city which had been almost annihilated by fire a few years before. The entire cost of the Exposition, exclusive of the value of exhibits, is estimated by the Controller at $50,000,000. This total is made up of $20,000,000 spent by San Francisco and California, $10,000,000 laid out in state and foreign buildings and displays, $10,000,000 by private exhibitors, and $10,000,000 by the one hundred concessionaires on the Joy Zone. San Francisco contributed $12,500,000, the State of California $5,000,000, and its fifty-eight counties, $2,500,000. The amounts expended by foreign nations range from $1,700,000 by Argentina to sums as low as $100,000. The State of New York spent nearly $1,000,000. II. Ground Plan and Landscape Gardening The Exposition a product of co-operation of the arts--The landscape made part of the scheme--Block grouping of palaces and courts--Plan of the buildings--McLaren's wonders in gardening--Succession of flowers throughout the Exposition--Changes overnight--Unique wall of living green. The artistic quality which distinguishes this Exposition above all others in America or Europe rests on two outstanding facts: the substantial unity of its architectural scheme, and its harmony of color, keyed to Nature's coloring of the landscape in which it is placed. The site furnished the clue to the plan; co-operation made possible the great success with which it has been worked out. "Centuries ago," said George W. Kelham, chief of Exposition architecture, "before the modern age of advanced specialization was dreamed of, had an architect been asked to create an exposition, he would have been not only an architect, but painter, sculptor and landscape engineer as well. He would have thought, planned and executed from this fourfold angle, and I doubt if it would have even occurred to him to think of one of the arts as detached from another." These words express the method of the Exposition builders. The scheme adopted was a unit, in which all of the arts were needed, and in which they all combined to a single end. Each building, each court, every garden and large mass of foliage, was designed as part of a balanced composition. To make the landscape an integral part of the Exposition picture, by fitting the Exposition to the landscape, was the common aim of architect, colorist, sculptor and landscape engineer. The Mediterranean setting offered by a sloping bench on the shore of the Golden Gate suggested, as most capable of high expression of beauty, the scheme of a city of the Far East, its great buildings walled in and sheltering its courts. The coloring of earth, sky and sea furnished the palette from which tints were chosen alike for palaces and gardens. The beauty of this plan is matched by its practical advantages. The compact grouping of the Exposition palaces not only meant a saving of ground and labor, but it makes it easier to handle the crowds, and lessens the walking required of the visitor. There is no monotony. In developing the general idea, each architect and artist was left free to express his own personality and imagination. The result is that varied forms and colors in the different courts and buildings blend truly into the whole picture of an Oriental city, set in the midst of a vast amphitheater of hills and bay, arched by the fathomless blue of the California sky. The ground plan is as simple as it is compact. Entering through the main gate at Scott Street, the visitor has the Exposition before him, practically an equal section on either hand. (See map, p. 30, 31.) On right and left in the South Garden are Festival Hall and the Palace of Horticulture. (p. 23, 24, 29.) In front is the Tower of Jewels, before it the Fountain of Energy. (p. 47.) The tower centers the south front of a solid block of eight palaces, so closely joined in structure, and so harmonized in architecture, as to make really a single palace. On the right and left of the tower are the Palaces of Manufactures and Liberal Arts; beyond them, on east and west, are Varied Industries and Education. Behind these four, and fronting on the bay from east to west, are Mines, Transportation, Agriculture and Food Products. In the center of the group, cut out of the corners of the Manufactures, Liberal Arts, Agriculture and Transportation Palaces, and entered from the south through the Tower of Jewels, is the great Court of the Universe, opened on east and west by the triumphal Arches of the Nations. (p. 59 and 63.) The Court opens northward between the Palaces of Transportation and Agriculture in a splendid colonnaded avenue to the Column of Progress, near the bay. (p. 57.) Through the arch on the east the Court of the Universe opens into an avenue which leads to the Court of the Ages, cut out of the intersection of the four Palaces of Manufactures, Varied Industries, Mines and Transportation. (p. 70.) A similar avenue on the west passes to the Court of Seasons, carved from the common junction of Liberal Arts, Education, Food Products and Agriculture. (p. 79 and 80.) Avenues pass east and west and to the north from each of these two courts, and on the south each connects through an arch with a court set back into the south front of the palace group, the Courts of Flowers and Palms. (p. 85, 87, 88, 93, 100.) On east and west of this central group of eight palaces are the Palace of Machinery and the Palace of Fine Arts (p. 105, 112), serving architecturally to balance the scheme. East of the exhibit palaces is the Joy Zone, a mile-long street solidly built with bizarre places of amusement. Balancing the Zone on the west is the State and Foreign section, with the live-stock exhibits, the polo field, race track and stadium beyond, at the western extremity of the grounds. The state buildings stand along two avenues on the north side of the section; the foreign pavilions occupy its southern half. The Tower of Jewels and the central palace group face south on the Avenue of Palms (p. 18), which, at its west end, turns as it passes the Fine Arts lagoon, and becomes the Avenue of Nations. This latter highway, bordered by the foreign buildings, joins at its western extremity the Esplanade, a broad avenue passing the north face of the palace group and continuing westward between the state and the foreign sections. On the east, the Avenue of Progress divides the central group from the Palace of Machinery. Administration Avenue on the west separates the central group from the Palace of Fine Arts. Along the bay shore is the Marina, and between it and the Esplanade are the Yacht Harbor and the lawns of the North Gardens. Surrounding all these buildings, filling the courts and bordering the avenues, are John McLaren's lovely gardens. For multitudes of visitors this landscape gardening is the most wonderful thing about the Exposition. The trees and flowers have been placed with perfect art; they look as though they had been there always. It is hard for a stranger to believe that three years ago the Exposition site was a marsh, and that these trees were transplanted last year. The Avenue of Palms is bordered on each side for half a mile with a double row of California fan palms and Canary date palms, trees from eighteen to twenty-five feet high and festooned higher than a man's head with ivy and blooming nasturtium. (See p. 18.) These massive plants, soil, roots, vines and all, were brought bodily from Golden Gate Park. Against the south walls of the buildings facing this avenue are banked hundreds of eucalyptus globulus, forty to fifty feet high, with smaller varieties of eucalyptus, and yellow flowering acacias. The Avenue of Progress is bordered with groups of Draceona indivisa, averaging twenty feet in height. The walls of the palaces on either hand are clothed with tall Monterey and Lawson cypresses and arbor vitae. Between these and the Draceonas of the avenue are planted specimens of Abies pinsapo, the Spanish fir. Banks of flowers and vines cover the ground around the bases of the trees. Administration Avenue has on one side the thickets of the Fine Arts lagoon, on the other, masses of eucalyptus globulus against the palace walls, finished off with other hardy trees and shrubs. Against the north front of the palaces are set Monterey cypresses and eucalyptus, banked with acacias. The entire city side of the South Gardens is bordered by a wondrous wall of living green,--not a hedge, but truly a wall,--the most surprising of all McLaren's inventions. For this wall, though living, is not rooted in the ground, but is really a skeleton of timbers, three times the height of a man, paneled solidly on both sides with shallow boxes of earth thickly set with a tiny green plant, which, as though crushed down by the weight of its name, Mesembryantliemum spectabilis, hugs the soil closely. Each box, really nothing more than a tray, is barely deep enough to contain a couple of inches of earth, and is screened over with wire mesh to prevent the slice of soil from falling out when it is set on edge. Some thousands of these boxes are required to cover the entire wall, which thus appears a solid mass of greenery. The little plant looks like the common ice-plant of old-fashioned gardens, and is actually kin to it. It asks little of this world, is accustomed to grow in difficult places, and is kept green by sprinkling. If a section of it gives up the struggle, the tray may be replaced with a fresh one. From time to time a blush of tiny pink flowers runs over the wall. There seems to be no season for the blossoms, but whenever the sun shines, this delicate shimmer of bloom appears. The season opened in the great sunken garden of the Court of the Universe with solid masses of rhododendron. The Court of the Ages was a pink flare of hyacinths, which, with an exquisite sense of the desert feeling of the court, were stripped of their leaves and left to stand on bare stalks. The South Gardens and the Court of Flowers were a golden glow of daffodils. Daffodils, too, were everywhere else, with rhododendron just breaking into bloom. The daffodil show lasted several weeks until, over night, it was replaced by acres of yellow tulips blooming above thick mats of pansies. This magic change was merely the result of McLaren's forethought. The daffodils had all been set at the right time to bloom when the Exposition opened. The pansies were set with them, but were unnoticed beneath the taller daffodils. Unnoticed also were the tulips, steadily shooting upward to be ready in bloom the moment the daffodils began to fail. One night and morning scores of workmen clipped off all the fading daffodils, and left a yellow sea of tulips with cups just opening. When the tulips faded early, because of continued rains, the solid masses of pansies remained to keep up the golden show. With the end of the yellow period came three months of pink flowers, to be followed in the closing third of the Exposition's life by a show of variegated blooms. This marvelous sequence of flowers without a gap is not the result of chance, or even of California's floral prodigality, but of McLaren's hard-headed calculation. He actually rehearsed the whole floral scheme of the Exposition for three seasons beforehand. To a day, he knew the time that would elapse between the planting and the blooming of any flower he planned to use. Thus he scheduled his gardening for the whole season so that the gardens should always be in full bloom. In McLaren's program there are ten months of constant bloom, without a break, without a wait. No such gardening was ever seen before. Needless to say, it could hardly have been attempted elsewhere than in California. III. The South Gardens A charming foreground to the great palaces--Palace of Horticulture and some of its rare plants--Food for pirates--Ancient and blue-blooded forest dwarfs--The Horticultural Gardens--House of Hoo Hoo--Festival Hall, with its fine sculptures by Sherry Fry--A remarkable pipe organ. Entering the Exposition by the main or Scott Street gate, the visitor has before him the beautiful South Gardens. (See p. 23.) These form an animated and effective foreground for the Exposition palaces. Except for their fountains, the gardens and the structures in them are less notable for sculpture than the central courts of the Exposition. Most of the plastic work here is purely decorative. The gardens are formal, French in style, laid out with long rectangular pools, each with a formal fountain, and each surrounded by a conventional balustrade with flower receptacles and lamp standards. In harmony with their surroundings, the buildings, too, are French, of florid, festival style. The Palace of Horticulture, Bakewell and Brown, architects, is the largest and most splendid of the garden structures. (p. 24.) Byzantine in its architecture, suggesting the Mosque of Ahmed I, at Constantinople, its Gallic decorations have made it essentially French in spirit. The ornamentation of this palace is the most florid of any building in the Exposition proper. Yet this opulence is not inappropriate. In size and form, no less than in theme, the structure is well adapted to carry such rich decoration. This is the palace of the bounty of nature; its adornment symbolizes the rich yield of California fields. In harmony also with the theme, the human figure is absent from the sculpture, save in the caryatids of the porches and the groups supporting the tall finials. Fruits and flowers, interwoven in heavy garlands and overflowing from baskets and urns, carry out the idea of profuse abundance. The great dome, larger than the dome of either St. Peter's at Rome or the Pantheon at Paris, is itself an overturned fruit basket, with a second latticed basket on its top. The conception of profusion becomes almost barbaric in the three pavilioned entrances, flanked on either side by the tall finials suggesting minarets. Here the Oriental influence of the architectural form, the mosque, becomes most pronounced, changing to French again in the caryatid porches. Altogether, the Palace of Horticulture is a beautiful building, but rather hard to see properly from the ground. From an elevation, where it appears more as a whole, it is far more effective. Curiously, it photographs better than any other building here, save the Fine Arts Palace, but in actual view it hardly lives up to the pictures. Perhaps this is because the comparatively small portions of the structure seen between the trees near-by are dwarfed by the huge dome, while in photographs the camera emphasizes the lower and nearer sections and reduces the proportions of the dome. The exhibit housed under the great dome should not be passed by. A vivid bit of the tropics is the Cuban display. Here, in an atmosphere artificially heated and moistened to reproduce the steaming jungle, is massed a splendid exhibit of those island trees and flowers that most of us know only through pictures and stories of southern seas. Around the central source of light, which is hidden under tropic vines, stands a circle of royal palms; and planted thickly over the remaining space are jungle trees, vivid enough to our imagination, but many of which have never before been seen in this country. Boys who feel pirate blood in their veins will revel in this reproduction of the scenes of imagined adventure. Any reasonable pirate could be quite happy here. For here is the breadfruit tree, read of in many a tale of castaways; also the cocoanut palm, with the fruits hanging among the fronds, waiting for the legendary monkey to scamper up the trunk and hurl the great balls at the heads of the beholders. Here, too, are the mango, and many sorts of bananas, and the cabbage palm, another favorite resource of starving adventurers. With these there are other jungle denizens,--the bamboo palm, the paperleaf palm, splendid specimens of the world-old cycad family, the guanabana, and a Tom Thumb palm, which, full grown, is no more than a handbreadth high. Ancient among trees are the two specimens of microcycas from the swamps of Cuba. These Methuselahs of the forest are at least 1,000 years old, according to the botanists. They are among the slowest growing of living things, and neither of them is much taller than a man. They were seedlings when Alfred the Great ruled England, and perhaps four feet high when Columbus first broke through the western seas. In the four centuries of Cuban history they have not grown so much again. These venerable trees belong to the bluest-blooded aristocracy of the vegetable world. Ages ago they inhabited our northern states. Their family has come down practically unchanged from the steaming days of the Carboniferous period, when ferns grew one hundred feet high, and thronged with other rank tropical growths in matted masses to form the coal measures. The fossil remains of cycads in the rocks of that period prove that they once flourished in the tropic swamps where now are the hills of Wyoming and Dakota. Scattered among the trees is a host of flowering vines, of huge crotons with variegated leaves, giant gardenias and tropical lilies. When these bloom, the air of this transplanted jungle is heavy with the perfume of their own island habitat. The Horticultural Gardens south of the Palace belong to it, and contain a large part of the horticultural exhibits. As they were planted for competitive exhibition purposes, they will not show the constant beauty that appears in the South Gardens. Here we must wait for the flowers in their season, and not expect to have them changed overnight for us by the gardeners' magic. Back of this horticultural garden is the House of Hoo Hoo, in Forestry Court, flanked by the Pine and Redwood Bungalows. It needs but a glance at its beguiling loveliness to know that here is another lesson in art and architecture by Bernard Maybeck. Here again is poetry in architecture, of a different order from the noble theme of Maybeck's Fine Arts Palace, but none the less poetry. This is a sylvan idyll, telling of lofty trees, cool shades, and secret bowers of fern and vine and wild flower, in the moist and tangled redwood forests. There is little used but rough-barked tree trunks, but what delicate harmony of arrangement! This lumbermen's lodge is one building outside the Exposition palaces that should not be missed, even though almost hidden away against the south wall. It is worth pondering over. No one may want to build a house like it, but it proclaims how beauty can be attained with simple materials and just proportions. Festival Hall, Robert Farquhar, architect, balances the Palace of Horticulture in the architectural plan of the South Gardens. (p. 29.) It, too, is French in style, its architecture suggested by the Theatre des Beaux Arts in Paris, a design which furnished the dome necessary to harmonize with that of the palace to the west. As architecture, however, it fails to hold up its end with the splendid Horticultural Palace. Its dome is too large, and has too little structure around it, to be placed so near the ground without an effect of squattiness. Its festive adornment is extremely moderate. On the cornice above the main entrance is the rhyton, the ancient Greek drinking horn, symbol of festivity. The sculpture, all done by Sherry E. Fry, carries out the same idea. The graceful figures poised on the corner domes are Torch Bearers. On the pylons at either end of the semicircular arcade of the main entrance are two reclining figures. On the right is Bacchus, with his grapes and wineskin,--a magnificently "pickled" Bacchus! On the left a woman is listening to the strains of festal music. (p. 32.) Each of the pedestals before the false windows at the ends of the arcade supports a figure of Flora with garlands of flowers. On the ground below the two Floras are two of the most delightful pieces of all the Exposition sculpture. One is a little Pan, pipes in hand, sitting on a skin spread over an Ionic capital. This is a real boy, crouching to watch the lizard that has crawled out from beneath the stone. The other is a young girl dreaming the dreams of childhood. There is something essentially girlish about this. Unfortunately, it is now almost hidden by shrubbery. Within Festival Hall is one of the half-dozen greatest organs in the world. It has more than 7,000 pipes. The heaviest of them weigh as much as 1,200 pounds apiece. Though mere size is not the essential quality of a fine instrument, it is hard to ignore the real immensity of this. The echo organ alone is larger than most pipe organs. This complementary instrument, which is played from the console of the main organ, is placed under the roof of the hall, above the center of the ceiling. Its tones, floating down through the apertures in the dome, echo the themes of the great organ. Few organs have so mighty a note as the sixty-four-foot open pitch attainable on the Exposition's instrument. Speaking by itself, this note has no sound. It is only a tremendous quaking of the whole building, as though the earth were shuddering. By itself it has no place in organ music. It is not intended to be struck alone. It is used only as a foundation upon which to build other tones. In combination it adds majesty to the music, rumbling in a gigantic undertone to the lighter notes. Even the open stops in this organ are of more than ordinary dimensions. The usual limit in a pipe organ is the sixteen-foot open stop. But in this organ there are several pipes, both of wood and of metal, thirty-two feet or more in length. Two small buildings, balanced on either side of the Scott-street entrance, are the Press Building and the Exposition home of the National Young Women's Christian Association. They are alike, French in style, and fronted with caryatid porches. The real glory of the South Gardens lies in their flowers, and in the charming setting the landscape engineers have here given to the south facade of the palace group. There is the air of Versailles in the planned gayety of the scene. In this the pools and fountains, the formal gardens, the massed trees and shrubbery, and the two palaces themselves, play their part. IV. "The Walled City": It's Great Palaces and their Architecture, Color and Material The central group of Exposition structures really a single vast palace, behind a rampart--Historical fitness of such architecture here--The south facade--Spanish portals of Varied Industries and Education Palaces--Italian Renaissance portals of Manufactures and Liberal Arts, and of the Courts of Flowers and Palms--The Roman west wall--Ornate doorway of north facade Interior courts and aisles--A balanced plan-- This the first exposition to adopt the colors of nature for its structures--Jules Guerin's color scheme, designed for an artificial travertine marble--Simplicity of his palette, from which he painted the entire Exposition--Even the flowers and sanded walks conform. Although there are eight buildings named in the central palace group, these are so closely connected in design and structure that in reality they make but one palace. Here is seen the unity with variety which marks this Exposition above all others. Commemorating a great international event, its architecture is purposely eclectic, cosmopolitan. Under a dominating Moorish-Spanish general form, the single architect of the group, W. B. Faville, of San Francisco, drawing upon the famous styles of many lands and schools, has combined into an ordered and vastly impressive whole not only the structural art of Orient and of the great Spanish builders, but also the principles of the Italian Renaissance and the architecture of Greece and Rome from which it sprang. Thus the group is wholly Southern in its origin. There is no suggestion here of the colder Gothic architecture of the North. Differing from each other in many details, the eight palaces are alike in their outer walls, their domes and gables, and similar in their entrances. These portals give a distinctive character to each palace. While the palaces differ widely in details of decoration, they all have a common source; they are all Mediterranean,--not all Byzantine, or Roman, or Italian, or Spanish, or Moorish, but some thing of each. The manner in which these forms are carried over from one palace to another, and the almost constant recurrence of some of them, like the Moorish domes at the corners, blends them without jar or break. The great wall, almost blank, except for the entrances, encloses the palaces like a walled city of the Mediterranean or the nearer Orient. Such a walled city it is, with its courts, its avenues, its fountains and pools, all placed in a setting of landscape, sea and sky, that might belong to Spain, or Southern Italy, or the lands of the Moslem. The broad, unbroken spaces that mark each face of this vast block greatly heighten the illusion. They lend an Old-World aspect, the historical fitness of which must not be overlooked. For these plain surfaces are indeed significant in the celebration of an event which was predicted by the Spanish conquistadors a century before the English Cavaliers and Puritans laid the foundations of our American Commonwealth. Relieved only by the foliage that is finely massed against them, the great blank spaces of the "Walled City" recall the severer side of Mediterranean architecture, just as their gorgeously ornate portals, towers and domes speak of its warmth and color. They are an architectural feature that has traveled far. The unbroken rampart, born of the need of defense in immemorial cities on the east and south shores of the Mediterranean, was carried thence by the Moors to Spain, to go in turn with the conquerors of the New World, and became a characteristic of the civic and ecclesiastical architecture of Latin America. Hence it is not without meaning and reason that this historic architectural form, the blank exterior of the walled city, has found its finest use in the far-western city of St. Francis. Quite apart from their frequent occurrence in the mission architecture of old Alta California, these simple wall spaces well befit the monumental structure that honors an achievement so important to all Spanish America as the Panama Canal. The southern front of the group, facing the Avenue of Palms, has the aspect of a single palace, opened in the center by the noble Roman arch of the Tower of Jewels, and indented by the Court of Flowers and the Court of Palms. (See p. 18, 88.) Seen across the South Gardens, the whole facade rising from the trees along the wall, is wondrously beautiful. The wall is seventy feet high, topped with a red-tiled roof. The pale green domes over the centers of the palaces are Byzantine, a style much used in the mosques of Islam. The gables are each crowned with a figure of Victory, sometimes called an "acroterium," from the architectural name of the tablet on which it stands. The towers on either side of the entrances to the courts are Italian. The little towers buttressing the domes on the corners of the palaces at the extreme right and left of the front, and from there repeated around the east, west and north walls, are Moorish, with characteristic latticed windows. The Palace of Varied Industries, on the extreme right, is made entirely Spanish in its southern front by its beautiful central portal, modeled after the sixteenth-century entrance to the Hospice of Santa Cruz at Toledo. (pp. 18, 37.) Except for the sculpture, in which the Spanish saints have been replaced by figures of industry, the portal is a copy of the original. All the figures are the work of Ralph Stackpole, whose treatment of the subjects, no less than their exalted position in the niches of the saints, has dignified the workman. On each side of the entrance is the "Man with a Pick." The group in the tympanum represents Varied Industries. (p. 138.) The central figure is Agriculture, the basic food-supplying industry. On one side is the Builder, on the other the Common Workman. Beyond them are Commerce holding the figurehead of a ship, and a woman with a spindle, a lamb before her, typifying the textile industries. The figure in the keystone represents the Power of Industry. Under the upper canopy is an old man handing his burden to a younger one, the Old World passing its burdens on to the New World. The infant figures come from the Spanish original. The two lesser portals on the south side of this palace are likewise Spanish. In the grill work of their openings, designed in imitation of metal, as well as in that of the central portal, there is a strong suggestion of the Arabian architecture brought into Spain by the Moors. Indeed, there is something Moorish about the whole work, except that the Mohammedans do not represent living things in art. A passage in the Koran tells devout followers of the prophet that if they should carve or picture a plant or animal they would be called upon at the Judgment to make it real. Sometimes, however, they employed Christian workmen to execute such representations, being quite resigned to let the unbeliever risk damnation. The bears terminating the buttresses on the walls represent California, and hold the seal of the State. Such buttresses against a plain wall, with a tiled roof, are common in the Franciscan missions of California. The Palaces of Manufactures and Liberal Arts, on either side of the Tower of Jewels, are alike on the south, and Italian. The Moorish corner domes are omitted here, as the palaces terminate on one side in one of the Italian towers and on the other in the wings of the Tower of Jewels. The central portals are Italian, with tiled roofs and latticed grills, with handsome imitations of bronze work under the arches. The friezes over the arches as well as the figures in the niches are by Mahonri Young, of New York. The frieze represents industries of various kinds, the work of women as well as of men. In the niche on the left is a woman with a spindle, on the right a workman with a sledgehammer. Like Stackpole's figures on the portal of Varied Industries, Young's sculptures are simple and strong. The lion used as the keystone figure of the arch and the lions and elephants alternating as fountain heads in the niches in the wall give an Oriental touch to these palaces. Of their portals none are more beautiful than those leading from the Courts of Flowers and Palms. All four are finely expressive of the noblest architecture of the Italian Renaissance. They glow with the sunshine and color of Italy. Those entering the Palaces of Liberal Arts and Education from the Court of Palms are identical in design, and seem almost perfect in their harmonious lines and warm color. (p. 88.) The other pair, opening from the Palaces of Manufactures and Varied Industries into the Court of Flowers, are cheery portals, made more domestic in feeling by the loggia between the colonnade and the tiled roof. (p. 85, 100.) The three portals of the Palace of Education are of the Spanish Renaissance, and the Moorish towers reappear at the corners. The twisted columns of the entrances are Byzantine. The tympanum above the central portal contains Gustav Gerlach's group "Education." (p. 138.) In the center is the teacher with her pupils, seated under the Tree of Knowledge; on the left, the mother instructs her children; on the right, the young man, his school days past, is working out for himself a problem of science. Thus the group pictures the various stages of education, from its beginning at home to that training in the school of life which ends only at death. The cartouche just above the entrance bears the Book of Knowledge, shedding light in all directions, the curtains of darkness drawn back by the figures at the side. The hour glass below the book counsels the diligent use of time; the crown above symbolizes the reward of knowledge. The banded globe over the portal signifies that education encompasses the world. Above each of the flanking portals is an inset panel representing the Teacher, a woman at the left, a man at the right. The man looks toward the woman, thus signifying that the world is no longer dependent on man alone. Turning the corner, the entire west wall of the palaces becomes Roman to accord with the Roman Palace of Fine Arts across the lagoon. The characteristic features are the Roman half-domes above the entrances, and the sculptures repeated in the niches of the walls. (p. 119.) On this side, the Palaces of Education and Food Products are alike, except for a slight difference in the vestibule statuary and the fountains. On the great Sienna columns beside the half-domes stands Ralph Stackpole's "Thought." The semicircle of female figures in the vestibule of the dome of the Palace of Education, bearing in their hands books with the motto "Ex Libris," though the preposition is omitted, represents the store of knowledge in books. The similar array of men bearing wreaths of cereals in the half-dome of the Palace of Food Products signifies the source of vigor in the fruits of the soil. The simple Italian fountains in the vestibules, the work of W. B. Faville, are decorative and beautiful. The alternated groups in the niches along the wall are "The Triumph of the Fields" and "Abundance." This is well called archaeological sculpture, for the emblems are from the dim past, and can be understood only with the help of an archaeological encyclopaedia. In the first are the bull standard and the Celtic cross, which were carried through the fields in ancient harvest festivals. In the second, the objects heaped around the lady suggest abundance. The north facade of the palace group is an unbroken Spanish wall, blank, except for the four beautiful and identical sixteenth-century portals. (See p. 43.) This magnificent decoration, suggestive of the finest work in rare metals, is, in fact, called "plateresque," from its resemblance to the work of silversmiths. The figures looking out on the blue water that reaches to Panama and the shores of Peru, are historical. In the center is the Conquistador. Flanking his stately figure on each side is the pirate of the Spanish Main, the adventurer who served with but a color of lawful war under Drake, the buccaneer that followed Morgan to the sack of Panama. (p. 44.) These statues are by Allen Newman. Every man jack of the eight pirates on the four portals is apparently bow-legged. There is a vast space between the knees of these buccaneers of Panama, but when you look more closely it is hard to decide whether those pirate knees are really sprung, or whether it is the posture of the figures that suggests the old quip about the pig in the alley. The sculptor has at least given to the figures a curious effect of bandy legs. The feet are set wide apart, the space between and behind the legs is deeply hollowed out, and the rope which hangs from the hands curves in over the feet to add to the illusion. There used to be a saying that cross-eyed people could not be honest. Similarly, perhaps, Newman thought the appearance of bow-legs would increase the villainy of his pirate. Certainly, no such blood-curdling ruffian has been seen out of comic opera. The east wall of the palace group becomes Old Italian, to harmonize with the Roman architecture of the Machinery Palace opposite. The portals suggest those of ancient Italian city walls. In the niches stands Albert Weinert's "Miner," here used because the Palace of Mines forms one half the wall. In the long avenue that runs east and west through the center of the group, the unity of the eight buildings becomes more apparent as we view the noble arches which join them, and note the character of their inner facades. Education and Food Products are alike in the walls and portals fronting on the dividing aisle. The Spanish architecture of the south facade of Education is here carried over to Food Products. Similarly, the avenue between Mines and Varied Industries is the same on both sides, carrying out the Old Italian of the east front, and with The Miner repeated in the portal niches of both palaces. The avenues leading from the Court of the Universe to the Court of Ages and the Court of Seasons have been variously called the Aisles of the Rising and the Setting Sun, or the Venetian and Florentine Aisles. Their four walls are in the style of the Italian Renaissance, and show a diaper design similar to that on the Italian towers of the Courts of Flowers and Palms. In an artistic sense, this group is incomplete without the Palace of Fine Arts on the west and Machinery Hall on the east. (p. 105, 106.) Balancing each other in the general scheme, they form the necessary terminals of the axis of the Exposition plan. This matter of balance has been carefully thought out everywhere, and affords a fine example of the co-operation of the many architects who worked out the vast general design. The Courts of Seasons and Ages are set off against each other; the Courts of Palms and Flowers weigh equally one against the other; the Arches of the Nations not only balance but match; even the Tower of Jewels, which is the center of the whole plan, is offset by the Column of Progress. In the South Gardens, the Palace of Horticulture is balanced against Festival Hall. Color and Material.--All other Expositions have been almost colorless. This is the first to make use of the natural colors of sea and sky, of hill and tree, and to lay upon all its grounds and buildings tints that harmonize with these. Jules Guerin, the master colorist, was the artist who used the Exposition as a canvas on which to spread glorious hues. Guerin decided, first, that the basic material of the buildings should be an imitation of the travertine of ancient Roman palaces. On this delicate old ivory background he laid a simple series of warm, yet quiet, Oriental hues, which, in their adaptation to the material of construction and to the architecture, as well as in their exquisite harmony with the natural setting, breeds a vast respect for his art. The color scheme covers everything, from the domes of the buildings down to the sand in the driveways and the uniforms of the Exposition guards. The walls, the flags and pennants that wave over the buildings, the shields and other emblems of heraldry that hide the sources of light, draw their hues from Guerin's plan. The flowers of the garden conform to it, the statuary is tinted in accordance with it, and even the painters whose mural pictures adorn the courts and arches and the Fine Arts Rotunda were obliged to use his color series. The result gives such life and beauty and individuality to this Exposition as no other ever had. It makes possible such beautiful ornamentation as the splendid Nubian columns of the Palace of Fine Arts, and the glories of the arches of the Court of the Universe. (See frontispiece.) Go into that Court on a bright day and take note of the art that has made Nature herself a part of the color plan. From a central position in the court, where one can look down the broad approach leading from the bay, Nature spreads before the beholder two expanses of color, the deep blue of salt water sparkling in the sun, and the not less deep, but more ethereal, blue of the California sky. With this are the browns and greens of the hills beyond the bay, and, nearer at hand, the vivid verdure of lawns and trees and shrubs. All these the designer used as though they were colors from his own palette. To go with them in his scheme he chose for pillar and portico, for the wall spaces behind, for arch and dome, for the decorations and for material of the sculptures, such hues that the whole splendid court and its vistas of palaces beyond blend with the colors of sea and sky and of green living things in a glorious harmony. Such a view of the heart of the Exposition at its best compels recognition of Guerin's skill in color. It needed a vivid imagination to realize the possibilities of the scene, and visualize it. It required infinite delicacy and a fine sense of the absolute rightness of shade and tint to produce such harmonious beauty. The mere thought of it is a lesson in art. The decision of the architects to develop the theme of an Oriental walled city, and the natural setting of the site, Mediterranean in its sea and sky, led Guerin to select Oriental colors. Aiming at simplicity, he decreed that not more than eight or nine colors should be found upon the subdued palette from which he would paint the Exposition. Then he took into consideration the climate and atmospheric conditions peculiar to San Francisco. Every phase of sky and sea and land, every shadow upon the Marin hills, across the bay, was noted in choosing an imitation of natural travertine for the key color of the Palaces. This is a pale pinkish-gray-buff, which may be called old ivory. It is not garish, as a dead white would be, especially in the strong California sunlight, but soft and restful to the eye. It harmonizes with the other colors selected, and, most important of all, it avoids a certain "new" effect which pure white would give, and which is deadly to art. Paul Deniville, who had already developed a successful imitation of travertine, was engaged to make the composition to be applied over the exterior walls. This is a reproduction in stucco of the travertine marble of the Roman palaces of the period of Augustus. This marble is a calcareous formation deposited from the waters of hot springs, usually in volcanic regions, and is common in the hills about Rome. It often contains the moulds left by leaves and other materials incorporated in the deposit. These account for the corrugations of the stone when it is cut. In California, as in other regions where hot springs are found, travertine is not uncommon. It is found notably in the volcanic district of Mono County, and elsewhere, sometimes in the form of Mexican onyx, which is only a translucent variety of the same marble. In its reproduction here the marble has been imitated even to the natural imperfections which roughened the Italian stone. In the concave surfaces of the ornamentation the color has been deepened, so that it appears sometimes as a rich reddish brown. All this enhances the antique effect, making the palace walls and columns still more like those of the old Roman construction. Besides the travertine the eight other colors employed are: 1. French Green, used in all lattices, flower tubs, curbing of great plats, where it complements the green of the grass, In the exterior woodwork and some of the smaller doors. 2. Oxidized Copper Green, a peculiar mottled light green. All the domes, except the six yellow ones in the Court of the Universe, are of this light green. It forms a sharp contrast with the blue sky and a pleasing topping to the travertine walls. 3. Blue Green, found in the ornamentation of the travertine, and in the darker shades at the bases of the flag poles. These first three colors, all in tones of green, are regarded as one unit in the spectrum of nine colors allowed by Guerin. 4. Pinkish-Red-Gold, used in the flag poles and lighting standards only. It is a very brilliant and striking pigment, and is always topped with gold. 5. Wall-Red, used in three tones. They are found in the backgrounds of the colonnades, courts and niches, on the tiled roofs, and in the statuary. These reds run from terra-cotta to a deep russet, and predominate in the interiors of the principal courts. 6. Yellow-Golden-Orange, largely used in enriching the travertine and in enhancing shadow effects. It is found in the architectural mouldings and in much of the statuary. The following rule was adopted in regard to the coloring of the statuary: That which is high off the ground, that is, the figures surmounting the domes and spires, is of golden yellow, while that close to the eye of the beholder is of verde-antique, a rich copper-green streaked with gray, and much is left in the natural travertine tint. 7. Deep Cerulean Blue and Oriental Blue, verging upon green, are used in the ceilings and other vaulted recesses, in deep shadows, in coffers and in the background or ornamentation in which travertine rosettes are set in cerulean blue panels. It might be called electric blue. It is brilliant and at the same time in harmony with the other colors. 8. Gray, very similar to the travertine. 9. Marble Tint, spread over the travertine in places with a transparent glaze. 10. Verde-Antique, really one of the many shades of green--a combination of the copper-green and a soft gray, and therefore not to be counted as one of the nine cardinal colors. It simulates corroded copper, and has faint yellow and black lines. With the gamut thus restricted by the taste and discrimination of a master, the decorators and artists were strictly limited to the nine colors named. No one might use other than cerulean blue, if he employed blue at all; no other red than the tone popularly known as "Pompeiian" has been admitted in the scheme. In this red the admixture of brown and yellow nullify any tendency towards carmine on crimson. The French and the copper greens and the intermediate shades approved by Guerin are the only greens allowed. Here is seen the great advantage of a one-man idea. No other exposition was ever so carefully or successfully planned in this particular. There is no court of one color clashing with a dome, palace or tower of conflicting tone, whether near by or at a distance. All is in harmony. Working with Guerin, John McLaren, in charge of the landscape gardening, so selected the flowers which border the paths and fill the parterres that they too conform to the color scheme. Though three different complete floral suits are to be seen at the Exposition in three periods, each one accords with the hues of wall and tower, completing in harmony the effect of the whole. The pinkish sand spread on the paths and avenues to harmonize with other ground colors was not always tinted. Some one had noticed that the white beach sand at Santa Cruz turned pink when heated. Seizing upon this fact, McLaren and Guerin used it to give a final touch to their scheme of color. They drew another lesson from the washerwoman. A familiar laundry device was used to give sparkle and brilliance to the waters of the pools and lagoons. They were blued, not by dumping indigo into the water, but by tinting the bottoms with blue paint. V. The Tower of Jewels Imposing as the central accent of the Exposition's architecture--Its magic glow at night--A magnificent Roman arch--"Jewels" of the Tower-- An historical landmark--Inscriptions, sculpture and murals--Fountains of "Youth" and "El Dorado"--An epitome of the Exposition's art. The Tower of Jewels, Carrere and Hastings, architects, is the central structure in the Exposition architecture. (See p. 47.) It plays a triple role. In architecture it is the center on which all the other buildings are balanced. In relation to the theme of the Exposition, it is the triumphal gateway to the commemorative celebration of an event the history of which it summarizes in its sculpture, painting and inscription. Last of all, it is an epitome of the Exposition art. Towering above everything else, it is at once the culminating point and the center of the Exposition scheme. It links the palaces of the central group, otherwise divided into two sections. Upon it rests the balance of Festival Hall and the Palace of Horticulture, of the courts, the gardens, the Palace of Machinery and the Palace of Fine Arts. It finds its own balancing structure in the Column of Progress. It is intended to be the first thing seen from afar, the point from which the eye travels to lesser things on either hand. At night the Tower remains the center of the transformed Exposition. Under the white light of the powerful projectors, details disappear, the structure is softened into a form almost ghostly. It becomes ethereal. All its daytime glitter gone, it seems really spiritual. The jewels hung over the upper portion do not flash out a diamond brilliance, as they might have been expected to do; rather they spread the light in a soft film about the Tower. (p. 135.) From close at hand, the arch and its flanking colonnades are truly imperial. There the ornamentation and color of the upper part are not in the eye. Up to the cornice above the arch, the mass of the Tower is magnificent in proportion and harmonious in line and color. It almost seems that the builders might have stopped there, or perhaps have finished the massive block of the arch with a triumphant mass of sculpture. Studied from the ground underneath the Tower and around it, the arch and the two little colonnaded courts in the wings are gloriously free and spacious, with the spaciousness that the Exposition as a whole reflects, that of the sea and sky of its setting. I walked here when the ocean breeze, fresh from winter storms at sea, was sweeping through them. There is no confinement, no sense of imprisonment from the boundless depths of air outside. Something which the architect could not include in his plans has come in to make constant this increase in the sense of freedom and space. The openings of the arches, being the only free and unconfined passageways through the south facade of the palace group, provide the natural draft on this side for the interior courts. The air rushes through at all times, even when no breeze is stirring outside. This uncramped movement of air currents, far from being unpleasant, gives the same sense of open freedom that one gets on a bold headland, where the ocean winds whip the flowers and lay the grass flat. From the court behind the Tower you see the mansioned hills of San Francisco through the colonnades like panelled strips of painting; and, looking northward, the long spaces over the bay to the great Marin hills beyond. The jewels on the Tower give it a singularly gay and lively touch when the sun is bright and the wind blowing. The wind is seldom absent around the top of so lofty a structure, and there these bits of glass are always sparkling. At night they produce, under the strong white light of a whole battery of giant reflectors hidden on other buildings, the mystic haze that shrouds the Tower. They were a fine idea of the chief of illumination, W. D'A. Ryan, giving just a touch of brilliance to an Exposition otherwise clothed in soft tones. The jewels are only hard glass, fifty thousand of them cut in Austria for the purpose, prismatic in form, and each backed with a tiny mirror. Hung free to swing in the wind, they sparkle and dance as they catch the sun from different angles. As the great gate to the Exposition, the Tower becomes historical in relation to the event celebrated beyond its archway. Its purpose, from this point of view, is to tell the entering visitor briefly of the milestones along the way of time up to the digging of the Canal. Its enrichment of sculpture, painting and inscription summarizes the story of Panama and of the Pacific shore northward from the Isthmus. The architect has expressed in its upper decorations something of the feeling of Aztec art. The four inscriptions on the south faces of the arches tell how Rodrigo de Bastides discovered Panama in 1501; how Balboa first saw the Pacific Ocean in 1513; how the United States began to dig the Canal in 1904, and opened it in 1915. The four on the north faces epitomize the history of California, thus honored as the state that commemorates the opening of the Canal. They speak of Cabrillo's discovery of California in 1542, of the founding of the Mission of San Francisco by Moraga, in 1776, of the acquisition of California by the United States, 1846, and its admission to the Union in 1850. The sculpture carries out the same idea. Pizarro and Cortez sit their horses before the Tower, splendid figures of the Spanish conquerors, the one by Charles C. Rumsey, the other by Charles Niehaus. (p. 48.) Above the entablature of the supporting columns are repeated around the outer wall of the arch, Adventurer and Priest, Philosopher and Soldier, types of the men who won the Americas, all done by John Flanagan. Above the cornice, the mounted figures by F. M. L. Tonetti are those of the Spanish cavaliers, with bannered cross. The eagles stand for the Nation that built the Canal. Excellent in spirit are Flanagan's figures of the four types, especially that of the strikingly ascetic Priest. (p. 44.) Besides their symbolism, the statues fulfill a useful architectural purpose in relieving what would otherwise be the blankness of the wall. But the same cannot be as truly said of the Armoured Horsemen above. Vigorous as they are, they are not in the right place. They clutter up the terrace on which they stand. The globe on the pinnacle, with its band, signifies that now a girdle has been put around the earth. On the side walls of the arch under the Tower, the murals by William de Leftwich Dodge tell the story of the triumphant achievement which the Exposition commemorates. On the east, the central panel pictures Neptune and his attendant mermaid leading the fleets of the world through the Gateway of All Nations. (p. 53.) On one side Labor, with its machines, draws back from the completed task, and, on the other, the Intelligence that conceived the work and the Science that made it possible, move upward and onward, while a victorious trumpeter announces the triumph. One figure, with covered face, flees from the appeal of the siren, but whom he represents, or why he flees, I cannot tell. In the smaller panel to the left, Labor is crowned and all who served with toil are acclaimed. Its companion picture on the right represents Achievement. The Mind that conceived the work is throned, the Sciences stand at one side, while a figure crouching before the bearer of rewards points to Labor as equally worthy. On the west side of the arch, the central panel portrays the meeting of Atlantic and Pacific, with Labor joining the hands of the nations of east and west. In the panel to the left, enlightened Europe discovers the new land, with the savage sitting on the ruins of a forgotten civilization, the Aztec once more. On the right America, with her workmen ready to pick up their tools and begin, buys the Canal from France, whose labor has been baffled. The two lovely fountains in the wings of the Tower draw their inspiration from the days of the conquistadors. Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's Fountain of El Dorado is a dramatic representation of the Aztec myth of The Gilded One, which the followers of Cortez, in their greed for gold, mistook for a fact instead of a fable. (p. 54.) The Fountain of Youth by Edith Woodman Burroughs finds its justification as a part of the historical significance of the Tower in the legend of that Fountain of Eternal Youth sought by Ponce de Leon. (p. 53.) The interpretation of these sculptures is set forth in the chapter on Fountains. The Tower of Jewels epitomizes the Exposition's art. The glories of its architecture, color, sculpture, painting, and landscape gardening all find an expression here. In architecture it reflects something of almost all of the orders found in the Exposition. In the main it is Italian Renaissance, which means that the basic characters are Roman and Greek, enriched with borrowings from the Orient and Byzantium. In column and capital, in wall and arch and vaulted ceiling, it represents the architecture of the whole Exposition, and so harmoniously as to form a singular testimony to the unity of the palace scheme. In color, from the dull soft gold of the columns of the colonnades on either wing, through the vivid hues of Dodge's allegorical murals under the arch, and the golden orange and deep cerulean blue in the vaulted recesses, up to the striking green of columns on the upper rounds of the Tower, the structure summarizes all the pigments which the master of color, Guerin, has laid upon the Exposition. In sculpture, the conquistadors in front, the hooded Franciscans and the Spanish warriors who stand around the cornice, the corner figures on the Tower above, and, finally, the great globe on top, repeat in varied form the themes of palace, court, facade, and entrance. It has its own fountains in its own little courts. Then, as a final touch to complete this epitome of Exposition art, the dark cypresses set in the niches on either side of the openings of the arch, gracefully express the debt the whole palace scheme owes to its landscape engineer. In the original models of the Tower, these niches were designed for vases. It was a happy thought that placed the cypresses there instead. VI. The Court of the Universe Most important of the three great courts of the "Walled City"-- A meeting-place of East and West--Roman in its architecture and atmosphere, suggesting the vast Piazza of St. Peter's Triumphal Arches of the Nations--Their types of the great races of Orient and Occident-- Fine mural paintings by Simmons and Du Mond--Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun--Aitken's "Elements"--The "Column of Progress." The court is the key to the scheme of the palace group of the Exposition. Leaving out the state and foreign quarters, and the other suburbs, and omitting the Fine Arts Palace and Machinery Hall, which, from a purely architectural standpoint, are merely balanced ornaments needed to complete the whole, the Exposition city is a palace of blank walls enclosing three superb courts. The court is an essential element of the Oriental architecture of the Mediterranean, which provided the theme of the Exposition plan. There, however, it is the patio, the place of the siesta, the playground of the children. Here the courts have been made the chief architectural feature of the group. There the courts are private. Here they are merely hidden. The central court at the Exposition, the largest and the most splendid, is the Court of the Universe. (See p. 63.) It is the most important, too, in the story which its sculptures tell, and in its relation to the purpose of the Exposition. Whether it is also the most beautiful is a matter about which opinions differ. Many persons admire Mullgardt's romantic Court of Ages beyond anything else, while others are in love with the calm Court of Seasons. Paradoxically, the Court of the Universe suffers from its very magnificence. It is so vast that the beholder is slow to feel an intimate relation with it. The same is true of some of the noblest sights in nature. First seen, there is something disappointing in the Grand Canyon. There is too much in the view to be comprehended until after many days. In this court, the visitor is pleased with its splendid proportions, its noble arches, its rich sculpture, the wonderful blending of its colors with those of sea and sky; but the pleasure at first is of the intellect rather than of the emotions. Like other big and really fine things, it grows on one. The sweep of its colonnades is majestic, the arches are noble monuments, the Column of Progress is inspiring, the fountains show a graceful play of water, the sculpture is big, strong, and significant; the flowers of the sunken garden are a glory long to be remembered. The Court of the Universe is Roman in architecture, treated in the style of the Italian Renaissance. Its commanding features, the Triumphal Arches and the magnificent flanking colonnades are most Roman in spirit, their Italian decoration appearing in the medallions and spandrels of the arches, the garlands hung along the entablature of the colonnade, and the interior adornment of the vaulted corridors. The columns, including the huge Sienna shafts before the arches and the Tower of Jewels, are Roman Corinthian, with opulent capitals, though not too florid when used in a work of such vast extent. Most Roman of all is the great Column of Progress, at the north end of the court. McKim, Mead and White of New York, the architects, had the Piazza of St. Peter's at Rome in mind when they designed this great sweep of colonnades. There, too, they borrowed from the circle of saints the idea of the repeated Star figure. The colonnade not only encloses the court but is produced along the sides of the Palaces of Agriculture and Transportation to form two corridors of almost Egyptian vastness. These two features, the arches and the colonnades, here at the center of the palace group, strike the Exposition's note of breadth. Their decoration is the key to the festal richness of all the adornment. By day the four entrances to the court are its finest features. Nowhere in the whole Exposition is the air more gloriously free than around the lofty arch and colonnades of the Tower of Jewels. Nowhere is the sunlight purer, or the sky bluer, than over the broad approach leading up from the glancing waters of the bay, past the aspiring Column of Progress, and between the noble colonnades of the palaces on either hand. From within the court, or from the approaches on east and west, the triumphal Arches of the Nations impress one with the magnificence of their proportions, their decoration, and their color. There the Oriental hues of the Exposition are carried upward, to meet and blend with the sky, and magically to make the heavens above them bluer than they really are. (See frontispiece.) There is little Oriental about the court, except the color and the group of the Nations of the East above the Arch of the Rising Sun. The colonnade is Corinthian, all the arches are Roman, the sculpture is classic, the paintings are romantic, mystic,--the Court of the Universe may properly hold all things. It is thus an arena for the expression of universal themes, on which the nations of the East and West look down from their lofty Arches of Triumph. With this key, the symbolism of the sculpture in the court is easy. The Stars, by Calder, stand in circle above the colonnade. The frieze below the cornices of the pavilion towers represents the Signs of the Zodiac, by Herman A. MacNeil. The graceful figures atop the two fountain columns in the oval sunken garden are the Rising and the Setting Sun, by Adolph A. Weinmann. (p. 69.) In the east the Sun, in the strength of morning, the masculine spirit of "going forth," has spread his wings for flight; in the west, the luminary, now essentially feminine, as the brooding spirit of evening, is just alighting. The sculptural adornment of the shafts is detailed in the chapter on Fountains. The titanic Elements slumber on the balustrade, one on either hand of the stairways leading down on north and south into the sunken area. (p. 64.) On one side, on the north, the Elemental Power holds in check the Dragon of Fire. The whole figure expresses the primitive terror of Fire, a fear that still lives in the beasts. On the other side lies Water, the roaring Ocean, kelp in his hair, Neptune's trident in his hand, by him one of his fabled monsters. On the south, eagles of the Air hover close to the winged figure of the woman, who holds up the evening star and breathes gently down upon her people. Icarus, who was the first airman, appears upon her wings. Opposite, rests Earth, unconscious that her sons struggle with her. These remarkably expressive figures are the work of Robert Aitken. The youthful groups by Paul Manship upon the extremities of the balustrade, on either hand of the eastern and western stairways, represent Music and Poetry, Music by the dance, Poetry by the written scroll. The sculpture is archaic in type,--an imitation of Greek imitations of still earlier models. The colossal groups on the Arches of the Nations symbolize the meeting of the peoples of the East and West, brought together by the Panama Canal, and here uniting to celebrate its completion. In the group of the Nations of the East the elephant bears the Indian prince, and within the howdah, the Spirit of the East, mystic and hidden. (p. 63.) On the right is the Buddhist lama from Tibet, representative of that third of the human race which finds hope of Nirvana in countless repetitions of the sacred formula, "Om Mani Padme Hum." Next is the Mohammedan, with the crescent of Islam; then a negro slave, and then a Mongolian warrior, the ancient inhabitant of the sandy waste, a type of those Tartar hordes which swept Asia under Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. On the left of the Indian elephant are an Arab falconer, an Egyptian mounted on a camel and bearing a Moslem standard, then a negro slave bearing a basket of fruit on his head, and a sheik from the deserts of Arabia, all representing the Mohammedans of the nearer East. Thus are figured types of the great Oriental races, the Hindoo, the Tartar, which includes the Turk and the northern Chinese; the Chinese stock of the south, the Arab, and the Egyptian. Only the Persian is omitted, and possibly the Japanese, unless that, too, is Mongol. On the Arch of the Setting Sun, the prairie schooner is the center of the group of the Nations of the West, on the top a figure of Enterprise, the Spirit of the West. (p. 59.) On either side of her is a boy. These are the Heroes of Tomorrow. Between the oxen rides the Mother of Tomorrow. Beside the ox at the right is the Italian immigrant, behind him the Anglo-American, then the squaw with her papoose, and the horse Indian of the plains. By the ox at the left is the Teuton pioneer, behind him the Spanish conquistador, next, the woods Indian of Alaska, and lastly the French Canadian. Three sculptors collaborated in the modeling of these groups, A. Stirling Calder, Leo Lentelli, and Frederick G. R. Roth. Of the Mural Paintings under the Arches of the Nations, the two by Edward Simmons in the arch on the east are an allegory of the movement of the peoples across the Atlantic, while those by Frank Vincent Du Mond in the western arch picture in realistic figures the westward march of civilization to the Pacific. Historically, the picture on the southern wall of the Arch of the Nations of the East comes first. Here Simmons has represented the westward movement from the Old World through natural emigration war, conquest, commerce and religion, personifying these in types of the people who have crossed the Atlantic. On the strand, beyond which appear types of the navies of the ages, are the following: an inhabitant of the fabled Atlantis, here conceived as a savage; the Greek warrior, perhaps one of those who fared with Ulysses over the sea to the west; the adventurer and explorer, portrayed as Columbus; the colonist, Sir Walter Raleigh; the missionary, in garb of a priest; the artist, and the artisan. All are called onward by the trumpet of the Spirit of Adventure, to found new families and new nations, symbolized by the vision of heraldic shields. Behind them stands a veiled figure, the Future listening to the Past. The long period in which this movement has been in progress is expressed by the dress of the travellers. This might be called the Material Movement to the West, for the picture opposite depicts the Ideals of that progress. Hope leads the way, though some of the Hopes, shown as bubbles, were but Illusions. Then follow Adventure, Art, Imagination, Truth, Religion, and the spirits of domestic life. Simmons' work is characterized by grace and delicacy. The pictures are pleasing as form and color alone, but without titles the allegories are too difficult for people unaccustomed to interpreting this kind of art. Du Mond's two murals in the western arch are easier. They make a continuous story. The first chapter, on the north side, pictures the emigrant train, led by the Spirit of Adventure, leaving for the West, while the second shows the pioneers reaching the shores of the Pacific and welcomed by California. To express the many-sided development of the West, Du Mond has portrayed individuals as the types of the pioneers. Here are Junipero Serra, the priest; Anza, the Spanish captain who first trod the shores of San Francisco Bay; Joseph Le Conte, the scientist; Bret Harte, the author; William Keith, the artist; and Starr King, the divine. The energy of these men has actually outstripped the Spirit of Adventure. Du Mond's story parallels in a way that pictured by Simmons. Color and composition are both exceedingly grateful to the eye. The Column of Progress, outside the court, commands the entire north front of the Exposition, as the Tower of Jewels does the southern. (p. 57.) Symmes Richardson, the architect, drew his inspiration from Trajan's Column at Rome, an inspiration so finely bodied forth by the designer and the two sculptors who worked with him, MacNeil and Konti, that this shaft stands as one of the most satisfying creations on the Exposition grounds. Its significance completes the symbolism of the Exposition sculpture and architecture, as the joyous Fountain of Energy at the other end of the north-and-south axis begins it. That fountain celebrates the completion of the Canal. The Tower of Jewels with its sculpture tells the historical story of the conquest of the western seas and their shores. The Court of the Universe is the meeting place of the Nations, come to commemorate the joining of East and West. From this Court, a splendid avenue leads down to the border of the Western Ocean, where stands the Column of Progress, beyond the Exposition. Both in its position and in its sculpture the column signifies that, this celebration over, human endeavor stands ready to go on to still vaster enterprises on behalf of mankind. The figure atop this Column is the Adventurous Bowman, past human achievement behind him, seeking a new emprise in the West, whither he has loosed his arrow. At his back is a figure of Humanity, signifying the support of mankind. By his side is the woman, ready to crown his success. (p. 58.) The question has often been asked, why there is no string to the archer's bow. The sculptor properly omitted it, for, at the moment the arrow leaves the bow, the cord is vibrating far too strongly to be visible. The cylindrical frieze below the Bowman represents the Burden Bearers. This, with the Bowman, is the work of H. A. MacNeil. The spiral of ships ascending the shaft symbolizes the upward course of man's progress. Around the base is the frieze by Isidor Konti, on three sides striving human figures, on the fourth celestial trumpeters announcing victory. The whole signifies man's progress through effort. (p. 60.) Yet the visitor must not look for a story in all the sculpture here or elsewhere. Some of this art is merely decorative, fulfilling purposes of harmony or completeness in the general mass. The winged figures by Leo Lentelli on the columns before the Arches of the Nations are simply ornaments, relieving, with their shafts, what would otherwise be too sheer a wall in the structure. They may be angels or they may be genii. Decorative, also, are the sculptured medallions between these columns, and the Pegasi on the spandrels of the arch, the medallions done by Calder, the Pegasi by Roth. The caryatids in pairs of male and female surmounting the balustrade of the sunken garden are merely lamp bearers. The spouting monsters in the fountain pools are but ornamental, and so are the figures in relief under the basins. Those at the base of the shafts are described in detail in the chapter on Fountains. In the decoration of the entablature of the colonnade, the skull of the ox repeated between the garlands recalls the vicissitudes of the pioneers in their long march across the continent. The Court of the Universe, this huge Piazza of the Nations, is thus all-inclusive. Within its vast oval is room for every theme. From it lead the ways to all the Exposition. In spirit it is as cosmopolitan as the Forum under the Caesars. Its art revives for us "The glory that was Greece, The grandeur that was Rome." - Inscriptions in Court of the Universe I. Arch of the Rising Sun, east side of the Court. (a) Panel at center of attic, west side of the Arch, facing the Court: The Moon Sinks Yonder in the West While in the East the Glorius Sun Behind the Dawn Appears. Thus Rise and Set In Constant Change Those Shining Orbs and Regulate the Very Life of this Our World. --Kalidasa, India. (b) Small panel at right of center, facing the Court: Our Eyes and Hearts Uplifted Seem to Gaze on Heavens' Radiance. --Hitomaro, Japan. (c) Small panel at left of center, facing the Court: They Who Know the Truth are Not Equal to Those Who Love It. --Confucius, China. (d) Panel at center of attic, east side of the Arch: The Balmy Air Diffuses Health and Fragrance. So Tempered is the Genial Glow That We Know Neither Heat Nor Cold. Tulips and Hyacinths Abound. Fostered by A Delicious Clime the Earth Blooms Like A Garden.--Firdausi, Persia. (e) Small panel at right of center: A Wise Man Teaches Be Not Angry. From Untrodden Ways Turn Aside. --Phra Ruang, Siam. (f) Small panel at left of center: He That Honors Not Himself Lacks Honor Wheresoe'er He Goes. --Zuhayr, Arabia. II. Arch of the Setting Sun, west side of the Court. (a) Panel at center of attic, east side of the Arch, facing the Court: Facing West From California's Shores--Inquiring Tireless Seeking What is Yet Unfound--I A Child Very Old Over Waves Toward the House of Maternity the Land of Migrations Look Afar--Look Off the Shores of My Western Sea the Circle Almost Circled. --Whitman, America. (b) Small panel at right of center: Truth--Witness of the Past Councilor of the Present Guide of the Future.--Cervantes, Spain. (c) Small panel at left of center: In Nature's Infinite Book of Secrecy A Little I Can Read. --Shakespeare, England. (d) Panel at center of attic, west side of the Arch: It is Absolutely Indispensable For the United States to Effect A Passage From the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean And I Am Certain That They Will Do It--Would That I Might Live to See it But I Shall Not.--Goethe, Germany. (e) Small panel at right of center: The Universe--An Infinite Sphere the Center Everywhere the Circumference Nowhere.--Pascal, France. (f) Small panel at left of center: The World is in its Most Excellent State When Justice is Supreme. --Dante, Italy. VII. The Court of the Ages (Officially called "The Court of Abundance.") An artist's dream in romantic Orientalism--Mullgardt's own title for it - His great "Tower of the Ages"--Mullgardt interprets his architectural masterpiece--Brangwyn's splendid murals, "Earth," "Air," "Fire" and "Water"--The "Fountain of Earth," by Robert Aitken, realism set amidst the romantic. The Court of the Universe is not Oriental, the Court of the Ages is. Not in architecture, but in feeling, in the atmosphere with which the architect has invested it, this court brings to mind those brilliant lands of the Mediterranean touched by the East through the Moors. You pass under its arcades and walk out into a region of the Sun, warm, bright, dazzling. The architect, Louis Christian Mullgardt, has caught the feeling of the South,--not the rank, jungle South of the tropics; nor the mild, rich South of our own Gulf states; but the hard, brilliant, arid South of the desert. This court expresses Arizona, New Mexico, Spain, Algiers,--lands of the Sun. The very flowers of its first gardens were desert blooms, brilliant in hue, on leafless stalks. There are orange trees, but they, also, are trees of the Sun, smooth of leaf, to retain moisture. It is a court, too, of romance. It might be a garden of Allah, with a plaintive Arab flute singing, among the orange trees, of the wars and the hot passions of the desert. It might be a court in Seville or Granada, with guitars tinkling and lace gleaming among the cool arcades. It is a place for dreams. The architecture has been called Spanish Gothic, but, according to the architect, it "has not been accredited to any established style." We may well be content to call it simply Mullgardt. The court is an artist's dream, rather than a formal study in historic architecture; and it is the more interesting, as it is the more original, for that. Except for the central fountain, which, fine though it is as a sculptured story, is out of harmony with the filigreed arcades around it, all the sculpture in the court is, in feeling, an intimate part of the romantic architecture. This portion of the art of the court is best considered as decoration, finding its justification in the beauty it imparts to the whole. It has genuine meaning, but what that is remains inscrutable so long as the court is called that of Abundance. Mullgardt called his creation the "Court of the Ages." He was overruled because the officials deemed the name not in accord with the contemporaneous spirit of the Exposition. They called it the "Court of Abundance." In spite of the name, however, it is not the Court of Abundance. Mullgardt's title gives a key to the cipher of the statues. Read by it, the groups on the altar of the Tower become three successive Ages of Civilization. (See p. 70.) Tower of the Ages.--This is the most admired of all the Exposition towers, and with reason. The originality, strength and beauty of its design set it above anything else of the sort yet seen in America; and the symbolism of its sculptures, which are the work of Chester Beach, is of almost equal interest with the tower itself. At the base, on the gable above the arch, rude of face and form, with beasts low in the scale, are the people of the Stone Age. Above them is a mediaeval group, the Crusader, the Priest, the Peasant Soldier armed with a cross-bow, with similar figures on the side altars. Enthroned over all, with a crown on her brow, is Modern Civilization, expressed as Intelligence. At her feet are two children, one with an open book, symbolizing Learning; the other, a boy with a part of a machine, representing Industry. The supporting figures on the sides are the Man and Woman of the Present, sprung from the earlier types. The delicate finials rising from the summit of the tower express Aspiration. The two shafts at the head of the court, each surmounted by a huntress with bended bow, symbolize Earth and Air. Originally they were intended as finials to the double cascade which was to have swept down to the court from the Altar of the Ages on the tower. The cascade was not built, much to the benefit of the beauty of the court, but the ornaments were suffered to remain. The giddy females who support each shaft are sufficiently romantic to be in keeping with the decoration of the court. The three figures repeated around the top of the arcade are of a hunter dragging a deer, a woman with her offspring on her shoulder, and a primitive man feeding a pelican, all so happily expressed that they are an intimate part of the arcade on which they stand. They seem almost to have grown from their supports. These figures alone, unless we add the florid ladies of the ornamental shafts, with the rich filigree of the arcades and the tower, are all that express in any way the idea of Abundance carried in the present name of the court. Mullgardt conceived this court as a sermon in stone. Its significance as a whole is best explained by the architect himself. He interprets the court as rising in four horizontal strata: "The court is an historical expression of the successive Ages of the world's growth. The central fountain symbolizes the nebulous world, with its innate human passions. Out of a chaotic condition came Water (the basin), and Land (the fountain), and Light (the Sun, supported by Helios, and the electroliers). The braziers and cauldrons symbolize Fire. The two sentinel columns to the right and left of the tower symbolize Earth and Air. The eight paintings of the four corners of the ambulatory symbolize the elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The central figure in the North Avenue symbolizes 'Modern Time Listening to the Story of the Ages.' "The decorative motifs employed on the surrounding arcade are sea-plant life and its animal evolution. The piers, arches, reeds and columns bear legendary decorative motifs of the transition of plant to animal life in the forms of tortoise and other shell motifs;--kelp and its analogy to the prehistoric lobster, skate, crab and sea urchin. The water-bubble motif is carried through all vertical members which symbolize the Crustacean Period, which is the second stratum of the court. "The third stratum, the prehistoric figures, surmounting the piers of the arcade, also the first group over the tower entrance, show earliest forms of human, animal, reptile and bird life, symbolizing the Stone Age Period. "The fourth stratum, the second group in the altar tower, symbolizes human struggle for emancipation from ignorance and superstition, in which Religion and War are dominating factors. The kneeling figures on the side altar are similarly expressive. The torches above these mediaeval groups symbolize the Dawn of Understanding. The chanticleers on the finials surrounding the court symbolize the Christian Era. The topmost figure of the altar symbolizes Intelligence, 'Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards All,' the symbols of Learning and Industry at her feet. The topmost figure surmounting the side altar symbolizes Thought. The arched opening forming the enclosure of the altar contains alternating masks expressing Intelligence and Ignorance in equal measure, symbolizing the Peoples of the World. A gradual development to the higher forms of plant life is expressed upward in the altar tower, the conventionalized lily petal being the highest form." This, then, is the lesson, the deepest and most spiritual attempted in any of the Exposition structures, and surely entitling the court to be called, as its creator wished, the Court of the Ages. Brangwyn's Murals.--The mural paintings by Frank Brangwyn in the four corners of the arcades are rich, glorious in color, freighted with the opulence of the harvest, but they symbolize the four primeval elements-- Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Their themes have nothing to do with Abundance. It is unfortunate that these pictures, far and away the best in the decoration of the Exposition, have been hidden in the corners of a court. The canvases are bold, free, vast as the elements they picture. They need space. When they were unpacked and hung on the walls of Machinery Hall, they were far more effective. Here they are cramped by their close quarters, and easily overlooked. People are not going in to see them as they should, and so are missing one of the chief joys of the Exposition,--the masterpieces of one of the world's greatest living painters. These representations of the four elements glow and burn with the vivid hues of nature. All of the pictures have a setting of autumn,, that season of the year when nature puts on her dying hues, and floods the earth with color. Their rich reds, purples, yellows, browns, greens and indigoes are the hues of autumn skies, the falling leaves of hardwoods, the dense foliage of pines, colors of the harvest, of fruit and grapes, of flowers, and of deep waters. The men and women in them are primeval, too, of Mediterranean type, and garbed in the barbaric colors in which Southern folk express the warmth of their natures. Free and vivid as is their color, the breadth of primeval liberty is not less seen in the splendid spaces of Brangwyn's pictures. The forest vistas are illimitable; the air has the freedom of the Golden Age; the skies stretch out and up to heaven. Each set of two pictures represents one of the elements. The first of the Earth pictures in the northwest corner of the corridor is a harvest of orchard fruits, products of earth. Tall cypresses on the right enhance the vast space of sky over the orchard, the best sky in all the eight paintings. The colors are those of the rich fruits, the autumn flowers, and the garish costumes of Brangwyn's peasantry. The companion picture represents a vintage, with great purple grapes hanging among the bronzing leaves on a trellis, and yellow pumpkins and flowers underfoot. The color is in these, and in the same Southern costumes seen in the first picture. The first of the Air pictures is as easy to read as the second is difficult. (p. 74.) In it a huge windmill stands on a height against rain-laden clouds and a glowing rainbow. The slope is covered with heavy-headed grain, and stained with vivid flowers, all bending before the swift currents of air. Laborers, men and women, hurry homeward before the wind, from their task of winnowing grain. Boys flying their kites complete the symbolism. In the companion picture a group of archers are loosing their arrows between the boles of tall, straight hardwoods on the brink of a deep valley. Great white birds are winging outward through the tops of the trees. The distance in the sky beyond is wonderful. The color is of the gorgeous autumn leaves of hardwoods and of rich flowers. In one of the Water pictures fishermen are drawing a net from a lake suggested by a fringe of purple, white and yellow iris. The men seem to stand on an island or a peninsula, for behind them, beyond tall trees, is a deep indigo lake. Great pregnant clouds float in the sky, and the picture glows with autumn colors. In the other, men and women come forward with water jars to a source suggested by tall white water birds and flowers growing thick among the sedges. There are the same clouds, big with the promise of rain, and the same profusion of vivid hues. Primitive Fire is suggested in the next pair by a thick-clustered group of peasants with hands outstretched where a thin column of smoke rises straight. Autumn skies and foliage tell of chill in the air. The colors burn in dying leaves, in the sky, in fruit and grapes. A man is bringing a burden of fagots. Men of bovine anatomy crouch before the fire, their backs arched, their cheeks bulging, as they blow it into flame. These folk are all primitive, candid in their animalism, Samsons in limb and muscle. Brangwyn's mastery of anatomy is notable, and he builds his men with every flexor showing, like a machine. Pottery burners working around a furnace dimly suggested convey the idea of Industrial Fire in the last of the pictures. There is the same motif of cold in the sky and the fruits, intensified by the somber leafage of fir and pine. In striking contrast with the light and ethereal quality of the allegorical murals in the arches of the Court of the Universe, these paintings are rich to the point of opulence. There is an enormous depth in them. The figures are full-rounded. The fruits, flowers and grain hang heavily on their steams. The trees bear themselves solidly. The colors, laid on with strong and heavy strokes, fairly flame in the picture. Public auction is the fate said to be destined by the Exposition company for these wonderful pictures. It is not to be blamed for this. It is a business corporation, and these paintings are assets on which it may be necessary to realize. But if the company finds itself financially able, it should see to it that the paintings remain in San Francisco as the property of the city. Like the great organ in Festival Hall, which the Exposition has promised to install in the Civic Auditorium when the fair ends, these splendid pictures should be hung in the Auditorium as a gift to the city. If the Exposition is not able to give them, an opportunity is presented for men of wealth to do art a great service in San Francisco. Our cities, unlike those of Europe and of South America, are not accustomed to buy works of art. Private generosity, then, must supply the deficiency. In the northern extension of the court, beyond the tower, where the Spanish decoration is carried almost to the bayward facade of the palace group stands a massive female figure, Modern Time Listening to the Story of the Ages. Beyond it are four standards of the Sun, like two at the southern end of the pool in the main court, brilliant at night. There remains but the central fountain, in the main court, symbolizing the Earth, done by Robert Aitken. (p. 73.) Taken by itself, this is a notable work, but it is not in keeping with the romantic spirit of the Court of Ages. Its figures are magnificently virile, but wholly realistic. Only at night, when, through clouds of rising steam, the globe of the Earth glows red like a world in the making, and from the forked tongues of the climbing serpents flames pour out on the altars set around the pool,--only then does the fountain become mystic. Even then it suggests cosmogony, mechanics, physics, which are not romantic, except in so far as there may be romance of the intellect. However, this is Aitken, not Mullgardt. The allegories of the group are detailed in the chapter on Fountains. VIII. The Court of the Seasons A charming bit of Italian Renaissance--Its quiet simplicity--The alcove Fountains of the Seasons, by Furio Piccirilli--Milton Bancroft's Murals - The forecourt, with Evelyn Longman's Fountain of Ceres--Inscriptions. In The Court of the Seasons, the architect, Henry Bacon of New York, has shown us a charming mood of the Italian Renaissance. (p. 79, 80.) This court, neither too splendid to be comfortable nor too ornate to be restful, is full of a quiet intimacy. Nature's calm is here. It is a little court, and friendly. Its walls are near and sheltering. People like to sit here in the shelter of the close thickets around the still pool in the center. I notice, too, that persons hastening across the grounds come this way, and that they unconsciously slacken pace as they walk through the court. This is the only one of the three central courts in which everything is in harmony. There is nothing obtrusive about it. The effect is that of a perfect whole, simple, complete. The round pool, smooth, level with the ground, unadorned, gives its note. The colors are warm, the massive pillars softly smooth. The trees press close to the walls, the shrubbery is dense. Birds make happy sounds among the branches. Water falls from the fountains in the alcoves, not with a roar, but with something more than a woodland murmur. These fountains touch one of the purest notes in nature. In cool, high, bare-walled alcoves the water falls in sheets from terrace to terrace, at last into a dark pool below. The sound is steady, gently reinforced by echo from the clean walls behind, and pervasive. It is a very perfect imitation of the sound of mountain waters. Nothing in this court takes effort. The pictures and the sculpture of the alcoves and the half-dome tell their own story. Here is no elusive mysticism, no obscure symbolism to be dug out with the help of guidebooks, like a hard lesson. The treasures of the Seasons are on the surface, glowing in the face of all. The Seasons are sheltered in the four alcoves, distinguished from each other only by the fountain groups of Furio Piccirilli and the murals by H. Milton Bancroft. Neither pictures nor statues need much explanation. The first alcove to the left of the half-dome is that of Spring. In the sculptured group of the fountain, flowers bloom and love awakens. It is a fresh and graceful composition. The murals are on the faces of the corridor arches. No one can mistake their meaning. Springtime shows her first blossoms, and the happy shepherd pipes a seasonal air to his flock, now battening on new grass. In the companion picture, Seedtime, are symbols of the spring planting. Next comes Summer, the time of Fruition. (p. 94.) Above the fountain the mother gives the new-born child to its happy father, and the servant brings the first fruits of the harvest. This is less likable than the other groups. The posture of the mother is not a happy one. The two murals picture Summer and Fruition. Bancroft has taken athletic games as the symbol of the season. Summer is crowning the victor in aquatic sports. Conventional symbols of fruits and flowers represent Fruition. In the group of Autumn, Providence is the central figure, directing the Harvest. She is bringing in the juice of the grape. The season is significantly represented in the full modeling of the figures and the maturity of the adults. The mural of Autumn, in the rich colors of the dying year, suggests by its symbols of wine and music, the harvest festival. Opposite, is pictured the Harvest, with the garnered crops. Last of all is Winter, with the bare desolation of the wintry world in the melancholy fountain group. Then Nature rests in the season of conception, while a man sows, his companion having prepared the ground. In his mural of Winter, Bancroft pictures the snowy days, the fuel piled against the cold, the chase of the deer, the spinning in the long evenings. The companion piece represents the festival side of the season, when men have time to play. The Seasons are complete. On the walls of the half-dome are two formal paintings by Bancroft, conventional but charming in their allegory. These are Bancroft's best murals. In the first, Time crowns Art, while her handmaids, Painting, Pottery, Weaving, Glass-making, Metal-working and Jewel-making, stand in attendance. In the other, Man is taught the laws of Love, Life, and Death, Earth, Fire, and Water. On the summit of the half-dome is a group representing the Harvest, and before it, on two splendid columns, are Rain, a woman bearing the cup of the waters, and Sunshine, another with a palm branch. All three are by Albert Jaegers. At the other extremity of the court each of the two pylons is surmounted by a bull, wreathed in garlands, and led by man and maiden to the sacrifice. These groups, each called the Feast of the Sacrifice, are also by Albert Jaegers. (p. 79.) The spandrels on the arches and the female figures on the cornices are by his brother, August Jaegers. The abundance of the Seasons is symbolized in the fruit-bearing figures that form the pilasters of the cornices of the arches, and by the fat ears of corn depending from the Ionic capitals of the columns. These types of fruitfulness have a further justification in the neighborhood of the Palaces of Agriculture and Food Products, which border the court on the north. The eastern and western arches are exquisite in their simple proportion, and the delicate charm of the fresco of their vaulted passages. The quality of this interior decoration is enhanced by the beauty of the staff work, which throughout this court is the most successful found in the Exposition. Here this plaster is soft, rich and warm, and looks more real and permanent than elsewhere. I prefer to consider the northern approach between the two palaces as not a part of this court. The pleasant intimacy of the court would have been enhanced if it had been cut off from this approach by an arch. Half way down the forecourt is the formal fountain of Ceres by Evelyn Beatrice Longman, which must cheer the hearts of those who would have all art draped. - Inscriptions in Court of Seasons (a) On arch at east side: So Forth Issew'd the Seasons of The Yeare--First Lusty Spring All Dight in Leaves and Flowres. Then Came the Jolly Sommer Being Dight In A Thin Silken Cassock Coloured Greene. Then Came the Autumne All in Yellow Clad. Lastly Came Winter Cloathed All in Frize Chattering His Teeth For Cold that Did Him Chill. --Spenser. (b) On arch at west side: For Lasting Happiness We Turn Our Eyes To One Alone And She Surrounds You Now. Great Nature Refuge of the Weary Heart And Only Balm To Breasts That Have Been Bruised. She Hath Cool Hands For Every Fevered Brow And Gentlest Silence For the Troubled Soul. --Sterling. IX. The Courts of Flowers and Palms The Court of Flowers typically Italian--Its delightful garden and fountain, "Beauty and the Beast," by Edgar Walter--Borglum's fine group, "The Pioneer"--The Court of Palms is Grecian in feeling--"The End of the Trail," by Fraser, a chapter in American history--Murals in the doorways--Arthur Mathews' "Triumph of Culture." Recessed in the south front of the palace group, and leading back to the Court of the Seasons and the Court of the Ages, are two perfect smaller courts, each admirably living up to its name--the Court of Flowers and the Court of Palms. (See p. 85, 88, 93.) Both courts were designed by George W. Kelham. Each is a pleasant and colorful bay of sunshine facing southward between two graceful towers. One is bright with level fields of flowers, the other cool with greensward and palms set about a sunken garden. Both are calm, peaceful spots to rest and dream in the sun. Both are of the South. Here summer first unfolds her robes, and here she longest tarries. Though at first sight these courts are much alike, they differ in feeling and effect. The Court of Flowers is Italian, the Court of Palms Grecian, though Grecian with an exuberance scarcely Athenian. Perhaps there is something Sicilian in the warmth of its decoration. When it is bright and warm, the Court of Palms is most Greek in feeling; less so on duller days. But the Court of Flowers is Italian in all moods. With its shady balcony above the colonnade, it might be in Verona or Mantua. It is a graceful court, formal, yet curiously informal. Its paired Corinthian columns, its conventional lions by the porches and its flower girls around the balcony, its lamp standards and the sculptured fountain, go with formal gardens. The garden here is itself formal in its planting, and yet so simple, so natural, that it banishes all ceremony. This garden is one of the best things in the truly wonderful floral show at the Exposition. The flowers are massed as we always dream of seeing them in the fields,--a dream never quite so well realized before. The areas of the court in the Exposition's opening weeks were solid fields of daffodils, thick as growing wheat, with here and there a blood-red poppy, set to accent the yellow gold of the mass. Other flowers have now replaced these in an equal blaze of color. Here, too, are free, wild clumps of trees and shrubs, close set, with straggling outposts among the flowers, as natural as those bordering grain fields in California valleys. It is a summery court, lacking but one thing to make it ideally perfect. It ought to have crickets and cicadas in it, to rasp away as the warm afternoons turn into evening, and tree hylas to make throaty music in the still, rich-lighted night. The statuary goes well with the court. There is a pretty, summery grace about the flower girls designed by Calder for the niches above the colonnade, and in the figures of Edgar Walter's central fountain. Here on the fountain are Beauty and the Beast, Beauty clad in a summer hat and nothing else, the Beast clothed in ugliness. (p. 100.) Never mind the story. This is Beauty, and Beauty needs no story. Four airy pipers, suggestive at least of the song of the cicada on long, hot afternoons, support the fountain figure. Around the basin of the pool is carved in low relief a cylindrical frieze of tiger, lion and bear, and, wonder of wonders, Hanuman, the Monkey King of Hindoo mythology, leading the bear with one hand and prodding the lion with the other. Before the court The Pioneer sits his horse, a thin, sinewy, nervous figure; old, too,--as old as that frontier which has at last moved round the world. (See p. 87.) The statue, which is by Solon Borglum, is immensely expressive of that hard, efficient type of frontiersmen who, scarcely civilized, yet found civilization always dogging their footsteps as they moved through the wilderness and crossed the deserts. He is, indeed, the forerunner of civilization, sent forward to break ground for new states. This group is offset against that other fine historical sculpture, The End of the Trail, placed before the Court of Palms. As representatives of the conquering and the conquered race, the two must be studied together. The elusive Grecian feeling of the Court of Palms comes in large part from the simple Ionic columns, and the lines of the gabled arches. Properly, this court is in the Italian Renaissance, but it is less Italian than the Court of Flowers. Like that court, it is warm and sunny, full of color and gladness. It has the same harmonious perfection, but it is more formal. Its sunken garden is bordered with a conventional balustrade and grass slopes, with marble seats by the paths. There is no fountain, only a long pool in the sunken area, and a separate raised basin at the inner end with gently splashing jets, giving out a cool and peaceful sound. Fat decorated urns, instead of lions, guard the entrances to the buildings. Italian cypresses border the court, with formal clipped acacias in boxes between the pillars of the colonnade. The Fountain of Beauty and the Beast, which stands in the Court of Flowers, was designed to be set here, while Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's Fountain of the Arabian Nights was to have found a place in the Court of Flowers. These two courts were planned as the homes of the fairy tales, one of Oriental, the other of Occidental lore. Many beautiful things were designed for them. The attic of the Court of Flowers, which was intended as the place of Oriental Fairy Tales, was to have carried sculptured stories from the Arabian Nights. But none of these things was done. Mrs. Whitney's fountain was modeled but never made, unfortunately, for the modeled figures are charming. The only sculpture in the Court of Palms, aside from the "End of the Trail," which stands before it, is in the decoration of the entablature and the arches. Horned and winged female caryatids mark off the entablature into garlanded panels. All the three arches under the gables are enriched with figures of women and of children supporting a shield, conventional groups, but graceful. "The End of the Trail," by James Earle Fraser, of New York, is a great chapter in American history, told in noble sculpture. The dying Indian, astride his exhausted cayuse, expresses the hopelessness of the Red Man's battle against civilization. (p. 86.) There is more significance and less convention, perhaps, in this than in any other piece of Exposition sculpture. It has the universal touch. It makes an irresistible appeal. To make up for the lack of statuary in this court there are mural paintings over the entrances leading into the Palaces of Education and Liberal Arts on either hand, and into the Court of the Seasons. Of these three lunettes two add little to the beauty of the court except for the vivid touch of color which they give it. One, over the door of the Palace of Education, is entitled "Fruits and Flowers," by Childe Hassam. It is a triumph of straight line applied to the female form. Over the door of the Palace of Liberal Arts is "The Pursuit of Pleasure," ascribed to Charles Holloway. The figures are gracefully drawn, the coloring flowery. There is better quality in Arthur F. Mathews' "Triumph of Culture," over the entrance to the Court of Seasons. In color and force this comes nearer to the splendid standard set by Frank Brangwyn than anything else in the Exposition's mural decoration. Perhaps that is too faint praise, for this is a real picture. In it a victorious golden spirit, crowding aside brute force, allows the Humanities, representatives of Culture, to triumph as the guardians of Youth. The figures are human, there is strength and ease in them, and the color is a deep-toned song. X. The Fountains A characteristic and fitting feature of the Exposition--Fountain of Energy--The Mermaids--Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's "El Dorado" and Mrs. Burroughs' "Youth"--Rising and Setting Sun--Piccirilli's "Seasons"--Aitken's masterpiece, the Fountain of Earth--"Beauty and the Beast." The fountain, the spring, the well, is a characteristic note in the life and art of all lands in the Sun. The Arabians, the Moors, the Spaniards, the Italians and the Greeks loved fountains. It is less so in the North, in the regions of much rain, where water flows naturally everywhere. But nothing is so welcome in a thirsty land as a fountain. Hence there is appropriateness in the many fountains of this Exposition, which reflects in its plan the walled cities of the Orient of the Mediterranean, where fountains play in the courts of palaces, in public squares and niches in the walls; and pools lie by the mosques, and in the gardens. Here are many kinds of fountains, from huge masses of sculpture spouting forth many powerful streams in the sun to terraced basins where water murmurs in quiet alcoves, and simple jets tinkling in summery courts. Of those fountains that have especially been dignified and adorned by sculpture there are fourteen, some single, some in pairs, with one quartet in the Court of Seasons. Their sequence from the chief gate of the Exposition follows in a way the symbolic significance of all the sculpture. The Fountain of Energy, by A. Stirling Calder, in the center of the South Gardens before the Tower of Jewels, as a figure of aquatic triumph, celebrates the completion of the Panama Canal. (See p. 47.) Resting on a pedestal in the center of the pool, and supported by a circle of figures representing the dance of the oceans, is the Earth, surmounted by a figure of Energy, the force that dug the canal. Fame and Victory blow their bugles from his shoulders. When all the jets are playing, Energy, horsed, rides through the waters on either hand. The band around the Earth, decorated with sea horses and fanciful aquatic figures, represents the seaway now completed around the globe. On one side a bull-man, a rather weak-chinned minotaur, stands for the strength of Western civilization; on the other, a cat-woman represents the civilization of the Eastern hemisphere. Surrounding the central figure in the pool are the four Oceans,--the Atlantic with corraled tresses and sea horses in her hand, riding a helmeted fish; the Northern Ocean as a Triton mounted on a rearing walrus; the Southern Ocean as a negro backing a sea elephant and playing with an octopus; and the Pacific as a female on a creature that might be a sea lion, but is not. Dolphins backed by nymphs of the sea serve a double purpose as decoration and as spouts for the waters. The central figure of this fountain has been severely criticized, and with reason. The design is a beautiful one, but unfortunately not well adapted to reproduction on so large a scale. Symbolism is here carried to an extreme that spoils the simplicity which alone makes a really great work imposing. Calder had a fine idea of a figure of joyous triumph to stand as the opening symbol of the festival side of the Exposition. He deserves credit for the real beauty of his design. It is a pity that a thing so charming as a model should not have worked out well in heroic proportions. As a fountain, though, it is splendid. The pool and its spouting figures are glorious. The play of the waters when all the jets are spouting is not only magnificent but unique. This veil of water shooting out and falling in a half sphere about the globe has not been seen before. There is a real expression of energy in the force of the leaping streams. Mermaid Fountains, by Arthur Putnam.--At the far end of each of the lovely pools in the South Gardens is an ornamental fountain of ample basins topped by a graceful mermaid, behind whose back a fish spouts up a single jet of water. These are formal fountains, but exceedingly harmonious. Without trying to be pretentious, they achieve an effect of simple beauty. (p. 99.) "El Dorado" and "Youth."--Within the colonnaded wings of the Tower of Jewels are two fountains which carry' out the symbolism of the days of the Spanish explorers in their themes, the Aztec myth of El Dorado, and the fabled Fountain of Youth, sought by Ponce de Leon. In their way, these are the loveliest fountains on the Exposition grounds, though they differ so from all the rest that comparison is not easy. The naive conception of the Fountain of Youth and the realistic strength of that of El Dorado lead visitors back to them again and again. They are hidden fountains, as their prototypes were hidden. Each terminates one of the two open colonnades with a central niche composition flanked on either hand by a sculptured frieze. Each is the work of a woman sculptor, and both, though very different, are far from the conventional or the commonplace. The Fountain of El Dorado, by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, tells the story of an Aztec myth of a god whose brilliance is so dazzling that the sun is his veil, and who lives in a darkened temple lest his light destroy humanity. (p. 54.) At the center of the recessed wall are doors of the deity's shaded abode, a guardian on either side. In the friezes naked humanity moves ever onward, striving to reach the home of the god. The figures, in full relief, are splendid in their grace and vigor. Here are men and women whom nothing can hold back; here are those who must be pushed along, some who linger for love, others for worldly goods; but all, the strong and the faint, the eager and the tardy, move forward irresistibly to their destiny. In Wait's "The Stories of El Dorado," the following account is given of this aboriginal myth of an expected Indian Messiah, El Hombre Dorado, the Gilded Man, as the Spaniards interpreted the native words,--which played a fateful part in the history of the primitive races of Spanish America: "No words incorporated into the English language have been fraught with such stupendous consequences as El Dorado. When the padres attempted to tell the story of the Christ, the natives exclaimed 'El Dorado'--the golden. The ignorant sailors and adventurers seized upon the literal meaning, instead of the spiritual one. The time, being that of Don Quixote and of the Inquisition, accounts for the childish credulity on one side and the unparalleled ferocity on the other. The search for El Dorado, whether it was believed to be a fabulous country of gold, or an inaccessible mountain, or a lake, or a city, or a priest who anointed himself with a fragrant oil and sprinkled his body with fine gold dust, must always remain one of the blackest pages in the history of the white race. The great heart of humanity will ever ache with sympathy for the melancholy and pitiful end of the natives, who at the time of the conquest of Mexico were confidently expecting the return of the mild and gentle Quetzalcoatl,--the Mexican variant of this universal myth. * * * The Golden Hearted came from an island in the East, and to this he returned, in the legend. In all variants, he gave a distinct promise of return. This accounts for the awe inspired by Europeans in the minds of the natives, causing them everywhere to fall easy victims of the unscrupulous adventurers swarming into their country. Fate never played a more cruel prank than to have one race of men speak and act constantly from the standpoint of tradition, while the other thought solely of material gain." Interesting, too, is Mrs. Edith Woodman Burroughs' conception of the Fountain of Youth. (p. 53.) The beautiful central figure is a girl child standing without self-consciousness by blooming primroses. Modeled faintly on the pedestal are the parents, from whose upturned faces and uplifted hands the primroses seem to spring. In the friezes, wistful old people are borne onward to Destiny in boats manned by joyous chubby children, unconscious of their priceless gift of youth to which their elders look back with so much longing. Fountains in the Court of the Universe.--Passing through the Tower of Jewels into the great court where themes become universal under the circle of stars above the surrounding colonnade, we come to the Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun, by A. A. Weinmann, one at either focus of the elliptical sunken garden. In the East, the Sun, in the strength of the morning, his wings spread for flight, is springing upward from the top of the tall column rising out of the fountain. Walk toward him from the west and you get the effect of his rising. (p. 69.) At his feet a garland of children is woven in the form of a ring at the top of the column. At the base of the shaft, just above the basin, is a cylindrical frieze in low relief, symbolizing Day Triumphant. Weinmann interprets this as the Spirit of Time, hour-glass in hand, followed by the Spirit of Light with flaming torch, while Energy trumpets the approaching day. Interwoven with these figures is an allegory of Truth with mirror and sword, escaping from the sinister power of Darkness, Falsehood shrinking from its image in the mirror of Truth, and Vice struggling in the coils of a serpent. It is not easy to read either series, or to disentangle one from the other. In the West the Setting Sun is just alighting, with folding wings. The luminary, which in the morning was male, to represent the essentially masculine spirit, the upwardness and onwardness of opening day, has now become female in its quality of brooding evening. In fact, this same figure, which the sculptor shows in the Palace of Fine Arts, is there called by him "Descending Night." The frieze at the base of the shaft of the Setting Sun is as difficult to interpret as the other. On it are shown the Gentle Powers of Night. Dusk folds in her cloak Love, Labor and Peace. Next are Illusions borne on the wings of Sleep, then the Evening Mists, followed by the Star Dance, and lastly, Luna, the goddess of the Silver Crescent. Luna may be recognized, for the Silver Crescent is in her hand; and, with the sequence I have just given, you may recognize the others. The figures supporting the basins and the creatures in the pools of each fountain are merely decorative. The play of water in these fountains is joyous and delightful. The purpose of a fountain is well and adequately fulfilled. There now remain the seven fountains of the lesser courts, connected more or less intimately in theme with their immediate surroundings. In the Court of Seasons.--Four are in the Court of Seasons, where Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, by Furio Piccirilli, have each its own alcove in the wall and its own play of water. These are pleasant fountains, simple and quiet. There is some feeling of lonely mountain cliffs in the plain walls behind them, hung with streamers of the maidenhair vine. In the first alcove stands Spring with her flowers; on one side the man, in whom love awakens, on the other fresh young Flora, bringing the first offerings of the year. Next comes the alcove of Summer, the time of fruition. The mother brings her babe to its father, the laborer bears the first fruits of the harvest. (p. 94.) Autumn follows, the time of harvest. The central figure of the fountain group is Providence. The fruits of the year are brought in, and the vintage is in progress. Last of all comes Winter, the melancholy time when the trees are bare and the bark splits with the frost. The central figure is naked Nature resting in the period of conception. On one side is bowed an old man, after preparing the ground for the seed; on the other is a strong man sowing. This is perhaps the best of the four fountain groups it expresses admirably the bleakness and sadness of the season. There is a wintry chill about it, the gloom of a dark December day. Of the others, Spring is most likable, with its conception of the seasonal impulse to love; and Autumn, for the strength of its figures and the beauty of their modeling. In the forecourt, appropriately placed between the Palaces of Agriculture and Food Products, stands the Fountain of Ceres. (p. 79.) It is an odd fountain, with the water gushing from the mouths of satyrs set barely above the level of the ground, as though for the watering of small animals. Ceres stands above, with a wreath of cereals and a scepter of corn. The frieze pictures the dance of joyous nature. Fountain of Earth.--In Mullgardt's Court of Ages is the Fountain of Earth, by Robert Aitken, the most magnificently virile of all the Exposition fountains, conceived of a powerful imagination and executed in strength and beauty. (p. 70, 73.) The sculpture of the fountain must be described in three parts. Aitken's own interpretation is condensed in the following account. On the wall of the parapet at the foot of the pool, sixty feet from the central structure, is a colossal figure symbolizing Helios, in his arms the great globe of the setting sun after it has thrown off the nebulous mass that subsequently became the earth. The whole expresses primitive man's idea of the splashing of the sun into the water as it sets. On the side of the central structure toward the figure of Helios, and leading up to the Earth, are two groups, each of five crouching figures, and divided by a conventional plane. At the outer extremity, Destiny, in the shape of two enormous hands and arms, gives life with one and takes it with the other. The five figures on the left side represent the Dawn of Life, those on the right, the Fullness and End of Existence. The first group begins with a woman asleep, just from the hand of Destiny; while the succeeding figures symbolize the Awakening, the Joy of Being, finally, the Kiss of Life, with the human pair offering their children, representing the beginnings of fecundity. On the east side, a figure of Greed looks back on the earth, the mass in his hands suggesting the futility of worldly possessions. Next is a group of Faith, wherein a patriarch holds forth to the woman the hope of immortality, with a scarab, ancient symbol of renewed life. Then comes a man of Sorrow, as the woman with him falls into her last Slumber. These are about to be drawn into oblivion by the relentless hand of Destiny. The gap between these groups and the main structure of the fountain typifies the unknown time between the beginning of things and the dawn of history. Each of the four panels in pierced relief surrounding the globe of the Earth tells a single story, with the exception of the first, which tells three. Traveling to the left around the globe, we begin with the figure of Vanity, mirror in hand, in the center of the first panel, as the symbol of worldly motive. Here, too, are primitive man and woman, bearing their burdens, symbolized by their progeny, into the unknown future, ready to meet whatever be the call of earth. The woman suggests the overwhelming instincts of motherhood. Passing into the next panel, we see their children, now grown, finding themselves, with Natural Selection. The man in the center, splendid in physical and intellectual perfection, attracts the women on either hand, while two other men, deserted for this finer type, display anger and despair. One tries to hold the woman by force, the other, unable to comprehend, turns hopelessly away. The succeeding panel symbolizes the Survival of the Fittest. Here physical strength begins to play its part, and the war spirit awakens, with woman as its cause. The chiefs struggle for supremacy, while their women try in vain to separate them. The last panel portrays the Lesson of Life. The elders offer to hotheaded youth the benefit of their experience. The beautiful woman in the center draws to her side the splendid warrior, whose mother on his left gives her affectionate advice. On the right of the panel, a father restrains a wayward and jealous youth who has been rejected by the female. Passing again into the first panel we find a representation of Lust,--a man struggling to embrace a woman, who shrinks from his caresses. Thus the circle is complete; these last two figures, though in the first panel, are separated from those first described by decorations on the upper and lower borders. Framing the panels, while also indicating the separation in time of their stories, stand archaic figures of Hermes, such as the ancients employed to mark distances on the roads. Their outstretched hands hold up the beginnings of life in the form of rude primeval beasts, from whose mouths issue the jets of the fountain. At night this fountain glows deep red, from lamps concealed within the panels, while clouds of rosy steam rising around the globe create an illusion of a world in the making. The Fountain of Beauty and the Beast was originally intended for the Court of Palms, which was conceived as the Court of Occidental Fairy Tales, just as the Court of Flowers was to have been that of Oriental Fairy Tales. Mrs. Whitney's fountain of the Arabian Nights, a creation of whimsical beauty, was to have stood in the latter court. It was modeled, but was never enlarged; and its place was taken by Beauty and the Beast, the work of Edgar Walter. (p. 100.) This is another harmonious fountain, rightly conceived, so that its sculpture does not overbalance its use in the play of water, and admirably in tune with the flowery grace of the court. Beauty, pouring water from a Greek amphora, sits lightly upon the ugly Beast. Why she wears a smart Paris hat no one has discovered. Four cheery pipers, lively as crickets in the sun, support the upper bowl. Around the lower basin is a frieze in low relief, figuring Hanuman, the King of Monkeys, leading a bear with one hand and prodding a lion with the other. All this is part of the original fairy-tale significance of the court. The fountains are of the glories of the Exposition. There is always charm in the movement of the waters, rest in their music. The appeal is elemental, and therefore, universal. Artificial jets can never equal the play of water in Nature, but when adorned with harmonious sculpture, as here, they become that significant and satisfying imitation which is Art. XI. The Palace of Machinery A vast rectangular hall, saved by Ward's successful architecture from being a huge barn--Modeled on the Roman Baths of Caracalla--Patigian's finely decorative sculptures, symbolizing the mechanical forces and labor--Beauty of the interior--A Cathedral of Dynamics. A mighty hall is the Palace of Machinery. (See p. 105, 106.) Beachey flew in it. The Olympic might rest in its center aisle with clear space at both bow and stern, and room in the side aisles for two ocean greyhounds as large as the Mauretania. Vastness is the note of the architecture which Clarence Ward has employed to give body to this enormous space. It is an architecture of straight lines in all the outer structure, lending itself admirably to the expression of enormous proportions. In general ground plans the palace is a simple rectangular hall. Think, then, of the task the architect had before him to avoid making the palace a huge barn. His work succeeded, as any great work succeeds, because he used simple means. First of all, a Roman model was well chosen for so vast a building. The Greeks built no large roofed structures. Their great assemblages were held in open-air theaters and stadia. The Greek masterpiece, the incomparable Parthenon at Athens, was considerably smaller than Oregon's timbered imitation at the Exposition. On the other hand, the solid Roman style lends itself to bulk. The models followed in the Machinery Palace were the Roman Baths, particularly the Baths of Caracalla. They have been used once before as a model in this country, in the building of the Pennsylvania Railway station in New York. There, too, travertine was first successfully imitated by Paul Deniville. Looking at the Palace of Machinery, indeed, it is not difficult to imagine it as the noble metropolitan terminal of a great railway system. It would hold many long passenger trains, and an army of travelers. The distinctive feature of the perspective is the triple gable at the ends of the palace and over the great main entrance. By thus breaking up the long roof lines, as well as by lowering the flanks of the building to flat-roofed wings, a barn like effect was avoided. In the triple gables, also, the three central aisles which distinguish the interior show in the outer structure. Under the gables the huge clerestory windows above the entrances relieve the great expanse of the end walls. Similar windows open up the walls above the flat-topped wings. In the main entrance, the gables are deepened to form a huge triple vestibule where the row of columns is repeated. The long side walls are relieved by pairs of decorated columns flanking the minor entrances. Thus, by entirely simple devices, the long lines and vast expanses of wall are deprived of monotony. The architect has given majesty to the palace, not merely a majesty of hugeness, but of just proportions and dignified simplicity. In the general architectural scheme of the Exposition it forms one end of the main group of palaces, at the other end of which is set the Palace of Fine Arts. Machinery Hall, with its severe massiveness and solidity, is a balance to the poetry and spirituality of the Fine Arts. The main entrance is on the west side, looking down the avenue between the Palaces of Mines and Varied Industries. Perhaps it is better, though, to take a first view of the sculptural decoration at the entrance at either the north or the south end, where almost everything is shown that appears in the more complicated main vestibule. The three clerestory windows make three arches with four piers. In front of each pier stands a great Sienna column crowned with one of four symbolic figures, each, in the strength of the male, emblematic of force. First on the left is "Electricity," grasping the thunderbolt, and standing with one foot on the earth, signifying that electricity is not only in the earth but around it. The man with the lever that starts an engine represents "Steam Power." "Imagination," the power which conceives the thing "Invention" bodies forth, stands with eyes closed; its force comes from within. Wings on his head suggest the speed of thought. At his feet is the Eagle of Inspiration. "Invention" bears in his hand a winged figure,--Thought, about to rise in concrete form. The eagle appears as a symbol of the United States, on the entablature carried across the opening below the arch on two Corinthian columns in each embrasure. The lower third of each of these shafts is decorated with a cylindrical relief representing the genii of machinery, flanked by human toilers and types of machines. The genii are blind, as the forces developed by machines are blind. There are only two of these cylindrical friezes, but they are repeated many times on the columns at either end and at the main entrance, and on the pairs of columns that flank the minor openings in the western wall. Over the main entrance the gable is extended to enclose a majestic triple vestibule, backed by the same effect that appears at the palace ends, but with the entablature and its supporting columns repeated across the outer arches. (p. 111.) With the exception of the spandrels on the transverse arches, the sculptural decoration here is the same as that described for the end entrances, though more often repeated. The spandrels represent the application of power to machines. All this decoration is the work of Haig Patigian, of San Francisco. Before the main entrance stands the only example, in the Exposition sculpture, of the work of the dean of American sculptors, Daniel Chester French. This is his noteworthy group, the Genius of Creation. (p. 147.) Other statues by French will be found among the exhibits of the Fine Arts Palace. The Genius of Creation was placed here at the last moment. It had been intended for the Court of the Universe, while Douglas Tilden's group of "Modern Civilization" was to have stood before the Palace of Machinery. When this was not completed, the Exposition wisely decided that the great court already had enough statuary, and ordered French's group erected in its place. According to French himself, this group might well have been called "The Angel of Generation." The winged figure, neither male nor female, but angelic, is veiled, suggesting the creative impulse as a blind command from unknown sources. The arms are raised in a gesture of creative command. It has wings, said French, because. both art and the conception demanded these spiritual symbols. The man and woman against the rock whereon the angel sits are emblems of the highest types created. The man looks upward and outward with one hand clenched, ready to grapple with life. The woman reaches out for sympathy and support; her fingers find this in the hand of the man at the back of the rock. Man and woman are encircled by the snake, the earliest symbol of eternity and reproduction, a figure appearing, curiously enough, in every religion, and with much the same significance. Without ignoring the majesty of the exterior, glowing with color and adorned with statuary, it may be said that the real nobility of this great structure appears in the splendid timber work of the interior. Here, where every bone and rib of the huge hall stands bare as the builders left it, is a note of true grandeur. The long rows of great timbered columns, the lofty arches that spring from them, the almost endless vista of truss and girder, tell of vastness that cannot be expressed by the finished architecture outside. The finest character of the palace is within. From the outside it is a great and well-proportioned hall. Within it becomes a vast cathedral, dedicated to the mighty spirit of Dynamics. XII. The Palace of Fine Arts and its Exhibit, With the Awards A memorable demonstration of the value of landscape to architecture-- Simplicity the foundation of Maybeck's achievement--The Colonnade and Rotunda--Altar, Friezes and Murals--Equestrian statue of Lafayette-- Night views--The Palace should be made permanent in Golden Gate Park-- The Fine Arts Exhibit--Its contemporaneous character and great general merit--American art well shown--The foreign collections--Sweden's characteristically national art--Exhibits of France, Italy, Holland, Argentina, and other countries--Japan and China exhibit ancient as well as modern art--The Annex--Work of the Futurists--Notable sculptures in the Colonnade--Grand Prizes, Medals of Honor and Gold Medals Awarded. If everything else in the beautiful architecture of the Exposition were forgotten, the memory of the Palace of Fine Arts would remain. It should be a source of pride to every Californian that this incomparable building is the work of a Californian, and a source of deep satisfaction to the architect himself that it so completely points the lesson which he intended it to convey. For the Palace of Fine Arts is a sermon in itself. In it old Roman models have been used to elaborate a California text. Its structure and setting are the demonstration of a theorem,-- the finished word of the preachment of a lifetime. The Exposition gave the preacher his opportunity. Bernard Maybeck, the Berkeley architect, had long been telling California that architecture here, to be beautiful, needed only to be an effective background for landscape. His theory is that as trees and plants grow so easily and so quickly here, Californians are wasting their finest source of beauty if they do not combine landscape with building. When Maybeck was called upon to design a palace of fine arts at the Exposition, one fact enabled him to exemplify his theory in the finest way. The old Harbor View bog was found to have a bottom impervious enough to hold water, and the trees of the demolished resort were still standing. When the mud was scooped out, a lake was left. That gave not only growing trees, in addition to the resources of the Exposition's forestry, but also a real sheet of water, for the landscape. (See p. 112.) Maybeck surprised me by saying that there is nothing specially remarkable about the Palace itself. "What is it the people like?" he asked, and himself replied, "it is the water and the trees." When I reminded him of the beauty of the colonnade seen from points in the enclosed passageway, where no water is in view, he answered: "The public was bribed to like that. Leaving off the roof between the colonnade and the gallery was a direct bribe. A few other simple devices give the effect the people like. One of these is the absence of windows in the walls, a device well known to the old Italians. Others are the water, the trees, and the flower-covered pergolas on the roof." Maybeck's modesty is genuine, but he deserves more credit than he gives himself. I quote him because his point is worth emphasizing. The highest beauty can be attained by simple means. If all our architects could see that, we should have less straining for effect, less over doneness, and more harmony and significance in our buildings. The people can and do appreciate this kind of beauty. It was surely inspiration that made it possible for Maybeck to produce this masterpiece. Sweeping in a great arc around the western shore of the lagoon, the Palace, in the architect's view, is merely a background for the water, the trees and the plants on the terraced walls and pergolas. Certainly it is a beautiful setting to a beautiful scene. So perfectly are the Palace and its foreground fitted to each other that the structure looks as though it might have stood there for twenty centuries, a well-preserved Roman villa, while generations of trees grew, and decayed, and were reproduced around its base. The great detached colonnade, with its central rotunda, is the climax of the entire structure. It is backed up and given solidity by the walls of the gallery behind it, 1,100 feet long. These walls, unbroken save for the entrances, are relieved and beautified by shrubbery set on a terrace halfway between the ground and the eaves. (p. 113.) At the extremities of the double colonnade, and spaced regularly along it, are groups of four columns, each crowned with a great box designed for flowers and vines. Unfortunately, the architect's plan to place growing plants in these receptacles was vetoed because of the cost. The weeping women at the corners, by Ulric Ellerhusen, expressive of the melancholy felt on leaving a great art collection, were intended to be only half seen through drooping vines. On the water side of the rotunda, a novel effect of inclusion is obtained by semi-circular walls of growing mesembryanthemum. Around the entablature of the noble octagonal rotunda are repeated Bruno Louis Zimm's three panels, representing "The Struggle for the Beautiful." (p. 114.) In one, Art, as a beautiful woman, stands in the center, while on either side the idealists struggle to hold back the materialists, here conceived as centaurs, who would trample upon Art. In another, Bellerophon is about to mount Pegasus. Orpheus walks ahead with his lyre, followed by a lion, representing the brutish beasts over whom music hath power. Back in the procession come Genius, holding aloft the lamp, and another figure bearing in one hand the pine cones of immortality, in the other a carved statue which she holds forward as a lesson in art to the youth before her. In the third panel appears Apollo, god of all the arts, in the midst of a procession of his devotees bearing garlands. Between the panels are repeated alternately male and female figures, symbolizing those who battle for the arts. On an altar before the rotunda, overlooking the lagoon, kneels Robert Stackpole's figure of Venus, representing the Beautiful, to whom all art is servant. The panel in front of the altar is by Bruno Louis Zimm, and pictures Genius, the source of Inspiration. Unfortunately, this fine altar has been made inaccessible; it can be seen only from across the lagoon. (p. 137.) The friezes decorating the huge circular flower receptacles set around the base of the rotunda and at intervals in the colonnade are by Ellerhusen. Eight times repeated on the lofty columns within the rotunda is "The Priestess of Culture," a conventional but pleasing sculpture by Herbert Adams. Above, in the dome, Robert Reid's eight murals, splendid in color, are too far away to be seen well as pictures. Two separate series are alternated, one symbolizing the Progress of Art, the other depicting the Four Golds of California. The panel in the east, nearest the altar, is "The Birth of European Art." The sacred fire burns on an altar, beside which stands the guardian holding out the torch of inspiration to an earthly messenger who leans from his chariot to receive it. On the right is the Orange panel, representing one of the California golds. "Inspiration in All Art" comes next. The veil of darkness, drawn back, reveals the arts: Music, Painting, Poetry, and Sculpture. A winged figure bears the torch of inspiration. The second of the California golds, the Wheat panel, follows, and then "The Birth of Oriental Art." The allegory here is the ancient Ming legend of the forces of earth trying to wrest inspiration from the powers of air. A Chinese warrior mounted on a dragon struggles with an eagle. Gold, the yellow metal, is the subject of the next panel, followed by "Ideals in Art." In this appear concrete symbols of the chief motives of art, the classic nude of the Greeks, the Madonna and Child of Religion, Joan of Arc for Heroism, Youth and Material Beauty represented by a young woman, and Absolute Nature by the peacock. A mystic figure in the background holds the cruse wherewith to feed the sacred flame. A winged figure bears laurels for the living, while the shadowy one in the center holds the palm for the dead. Last of all comes the Poppy panel, representing the fourth gold of California. "The entire scheme--the conception and birth of Art, its commitment to the earth, its progress and acceptance by the human intellect,--is expressed in the four major panels. They are lighted from below by a brilliant flood of golden light, the sunshine of California, and reach up into the intense blue of the California skies." This, as well as much of the interpretation of the eight pictures, is drawn from Reid's own account. Within the rotunda has been installed Paul Wayland Bartlett's spirited equestrian statue of Lafayette. This is a replica of the original work, which was presented to the French Government by the school children of the United States, and stands in the gardens of the Louvre. Other notable statues here are Karl Bitter's Thomas Jefferson, John J. Boyle's Commodore Barry, Herbert Adams's Bryant, and Robert T. McKenzie's charming figure of "The Young Franklin." Outside the rotunda, facing the main entrance to the gallery, is "The Pioneer Mother," Charles Grafly, sculptor. Over the entrance is Leo Lentelli's "Aspiration." Beautiful as is the Palace of Fine Arts by day, it is even more lovely at night. (p. 137.) Either by moonlight or under the gentle flood of illumination that rests softly upon it when the heavens are dark, it is wonderful. There is so much of perfection in the building, and it is so well placed, that it needs no special conditions to be at its best. Nor is any particular viewpoint necessary. Stand where you will around this structure, or on the opposite margin of the lagoon, and each position gives you a different grouping of columns and dome and wall, a different setting of trees and water. The form of the Palace is responsible for this. Roughly speaking, a rectangular structure presents but four views. But the great arc of the Fine Arts, with its detached colonnade following the same curve on either side of the rotunda, is not so restricted. Every new point of view discloses new beauty. The breadth of the lagoon before it guarantees a proper perspective. It is impossible not to see it aright. An excellent test of the quality of all such temporary structures is the satisfaction with which one thinks of them as permanent buildings. No other of the palaces would wear so well in its beauty if it were set up for the joy of future generations. It would be a glorious thing for San Francisco if the Fine Arts Palace could be made permanent in Golden Gate Park. To duplicate it in lasting materials would cost much, but it would be worth while. San Francisco owes it to itself and its love for art to see that this greatest of Western works of art does not pass away. As it stands on the Exposition grounds, it is more enduring than any of the other palaces. To induce the loan of its priceless contents, the building had to be fireproof. But the construction is not permanent. The splendid colonnade, a thing of exquisite and manifold beauty, is only plaster, and can last but a season or two. Even were the building solid enough to endure, its location is impossible after the Exposition closes. It should be duplicated in permanent form. No doubt a proper site, with a setting of water and trees, can best be found in Golden Gate Park. The steel frame and roof of the main gallery could easily be transferred there and set up again. While it would cost too much to duplicate in real marble the pillars of the colonnade and dome, yet these can be reproduced in artificial stone as successfully as they have here been imitated in plaster. In the Pennsylvania Railroad station in New York travertine has been counterfeited so well that no one can tell where the real ends and the imitation begins. Every other considerable city in the civilized world has its art gallery. San Francisco has already the full-sized model of surely the most beautiful one in the world. Made permanent in the Park, this Palace of Art would not only honor San Francisco, but would be "a joy forever" to all America. The Fine Arts Exhibit[1].--The Palace of Fine Arts contains what the International Jury declares the best and most important collection of modern art that has yet been assembled in America. The war in Europe had a two-fold effect on this exhibition. While it prevented some countries, like Russia and Germany, from sending their paintings and sculptures, it led others, such as France and Italy, to send more than they otherwise would have sent. The number the Exposition might have was limited only by its funds available for insurance. So many were the works of art sent over on the Vega and the Jason that an Annex was required to house them. It must be remembered that this art exhibit, like the other exhibits of the Exposition, is contemporaneous. It represents, with exceptions, the work of the last decade. Most of the exceptions are in the rooms of the Historical Section, the Abbey, Sargent, Whistler, Keith, and other loan collections, and the great Chinese exhibit of ancient paintings on silk. In general, the paintings and sculptures made famous by time are not in the Fine Arts Palace. Its rooms are mainly filled with the latest work of artists of the day, exhibited under the Exposition's rule which limits competition in all departments to current production. This explains, for instance, why the French Government has placed its Meissoniers and Detailles, with Rodin's bronzes, in the French Pavilion. A Michelangelo, works of Benvenuto Cellini, and many old paintings and statues are in the beautiful Italian Pavilion. Other paintings of value are in the Belgian section of the French Pavilion, and in the Danish Pavilion. This limitation of the Fine Arts exhibit has made room for a great representation of the men of today. The Palace contains a multitude of splendid pictures. While of course, as in all such collections, there is some inferior work, the most pertinent criticism is that there are too many really notable things, and the scope of the collection is too broad, to be seen with due appreciation in a limited time. There is so liberal a showing of different schools, styles and lands, that one is liable at first to be bewildered. But the exhibit is most popular. The great number of visitors constantly thronging the galleries is significant of the value the people put upon art. Excellent as the collection is as a school for artists, it was made for popular enjoyment and education. The best result to be looked for is its stimulation and culture of the public taste. The people are already in love with it, and what they love they make their own. The exhibits are arranged in fifteen sections, consisting of national, sectional, or personal, collections of paintings, besides many important displays of miniatures, etchings, prints, drawings, and tapestries. The art of the sculptor is abundantly illustrated in grouped statuary, single pieces, panels in low or high relief, and wood carvings. Passing the heroic emblems of history or allegory in marble, bronze or plaster, nothing is more beautiful or appealing than the hundreds of small bronzes shown. In brief, the Fine Arts exhibit embraces all the classifications of modern art, save the "arts and crafts" exhibits, which are scattered among the several exhibit palaces. First in importance to a citizen of this country is the art of the United States. Possibly it may also be of first importance to foreign visitors. For the phrase "American art" no longer raises a doubt. It is at last recognized that America has something of its own to offer the world,--a style developed within the last, two decades. The prime movement of the times presenting boldness, brilliance and a laxity of detail in portrayal, the art of America, as shown in this exhibition, embodies these characteristics without emphasizing them. Keeping in mind the fact that the Palace contains little American art earlier than 1905, American artists are showing marked individualities, even in their acceptance of popular precepts. The virile men of the day love luminosity; it dominates all else, and marks their canvases with light; they restrain the too bold stroke of the radical Impressionist, but outline with firmness, so that details are more easily imagined by the observer, even when an expected delineation is absent. Even the older men, though still under the influence of earlier tradition, show a distinctiveness of style that sets them well apart from their English, French or German contemporaries. The International Section, in Room 108 and in the Annex, is peculiarly interesting in that it makes easy a comparison of the characteristic fingerprints of each country represented. There is ample opportunity here for a discriminating and profitable study. Unfortunately, because of the war, the gallery contains no special rooms for the art of England and Germany. Both countries are represented only by loan collections. Of German art there are forty well chosen paintings. France, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Portugal, Japan, China and several of the South American countries have installed representative collections in the Palace; while the Annex, made necessary by the unexpected number of pictures from Europe, contains a large exhibit of Hungarian art, a Norwegian display, filling seven rooms, a large British exhibit, and a small group of pictures by Spanish painters, showing that the influence of Velasquez is still powerful in Spanish art. The Norwegian display is one of the largest foreign sections, quite as characteristic as the Swedish, and certain to arouse discussion because of its extreme modernism. The ultra-radical art of Edvard Munch, who is called the greatest of Norwegian painters, and to whom a special room is assigned, is sure to be a bone of contention among the critics. The work of Harald Sohlberg (medal of honor) and Halfdan Strom (gold medal), differing widely from Munch's, though hardly less modern in style, will also attract much attention. The omission of Munch from the honor list is really a tribute to his eminence. An artist who has won the Grand Prix at Rome and awards in every other European capital was deemed outside of competition here. Axel Gallen-Kallela, the celebrated Finnish painter, winner of the Exposition's medal of honor, fills another room in the Annex. This room, covering adequately Gallen's progress through twenty-five years, is the only one in the Exposition to illustrate the development of a great painter from his student days. The collection runs from his earliest academic work, photographic in its care for detail, to his present mastery of Impressionism, wherein by a few strokes he expresses all the essentials. The Italian Futurists are well shown in the Annex, and for the first time in this country. The Futurist pictures hitherto seen in America have been French imitations of the Italian originators of the mode. A sample Futurist title, "Architectural Construction of a Woman on the Beach," may or may not indicate what these pictures reveal. The Annex, too, has a splendid exhibit of the etchings of Frank Brangwyn, the great Englishman, who is no less renowned as an etcher than as a painter, and who has won the Exposition's medal of honor in the International Section. The arrangement of the rooms in the Fine Arts Gallery becomes simple enough when the key is supplied. The United States section is in the center, and, with the historical rooms, occupies, roughly, half the space, flanked by the foreign rooms at either end of the building. Four rooms of the United States section are separated from the rest and form a narrow strip across the extreme north end of the gallery. The prints, drawings, miniatures, and medals are installed in rooms forming a strip along the west wall of the building. The United States section is opened by a central hall opposite the main entrance, and by a corridor extending on either side through to the foreign sections. The central hall is chiefly devoted to sculpture, including Karl Bitter's strong and characteristic group, "The Signing of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty," Daniel Chester French's "Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial," both winners of the medal of honor, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's fine central fountain, and other important work. The walls are hung with ancient tapestries of great interest, and paintings, mostly decorative, though Robert Vonnoh's "Poppies" and Ben Au Haggin's "Little White Dancer" are admirable. Vonnoh won a gold medal. Historical Section.--South of the United States section, a block of ten rooms, with Room 54 at the southwest angle of the central hall, is devoted to painters who either have influenced American art or represent its earlier stages. Room 91, on the east side of the block, contains old Dutch, Flemish, French, and Italian pictures, none very interesting, though Teniers, Watteau and Tintoretto are represented. Rooms 92, 62, and 61, constituting the tier next to the Italian section, show chiefly examples of the French painters, including those of the Barbizon school, who have influenced later American painting. Along with other names less known, Room 92 displays canvases by Daubigny, Courbet, Charles Le Brun, Meissonier, Tissot, Monticelli and Rousseau. It has two Corots, one a delight. Room 62 is even more important. It offers a Millet, far from typical; a capital Schreyer, two portraits by the German Von Lenbach, a small but interesting sample of Alma Tadema's finished style, and the sensational "Consolatrix Afflictorum" by Dagnan-Bouveret. Better still, in Jules Breton's "The Vintage" and Troyon's "Landscape and Cattle" it has two of the noblest paintings to be seen in the entire Palace,-- pictures that show these great masters at their best. Room 61 is mainly devoted to the early Impressionists, with seven canvases by their leader, Claude Monet, and other landscapes by Renoir, Pissaro and Sisley, and a brilliant interior (No. 2343) by Gaston La Touche. The pictures by Monet illustrate his progress from the hard conventionalism of his early academic style (seen in 2636) to such delightful embodiments of light and atmosphere as 2633 and 2637. The gallery contains no more triumphant piece of Impressionism than the saucy "Lady in Pink" by the Russian, Nicholas Fechin. The story set afloat that it is the work of an untaught Russian peasant simply testifies to ignorance of this master. Every splotch of color here breathes technique. As if by way of contrast, the opposite wall shows one of Puvis de Chavannes' classical murals, even more anaemic than usual. The large room No. 63 shows a Venetian sunset by Turner, two portraits by Goya, another attributed to Velasquez, a splendid Raffaelesque altar-piece by Tiepolo, the like of which rarely leaves Italy, and canvases by Guido Reni, Ribera, and Van Dyke. Almost all the remaining space is taken up by excellent examples of the British art that influenced the early American painters, with some of prior date. Here are canvases by Lely, Kneller, Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hoppner, Beechey, Allan Ramsay, Lawrence, Raeburn, and Romney. The last four are especially well represented. In this room, too, is the bronze replica of Weinmann's figure, "The Setting Sun," here called "Descending Night." American "Old Masters."--Following logically the English portrait painters, the American historical section begins with Rooms 60 and 59. The former is mainly filled with the work, much of it admirable, of the early American portrait painters. Here are Gilbert Stuart's lovable "President Monroe," Benjamin West's "Magdalen," and portraits by Peale, Copley, West, Sully and others. In Room 59, the antiquarian interest predominates, with a few fine portraits by Inman, Harding, King, and S. F. B. Morse, who, besides inventor, was an artist. But nothing here surpasses No. 1719 by Charles Loring Elliott, a canvas that is irresistible in its vivid setting forth of personality. Room 58 brings the story of American painting well past the middle of the Nineteenth century, with typical examples of Bierstadt, Eastman Johnson and other fading names. Room 57 contains a number of Edwin Abbey's finely illustrative paintings, the most popular of which is his "Penance of Eleanor," and a collection of his splendid drawings; also important canvases by Theodore Robinson and John La Farge. Room 64 covers a wide sweep, from Church's archaic "Niagara Falls" down to Stephen Parrish, Eakins, Martin, the Morans, Hovenden, and Remington. Edward Moran's "Brush Burning" (2649) is capital. Room 54, the last of the American historical rooms, is perhaps the most important, finely showing Inness, Wyant, Winslow Homer, Hunt, and other American masters. Modern American Painting.--We come now to the great and splendid representation of present-day painters. In noting these, the artists achieving grand prizes, medals of honor or gold medals will often be mentioned; but a full list of such honors will be found at the end of this chapter. It should be remembered that no member of a jury, and no man who received the honor of a separate room, was eligible for award. In general, it may be said, the Exposition puts forward the work of artists who have "arrived" since the opening of the century. In accordance with this helpful policy, older painters who had won many honors at previous exhibitions were passed over for the encouragement of younger men. It should also be noted that awards were not made for particular pictures, but upon each artist's exhibit as a whole. Rooms 55, 56, 65 and 85 show contemporary Americans,--the last two with great credit. No. 65 is a large room of canvases by American women painters. One who has not kept abreast of woman's work in art in this country has a surprise awaiting him in the the high quality shown here. Two pictures by Ellen Rand (2919, 2918), Mary Curtis Richardson's captivating "Young Mother" and her "Professor Paget" (3000, 3002), and Alice Stoddard's inimitably girlish group, "The Sisters" (3329), will reward very careful study of their sincerity and strength of treatment. Especially brilliant are the works of Cecilia Beaux and M. Jean McLane,-- the first winning the Exposition's medal of honor, the latter rather theatrical in their gayety of color. Here also is a canvas (2743) by Violet Oakley, another honor medallist. Room 85 is enriched by the canvases of Charles Walter Stetson, Horatio Walker, Charles W. Hawthorne, Douglas Volk (gold medal), and George de Forest Brush. Volk's three charming pictures deserve to be better hung. The Stetson group illustrates the Impressionist method and result as well as anything in the Palace. Take his "Smugglers" or his "Summer Joy" (3311, 3317), and note how a few heavy and apparently meaningless dabs of color may be laid side by side on canvas in such a way that, when seen from a distance, they blend, until the picture not only outlines figures and foliage, but also glows with atmosphere, life and movement. These rooms complete the south half of the American section, with the exception of the very interesting, though not fully adequate, Whistler Room, 28; the Print Rooms, 29 to 34, in the tier along the west wall, and five more one-man rooms along the east wall. These five, in their order from the main entrance are: No. 87, devoted to the old-masterlike works of Frank Duveneck, who, more perhaps than any other American, shows the great manner of Velasquez, Rembrandt and Franz Hals, and to whom the jury has recommended that a special medal be given for his influence on American art; No. 88 filled with the admirable Impressionist landscapes of E. W. Redfield; 89 and 93, given up to the widely contrasted work of Edmund C. Tarbell and John H. Twachtman, each in his own fashion a master and enjoying a well-earned popularity, Twachtman's pictures in particular commanding almost as high prices as those of the men in Room 54; and No. 90, just off the Tarbell room, containing a small loan collection which very incompletely represents William Keith. Five other individual rooms are north of the main entrance: No. 79, portraits and still life by William M. Chase; 78, Childe Hassam's radically Impressionist work; 77, Gari Melchers' pictures of Dutch types and scenes; 76, the charming western pictures of Arthur F. Mathews and Francis McComas, both Californians; and 75, the John S. Sargent room, containing among other works his famous early portrait of Mme. Gautrin, his "John Hay," and the sympathetic portrait of Henry James which was mutilated by the British suffragettes. All these one-man rooms exhibit characteristic work of the men thus distinguished, though the younger men are the more completely represented. The Whistler, Keith, Chase and Sargent rooms, which may be classed with the historical block, show few of the best-known masterpieces of these artists. Room 80, cut out of the northeast corner of the central hall, a gallery of well restrained pictures, contains the interesting work in light and color of William McG. Paxton, member of the jury; portraits and figures by Leslie P. Thompson (silver medal), Philip L. Hale's warm-toned portraits, the delicate but brilliant landscapes of Willard L. Metcalf (medal of honor), and those by Philip Little (silver medal). The portraits are in the older academic style; the landscapes, modern. Rooms 67 and 68 are distinguished by some notable landscapes and marines. No. 67 shows Emil Carlsen's fresh "Open Sea," his single picture here, but the winner of a medal of honor, and Albert Laessle's small animal sculptures (gold medal), and capital examples of Paul Dougherty, J. F. Carlson, Leonard Ochtman and Ben Foster. No. 68 holds two fine snowy landscapes by W. Elmer Schofield (medal of honor), two engaging studies in brown by Daniel Garber, brilliant figures by J. C. Johansen, and California coast views by William Ritschel. The last three artists are gold medallists. Room 69 is made noteworthy by works of three of the nine American winners of the medal of honor,--Lawton Parker's voluptuous "Paresse" and two portraits, and single paintings by John W. Alexander and Richard E. Miller (1035, 2606). Alexander's airy "Phyllis" is his only picture in the Palace. Miller shows one more canvas, a colorful "Nude" (2607) in Room 47. Room 70 is entirely devoted to portrait painters, among them Julian Story, H. G. Herkomer, Robert Vonnoh, and Irving C. Wiles (3668), the latter two both winners of the gold medal. No. 74 shows admirable small landscapes, among them the "Group of White Birches" by Will S. Robinson (silver medal), Charles C. Allen's "Mountain and Cloud," and land and water views by Charles J. Taylor, especially No. 3404. Room 73 shows good landscapes by Ernest Lawson (gold medal), Paul King (silver medal), and the two Beals. Gifford Beal's work won a gold medal. Room 72, a gallery in the academic style, contains a variety of portraits, figure paintings and landscapes, including W. R. Leigh's spirited "Stampede," and the more conventional work of Walter MacEwen. No. 71 is another varied room. In addition to some landscapes, the visitor will be struck by the small but exquisite exhibit in gold, enamel, and precious stones of Louis C. Tiffany. The western tier of this section, Rooms 43-51, contains work of all grades of merit. No. 43 is conglomerate. Perham Nahl's well drawn "Despair" (2690) is perhaps best worth mention. In No. 44 Putthuff's two brown western scenes and Clarkson's portrait of E. G. Keith are interesting. No. 45 is better. Walter Griffin's opulent landscapes (medal of honor) are well worth studying. Here also are two canvases by Robert Reid, one almost Japanese in its effect; the restrained landscapes of William Sartain, and Charles Morris Young's sharply contrasting "Red Mill' and "Gray Mill," with his characteristic wintry landscapes. Reid and Young won the gold medal. In No. 46 are a half-dozen delicately handled landscapes by Frank V. Du Mond, a member of the jury. In No. 47 E. L. Blumenschein's warm Indian pictures and A. L. Groll's desert scenes won silver medals. But the best thing here is Richard E. Miller's "Nude," already mentioned. On the east wall of Room 48 hangs "Sleep," the best of the eight canvases shown by Frederic Carl Frieseke, distinguished above all other American painters in the palace by the Exposition's grand prize. Seven other pictures by Frieseke, interesting by reason of comparison with this masterpiece, hang in Room 117. In Gallery 48 are also some good landscapes,--Robert Vonnoh's "Bridge at Grez" and Cullen Yates' "November Snow." In No. 49, a better balanced room than most in this tier, three walls are made noteworthy by J. Alden Weir's luminous and Impressionist landscapes, and D. W. Tryon's more academic canvases. Weir was the chairman of the jury for oil paintings. No. 50 is dominated by Sergeant Kendall, in both painting and sculpture. In the first he won the gold medal, in the second the silver medal. Room 51 has been called the "Chamber of Horrors," because it shows several of the extremists; but it has some masterpieces. Staring things by John Sloan, William J. Glackens, Adolphe Borie, and Arthur B. Caries are relieved by H. H. Breckinridge's highly colored fruits and flowers, Gertrude Lampert's "Black and Green," Thomas Anshutz' two studies of women, and several of Robert Henri's strong figure pieces. In the extreme northern end of the gallery, beyond the foreign sections, is a tier of four rooms, 117-120, ranging from the mediocre to the admirable. In No. 117 are seven interesting canvases by Frieseke, the grand-prize winner, already mentioned. These pictures show the artist's scope. No. 1816 and others are strikingly like Plinio Nomellini's No. 86 in the Italian section. No. 1811 is as different from these as "Sleep" is from all the rest. In the same room are Mora's "Vacation Time" (2645) and Tanner's "Christ at the Home of Lazarus" (3370), both winners of the gold medal. Room 118 holds the pictures of several gold-medal winners, the "Promenade" (1185) by Max Bohm; the noble "Lake Louise" (1246) by H. J. Breuer, whose pictures of the Canadian Rockies are also to be found in Rooms 56 and 58; the tender "Spring" (1972) by W. D. Hamilton, worthy of a better place; and H. L. Hoffman's clearlighted "A Mood of Spring" (2116), and his vivid "Savannah Market" (2115). Room 119 is filled with water-colors, drawings, engravings and etchings. Room 120 holds George Bellows' Post-Impressionistic canvases, Myron Barlow's well-drawn figures, W. D. Hamilton's speaking likeness of Justice McKenna (1971), Charles H. Woodbury's "The Bark" (3692), and Waldo Murray's portrait of "Robert Fowler" (366), wrongly catalogued with the International section. All these painters won gold medals. This is perhaps the best room in this tier. In the tier on the western wall devoted to the minor forms of art, Howard Pyle's illustrations occupy two small rooms, 41 and 42. The first contains ink sketches, the second his works in characteristic color. Room 40 is devoted to admirable miniatures and to water colors. Here on the east wall are Jules Guerin's vividly colored Oriental scenes, which won the gold medal. The walls of Room 39 are given up to a series of charming pastels by John McClure Hamilton. No. 39 also contains cases of medals, as does No. 38. Room 37 is devoted to miniatures, and 36 to drawings. In the section known as the "Print Rooms," 29-34, along the west wall, are hundreds of famous etchings. This branch of art, old and respected through the examples offered by early masters like Albrecht Durer and Rembrandt, has still to be fully appreciated. It has come to the public slowly, the layman who likes and buys pictures more often holding aloof from the thing called an etching. That there is now a closer acquaintance than before is due in large measure to Joseph Pennell. Working through the practical, he allied his art years ago with such subjects as bridge and railroad building, and by giving the public an easier avenue of approach, has attracted it to the beauty of this method of art. The print rooms show dozens of Pennell's etchings, with those of Whistler and many others. Whistler's etchings, lithographs, and drawings are in No. 29, Pennell's in No. 31. Room 30 holds the work of Henry Wolf, winner of the grand prize. B. A. Wehrschmidt, an honor medallist, is represented in Room 119. J. Andre Smith, Herman A. Webster and Cadwallader Washburn are in Room 32, Allen Lewis and Gustav Baumann (gold medals) are in Room 34. Room 28 holds the loan collection of Whistler's works, already mentioned, chiefly from the National Gallery, Washington. Room 27 contains photographic reproductions of painting and sculpture. Room 26 is devoted to original drawings for illustration. The Foreign Sections.--These are placed north and south of the United States collections. In the extreme south end, Japan occupies a large block of rooms, numbered from 1 to 10. With this abundant floor and wall space at her disposal, that country left nothing undone to make her art exhibit comprehensive and beautiful. The display stands alone for completeness. Japan's art is as old as her history; and now, with her advent among the modern nations, she has added Occidental art to her more ancient forms. The essayal, as shown here, is still beyond her, but the strides are noteworthy. In the wonderful display of her own art, she shows both the beauties of antiquity and the masterpieces of her present day artists. The paintings upon silk, landscape embroideries, porcelains, ink drawings, metal work, and scrolls will occupy the art lover many hours. France adjoins Japan, filling a block of rooms from 12 to 18, and Italy follows, in Rooms 21 to 25. The intervening rooms, Nos. 19 and 20, are assigned respectively to Uruguay and Cuba. The French and Italian exhibits had to wait for the arrival of the Jason. Now they are installed, and beautifully hung and set. Though France is the home of the Post-Impressionists, and Italy that of the Futurists, the flagrancy of neither of these schools is on view here. Both countries show their best balanced art since 1905. In the French exhibit, the mode of the day prevails, color, luminosity, richness of texture. All that differentiates the art of France to-day from that of other countries is her own inimitable, delicate, inherent taste and touch. The subject matters little; the French perception and execution are there. Where other canvases offer--say a beautiful glow--the French picture "vibrates." If other works are finished, these have finesse. There is similar spirit in the Italian galleries, with a variation due to national characteristics rather than to difference of opinion or method. The Italian pictures fully occupy the mind and eye; the French often fascinate by something more than skill and color. Both countries have placed their older art, and some of its best, in their official pavilions. France.--In the French Section, Room 12 contains a diverse collection of water color, drawing, engraving, and painting, among the latter, Henry Grosjean's "The Bottoms" (365). Room 13, full of strongly contrasting work, is distinguished by Maurice Denis' daring decorative panels. Here also is Claude Monet's "Vetheuil" (452), the same scene, though not the same picture, as his No. 2634 in Room 61. Comparison is interesting for the difference in touch, though both were painted in the same year. Francois Flameng is represented here by "Paris" (346), not so compelling as his "Madame Letellier" (345), and "Fete Venetienne" (344), in Rooms 18 and 14. Room 14, containing a good many decorative canvases, has also, besides Flameng's "Fete," two of the extreme Impressionistic paintings of Henri Martin, "The Lovers" (432), and his own dim "Self Portrait" (433). Two colorful Breton scenes (302) by Darrieux, and (406) by Le Gout-Gerard stand out on the north wall. Room 15 shows some charming pieces,--Lucien Simon's strongly contrasting work in the spiritual "Communicants" (494) and his barbaric "Gondola" (495); Domergue's "The Frog" (324), Besnard's glowing "Gipsy" (255), and Lemordant's "The Wind" (409). These last give a strong color to the room, relieved by Leroux' calm "Lake" (416), and Maury's delicate young girls (440). Room 16 is better balanced. Remembering "The Frog," Domergue's versatility appears in the portrait of Gina Mabille, the danseuse. A delicate bit of Impressionism in Le Sidanier's "The Harbor: Landernau" (418). Two canvases by Menard are hung here. His "Opal Sea" (445) is charming. Auburtin's decorative panels hang on the north wall. One of the most notable works of P. Franc Lamy, his golden "Venice: Morning" (393), will be found on the west wall. Room 17 shows little of striking interest. Augustin Hanicotte, one of the few French painters to adopt the strong colors and lights of the Scandinavian artists, is represented by the gay "Winter in the Low Country" (381). Andre Dauchez' "Le Pouldu" (304) is a fine brown lowland landscape. In spirit, though in richer colors, Jean Veber's captivating "Little Princess" (515) reminds one of John Bauer's Swedish fairy-tale pictures. Strength and truthfulness characterize Jeanniot's fine group of Norman fisherfolk (388). (See p. 125.) Room 18 is better. Note Marie Cazin's "Diana Asleep" (289), done in a single brown. Here, too, is Flameng's "Portrait of Madame Letellier" (345). A soft, delicate bit of landscape is Brouillet's "Among the Dunes" (272), which deserves better than to be hung in a corner. One who has seen the Futurist pictures in the Annex should not overlook here Albert Guillaume's "Le Boniment" (370), a rich burlesque on Futurist art. Italy.--No other section in the Palace is so finely hung as the Italian. As no attempt has been made to crowd the rooms, each canvas is properly placed. Room 21 holds the most important paintings honored by the jury. On the west wall is the work of Ettore Tito, the winner of the grand prize, five canvases demonstrating both his versatility and his mastery of color. On the north and south walls are the medal-of-honor pictures of Onorato Carlandi and Camillo Innocenti, the latter striking in their golden tone. Coromaldi's rich harvest scenes (26, 27), and a Leonardo Bazzaro (4) (both gold medallists), hang on the east wall. Not to be overlooked, though passed by the jury, are Casciaro's warm landscapes on the north wall and Ricci's "Butterflies" (96), which help to make this collection one of splendid color. Room 22 also glows with color. Ferraguti's "Portrait in Red" (46) (gold medal) holds the place of honor on the west wall. On the north wall is the glowing "Fiametta" (49) by Matilde Festa Piacentini, wife of the architect of the Italian Pavilion, and beside it the equally warm "Golden Rays" (47) by Ferretti. On the east wall burns Traiano Chitarin's "Evening Fires" (31). Among the sculpture is Dazzi's "Portrait of a Lady" (160) (gold medal). Room 23 holds the greater portion of the sculpture, including Amigoni's simple "Adolescence" (151), Brozzi's spirited "Animals" (155), in relievo on bronze, Graziosi's "Susanna" (165), and Pagliani's "On the Beach" (180). All of these won gold medals, but the really striking piece in the room is "Proximus Tuus" (162), the weary peasant, by Achille D'Orsi. Of the few paintings nothing is very remarkable, though Bazzani's "Arch of Septimus Severus" (3) is interesting for its workmanship. Room 24 presents extremely varied styles from Morani's No. 80 to Domenico Irolli's heavily painted "Violin Player" (64), and Enrico Lionne's gorgeous purple figures in the extreme of Impressionism. One of Nomellini's effects in light and shade appears in No. 86, on the east wall. Paolo Sala's "Along the Thames" (100) deserves better place and notice. Irolli, Lionne and Nomellini are gold medallists. Room 25, without any remarkable canvases, is very pleasing as an example of harmonious hanging. This is best illustrated by the west wall where hang four pictures by the three Ciardis, Beppe, Emma, and Guiseppe, and one, No. 6, by Bartolomeo Bezzi, the group admirably centered by Beppe Ciardi's large "Venetian Scene" (32). All three of the Ciardis won gold medals. In the center of the north wall is a fine ruddy sunset (102) by Francesco Sartorelli. The south wall is dominated by Z. V. Zanetti's richly decorative "Tree" (116). Beside it, on the cut-off of the wall, is Guiseppe Mentessi's gripping "Soul of the Stones" (75). Mentessi won the gold medal with this picture, as Italo Brass did with his "Bridge Across the Lagoon" (10). Sculpture in this room is represented by small bronzes and Ernesto Biondi's almost terrible "St. Francis d'Assisi" (154). Uruguay.--The Uruguayan exhibit of painting and sculpture is in one small room, No. 19, against the west wall, next to France. The work has characteristics in common with that of the south of Europe, and shows national feeling. Manuel Rose (52-57) was awarded a gold medal. Cuba.--The Cuban section in Room 20, adjoining Uruguay, though small, is interesting. The jury thought well enough of Leopoldo Romanach's canvases (16-29) to give him the medal of honor. M. Rodriguez Morey (13-15) won the gold medal. China, occupying four rooms, 94-97, adjoining the northern end of the United States Section, though desirous of appearing before the world as a modern republic, has wisely brought here the most beautiful examples of her ancient art. Many of the pieces go so far beyond the records of man that their authorship is lost in darkness. The exquisitely beautiful ink paintings on silk, the finest collection of these works in existence, represent the master painters of all the dynasties of China. Their subjects deal with tradition and religious precepts. Precious cloisonne in heroic pieces has been used for the background of paintings. There are picture-screens made of five or six attached panels of fine porcelain inlaid with cloisonne, and many splendid carvings and porcelains. The medal of honor for water color went to Kiang Ying-seng's "Snow Scene" (348) in Room 94. The water colors of Su Chen-lien, Kao Ki-fong, and Miss Shin Ying-chin, and the exquisite carvings in semi-precious stones of Teh Chang, all gold medal winners, are in the same room. The Philippines, Room 98, by the west wall, have an exhibit which shows that their march toward civilization includes well-grounded ambitions of art. Mentality, feeling, spirit, all reveal themselves in the canvases. Crudity is apparent, but it comes more from an untutored hand than from failure to grasp the significance of the subject. Many pictures are flamboyant, some are melodramatic, nearly all are big subjects handled with great boldness; what they lack in finish they make up in sincerity. Felix R. Hidalgo's contributions (10-20) won him a gold medal. Sweden.--The achievements of Sweden, Rooms 99-107, next to China, have surprised everybody. That country has sent the most distinctively national of all the European exhibits. Swedish artists are stay-at-homes, and their pictures are filled with the Scandinavian love of country. The scenes and portraits are all Swedish, from Carl Larsson's intimate pictures of family life and forest picnics (see p. 126), or Bruno Liljefors' great paintings of the misty northern ocean, down to John Bauer's captivating little illustrations of Swedish goblin tales. No one who has viewed the snow scenes of Anshelm Schultzberg can ever forget the impression of cold and impenetrable depth. Swedish painters are heroic in method, very lavish with their pigments, and generous in the size of their canvases. Some of the pictures, in fact, like "The Swans" (202) by Liljefors, are too large to be seen to the best advantage in the small rooms where they hang. Liljefors won the grand prize, and Gustav Fjaestad the medal of honor, for Swedish painting; Larsson, the grand prize for water color. Anna Boberg, Room 106, whose masculine paintings have always won her honor hitherto, is without award. This famous painter is the wife of the architect of the fine Swedish Pavilion. The jury offered her a silver medal, but Commissioner Schultzberg refused to accept it. Spain is to have an excellent exhibit in the Annex building behind the Palace. Thus far Portugal alone represents the Iberian painters. The collection fills three rooms, 109-111, between Sweden and Holland. The Portuguese artists infuse the spirit of revelry into much of their work. Indeed, it sometimes approaches the bacchanalian. The work is of the extreme modern school as to color, although, technically, there is much drawing in and respect for definite form. Most striking, perhaps, is the splendid representation in many of the pictures of the intense sunlight that beats upon that Southern country. No more vivid examples of this can be found in the collection than Malhoa's "Returning from the Festival" (54) and his "Catholic Procession in the Country" (56). Malhoa, deservedly, captured the grand prize for Portuguese art. The single medal of honor went to Jose Veloso Salgado for his scenes of Minho. The portraits, too, have much of the intensity of the South. The most noteworthy are those by Columbano, Room 110, winner of the grand prize at St. Louis. The four rooms show Portugal prolific of artists who seek beauty in scenes of domesticity and the qrandeur of landscapes. Argentina.--It is interesting to note that the painters of Portugal show more characteristics in common with those of South America and the Philippines than with their European neighbors. Their execution is more tamed than that of the Filipino painters, their style more settled than that of the Argentine. That is not to the discredit of the Argentinos, who, though a new people, have accomplished much that deserves praise. Their exhibit, in Room 112, is important in its showing of the progress of art in so new a country, and it is said to be representative. The artists whose works are shown are almost all young men, a fact which, in connection with their performance, proclaims that Argentina will do something free and original in the future. Three pictures by Antonio Alice, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, have been awarded the medal of honor. They bear witness to Alice's great versatility. Jorge Bermudez' three figure studies (gold medal) are striking. No. 5, "The Daughter of the Hacienda," is wrongly entitled in the official catalog "The Young Landlady." Others in the collection suffer in the same way, as Coppini's "The Old Station" (20), which is catalogued as "The Old Stall." Some of the Argentino landscapes are striking expositions of the spirit of the pampas, particularly Lavecchia's "Near Twilight" (35). As a whole, the paintings are significant of the country of their painters, a truly worthy quality. The sculpture in this room, particularly "Increase and Multiply" (75), by Pedro Zonza Briano (medal of honor), and a splendid Indian portrait (32), by Alberto Lagos (gold medal), is admirable. The International Room, No. 108, on the east wall between Sweden, Holland and Portugal, contains but a small portion of the foreign pictures. Its chief feature is the exhibit of German art. Franz Stuck's "Summer Night" (459), Heinrich von Zugel's "In the Rhine Meadows" (549), both winners of the medal of honor; Curt Agthe's "At the Spring" (3), and Leo Putz' "The Shore" (387), gold-medal pictures, are worthily characteristic of Germany's best art. "El Cristo de los Andes," by E. W. Christmas (bronze medal) is interesting. The bulk of the pictures under "International Section" are in the Annex. Holland, in Rooms 113-116, shows an art so different in its characteristics from that of Sweden that she might be at the other end of the earth. Where the Swedish artists show boldness, sometimes almost to the point of crudeness, the Dutch are intent on some degree of finish. Modernity of color is apparent, and while there are few strokes that indicate timidity, there are fine touches of the poetic in which the Hollander's heart shows its love of home and gardens. Those great tulip beds are real and luscious. Family life in the Netherlands is shown in several fine interiors, and the portraits by Dutch artists are more graceful than those of the average modernist. The grand prize in the Netherlands section went to Breitner's snowy "Amsterdam Timber Port" (17). Bauer's "Oriental Equestrian" (7) won the medal of honor. Gold medals were given to seven artists, named in the list following this chapter. A thoroughly delightful portion of the art exhibit is the sculpture shown in the colonnades and on the grounds of the Palace. This is the first time a great exhibit has been displayed in such a manner. It adds everything to the effectiveness of the sculpture, wherever the pieces have been designed to be erected out of doors. It has been possible to show much of the fountain sculpture in its actual relation to real fountains, and to give the hunters and Indians, the nymphs and the satyrs, the advantage of natural backgrounds. In addition to the contemporaneous sculpture there are some famous pieces here, such as Saint-Gaudens' Lincoln, brought from Chicago, and the copy of Bartlett's equestrian Lafayette. Among recent sculpture, one of the most interesting works shown is a group by C. L. Pietro, of New York, "The Mother of the Dead,"--a powerful story in bronze of the burden which the war has brought to woman. (See p. 120.) Pietro's modeling is worthy of an older artist. Another human tragedy is well told in "The Outcast," a graphic figure by Attilio Piccirilli. (p. 136.) Charming bits of comedy are the whimsical little fountain pieces by Janet Scudder and Anna Coleman Ladd. The honor-winners in sculpture are named in the following list. Awards Awards have been completed and announced by the Fine Arts juries in all sections except the French. The following list includes all the grand prizes, medals of honor and gold medals. The numerous silver and bronze medals and honorable mentions are omitted. Numbers following the names indicate the rooms where the work may be found. United States Section.-- Oil Painting Grand Prize.--F. C. Frieseke, 48, 117. Medals of Honor.--John W. Alexander, 69; Cecilia Beaux, 65; Emil Carlsen. 67; Walter Griffin, 45; Violet Oakley, 65; Willard L. Metcalf, 80; Richard E. Miller, 47, 69; Lawton Parker, 69; W. E. Schofield, 68. Gold Medals.--Myron Barlow. 120; Gifford Beal, 73; George Bellows, 120; Max Bohm, 72, 118; H. H. Breckenridge, 51; H. J. Breuer, 56, 58, 118; C. C. Cooper, 37, 47; H. G. Cushing, 66, 68; Charles H. Davis, 67; Ruger Donoho, 46; Paul Dougherty, 67; J. J. Enneking, 71; Daniel Gerber, 68; Lillian W. Hale, 40, 65, 80; W. D. Hamilton, 55, 118, 120; Harry L. Hoffman, 118; James B. Hopkins, 45, 47; John C. Johansen. 68; Sergeant Kendall, 50; William L. Lathrop, 37, 50; Ernest Lawson, 73; Hayley Lever, 66, 67, 71; F. L. Mora, 45, 71, 117; Waldo Murray, 120; Elizabeth Nourse, 56; Joseph T. Pearson, 69; Marion Powers, 56; Ellen Emmet Rand, 65; Robert Reid, 45; William Ritschel, 68, 71; Edward F. Rook, 45, 48; Robert Spencer, 67, 68; H. O. Tanner, 117; Louis C. Tiffany, 71; Giovanni Troccoli, 48; Douglas Volk, 85; Robert Vonnoh, 45, 66, 70; Horatio Walker, 85; E. K. K. Wetherell, 70, 72; Irving H. Wiles, 70; C. H. Woodbury, 37, 69, 119, 120; Charles M. Young, 45. Water Colors, Miniature Painting and Drawing Medals of Honor.--Lillian Westcott Hale, 40; Laura Coombs Hills, 40, 118; Henry Muhrmann, 54, 72, 119, 120; Frank Mura, 54, 119; P. Walter Taylor, 26; Charles H. Woodbury, 37. Gold Medals.--William Jacob Baer, 40; Jules Guerin, 40; George Hallowell, 40; Charles E. Hell, 36; Arthur I. Keller, 119; Henry McCarter, 26, 37; F. Luis Mora, 45, 117; Alice Schille, 37; Henry B. Snell, 69. 117, 119; N. C. Wyeth, 26. Etching and Engravings Grand Prize.--Henry Wolf, 30. Medals of Honor.--D. A. Wehrschmidt, 119; C. Harry White, not hung. Gold Medals.--Gustav Baumann, 34; Allen Lewis, 34; D. Shaw MacLaughlin, not hung; 3. Andre Smith, 32; Cadwallader Washburn, 32; Herman A. Webster, 32. Sculpture Medals of Honor.--Herbert Adams, 68, Colonnade; Karl Bitter, 66, 68; D. C. French, 40, 68, Rotunda. Gold Medals.--Cyrus E. Dallin, 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 63, 66, 73, 83, Colonnade; James E. Fraser, 68, 119; A. Laessle, 51, 66, 67; Paul Manship, 92, 93; Attilio Plccirilli, 23, 42, 66, 73, 83, Colonnade; Bela Pratt, 61, 66, 89, Colonnade; A. Phimister Proctor, 72; Arthur Putnam, 67; F. G. R. Roth, 66. Medals Medals of Honor.--John Flanagan, 38, 39. Gold Medals.--James E. Fraser, 38, 39; H. A. MacNeil, 38, 39. Argentine Section.-- In Room 112. Oil Painting Medals of Honor.--Antonio Alice. Gold Medals.--Jorge Bermudez, Alejandro Bustillo, Ernesto de la Carcova, Fernando Fader, Jose Leon Pagano, Octavio Pinto, C. Bernaldo de Quires, Eduardo Sivori. Sculpture Medal of Honor.--Pedro Zonza Briano. Gold Medals.--Alberto Lagos. Australian Section.-- In Australian Pavilion. Etchings and Engravings Gold Medal.--Mrs. J. C. A. Traill. Chinese Section.-- Water Color Painting Medal of Honor.--Kiang Ying-seng, 94. Gold Medals.--Su Chen-lien, 94; Kao Ki-fong, 94; Miss Shin-Ying-Chin, 94. Sculpture Gold Medal.--Teh Chang, 94. Cuban Section.-- In Room 20. Oil Painting Medal of Honor.--Leopoldo Romanach. Gold Medal.--Rodriguez Morey. International Section.-- Oil Painting Medals of Honor.--Axel Gallen, Annex; Eliseo Meifren, Annex; Franz von Stuck, 108; Heinrich von Zugel, 108. Gold Medals.--John Quincy Adams, Annex; Curt Agthe, 108; Conde de Aguiar, Annex; Gonzales Bithao, Annex; Istvan Csok, Annex; Harold Knight, Annex; Laura Knight, Annex; Heinrich Knirr, Annex; Lajos Mark, Annex; Julius Olssen, Annex; Leo Putz, 108; George Sauter, Annex; C. W. Simpson, Annex; Harold Speed, Annex; H. Hughes Stanton, Annex; Carlos Vasquez, Annex; Janos Vaszary, Annex; Valentin de Zubiarre, Annex. Etchings and Engravings Medal of Honor.--Frank Brangwyn, Annex. Gold Medals.--R. G. Goodman, Annex; Willy Pogany, Annex; Bela Uitz, Annex. Medals Gold Medal.--Ede Telcs, Annex. Italian Section.-- Oil Painting Grand Prize.--Ettore Tito, 21. Medals of Honor.--Onorato Carlandi, 21; Camillo Innocenti, 21. Gold Medals.--Leonardo Bazzaro, 21; Italo Brass, 25; Emma Ciardi, 25; Beppe Ciardi, 25; Guiseppe Ciardi, 25; Umberto Coromaldi, 21; Visconti Ferraguti, 22; Domenico Irolli, 24; Enrico Lionne, 24; Guiseppe Mentessi, 25; Plinio Nomellini, 24; Feruccio Scattola, 25. Sculpture Gold Medals.--Luigi Amigoni, 23; Renato Brozzi, 23; Arturo Dazzi, 22; Guiseppe Graziosi, 23; Antionetta Pagliani, 23. Japanese Section.-- Water Color Painting Medals of Honor.--Ranshu Dan, 1; Toho Hirose, 1; Shoyen Ikeda, 2; Keisui Ho, 1; Tomoto Kobori, 1. Gold Medals.--Bunto Hayashi, 1; Taisei Minakami, 1; Yoshino Morimura, 2; Hachiro Nakagawa, 10; Hosui Okamoto, 1; Tesshu Okajima, 2; Kangei Takakura, 2. Sculpture Gold Medals.--Choun Yamazaki, 4; Yoshida Homei, 4. Metal Work Grand Prize.--Chozaburo Yamada, 4. Gold Medal.--Kazuo Miyachi, 4. Lacquer Medal of Honor.--Jitoku Akazuka, 4. Gold Medals.--Kozen Kato, 4; Hikobei Nishimura, 4; Mesanori Ogaki, 4. Pottery, Porcelain and Cloisonne Grand Prize.--Kozan Miyakawa, 4. Medals of Honor.--Sosuke Namikawa, 4; Yohei Seifu, 4. Gold Medals.--Eizaemon Fukagawa, 4; Yoshitaro Hayakawa, 4; Hazan Itaya, 4; Tomotaro Kato, 4; Shibataro Kawado, 4; Sobei Kinkozan, 4; Meizan Yabu, 4. Dyed Fabrics and Embroideries Grand Prize.--Jinbei Kawashima, 4. Medal of Honor.--Seizaburo Kajimoto, 4. Gold Medals.--Chokurei Hamamura, 4; Yozo Nagara and Riyoshi Hashio, 4; Goun Namikawa and Torakichi Narita, 4; Saiji Kobayashi, 4. The Netherlands Section.-- Oil Painting Grand Prize.--G. H. Breitner, 113. Medal of Honor.--M. A. J. Bauer, 113. Gold Medals.--David Bautz. 114; G. W. Dysselhof, 113; Arnold Marc. Gorter, 113; Johan Hendrik van Mastenbroek, 114; Albert Roelofs, 113; Hobbe Smith, 114; W. B. Tholen, 113. Etchings and Engravings Gold Medal.--T. H. Van Hoytema, 115. Norwegian Section.-- In the Annex. Oil Painting Medal of Honor.--Harald Sohlberg. Gold Medal.--Halfdan Strom. Etchings and Engravings Medal of Honor.--Olaf Lange. Gold Medal.--Edvard Munch. Sculpture Gold Medal.--Ingebrigt Vik. Philippine Section.-- Oil Painting Gold Medal.--Felix R. Hidalgo, 98. Portuguese Section.-- Oil Painting Grand Prize.--Jose Malhoa, 109, 110, 111. Medal of Honor.--Jose Veloso Salgado, 109, 111. Gold Medals.--Artur Alves Cardoso, 109, 110, 111; Ernesto Ferreira Condeixa, 109, 111; Joao Vaz, 109, 110, 111. Swedish Section.-- Oil Painting Grand Prize.--Bruno Liljefors, 100. Medal of Honor.--Gustaf Fjaestad, 107. Gold Medals.--Elsa Backlund-Celsing, 104; Wilhelm Behm, 103; Alfred Bergstrom, 103; Oscar Hullgren, 103; Gottfrid Kallstenius, 100, 104; Helmer Mas-Olle, 102; Hehner Osslund, 102; Emil Osterman, 106; Wilhelm Smith, 100, 103, 106; Axel Torneman, 100, 104. Water Color, Miniature Paintings and Drawings Grand Prize.--Carl Larsson, 101. Medal of Honor.--John Bauer, 104. Gold Medal.--Oscar Bergman, 101. Sculpture Gold Medal.--Gottfried Larsson, 100. Medals Gold Medal.--Eric Lindberg, 99. Uruguay Section.-- Oil Painting Gold Medal.--Manuel Rose, 19. [1] For plan of rooms and national sections in the Palace of Fine Arts, see map on page 8. XIII. The Exposition Illuminated First attempt to light an exposition indirectly, from concealed sources-- Notable success of Ryan's work--Transformation of the Tower of Jewels-- Details of his method--Weirdness of the Court of Ages at night. Beautiful as the Exposition is by day, it is at night that it becomes loveliest as a spectacle. Then it is a great glow of soft color, without shadow, but also without garishness. Never before has the attempt been made to light an exposition as this one is lighted. The highest standard before attained was a blaze of electric light secured by outlining the buildings with incandescent bulbs. That was the work of electricians. Here the illuminators are artists who have created a great picture of light and color. There is no blaze or glare. Light floods the Exposition, but from concealed sources. All-pervasive, seemingly without source, the illumination is rather a quality of the Exposition atmosphere than an effect of lights. Nor is it a white light. It is softened and tinged with the warmest and mellowest of colors. So mellow, indeed, is the illumination that it would not even be brilliant but for the radiance of thousands of prisms hung about the great Tower of Jewels, the intense light of which swathes the lofty structure in a pure glow, at once bright and ethereal. (p. 135.) Above the glow in which the palaces are bathed, a pageant of light and color marches across the sky, a splendid aurora borealis, its bannered troops now wheeling in ordered array, now breaking their formation in wild riot, until out of the fantastic show huge beams of light separate to pierce the heavens. This unique system of illumination, devised by W. D'A. Ryan expressly for the Panama-Pacific Exposition depends upon floods of light from concealed sources. Around the walls of the palaces stand tall Venetian masts, topped with shields or banners. Concealed behind the heraldic emblems are powerful magnesite arc lamps. These spread their intense glow on the walls, but are hardly recognized as sources of light by the passer-by on the avenues. Batteries of searchlights and projectors mounted on the tops of buildings light the towers, the domes, and the statuary. Even the banners on the walls are held in the spotlights of small projectors constantly trained on them. That there may be no shadows, concealed incandescent bulbs light up every corner and angle of the towers, the arches, and the cloisters. The ghostly radiance of the Tower of Jewels comes from huge searchlights aimed at it from a circle of hidden stations. The many-colored fan of enormous rays, the Scintillator, which stands against the sky behind the Exposition, is produced by a searchlight battery of thirty-six great projectors mounted on the breakwater of the Yacht Harbor. It is manned nightly by a company of marines, who manipulate the fan in precise drills. Concealed lights shine through the waters of the fountains. In the Court of the Universe they are white, the colorless brilliance of the stars; in the Court of Seasons they are green, the color of nature; in the Court of the Ages they are red, with clouds of rosy steam rising around them. Writhing serpents spout leaping gas flames on the altars set around the pool of the Ages, and from other altars set by the entrances of the Court rise clouds of steam given the semblance of flame by concealed red lights. By the high altar on the Tower of Ages the same device is used to make the lights flame like huge torches. The palaces themselves are not lighted at night, though they have the appearance of being illuminated. Behind each window and doorway are hung strings of lights backed by reflectors. A soft glow of light comes forth, giving animation to the palaces and strengthening the picture outside. There are two ways to see the Exposition at night, both of which must be followed if one is to get the fullest appreciation of the magic beauty of the lighting. One is to wander about the palaces and courts in the midst of the soft flood of mysterious light, watching the play of the fountains, the barbaric flames of the Court of Ages, the green shimmer of the waters in the Court of Seasons, the banners fluttering in strong white light, the statuary in changing hues according to the color screens used before the projectors, the Aurora Borealis above the Scintillator battery. The other is from a distance. I have seen the illuminated Exposition from the top of Mount Tamalpais, whence it was a wondrous spectacle. But best of all I like to watch it from the hill at the corner of Broadway and Divisadero streets. It is best to go there early, before the lights are turned on. Then you may see the wonderful rosy glow of the Tower of Jewels and the two Italian towers before the white light of the projectors is flashed on them. Red incandescents are hidden behind all the columns of the Tower of Jewels and concealed in each of the Italian towers, as well as in the open spaces in and around the dome of Festival Hall. These are always turned on first. The Tower of Jewels then glows with a soft mellow red, less brilliant, but warmer and more colorful than its incandescence later on. The rich light wells up from the Italian towers and Festival Hall, and spreads from all their openings to stain the walls around with deep rose. Then the ray of a searchlight falls on the Bowman atop the Column of Progress, silhouetting that heroic figure in the night as though he floated at a great height above the earth. Beams from other searchlights cause the Nations of East and West to stand out with startling distinctness on their triumphal arches; the great bulls of the Court of Seasons glow against the night; the golden fires are lighted in the Court of Ages. The tall masts around the palaces softly illuminate the walls. First one side and then another of the Tower of Jewels is bathed in white light, until the Tower stands out in ghostly radiance. Two slender shafts of light shoot upward on either side of the globe atop the Tower and stand there, symbols of pure aspiration reaching to the heavens. Behind it all the huge and many-colored fan of the Scintillator opens in gorgeous color in the northern sky. The illumination is at its best on a misty night. Then its spectacular effects become more spectacular. The moisture in the air provides a screen to catch the colored lights and make them visible in their fullest beauty. The Exposition recognized this need of a background for the great beams of the Scintillator when it provided for the clouds of steam that are nightly sent floating upward through the shafts of colored light. Nothing brings out the wonder of the Court of Ages at night like mist or fog. On the first night that all the illumination was given a full rehearsal it was raining slightly. The incandescence of the great globe of the Earth, the leaping flames on the altars by the pool, the rosy clouds over the bowls by the entrances and from the torches on the high Altar of the Ages, became strange, mystic, almost uncanny. Of the beautiful light that falls upon the Palace of Fine Arts (p. 137), I can do no better than to quote from Royal Cortissoz: "At night and illuminated, it might be a scene from Rome or from Egypt, a gigantic ruin of some masterpiece left by Emperor or Pharaoh. The lagoon is bordered by more of those heavenly hedges that I have described. There are trees and thickets to add to the bewilderment of the place, to make it veritably the silenzio verde of the poet. And with the ineffable tact which marks the lighting of the Fair, this serene spot is left almost, but not quite, to the dim loveliness of night. The glow that is given its full value elsewhere is here at its faintest. The pageant ends in a hush that is as much of the spirit as of the senses." XIV. Music at the Exposition Early neglect of music by the Exposition management remedied by the appointment of George W. Stewart, of Boston, as manager--Engagements of Camille Saint-Saens and the Boston Symphony Orchestra the musical events of the summer--Original compositions by the French master--Sousa and his great band--Other notable bands--Lemare's organ concerts- Splendid choral performances by famous organizations--A half-million for music. Music cannot be omitted from any scheme of mundane celebration. In an exposition of the character of this one, where all art has been given so high a place, this gift of the gods must assume an unusual importance. It is important here, not only as a means of entertainment, but as a means of cultural development, and as an intellectual factor in the evolution of the race. This Exposition justifies itself by its storehouses of knowledge. Its reason for existence is, the permanent advancement of the people of the world in all that art, science, and industry, can bring to its palaces for pleasurable study. With the agreement that a great pipe organ was to be installed in Festival Hall, and that orchestras and bands were to be engaged, the early speculative musical labors of the directorate ended. Casual indeed was the attention paid to music during all of the early part of the pre-Exposition period. Material interests--and there were millions of them--cried for consideration, while the still, small voice of music was drowned in the clangor of construction. Just as music is the last of the arts to receive recognition at our universities, so it was neglected here until so much time had elapsed that only the most fortunate of accidents could give song and symphony their proper places among the wonders that were ultimately to find a home in the Jewel City. Fortunately, accident for once proved kind; vigorous direction emerged fortuitously from apathy. In the early building period, President C. C. Moore turned aside from his other cares long enough to appoint J. B. Levison Chief of the Music Department. A better choice could hardly have been made. For more than two decades Mr. Levison, an able amateur in music, and a business man of high standing, had been identified with all of San Francisco's larger efforts in its musical life. But Mr. Levison's grasp of the importance of such a post was more comprehensive than President Moore's, for he refused the position. Fortunately, however, he had his attention directed to George W. Stewart, of Boston, a former artist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a man technically equipped, who had made a great success of the music at the St. Louis Exposition. Stewart was engaged, and to him is due the credit for the remarkable record music has already made at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. Aside from the construction of the $50,000 pipe organ, which, after the Exposition, will be placed permanently in the Civic Auditorium, the two most important musical items found on the schedule of Exposition enterprises are the engagements of Camille Saint-Saens and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The former, who maintained that "Beethoven is the greatest, the only real, artist, because he upheld the idea of universal brotherhood," is perhaps better fitted than any living composer to write special music for the Exposition. This he has done,--writing two compositions in fact; and their presentation has been an outstanding feature. "Hail, California," was dedicated to the Exposition. Scored for an orchestra of eighty, a military band of sixty, a chorus of 300 voices, pipe organ and piano, its first presentation was an event. The Saint-Saens Symphony in C minor (No. 3) Opus 78, composed many years ago, has become a classic during the life-time of its creator. It was one of the wonders of the Boston Symphony programmes played in Festival Hall. Its yield of immediate pleasure and its reassurance for the works of Saint-Saens to be heard later, grew from the fact that it was scored for orchestra and pipe organ, and in this massive tonal web the genius of the composer to write in magnificent size was overwhelmingly evident, thus forecasting the splendors of "Hail, California." The other work written by this visitor from Paris is in oratorio form and titled, appropriately, "The Promised Land." A huge choir of 400 voices, directed by Wallace Sabin and named in honor of the visitor, the "Saint-Saens Choir," rendered a good account of the ensemble sections of the choral composition, while the Exposition orchestra of 80 instrumentalists and the Exposition organ added effectiveness to the accompaniment. Sabin presided at the organ. In addition to these appearances, the composer conducted three recitals during the latter part of June, when all of the compositions offered were his work. The visit of Dr. Karl Muck with his Boston Symphony Orchestra has become a luminous memory. The trip is utterly new in the history of music anywhere, nothing like it ever before having been attempted. It is said that the transportation bills alone amounted to $15,000, and there were no stop-overs en route for concert performances to help in defraying this bulky first cost. It is proper to record here the financial success of the venture. While the season of twelve concerts was yet young, more than $40,000 had been taken in at the box office, and the estimated expenses of $60,000 were liquidated, with a margin of profit. This was enhanced by an extra concert, the thirteenth. Tickets for the season were sold in Chicago, New York, Boston, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, St. Louis, Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon, while San Francisco and the bay communities in general sent their thousands to the glorious recitals. The result will be seen in a stimulation of music in the West. But the engagements of Saint-Saens and Dr. Muck with his orchestra do not sum up the important activities of the Exposition's music. There are other features which challenge even these in popular estimation. John Philip Sousa has spent a long season at the Exposition. A blunder was somewhere made in dating the arrival of the March King and his splendid instrumentalists, who came while yet the Boston Symphonists were playing in Festival Hall. As a result the finest of bands was placed in competition with the finest of orchestras. But nothing disastrous happened. Those who desired, to the number of fifteen thousand, heard Sousa at his opening concert in the Court of the Universe; those who desired heard Dr. Muck's instrumentalists, to the seating capacity of Festival Hall. Featured concerts have been and are being given by massed bands composed of Sousa's, Cassasa's, Conway's and other military or concert organizations. Briefly, and regardless of the importance of each item, here are some of the attractions which make this Exposition vocal and harmonious: Edwin Henry Lemare, of London, by general critical agreement declared the greatest living organist, is expected here early in September, when he will begin his series of one hundred organ recitals, to continue till the Exposition closes in December. A unique episode of the Exposition music must not be overlooked in the recital by Madame Schumann-Heink, whose graciousness found another expression in her concert given exclusively and gratuitously to the children. More than three thousand of the little folk were in Festival Hall when the grandest of singers sang for them alone. The visit already accomplished of Gabriel Pares and his famous Republican Guard band of Paris; the engagement already begun of the Ogden Tabernacle Choir of 300 voices; the Eisteddfod competitive concerts; the long stay of the Philippine Constabulary band under the leadership of Captain W. H. Loving; Emil Mollenhauer's big Boston band; the concerts of the United Swedish Singers; the Apollo Music Club's premised visit from Chicago--the organization is coming intact with all of its 250 vocalists and its distinguished composer-conductor, Harrison M. Wild; La Loie Fuller's spectacles, and the engagement of forty noted organists to appear in Festival Hall in addition to Lemare and Clarence Eddy, are a few of the accomplished or promised attractions. To this list must be added the daily concerts given gratis at different periods by various bands other than those named--the official Exposition band of 45 players under the seasoned direction of Charles H. Cassasa; Thaviu's splendid band of 50; Conway's military and concert band of 50, and others yet to be had in the world of music will be spread for their delecta-concerts are booked. As proof of the worth of these, let the achievements of the recent past speak. We have heard the Alameda County 1915 Chorus of 250 voices under Alexander Stewart in a majestic performance of Handel's "Messiah;" the Exposition Chorus under Wallace Sabin in a repetition of the music sung as part of the opening day's celebration--"The Heavens are Telling," from Haydn's "Creation," and the official hymn--"A Noble Work"--by Mrs. H. H. A. Beach; the Berkeley Oratorio Society under the inspiring direction of Paul Steindorff in two splendid concerts, the first given to Rossini's "Stabat Mater" and the second to Brahms' "German Requiem;" and the Pacific Choral Society's performance of Haydn's "Creation" under the musicianly leadership of Warren B. Allen. More music may confidently be looked for from these rich sources. The Exposition authorities declare that half a million dollars will have been expended on music before the end of the life of the great enterprise. Thus visitors to the Exposition may come at any period of the Jewel City's existence, knowing that the best to be had in the world of music will be spread for their delectation, and that they will be afforded a comprehensive view of the art of tone as it exists today. In this respect the Exposition's musical "exhibit" is similar in its scope to the revealments in all its other departments; for the Exposition is avowedly devoted to contemporaneous rather than historic achievements. Nothing that extends contemplation over a wider period than the last five years is admitted for competitive exhibition. The modern composer, no less than the modern inventor, is having his day at the Exposition. This is as it should be. We are hearing, have heard, or will hear, the last utterances of present-day musical creators. Indeed, in the case of one--Saint-Saens--we heard, as I have recounted, two massive compositions written expressly for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and John Philip Sousa has bent his most martial mood to the composition of an inspiring march which is called "Panama." But music also enjoys a privilege not accorded equally to any other department of Exposition display. The works of the past, as well as the present, are given. A history of music at the Exposition properly written--as one surely should be--would be an epitome of the evolution of the art from Cherubini, Haydn and Bach to Richard Strauss, Saint-Saens and Debussy. It would involve in its telling the stories of music in Italy, Germany, Austria, England, France, Russia, Scandinavia, yes, and America, too! It would include an account of the genealogy of the modern orchestra as exemplified in the Boston Symphony or the Official Symphony, and of military bands up to the perfected concert organizations headed by a Sousa or a Gabriel Pares. It would embrace with like inclusiveness the history of the pipe organ through its stages of evolution from the ponderous instruments with men straddling unwieldy bellows to the marvel installed in Festival Hall, and it would embrace the history of the art of organ music up to such exemplars as our own Clarence Eddy, John &. McClellan, Edwin Lemare, and Camille Saint-Saens. What a chapter would be set aside for the record of Exposition choral music! Already there has gone abroad from the Festival Hall an impetus towards better chorus music that will, I feel sure, firmly establish this somewhat neglected department of musical art in the far West. XV. Inside the Exhibit Palaces All competitive exhibits strictly contemporaneous, showing the arts of to-day--Revolution worked by the motion-picture theater in exhibition methods--The lessons of Machinery Palace--Coal and steam fast yielding to liquid fuels and waterpower and electricity--Life-saving devices, accident prevention and employees' welfare made prominent in Palaces of Machinery and Mines--A contrast in locomotives--Building a motor car every ten minutes--Co-operative exhibits in Food-Products Palace--Many great displays by the United States Government--Educational exhibits not duplicated, each state or city showing its specialty. In its industrial displays, as well as its art, the Exposition keeps steadily in view the fact that it commemorates a contemporary event; it is contemporaneous, not historical. Hence it was decreed from the first that the exhibits must be the products of the last decade, a rule strictly observed save in rare cases where older forms have been admitted for comparison. The result is two-fold. The exhibits are condensed to the essential, giving room for a greater number of exhibitors; and the progress of the world is shown as of today. Eleven palaces house the exhibits, exclusive of live stock. Officially, the things shown in the state and foreign buildings are not "exhibits," but "displays," and are not eligible for award. In general, the names of the palaces indicate the classes of exhibits to be found in them. No sharp line, however, can be drawn between the Palaces of Manufactures and Varied Industries, or between Agriculture and Food Products. In other cases there is some overlapping of classes. One section of the Liberal Arts exhibit is in the Palace of Machinery. A striking feature of almost all the palaces, and one that differentiates this Exposition from its great predecessors of a decade or more ago, is the common use of the moving-picture machine as the fastest and most vivid method of displaying human activities and scenery. Everywhere it is showing industrial processes. Former expositions, for want of this device, have been mainly exhibitions of products. These have hitherto been shown in such bulk as to fill vast floor spaces and become a weariness to the flesh, while it was impossible, from the nature of things, to exhibit the great primary industries of field, forest, sea and mine in actual operation. The motion-picture machine has not only lessened the areas of products shown, thus making this Exposition more compact than former ones; but it has increased the effectiveness of exhibition methods by carrying the spectator, figuratively, into the midst of operations, and showing him men at work in all the important processes of agriculture, in the logging camps, in mines and fisheries, as well as in the mills and factories where the raw materials of these basic industries are worked into finished products. Its value for showing scenery, too, is fully utilized here. Many of the states and foreign countries employ it. Even faraway Siam uses it to instruct the Occident concerning her resources and people. Counting those in the state and foreign buildings, seventy-seven free moving-picture halls are to be found within the Exposition. Their efficiency is indicated by the crowds that throng them daily. The Palace of Machinery holds three lessons for the observer. It shows not only the state of man's invention at the present moment, the increasing displacement of coal by hydroelectric plants and liquid fuels, but what is perhaps more significant, the changing direction of invention toward devices for human betterment. The Diesel oil engine and multitudes of electrical machines stand for the latest word in mechanical invention. The Diesel again, with a host of other internal combustion engines, the electric motors and waterpower plants, and the absence of steam machines, bear witness to the downfall of steam. But the great space given to safety devices, to labor-saving machines, to road-making machinery, and to mechanical devices for increasing the comfort of country life, are evidence of the part machinery is coming to play in the task of making life more livable. As an exhibition of modern mechanical invention, Machinery Hall is unique, as all this Exposition is unique. There is almost nothing in it that is not the product of the last ten years; it actually represents construction of the last two years. Indeed, the wholly contemporary nature of the exhibits leaves the visitor without visible means of comparison. As at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, a prime mover is the central figure in the building. There it was the immense Corliss steam engine. Here it is a Diesel, started by President Wilson by wireless on the opening day, and generating all the direct current used in the palace. Another commanding exhibit is a 20,000 horsepower hydro-electric generator, significant of the modern use of water-power. The United States Government is the largest exhibitor in the building, with numerous fine models of warships, docks, dams and submarine mines; torpedoes, artillery, armorplate and shells, army equipment, ammunition-making machinery in operation, light-houses and aids to navigation, and a splendid set of models illustrating road-making methods. Crowded out of its proper place in the Palace of Liberal Arts, the exhibit of the printing trades occupies a section here, including a huge color press turning out illustrated Sunday supplements. The Palace of Mines and Metallurgy offers ample evidence of the great figure which steel now makes in the world, and of the vast extent of the petroleum industry. Here, too, as in Machinery Hall, accident prevention is emphasized. From this point of view insurance exhibits are not out of place here. The United States Steel Corporation, with its subsidiary companies, shows in this palace the largest single exhibit seen in the Exposition, save those of the United States Government. Noteworthy are its excellent models of iron and coal-mining plants, coke ovens. furnaces, rolling mills, docks, ships, and barges, and an extensive section devoted to the welfare of employees, with model playgrounds. Many states and nations, and many world-famous mining companies are represented by exhibits of ores and metals, of mine models, and mining and metallurgical processes in operation. California shows a gold dredger and a hydraulic mine in operation. The great copper mines of California, Montana, Utah, and Japan, have installed significant exhibits. The United States Government operates in this palace a model mint, a model post office, and features a daily "mine explosion," with a demonstration of rescue work. The Palace of Transportation places its emphasis on automobiles and roads, electric locomotives and cars, and the mammoth types of modern steam locomotives. All of these exhibits represent construction of the last year, with one exception. The first Central Pacific locomotive stands beside a Mallet Articulated engine,--an enormous contrast. One third of the floor space is filled with steam and electric locomotives and modern cars. Some are sectioned, and operated by electric motors, vividly illustrating the latest mechanical devices. Another third of the palace is devoted to motor cars. The Ford Motor Car Company maintains a factory exhibit in which a continuous stream of Fords is assembled and driven away, one every ten minutes. Plans for a great exhibit of aeroplanes were destroyed by the war. The Exposition, however, maintains a constant exhibit of the spectacular side of aeronautics in remarkable flights by famous aviators. After Lincoln Beachey was killed in one of these performances, his place was taken by Arthur Smith, who was instantly crowned as a far more dazzling birdman. Two aeroplanes are the only representation in the palace. Steamship companies have erected here sections of their vessels. Railroads make interesting exhibits of scenery along their routes, of safety devices and of railroad accessories. The Canadian Pacific, Grand Trunk Pacific, Great Northern, Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Santa Fe systems maintain buildings of their own, exhibiting the scenery, agriculture and other resources of the country through which they pass. The Palace of Varied Industries illustrates the enormous complexity of modern material needs. Packed with severely selected manufactures, it is made especially interesting by the many processes shown in operation. Cotton and woolen mills, linen looms, knitting machines, machines for weaving fire hose, a shoe-making factory, a broom factory, and many others, are particularly attractive because they are engaged in making familiar articles. The machines in use demonstrate the refinements of present-day manufacturing processes. The factories of many nations are represented in this palace. Germany makes here her largest exhibit, notably of cutlery and pottery. The Palace of Manufactures differs from the Palace of Varied Industries as a bolt of silk differs from a bale of leather. Yet this general distinction between the finer and the coarser classes of factory products is not rigidly adhered to. The Palace of Manufactures is distinguished by a remarkable exhibit of fine wares by the Japanese, and another of commercial art from Italy. Fortunately this Japanese display is of goods in the ancient style, infinitely more interesting, though less significant, than the extensive exhibits in other palaces of Japanese wares manufactured in competition with Western nations. Most beautiful are the ceramics, the lacquered ware, and the silks. Great Britain is an extensive exhibitor of cutlery, pottery, and textiles. Manufacturing processes are shown in operation in this palace, though less than in the Palace of Varied Industries. The Palace of Liberal Arts found its six acres of floor space insufficient. The exhibits, forming a remarkable demonstration of the breadth of applied science, embrace electrical means of communication, including wireless telegraphy and telephony, musical instruments, chemistry, photography, instruments of precision and of surgery, theatrical appliances, engineering, architecture, map-making, typography, printing, book-binding, paper manufacture, scientific apparatus, typewriters, coins and medals, and innumerable other articles. A great space is occupied by talking machines "demonstrated" in musical theatres, and by cameras. The American Telegraph and Telephone Company maintains transcontinental telephone connection between its theatre and New York, and gives daily demonstrations. The United States Government has installed a great variety of displays. Most striking, perhaps, is the section from the National Museum, where the most modern methods of exhibition are exemplified in cases containing human groups that are almost real life. The great pipe organ in Festival Hall is classed as one of the exhibits of this palace. Germany, Japan, China, the Netherlands, Uruguay, Cuba, and New Zealand are heavy exhibitors here. Of special interest is the German exhibit of radium and its allied metals. The Palace of Education and Social Economy contains the special educational exhibits of this Exposition, which itself, as a whole, is a world-university. Its striking features are the great number of official exhibits by states, cities and foreign nations, and the emphasis laid on industrial and vocational education, public health, playgrounds, and the training of abnormal children. An educational exhibit is one of the most difficult to make vivid and interesting to the general public. This palace has succeeded by avoiding duplication. To each state or city was assigned a special problem, as far as possible the one to which it had contributed a noteworthy solution. Thus, Massachusetts shows her vocational methods, while Oregon specializes on rural schools as neighborhood centers. Among the cities, St. Louis devotes most of its space to the educational museum, while Philadelphia emphasizes central high schools. The United States Government supplies a branch of its Children's Bureau, with daily conferences for parents. Among the many instructors who have been engaged to conduct classes in the palace is Dr. Maria Montessori, who is to give a course of lessons based on her famous system. The Philippine exhibit shows that Americans have developed in the Islands a system of practical education which American teachers should study. The Palace of Agriculture is an instructive presentation of modern farm methods, as well as of raw products of the soil. It shows admirably the great advance in agriculture in the United States, giving due space to the work and influence of the state agricultural colleges. Particularly impressive is the array of farm machinery and the wide application to it of the gasoline motor. After seeing it, one wonders what place is left on the farm for the horse. The fundamental nature of agriculture has brought more states and foreign countries into this palace than are represented in any other. A significant representation is that of the Philippines, an exhibition of enormous natural resources. Its display of fine hardwoods is the finest ever made by any country. Similar exhibits of Argentina and New Zealand are also excellent. Forestry takes a large place in this palace, the United States Government making a big forestry exhibit in addition to the great general display of the Department of Agriculture. The Palace of Food Products is a temple of the tin can and the food package. It is made one of the most interesting of all the Exposition buildings by its numerous processes in operation. A large part of it is really a factory, turning out before the visitor's eyes the different familiar edibles of the magazine advertisements. A mint of money must have been spent by these exhibitors. A flour company, for example, has installed a complete mill in which flour is manufactured, and then made into many kinds of cakes and pastries by a row of cooks of various nations. A bakery in connection with this mill turns out 400 loaves at a baking. As in every exposition, visitors crowd the booths where edible samples are distributed. After viewing many such scenes, a local humorist dubbed this building "the Palace of Nibbling Arts." The new idea of co-operation among manufacturers appears in a number of collective exhibits. California wine producers have united in a splendid display, far more impressive than could be made by an individual. The Pacific Coast fisheries have joined in an elaborate exhibit of every sort of tinned fish. The United States Bureau of Fisheries maintains an extensive aquarium of fresh and salt-water fishes. The State of Washington has another, with a salmon hatchery in operation. Modern production of pure food is greatly emphasized. In a building of its own, a Pacific Coast condensed milk concern operates a good-sized factory, using the milk of its herd of pure-bred Holsteins, kept in the Live-Stock section. The Palace of Horticulture, with its gardens, has been planned with a three-fold purpose, to appeal with equal interest to the tourist, the student, and the business man. Its exhibits by states and foreign nations picture the gardens and orchards of the world. Its factory installations exhibit actual processes of preparing and preserving fruit and vegetable products. Under the great dome are the Cuban and Hawaiian collections of tropical plants and flowers, already described in the chapter on the South Gardens. In the flanking rooms are displays of orchids and aquatic plants. In the main hall Luther Burbank shows his creations. An exhibit of fresh fruits in season is maintained. The gardens outside show plants and shrubs from many states and countries, including the great exhibit of the Netherlands Board of Horticulture. XVI. The Foreign Pavilions Buildings characteristic of the nations represented--Many adaptations of famous old-world structures--Younger countries build expressions of their progress--Noteworthy pavilions of France, Holland, and the Scandinavian kingdoms--Italy's masterpiece in historic architecture-- Argentina, Bolivia and other Latin-American republics well represented-- Canada and Australia present fine buildings and splendid exhibits-- China and Japan reproduce renowned gardens, temples and palaces--Rich treasures of art and industry shown by many countries. Almost all the twenty-one foreign pavilions at the Exposition are characteristic of the architecture of the nations that built them. Some, like the unique Japanese temple or the beautiful French pavilion, are reproductions of famous old-world buildings. The three fine Scandinavian pavilions reflect notable types of national architecture. Italy's delightful group, which is the most noteworthy of all, is for every one who has visited that country an epitome of her most interesting historic palaces, rich in the art of the Renaissance. The buildings of the newer countries, like Canada or the Argentine, which have not yet had time to develop characteristic styles of their own, are admirable expressions of their progress and prosperity. Argentina.--The Argentine Pavilion is really a palace. It is the work of Sauze, a celebrated architect of Buenos Aires, in the style of the French Renaissance. (See p. 169.) The Argentino exhibits, with the exception of dioramas, moving pictures, and photographs, are in the Exposition palaces. The pavilion is the center for the social functions of the Commission. Both exterior and interior of the building illustrate the amazing progress of the South American republic in art, as its exhibits in the Exposition palaces exemplify its advancement in industry and commerce. The entrance opens into a noble hall, imposing in its simplicity. In the clerestory the walls are decorated with fine murals by the brush of the Argentine artist, Colivadeno,--works which show that Argentine art has the beauty, freshness and vigor of the nation from which it springs. In the center of the hall is an exquisite bit of Sculpture. On left and right the foyer opens into a fine reception hall and a graceful refreshment room. In the rear is a theater, where moving pictures of Argentine scenes are shown daily. In the wall of the corridor surrounding the theater on the first floor are excellent panoramas showing scenery and resources. Among these is a view of the famed Iguazu Falls, the greatest and most magnificent waterfall on the globe. In the corridor upstairs are other panoramas, a series of photographs, and a collection of graphic charts which show the commerce, finance, industry, administration, education and social service of the republic. The second floor ends at the rear in a beautiful library. The pavilion was built entirely of materials brought from Buenos Aires, and constructed by Argentino workmen. Australia.--The Australian Pavilion, at the Presidio entrance to the Exposition, was designed by George J. Oakeshott, F. I. A. N. S. W. (p. 148.) Obviously it is intended to symbolize the industrial cohesion of the six Australian States, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, West Australia, and Tasmania. The facade bears below the cornice the titles of the states, with the state banner waving from a staff above. All are subordinated to the central tower, floating the flag of the Commonwealth. Because its exhibits are eloquent of the resources of the great young country, the Pavilion has been described aptly as "the shop window of the Commonwealth." The building is, in fact, a huge sample room; and although the large states only, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, provided the display, each section is adequately representative of all Australia produces. Tropical fruits and other products from the northeast combine with the horticultural and agricultural products of the temperate zone. Minerals from the rich fields of all the states are grouped. The opals and gems from White Cliffs and Lightning Ridge in New South Wales vie with other precious stones from Queensland in forming one of the great attractions. Handsome building stones, including exceptional marble, are side by side with samples of the world-famous hardwoods and the scarcely known but beautiful cabinet woods from the Australian forest, while the pastoral areas have provided wonderful collections of wool, leathers, meat and by-products. The agricultural exhibits have attracted much attention, and were so arranged as to show the productiveness of irrigated areas as well as of the country generally. Carefully prepared literature, distributed liberally, has been a feature of the efforts of the Australians. The commissioners have made it their boast that nothing has been exaggerated; everything is "real." Even art critics who visit the pavilion will not be disappointed, for on the walls they will find many paintings of merit by Australian artists, including loan collections from the National Gallery of New South Wales and the Victorian Art Society. The Australian exhibits, unlike those of most other countries, have been grouped in this building, instead of being shown in the various Exposition palaces. Bolivia.--Bolivia has erected one of the most essentially national pavilions at the Exposition, an admirable building that expresses equally the two elements of its population, the Spanish and the Indian. The building is Spanish in its solid rectangular plan; its entrance is copied from the portal of the Church of San Lorenzo, and its central patio fashioned after that of the old mint at Potosi. It is Indian in the curious carved work of the facade and the monoliths flanking the entrance, both being exact copies of ceremonial temple stones from the lake region of Bolivia. The building was designed by Dr. Calderon of the Bolivian Commission and Albert Farr of San Francisco. Tropical plants and fruits are shown in the brick-paved patio. The rooms in the interior include a moving-picture theater, an art gallery and museum, with pictures by Bolivian artists, and relics of the civilization of the Incas. The national exhibits are shown in the Exposition palaces. Canada.--The Canadian Pavilion is the largest of the foreign buildings, and the best example at the Exposition of businesslike advertising by a government. (p. 148.) Planned by a permanent commission which has had fifteen years of exposition experience, the Canadian exhibit, down to the last detail, is designed to advertise the country. Even the site, at the junction of the highways leading to the Live-Stock Section, was chosen to get the largest number of the kind of visitors Canada is most anxious to greet. The architects were Humphreys, Limited, of London. Architecturally, the building is mixed classic, finished in the Exposition travertine. The maple leaf of Canada appears in medallions on the walls, the royal arms of Britain over the entrances, and the British lion on either side of the approaches. Canada's entire exhibit is here. Her commission cares nothing for awards, but is concerned solely with attracting settlers and capital. With this in view, the chief feature of the display consists of Canadian landscapes, illustrating the agricultural, lumbering, mining, and shipping interests of British North America. The scenes are set to produce a remarkable perspective. The beholder seems to stand on rising ground, looking away over miles of country. In each view the foreground is enlivened with real water and either living or moving things. There is a panorama of the great wheat fields bordering on Lake Superior. Trains move from grain elevators in the interior to the docks on the lake, where model steamers ply on real water. Electricity supplies the power. The largest scene of all is of Canada as it was and as it is. The foreground represents the North, when the Indian and the game had it to themselves. In the background the visitor looks for miles down a broad Canadian valley filled with wheat fields and pleasant farms. Canada's wild life is represented in the foreground by splendid stuffed specimens, from the bear and the moose and the musk-ox to the marten and the muskrat, and from the great gray honker to the hummingbird. On the right, in a forest scene, is a beaver pond with dam and house, where the real beavers splash in the water. On the left of the scene, where a cascade tumbles into it, is a pool of Canadian trout, maintained in the wonted chill of their native waters by an ice-making plant under the scenery. Canada hopes to draw wealthy sportsmen and vacationists, who will then see for themselves the opportunities for investment. Some of her largest enterprises have begun thus. The Canadian Pavilion makes no provision for social functions, but it is an attractive place, where everyone is welcomed. By common consent Canada has made the most effective exhibit of its kind at the Exposition. Central America.--Guatemala, Honduras and Panama have each erected pavilions characteristic of Central American architecture. The Guatemalan Pavilion houses a display of the products of the forests, fields, and mines of the country, with coffee as its most notable exhibit. A native marimba band playing Guatemalan airs makes complete the Central American spirit of this pavilion. The Pavilion of Honduras, which might have been brought entire from Central America by a genie, contains a display of laces, woven hats, tropic ferns and flowers. China.--The Imperial Audience Hall of the Forbidden City at Peking is reproduced in miniature in the three government buildings of the Chinese compound at the Exposition. The central pavilion is modeled after the great hall where for three centuries the Manchu emperors gave audiences. The two flanking structures, both alike, are copies of the buildings where court officials and the delegations awaited the coming of the Son of Heaven to the throne room. The pagoda and the tower at the left and right of the entrance are likewise copies of structures in the Forbidden City. All the buildings were constructed by native artisans, brought over from China for the purpose. The flag of the Republic floats from the tower, its colors from top to bottom standing in order for Manchuria, South China, Tibet, and Mongolia. The ancient dragon is absent, banished by the spirit of New China. Within the three government pavilions are magnificent carvings, vases and lacquered furniture, old prints and paintings on silk. The priceless collection of the latter, shown here and in the Chinese section of the Fine Arts Palace, is the finest in the world, the property of a Chinese collector. Its pictures are a complete representation of Chinese painting for more than a thousand years. China is represented by exhibits in all the Exposition palaces, the most extensive participation by any foreign country. Cuba.--The Cuban Pavilion, designed by Francisco Centurion, is a good example of Spanish-American architecture. It is distinguished by a square tower at one corner, a wide portico, roof of Spanish tile, and a central patio, designed for receptions. On the second floor is a great ballroom approached by a splendid stairway in the old Spanish style. Cuba's most striking exhibit at the Exposition is the display of tropical plants and flowers in the Palace of Horticulture. Denmark.--Denmark, like the two other Scandinavian countries, has made her pavilion characteristic of her own national architecture. Though not in any sense a reproduction, the building finds its motive in Hamlet's Castle of Kronberg at Elsinore. The architect has softened the grimness and bulk of the ancient fortress into a pleasing building, that has the spirit of the gray land by the German Ocean, and the solid character of the Danes. The dim past appears in the great gravestones on the grounds, copies of monuments on ancient Danish barrows. In the entrance is a tiled lobby, with the information bureau. Beyond is the "Garden Room," so styled because of its exquisite furnishings and abundance of cut flowers. To the left is a reception room, done in massive Danish decoration, with Danish woods and Danish furniture. A handsome cabinet of mahogany and hammered silver is its most striking piece. Other rooms also contain wonderful antique furniture. An assembly room with a raised dais, and mural decorations suggestive of Danish industry and commerce, is in the northeast corner. The building contains a number of paintings by Danish masters that are of great interest and value. Funds for this pavilion were contributed by Danish residents of California. The Danish Government supplied the furnishings. No commercial displays are in the building. France.--The Pavilion of France is a replica of the eighteenth-century home of the Prince de Salm, at Paris, now and for more than a century the Palace of the Legion of Honor. (p. 157.) The original building, in the soberer mode of the French Renaissance, was of Caen stone, the effect of which has been reproduced in the present construction. The erection of this pavilion marks a record in work of such magnitude. On the outbreak of the war, all thought of participating in the Exposition was dropped; but later the American ambassador, Mr. Herrick, succeeded in persuading the French Government to reconsider its decision. The plans were cabled from Paris, at a cost of $10,000, and the structure was completed in sixty days. More notable than the building itself, or its priceless contents, is the fact that these are here. That, in the midst of war and its demands, France should still find time for the ideal, and for this beautiful tribute to the long-standing friendship between the two countries, is a demonstration of French spirit and of French culture that will not escape the attention of any thoughtful American. For France herself, as it has well been said, her appearance here means as much as a victory on the battlefield. The French Pavilion is a dignified and impressive structure, as those who recall the Legion of Honor Palace in Paris will understand. The entrance to the court is a triumphal arch flanked by double rows of Ionic columns on either side, with figures of Fame as spandrels. The arch is connected by lateral peristyles with the wings of the pavilion, the attics of which are adorned with has reliefs. Ionic colonnades extend along the sides of the court to the principal front of the building, which is decorated with six Corinthian columns, forming a portico for the main entrance. The portal opens on a stage, above which a great central hall, flanked by lesser halls, extends back through the palace. But the glory of the building is in its exhibits. France poured out the treasures of the Louvre, the Luxembourg and the National Museum to adorn this pavilion. Fine as is the exhibit in the French section of the Palace of Fine Arts, the best pictures and Sculptures are shown here. In the Court of Honor stands the masterpiece of the master sculptor of modern times, "The Thinker," by Auguste Rodin. (p. 158.) In the galleries are his "John the Baptist" and other important bronzes. Vast, unique and of the greatest interest is Theodore Riviere's wonderful group in bronze representing a triumphant band of desert soldiers dragging captive the Moroccan pretender, secured in an iron cage. There, too, are splendid paintings by Monet, Meissonier, Detaille, de Neuvilie, and many other French artists approved by time. Magnificent old tapestries adorn the walls of the great hall, with modern hangings on the entrance stage. Two shrines hold relics of Lafayette and Rochambeau, sent by their descendants; and busts of Washington and Franklin stand on either side of the heroic figure of France at the entrance. French manufacturers have sent here those commercial articles which French taste elevates almost to the standards of Art. Exquisite products of the jeweler, the perfumer, the milliner and the costumer, with fine fabrics that make France famous, are shown in the wings beside the Court of Honor. But the greater part of the French industrial exhibits are in the Exposition palaces. Belgium also finds her place in the French pavilion, with an exhibit of great interest, including many admirable modern paintings, fine panoramas of Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges, and a collection of rare old laces that will delight the heart of every woman. Greece.--The Greek Pavilion represents the latest addition of a foreign nation to the Exposition family. The building was begun by the Kali Syndikat, a German corporation, forced by the war to abandon its undertaking. In April, 1915, the Greek government bought the building and finished it in classic style. Its exhibits include two hundred and fifty replicas of the most famous of ancient Grecian Sculptures. Italy.--Though other countries have built pavilions characteristic of their soil and people, or have lavished their money on splendid examples of exposition architecture, it has remained for Italy to present in a single group a summary of the best that art has produced in a national history of two thousand years. (p. 159.) The Italian Pavilion does not attempt to reproduce any one architectural masterpiece. It echoes many. Therein is the triumph of the architect. Without copying, Piacentini has suggested in this building much that is famous in the architecture of Florence, Venice, and Rome. It is itself a masterpiece. The Italian Pavilion is an irregular group of seven structures, all connected by arcades except the last building to the east, a moving-picture hall. The main entrance is at the west, where a broad low flight of steps leads up to a plaza between two tall buildings irregularly placed. That on the right, in Fifteenth Century style, contains the offices of the Commission. The hall on the left, reminiscent of the Bargello, is devoted to a splendid collection of antique Roman, Grecian, and Italian art, shown by Signor Canessa. On either side of the entrance is a Roman "Discus Thrower" in bronze. The Bargello hall is connected by an arcade with a square Etruscan tower, which in turn is similarly joined with other buildings that close the plaza on the east. In the rectangle between the two parallel buildings on the east, is a beautiful peristyled Venetian court, adorned with bronzes and marbles copied from originals in the Museum of Naples. In the center is a reproduction in stone and bronze of the well of the Palace of Campo San Giovanni e Paolo at Venice. Of the two parallel buildings on either side of this court, the southern one is a Florentine structure containing a single hall devoted to purely governmental exhibits. The Tribuna between the two is the sanctuary of the pavilion, containing the portraits of King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Margherita, and portraits and relics of the great of Italy, explorers from Columbus to the Duke of the Abruzzi, scientists like Galileo, Galvani, Volta and Marconi, statesmen like Mazzini, and soldiers like Garibaldi. The other principal hall contains a series of rooms representing the cities of Italy during the Renaissance. First from the east is a reproduction of the Fifteenth Century library of the sacristy of the Church of Santa Maria alle Grazie at Milan, a chamber of beautiful armoires of carved wood, with panels painted with sacred pictures in colors. Next is a Neapolitan room, filled with reproductions in bronze and silver and marble of the Pompeiian treasures of the Museums of Naples and Rome. Then comes the Florentine Room, furnished in Fifteenth Century style with carved and inlaid wood, and adorned with copies of the best bronzes and marbles of the great mediaeval city. There is also a dining room in Fourteenth Century Florentine style, and then comes, at the western end, the Royal Salon, a magnificent hall with ceilings in blue and gold, and murals by Pieretto and Bruno Ferrari. All the art works of the mediaeval rooms are copies of originals, but in the Bargello Hall, Signor Canessa, who was J. P. Morgan's European agent, shows his collection of veritable Italian and ancient art. Here are many things familiar through books, Michelangelo's bust of the Virgin; a cabinet full of reliquaries and profane vessels in crystal, gold and enamel done by Beuvenuto Cellini; the bronze Bacchante with silver eyes which was dug up in the gardens of the Persian embassy at Stamboul, and which dates from the Third Century B. C.; the famous portrait bust in rock-crystal of an Egyptian king of the Eighteenth Dynasty; madonnas and saints by Fifteenth Century painters; a complete garden set, fountain, statues and all, from a Pompeiian villa; Greek bronze and silver vessels and statuettes; Bernini's bust of the Cardinal de Medici; Fifteenth Century tapestries, and so many other objects of mediaeval and ancient art that a special catalogue has been prepared to describe them. Italy's modern painting and Sculpture are well represented in the Palace of Fine Arts, and her industrial and commercial exhibits are in the other palaces. Japan.--Japan has chosen her temple and palace gardens as the types to represent her at the Exposition. (p. 169.) She dug up the Mikado's private garden at the end of the sacred Red Bridge in Nikko, trees, shrine, rocks, greensward and soil, and set it down again on the Exposition grounds. So doing, she has shown the Western world a lesson in the beauty of simplicity. The central building in this charming garden is a copy, enlarged, of the Golden Pavilion of the Roku-on-ji Temple in the city of Nara. It is of plain wood and lacquer, with interior walls and ceiling entirely covered with gold leaf. The office building joined to the temple was suggested by the shrine of the ancient castle of Fushimi. The exhibit building north of this temple houses a complete and remarkably beautiful fac-simile of the famous temple at Nikko, one of the finest in Japan. The Mikado's private collection of Japanese art, never before opened to the public, even in Japan, is placed in the Japanese section of the Fine Arts Palace. The paintings, scrolls, porcelain, satsuma ware, Sculptures and metal work shown in this very noteworthy exhibit were collected by the late Emperor Mutsuhito. One of the tea houses is an exhibit of the Central Tea Traders' Association, the other one by the Formosan Government. The striking features of the gardens, beside the stream and the lakelet, are the dwarfed conifers, priceless trees. Two of them are the products of ten centuries of systematic pinching back. With them are three sago palms, five hundred years old. Scattered throughout the gardens are stone lanterns. Every plant, every bit of turf, every stone in the bed of the stream even, came from Nippon. Japan is one of the largest exhibitors in the Exposition. Her displays, shown in every palace except Machinery, are an amazing demonstration of the degree to which she has entered the trade of the world. The Netherlands.--In its domed pavilion, gay with many bannered staffs, the Netherlands has achieved one of the most striking buildings in the foreign section. (p. 157.) Its architecture is not representative of the traditional Dutch style but fulfills the modern ideas of the present-day school of builders in Holland. Most prominent is the clock tower, where a bell rings the hours. Within, the pavilion presents Holland as one of the great colonial nations. Roughly, it has three divisions, devoted to the mother country, the Dutch East Indies, and the Dutch West Indies, in each of which industry and commerce is pictured in dioramas and exemplified by displays of products. Dutch girls in national costume serve visitors in the refreshment room. Holland's most noteworthy exhibits are those made by the Board of Horticulture of the Netherlands in the gardens of the Palace of Horticulture, and her pictures in the Palace of Fine Arts. Holland sent to San Francisco ten carloads of rhododendrons, conifers, and bulbs. To install them she sent Mynheer Arie Van Vliet, the landscape engineer of the Peace Palace at The Hague. Her industrial exhibits are in the Exposition palaces. New Zealand.--The New Zealand Pavilion is of mixed French and Italian styles. It was designed by Lewis P. Hobart of San Francisco, in collaboration with Commissioner Edmund Clifton. While it contains a representative display of the chief products of the youngest of the Dominions, the main exhibits are in the Palaces of Mines, Agriculture, and Food Products. Norway.--Norway, like Sweden and Denmark, has succeeded admirably in reproducing its national spirit in its pavilion. The building is a long story-and-a-half structure, in the ancient Norse style, dominated by a beautiful tower on which is emblazoned the Norwegian coat-of-arms. The lower floor contains three large dioramas of characteristic Norwegian scenery, and an exhibit hall wherein are shown products of the industries of Norway, especially her great maritime activities. As in the case of the other two Scandinavian countries, the sons of Norway in California built the pavilion, while the Norse Government provided the exhibits. Portugal.--A sign of the glorious past, when Henry the Navigator made his country a great sea power with colonies around the globe, appears in the knotted cable that binds Portugal's Pavilion. The fantastic architecture of this little palace is also historically significant, for it was adapted from that of the Cathedral of Jeronymos, the Convents of Thomar and Batalha, and the Tower of Belem, built in celebration of Portugal's golden age of discovery. The style is known as the Manuelino. Antonio do Couto of Lisbon was the architect, assisted by the sculptor, Mota Sobrinho. The building has a local significance in California, where thousands of Portuguese have settled. In the pavilion is a display of laces, inlaid articles and wickerwork, exhibits which are repeated in greater variety and with other products in the Exposition palaces. The walls are beautified with a series of very remarkable photographs of famous Portuguese cathedrals. Siam.--The Siamese Pavilion is a perfect example of the architecture of the Far East. It reproduces a pavilion on the palace grounds at Bangkok. It was first built there by native workmen, taken apart in sections and shipped to San Francisco to be set up on the Exposition grounds. Teak, sandal-wood and other rare Asiatic timbers are used in its construction. Hammered metal work, carved ivory, and tapestries form its interior decorations; but, in striking contrast to its ancient art and spirit, the building is a moving-picture palace where Siam's life and industry is shown. Sweden.--Sweden has delighted everybody with her pavilion, a building finely representative of the people who built it, and with her industrial exhibit as well. (p. 160.) The pavilion combines the best in Swedish ecclesiastical and domestic architecture, the church tower and the gabled hall near the center, dwelling-house types at the ends. It was designed by Ferdinand Boberg, a noted leader in Swedish art. The building is almost entirely filled with exhibits of Swedish industry, a presentation as good in its way as Canada's splendid picture of her great, hardly touched resources. The Swedish steel works have sent numerous models of locomotives, steamships, and machinery, and full-sized samples of smaller products. The government has furnished models of docks and bridges, of buildings and other engineering works. The familiar Swedish matches are here in pyramids. There are rooms furnished by Swedish artisans in birch and oak, with chandeliers of hammered iron, carpets from Swedish looms, and fine ceramics from the Swedish potteries. Other exhibits are in the Exposition palaces. In art, the Swedish collection in the Palace of Fine Arts is perhaps the most distinctive display made by a foreign nation. Sweden's part in the Exposition was made possible by the Swedish citizens of California, who gave the funds for the pavilion, while the home government provided for the installation of the exhibits. Turkey.--The Turkish Pavilion supplies the one touch of Islam in the foreign section. The Ottoman building is a copy of the palace of Sultan Ahmed I at Stamboul, the summer home of the present Sultan. Within the pavilion is a ballroom, cafe, and lounging rooms. But the interest of the building, and of the little mosque behind it, as examples of Turkish architecture, is entirely overshadowed by the wonderful collection of rare rugs, beautiful brasses and carvings, and rich inlaid and jeweled ornaments, all part of the Sultan's treasures, and valued at $1,500,000. XVII. The State Buildings A section full of historical and architectural interest--Many notable buildings simply furnish State headquarters, others contain important exhibits--California's great Mission structure--The remarkable display of her counties--New York's stately palace--Oregon's timbered Parthenon--Interesting chapters in American history told by the houses of Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey--Fine buildings of the Western States--Attractive pavilions of the Philippines and Hawaii. The state buildings at the Exposition fall naturally into three groups: those that reproduce or suggest historical structures, those characteristic in some way of their builders, and those that express the importance of their states by dignified architecture and significant exhibits. The richer the history of the state, the more likely its building is to reflect its past. Several states which possess famous historical buildings, such as Mount Vernon or Independence Hall, have either copied them or used their motives in the Exposition structures. Twenty-seven states, the Territory of Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands, are represented by twenty-eight buildings. The California Building, Thomas H. Burditt of San Francisco, architect, by far the largest state building ever erected at any exposition, is an exceedingly happy treatment of the Mission style. (See p. 179.) Its commanding tower is better than anything ever done by the padres in California. From its facade, Fray Junipero Serra looks out over a charming garden, which, more than anything else, invests this building with the real spirit of California. It is a reproduction, even to the fountain, the pepper trees, and the old fashioned flowers, of the private garden of the Santa Barbara Mission, a spot where no woman treads. From this garden, enclosed by walls of clipped Monterey cypress, one looks at the tower and is at once translated to Southern California. This building covers five acres, and is worthy to be ranked with the Exposition palaces. Under the tower is a fine vaulted loge and a reception room, both opening into a splendid balconied ballroom behind, all finished in the Exposition travertine. The walls of the reception room are hung with magnificent tapestries, loaned by Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst. The west wing contains the administrative offices of the Exposition and the Woman's Board, and the directors' club rooms. The large eastern wing is entirely filled with the displays of the fifty-eight California counties. (p. 182.) These together form one of the most noteworthy exhibits in the entire Exposition. They demonstrate the fact that a multitude of other resources besides her gold entitle California to be called "the Golden State." The Oregon Building, Foulkes and Hogue of Portland, architects, imitates, though it does not reproduce, the Parthenon of the Athenian Acropolis. (p. 191.) Doric marble is replaced by the natural columns of the great trees of Oregon, and the frieze of Phidias, by the fretwork of the bark of pine and fir. There are forty-eight of the great columns, the same number as in the outer colonnade of the Parthenon, and, coincidentally, one for each State of the Union. They were cut from among the largest of trees. The Douglas fir, next to the redwood and the sequoia the most massive of living things, furnished most of them. But the largest happen to be the two giant incense cedars, which stand on either side of the main entrance. These are eight feet and ten inches in diameter. Then there are two columns on the south side, both cut from a spruce that was four feet seven inches through at 101 feet above the ground. In exterior proportions the building reproduces the Parthenon, but the Parthenon had a double row of columns around its porch, the Oregon temple has but a single row. In size it is considerably larger than the Partheon. The great flagpole is a single stick of Douglas fir, 251 feet long, set in a 200-ton block of concrete. The building contains an excellent exhibit of Oregon's resources. The Washington Building, A. F. Heide of San Francisco, architect, is a striking example of the French Renaissance. (p. 191.) Unlike most of the state buildings, it is used largely for the exhibition of home products. Its motion pictures, its group of wild life, and its displays of agriculture, mining, forestry and fisheries, are all designed to advertise the remarkable scenery and resources of the Evergreen State. Washington is an important exhibitor in the Palaces of Horticulture, Agriculture, Food Products, Mines and Education. The New York State Building is, next to that of California, the largest structure erected by any state. (p. 170.) It is in every way a dignified and noteworthy example of the best modern civic architecture. Charles B. Meyers, of New York City, was the architect. The building is finished in plastic travertine. A magnificent entrance opens upon a wide central corridor. An assembly room, intended for the use of New York organizations, and a restaurant, pierce the second story. The other rooms on the first floor are devoted to the reception and convenience of New York visitors. On the other floors are the offices and apartments of the Commission, with a special suite for the Governor of the State. New York's official exhibits are in the several exhibit palaces. The New York City Building, Bertram G. Goodhue, of New York, architect, is the only municipal building at the Exposition. It is a simple classic structure, housing an extensive display intended to demonstrate and promote municipal efficiency. Its exhibits, maps, models, photographs and charts,--admirably illustrate all sides of city government. The Massachusetts Building, planned by Wells and Dana, of Boston, is a fac-simile reproduction of the Bulfinch front of the Massachusetts State House on a scale of two-thirds. (p. 181.) Within, as well as without, it is of commanding interest to every American. Its rooms are furnished with veritable colonial furniture. The club room to the right of the entrance hall is done in Jacobean style, the reception room opposite shows fine copies of Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite and Adams originals, and is hung with a long series of historic portraits, lent by Massachusetts families and the State Historical Society. On the second floor is a room filled with genuine old furniture by the most famous makers, fine colonial mirrors, and a Willard clock. The Governor's suite and the Commissioners' rooms are furnished with exquisite copies of colonial models. The Pennsylvania Building, Henry Hornbostel, of Pittsburgh, architect. This interesting structure is reminiscent of Independence Hall, Philadelphia, though it is not a reproduction of the Cradle of Liberty. (p. 181.) Its plan was dictated by the necessity of a fireproof structure in which to house the Liberty Bell at the Exposition. Consequently, it is the solidest and most enduring of the state buildings. Besides the Bell, which is placed in the loggia, its most striking feature is the two fine mural paintings under the attic, from the brush of Edward Trumbull, of Pittsburgh, one representing Penn's Treaty with the Indians, and the other Pittsburgh Industries. The New Jersey Building, Hugh Roberts, of Jersey City, architect, like those of Pennsylvania and Virginia, tells of the days of the Revolution. It is a copy of the old Trenton barracks, erected in 1758, and used alternately by British and Colonial troops during the Revolution. Within, its simple and comfortable appointments make it one of the most popular of the state buildings. A large lounge with blazing fireplaces, and furnished in white reed, occupies the entire central section. In the east wing are the offices and rooms of the Commission. The west wing contains the lobby and a reception room in which hang two large marines painted by N. Hagerup, of San Francisco. As the building is to be President Wilson's headquarters if he comes to the Exposition, a splendid suite, corresponding with the rooms occupied by General Washington, has been furnished and reserved for him. The Maryland Building, designed by Thomas, Parker and Rice, of Baltimore, presents a fascinating study of colonial architecture in its reproduction of "Homewood," built by Charles Carroll of Carrollton in 1802. The present aspect of "Homewood" has been imitated in appearance of age given to the brickwork and the timbering. The contents of the building are no less delightful, historically, than the structure itself. The Colonial Dames of America have enriched the walls with original portraits of colonial celebrities, old prints, original grants by the Baltimores, and many historical documents and relics. Colonial furniture adorns the rooms. Few of the state buildings will so well repay a visit. The Virginia Building, Charles K. Bryant, of Richmond, architect, is as significant historically as any on the grounds. It is a complete reproduction of George Washington's home at Mount Vernon, down to the spinning room, the detached kitchen and the servants' quarters, and furnished in part with Washington's own furniture loaned by Miss Nannie Randolph Heth, of Virginia, the official hostess of the building. There is Washington's chair, Mrs. Washington's work box, Nellie Custis' music stand, and many other relics of the Father of his Country. The remaining furniture, also loaned by Miss Heth, consists of antique specimens brought over from England in colonial days. The West Virginia Building, designed by H. Rus Warne, of Charleston, W. Va., while not copying any individual structure, suggests well-known colonial types. Its veranda, in particular, is like that of the home of the Lees at Arlington. The chief room is the long reception hall, where logs always burn in a huge fireplace, typifying the warmth of West Virginian hospitality. The Mississippi Building, Overstreet and Spencer, of Jackson, architects, was designed to suggest the old-style Southern mansions. Some of its motives, especially the pillared portico, were taken from the old capitol building at Jackson. The displays contained in it are chiefly agricultural. Mississippi is also represented in the Exposition palaces. The Ohio Building, designed by Albert Pretzinger, of Dayton, is a copy, on a smaller scale, of the classic State House at Columbus. Containing no exhibits except the relics shown by the State Historical Society, the building serves the social side of Ohio's participation in the Exposition. Its upper floor is entirely occupied by suites for the Governor and the Commissioners. The Indiana Building, designed by J. F. Johnson, of Indianapolis, represents a type of modern Hoosier dwellings. It is of permanent construction, of sandstone and brick with a tiled roof, and unique in the fact that all of the materials used and all the furnishings are Indiana products. State pride appears again in the library of 15,000 volumes, confined entirely to the works of Indiana authors and books about Indiana. In addition to the building, which is wholly an exhibit, Indiana is well represented in the Exposition palaces. The Illinois Building, designed by State Architect James Di Belka, of Chicago, is perhaps the best exhibit of the State at the Exposition. (p. 180.) It is a dignified three-story structure of the Italian Renaissance. The Sculptured tablets of the facades represent the history and progress of Illinois. The exhibits within are of unusual interest. The Lincoln Memorial Room, made possible by Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber, contains a great collection of photographs, letters and relics of Lincoln, and many articles connected with his life. The valuable series of films prepared by the Chicago City Planning Commission is shown in the moving-picture hall. This building contains a fine pipe organ on which frequent recitals are given. The Wisconsin Building, designed by R. A. Messmer & Co., Milwaukee, in the colonial style with wide porticoes, contains one of the State's best exhibits in its interior finish of fine Wisconsin hardwoods. The floors are all of maple and the paneled wall of birch. "Old Abe," the famous Wisconsin war eagle, stands above the main entrance. Over the fireplace in the reception room is a panel in relief, "The Progress of Wisconsin." The building is used a headquarters for Wisconsin visitors. The Iowa Building, Clinton P. Shockley, of Waterloo, IA., architect, is a classic structure, finished, like most of the state buildings, in the Exposition travertine. It does credit to the public spirit of Iowa business men, who, in default of a legislative appropriation, supplied the funds. The Missouri Building, designed by H. H. Hohenchild, of St. Louis, is a structure of real distinction in the Georgian style. (p. 180.) It copies no Missouri building, and is historical only in its pleasant combination of architectural features much used in early days. The building is of permanent construction and after the Exposition closes is to be turned over to the Government as a club house for the army,--this as a compliment to Major-General Arthur Murray, who, like so many other eminent Americans, hails from Pike County. The Missouri Home, as it is called, is used as a gathering place for visiting Missourians, and for the strong Missouri Society of California. The Kansas Building, Charles Chandler, of Topeka, architect, is a pavilion in the style of the Italian Renaissance. It is a club house, devoted solely to the comfort and entertainment of visitors. Strong exhibits are made by the state in the palaces of Agriculture, Horticulture, Food Products, Education, and in the Live-Stock Section. The Arkansas-Oklahoma Building, designed by George R. Mann, of Little Rock, was built and furnished by private subscriptions by citizens of the two states. It is a roomy bungalow designed for the convenience of visitors from Arkansas and Oklahoma, and exhibits some of their products. The Texas Building, Page and Brothers, Austin, architects, is a pleasing example of Mexican architecture as distinguished from the California Mission style. It suggests the Alamo, and bears the Lone Star pierced through its raised cornice. Within is a patio, reached by broad entrances from the verandas at front and rear. A motion-picture hall, a ballroom, offices and rest rooms occupy the greater part of the building. The state exhibits are in the Exposition palaces. The North Dakota Building, Joseph B. De Remer, formerly of Grand Forks, now of Los Angeles, architect, owes its unique ground-plan to a three-cornered lot. That it is a pleasing structure is witnessed by several dwelling houses now being built in California after its plans. The building is French in style, treated in a simple manner. It contains interesting exhibits of the products of the Northern State, including a noteworthy display of pottery made at the University of North Dakota, an institution which devotes much of its effort to promoting state industries. The Montana Building, Carl Nuese, San Francisco, architect, is one of the group of classic structures finished in plastic travertine. The only display made in the building, which serves as a social center for visitors from Montana, is a school exhibit. The State is, however, largely represented in the Palaces of Mines, Agriculture and Horticulture. The Idaho Building, Wayland and Fennell, of Boise, architects, was the first state structure completed at the Exposition. It is built in the manner of the Italian Renaissance and looks out over the bay. Like most buildings of the Western states, it is equipped with a moving-picture theatre, as well as rooms for visitors. Idaho's exhibits are chiefly in the Exposition palaces. The Nevada Building, designed by F. J. De Longchamps, of Carson, is another structure in the style of the French Renaissance. It is the headquarters of the Nevada Society of California and of visitors from the Sagebrush State. Nevada has important exhibits in several palaces. The Utah Building, Cannon and Fetzer, of Salt Lake, architects, is a classic structure with deep porticoed front. All its furniture is an exhibit, made by the pupils of the manual training department of the Utah schools. The building contains interesting models of copper and gold mines, and an exhibit of the processes of salt-making, displays of building-stone, grains and grasses, and collections from the cliff dwellings. Other exhibits are in the Palaces of Mines, Education and Horticulture. The Hawaiian Building, C. W. Dickey, of Oakland, architect, excellently represents the Pacific isles. In style it is French Renaissance, built with a half rotunda at the rear to accommodate a semi-circular aquarium. In the center of the main hall is a clump of palms and tree ferns, and native singers give the island touch. The aquarium contains a wonderful collection of the many-hued fish of the South Seas. Interesting displays of native cabinet woods are made in the finish of the offices. Though small, the Hawaiian building has proved one of the most popular. The Philippines Pavilion, designed by the Bureau of Architecture, is one of the Exposition places which no one should miss. It marks the creation of an original style of exposition building. It is Filipino in all its motives. Its groups of four columns suggest the four essential posts of native hut construction; the broad roofs are tiled; the windows are not glass, but of thin shell, the common material used in the islands; the walls are finished in split bamboo matting. The same style of construction is used also in all the Philippine booths in the palaces. The materials are used with restrained taste, and this, with the magnificent cabinet woods employed throughout the construction, has resulted in a beautiful building. It is a little hard to realize the richness of the woods used here. The very floors in the pavilion and the booths are good enough to make piano cases of. The central portion, upstairs and down, is floored, wainscoted and ceiled with the costliest of timber. The two offices to right and left of the main entrance are finished in a beautiful, hard, heavy rosewood, called narra, the one to the right in yellow narra, that on the left in red narra. The stairway is of a magnificent, richly figured, claret-red hardwood called tindalo, the favorite material for such construction in the islands. The panels of its wainscoting and the balusters are of a dark velvety epil, so dark and so glossy in some places that it looks almost like agate. All the columns are natural trunks of the palma brava. XVIII. The Live-Stock Exhibit The first Exposition to offer a live-stock exhibit covering its entire period--Prizes total $440,000--Classification of competitions--New methods of displaying herds and flocks--Contests in dairy and beef cattle--Other exhibits range from high-bred horses, hens and sheep down to pet rabbits, rats and mice. For the first time in the history of similar celebrations, this Exposition offers a continuous live-stock show. Other expositions have confined their live-stock exhibit to a few weeks during the time of award-making. Here, however, the show extends from the opening of the Exposition until its closing. The competitive period extends from September 23 to December 3. Naturally this will mark the high tide of the display. During this time the International Jury on Awards will distribute in cash prizes a total of $440,557. Of this amount, $190,000 has been given by the Exposition management, $100,327 by the breed record associations of the country, and $150,230 by various states to be used in prizes and the transportation of stock. These attractive prizes will be distributed, among the well-established and well-known breeds of draft and light horses, ponies, beef and dairy cattle, sheep, swine, poultry, pigeons, and pet animals. All animals will be judged according to the rules of recognized breed associations. Foreign or other animals not recorded in the books of the associations named in the premium list will be judged by the standards of the associations to which their exhibitors belong. The educational value of the live-stock show for the general public, as well as the stock breeder, has been emphasized in every department. The increased cost of living being a dominating topic for both producer and consumer, much attention has been centered on meat-producing animals. Liberal provision has been made in the prize list for fat classes in beef-cattle, sheep and swine. When the Exposition management designed the live-stock section and planned the buildings for the various features of this department, an effort was made to create a model arrangement for exhibit purposes. So successful was this effort that a number of states have requested the plans for a ground layout. This portion of the Exposition cost the management approximately $150,000, and covers sixty-five acres. The buildings represent, in their equipment, the very latest development in the housing and caring for stock. The visitor first approaches from the east a quadrangle of eight large stables, enclosing the forum where the live-stock shows are held. These stables have a total accommodation of 1124 horses. The forum has a seating capacity of 2680 persons. To the north of the stable quadrangle is Congress Hall, for the accommodation of conventions and other meetings, and containing also the administration offices of the chief of the live-stock department. On this side also are the corrals, feed storage barns, a service yard, and an area for open-air exhibits. To the south is the large dairy building, a dairy manufactures building, and the poultry exhibit building. The dairy building houses more than 300 animals. West of the stable group is the mile racecourse with its polo and athletic field. One of the novel features of this show is the manner in which the view herds and flocks are displayed. These are seen in stalls and pens built at an angle of about forty-five degrees to permit the visitor to get a side view of the stock. The view-herd idea in itself is something new. These exhibits are purely educational in purpose, and non-competitive. They have been on display since the opening, and will continue until the close of the Exposition, thus enabling the visitor to see a creditable live-stock show, no matter at what season he may come. The view herds are selected by competent authorities, and represent the best of their respective breeds. Among such herds on exhibit are Shorthorn cattle, Berkshire swine and Percheron horses. These exhibits are changed from time to time. In addition to these general features, the special events include the milk show, harness races, universal polo, wool grading, sheepdog trials, poultry show, and an international egg-laying contest. For eleven classes of dairy cattle the Exposition offers awards, as follows: Jersey, Ayrshire, Guernsey, Holstein-Friesian, Dutch-Belted, Dairy Shorthorn, Brown Swiss, French-Canadian, Simmenthal, Kerry and Dexter, and Grade-Dairy Herd. This last is a recognition on the part of the Exposition of the great utility value of the grade-dairy cow, which forms the basis of the dairy industry, and yet could not exist without the pure-bred stock. In the beef-cattle group, the Exposition offers awards in the following classes: Short-Horn, Hereford, Aberdeen-Angus, Galloway, Polled Durham, Red Polled, Devon, Fat Cattle (by ages) and Car-lots. One of the especially attractive features pertaining to the dairy section is the exhibit of 150 high-grade Holsteins for utility purposes. This herd is in full flow of milk and is maintained by a large milk condensing plant. This exhibit, in the daily care given these perfect specimens of dairy cattle, the yield of Milk, the quality of feed and the appliances used, forms one of the most attractive units in the department. An important event in this section was the pure milk and cream contest, June 14 to 19, in Congress Hall. City and state boards of health and the dairy divisions of agricultural colleges participated in the contest. The purpose of the event was designed to create a greater interest in pure milk and cream. Four samples of milk and cream each were submitted. One of these was submitted to an official bacteriologist, a second given to the official chemist, a third displayed in Congress Hall, and the fourth tested for its butter-fat content. Awards of gold and silver medals and cash prizes were made in the following classes: city boards of health, cream dealers, milk dealers, college experiment stations, pasteurized milk, pasteurized cream, market milk producers, certified and medical milk commissions. In the horse exhibit the following classes are provided: Percheron, Belgian, Clydesdale, Shire, Suffolk-Punch, Standard Trotter, Thoroughbred, Saddle Horses, Morgan, Hackney, Arabian, Shetland Pony, Welch Pony, Roadsters, Carriage Horses, Ponies in Harness, Draft Horses, Hunters, Jumpers, and Gaited Saddle Horses. Among special events in this section are the following: trot under saddle, one-mile track, one-mile military officer's race, one-mile mounted police race, gaited saddle race of one mile, steeple chase, hurdle race, polo pony dash, relay race of one mile, cowboy's relay race of same length, cowgirl's relay race, six furlongs, saddle tandem. Exposition jumping contest and five-mile Marathon four-in-hand. On the closing day of the Exposition there will be a grand parade of all first and second winners, not only in the horse display, but in all other displays in this department. The following dates have been set for the exhibition of stallions and mares in the breeding classes in the Forum: Thursday, September 30,-- Percheron, standard trotter, Welch pony, and Morgan; Friday, October 1,-- Belgian, Thoroughbred, Hackney, and Shetland Pony; Saturday, October 2,--Clydesdale, Saddler, Arabian, and Suffolk-Punch; Monday, October 4,-- Shire, Jacks and Jennets, and Mules. The exhibition of horses for awards is from Thursday, September 30, to Wednesday, October 13. One of the important events of this period is the special horse show. Two other big special events are the races and international polo tournament. The polo tournament from March 7th to May 1st enlisted the following teams: Cooperstown, N. Y.; Philadelphia Country Club; Midwick Polo Club; Pasadena, Burlingame and San Mateo Clubs; Boise, Idaho, team; Portland, Oregon, team; First Cavalry, Monterey; Second Division Army, Texas City, Texas; and Southern Department Army, San Antonio, Texas. The Exposition harness races cover two periods, one from June 5 to June 15, and the other from October 30 to November 13. In addition to these there will be matinee races from May 23 to September 30. A total of $227,000 has been set aside for purses in these races. The poultry exhibit for award is scheduled from November 18 to 28. This is known as the Universal Poultry Show, and is planned to be one of the largest ever held. Between 10,000 and 12,000 chickens, entered from all parts of the Union, will be in competition. In conjunction, the American Poultry Association meets in Congress Hall in the live-stock section. The International Egg-Laying Contest, extending over a period of one year from November 15, 1914, has attracted widespread attention. Pens of fowls have been entered in this contest from the United States and Canada, and even distant England. Daily records are kept of the production of each hen, and, once a month, the score is bulletined by the live-stock department for the information of owners. Sheep and goats are to be judged for awards from Wednesday, November 3, to Monday, November 15. The breeds classified are: Shropshire, Hampshire, Cotswold, Oxford, Dorset, Southdown, Lincoln, Cheviot, Leicester, Romney, Tunis, Rambouillet, Merino-Ameiran, Merino-Delaine, Corriedale, Exmoor, Persian Fat-Tailed, Karakule, and car-lots; goats, Toggenburg, Saanen, Guggisberger, and Anglo-Nubian breeds, with the grades of each breed, and native goats. The exhibit of swine for awards runs between the same dates. The eligible breeds, besides swine in car-lots, are Poland-China, Berkshire, Duroc-Jersey, Chester White, Hampshire, Tamworth, Mule Foot, Large Yorkshire, Large English Black, Victoria, Essex, and Cheshire. The scope of the live-stock department is not limited to the material things of rural life. A Universal kennel show is scheduled from November 29 to December 1. Two classes of dogs are provided for in the awards, sporting and non-sporting. A cat show, of long and short-haired cats, is set for the same period as the kennel show. Other groups of exhibits in this line are pet stock, rabbits, hares, rats and mice, and children's pets. XIX. Sports and Games; Automobile Races; Aviation Exposition contests include nearly every branch of sport--National Championships of the A. A. U.--Two great automobile races, the International Grand Prix and the Vanderbilt Cup, already run--Polo and Golf--Sensational flights of the aviators--The International Yachting Regatta and other aquatic events--All-star baseball expected in the fall. An account of the Exposition, and indeed, American athletic history for the year 1915, would be incomplete without a description of the sports programme. This outline of games and exhibitions includes nearly every branch of sport familiar to the American public, and its wide appeal has attracted many thousands to the athletic fields and gymnasiums of the Exposition. Although ten months of sport was originally intended by the athletic committee, this period has been somewhat abbreviated by circumstances, though a practically continuous performance has held sway since February 22. International competition, at first intended in many branches of the programme, was generally abandoned on account of the European conflict; but the want of foreign representation has in no way lessened the quality of competition, or dampened the attractiveness of the summer contests. Some of Europe's star track men are entered here, in spite of conditions on the continent. Perhaps the most popular attractions of the programme are the national championships, held every year under the auspices of the Amateur Athletic Union. At the convention of that body during November, 1913, prior to the death of its president, James E. Sullivan, it was voted unanimously to award all of the organization's events, with the exception of boxing, to the Panama-Pacific Exposition. These championships are the blue-ribbon events of the amateur world. They include track and field games, swimming, boxing, wrestling and indoor gymnastics. Three of these championships were staged in San Francisco before the opening of June. In basket ball, the first of the national competitions, premier honors went to a California organization, the San Francisco Olympic Club. Next in line came gymnastics, followed by wrestling. Although these sports are not immensely popular with the athletic enthusiasts, generous galleries turned out to see the American champions in action. The more important part of the Amateur Athletic Union programme was scheduled for the summer months, when the track and field championships are held. Facilities for staging these games are ideal. The cinder path, situated at the far end of the Exposition grounds, with unexcelled scenic advantages, is reputed to be the equal of any athletic stadium in the country. The oval measures one-third of a mile to the lap, with a 220-yard straightaway flanking the grandstand. The earlier games convinced Eastern athletes that there could be no complaint against facilities. The senior and junior track and field championships of the Amateur Athletic Union loom up as the banner track events of the programme. National stars have signified their intention of participating in these games, and it will be surprising if many national records are not broken. In addition to these games, the International Olympic Committee, which controls all the modern Olympic meets, conferred upon the Exposition the right to hold the Modern Pentathlon, this being the first time it has been contested outside of the Olympic Games. In addition, America is to have for the first time the Decathlon, and the famous Marathon race originated in Greece centuries ago, and impressively revived during recent years by the more important athletic bodies of the world. Besides the Amateur Athletic Union track and field games, an abundance of competitions, ranging from grammar school contests to collegiate struggles, was arranged. Among the first of these, the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Conference, was won by the University of California from a field of collegiate teams representing the entire Pacific Coast. Several high and grammar school contests have attracted spectators to the stadium. One thousand grammar school athletes entered the lists upon the Exposition cinder path, and staged a carnival that stands as a record in California, and approaches any American event of its kind both in the number of entrants and the class of competition offered. Automobile racing, of the kind that thrills, was furnished by the Exposition during its early weeks. Two events of international importance were run upon the Exposition grounds, and in each instance attracted one hundred thousand spectators to the course. The first of these was the International Grand Prix, run in the rain and under other conditions far from ideal, over a four-mile course for the distance of four hundred miles. Sensation followed sensation in this feature, a final winner being supplied in the swarthy Darius Resta, who drove a Peugeot car for an average speed of fifty-six miles, 7:07:57 being his actual time. Other drivers of international reputation appeared in this struggle, among them De Palma, Hughes and Wilcox. Handsome prizes were distributed to the winners in these events. The Vanderbilt Cup Race was staged over the same course on March 7, and brought out an equally attractive field. Running with the precision and dexterity that brought him home a winner in the Grand Prix, Resta repeated his victory in the Vanderbilt Race, coming home from his journey of three hundred miles ahead of such stars as Burman, Pullen, Wilcox and De Palma. Resta earned the reputation of being one of the most skillful drivers holding the wheel in this or any other country. For six weeks, from March to May, polo held popular sway at the Exposition. Ten teams competed in a tournament which offered many valuable trophies. The contests were held daily and attracted thousands to a specially prepared turf field near the athletic stadium. The sport furnished thrilling competition throughout its period. Perhaps the most famous team seen in competition was the noted four from Cooperstown, New York, bearing an international reputation. The Easterners, although weakened by illness in the ranks of their players, proved practically invincible. Another notable organization was the four representing the Midwick Club of Pasadena, California. In addition to the civilian teams, the United States army was represented by some fast fours, who provided thrill after thrill with their reckless but winning form in the saddle. Perhaps the most notable of the military combinations was the Fort Sam Houston four, which went through the tournament with practically an undefeated record. The army teams were granted certain handicaps, however, which gave them a slight edge in some of the contests. Aviation, a branch of sport which claims a large place in the popular fancy, was not neglected by those who drew up the programme. Two world-famed aviators have performed before hundreds of thousands, though one of these, Lincoln Beachey, became a victim to the elements which he had so often defied. While giving an exhibition flight in a German Taube, Beachey fell to his death on March 14 when his monoplane crumpled at the start of a daring loop. Nothing daunted by the untimely end of Beachey, a new luminary appeared in Arthur Smith, whose aerial maneuvers exceed in point of recklessness anything attempted by his predecessor. Smith thrills thousands in daily flights and skiey acrobatics, including crazy dips and loops, startling dashes to the earth and illuminated flights through the night air. (See p. 192.) Smith became in a day an attraction outshining, perhaps, any other single performer upon the huge Exposition programme. Those who loved horse racing and grieved at the decline of the sport in California, were rejoiced at the announcement of some of the biggest harness and running events yet staged in this country. Two meetings were arranged for the Exposition schedule, a summer harness event, June 5th to 19th, and a fall running meeting, October 30th to November 13th. The Panama-Pacific is the first Exposition to make horse racing an outstanding feature of its activities. About $227,000 was set aside to be distributed in handsome purses and stakes for the events. A $20,000 trotting and a $20,000 pacing stake was put up for each meeting, with other sums ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. The four stakes of $20,000 each are the largest ever offered in any light-harness event, and insured entries of the highest class. The race track is situated near the athletic stadium, and commands an unsurpassed view of the San Francisco Bay, together with the Marin County heights and the entrance to the Golden Gate. The grandstand seats thirty-five thousand spectators. The course, under scientific preparation for several months, was put in fine shape. The length of the lap is one mile. One of the biggest golf events ever staged in this country was successfully managed by the Exposition. Five weeks of sport on the links around the bay counties, including high-class exhibitions by both men and women, were in the plans of the committee. Events included both professional and amateur contests, and seldom, if ever before, had a community of the size of San Francisco maintained so continuous an interest in the sport. Valuable prizes and trophies were offered for the different events of the programme. Handsome cups and medals were granted amateurs, while professionals were tendered purses of generous proportions. Perhaps the banner event of the tournament was the amateur championship for men played on the course of the Ingleside Golf and Country Club. Players of international reputation were entered in this event, and as a result, the play offered sensation after sensation. The tournament was won by Harry Davis, of the Presidio Golf Club, after a struggle in which he eliminated such stars as Chick Evans, H. Chandler Egan, Heinrich Schmidt, and Jack Neville. Davis met Schmidt in the finals of the event and won only after a dazzling exhibition of driving and putting such as has seldom been seen on a California course. In addition to the men's championships, the women were in the limelight for a week. Miss Edith Chesebrough won the finals of the first flight play over Mrs. H. T. Baker. Mixed foursomes, events for professionals, driving, putting, and approaching contests were all included upon the programme, with gratifying results. Yachting was granted an appropriate position upon the calendar, the races scheduled including yachts, sloops and motor boats upon San Francisco Bay and the ocean waters in the neighborhood of the Farallones. Perhaps the biggest event upon the programme is to be the International Regatta scheduled for August 1st to 31st, an event intended to bring into competition practically every type of racing craft afloat. This has brought attractive entries from both Eastern and Pacific clubs. Special events were also arranged. A schooner race, with a course starting from a point on the bay off the Exposition and extending to the Farallone Islands, is one of them. Perhaps the most attractive of these events, however, will be the long-distance race for yachts from New York to San Francisco. The boats are to sail along the Atlantic seaboard, reaching San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Several entries for this contest have already been filed, and it is expected that by the time set for the start, a first class field will be ready to weigh anchor. Handsome cups, furnished by the Exposition for winners in the different nautical events, include many valuable trophies. Boxing, the professional phase of which was recently abolished by an act of the California legislature, found an important place upon the Exposition programme. Amateur events staged at the Civic Auditorium excited great interest. By a special arrangement with the Amateur Athletic Union, the Exposition management obtained the national winners of Boston for the San Francisco tournament. Accordingly, the best of the country's amateur glove crop exhibited their wares to big galleries. In the matter of championships, California and the Pacific Northwest obtained the chief honors, several of the Eastern ring stars falling by the wayside in their work. Not to be found wanting in the completeness of their scheme, the Exposition directors are still busy with plans which promise many events of unusual attractiveness for the Fall. It is hinted that the winner of the world's baseball series, waged between the National and American leagues, will be brought to the Coast for an exhibition series in October, to play against an all star team. Other phases of sport during the Exposition period include rowing, lawn tennis, handball and certain types of football, though disagreements between the two largest universities of the Coast have made the autumn sport an uncertain quantity. XX. The Joy Zone A mile of amusement places, many of which are really educational--The Panama Canal, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park and the native villages-- "The 101 Ranch"--"Toyland Grown Up"--Other notable features. The Joy Zone, nearly a mile in length, is a broad avenue bordered with closely packed places of amusement. There are more than one hundred concessionaires, with two hundred and twenty buildings devoted to refreshment or pleasure, including a few in other places on the grounds. Here are all sorts of divertissements, from roller coasters to really great educational sights like the Panama Canal or the Grand Canyon. By common consent the Panama Canal is the most noteworthy feature of the Zone. Indeed, it ought not to be on the Zone. It should have had a place in the Exposition proper, as one of its finest exhibits. The show is a working reproduction of the Panama Canal, on so large a scale that it covers five acres. The landscape of the Canal Zone is faithfully reproduced, with real water in the two oceans, the Gatun Lake, the Chagres River and the Canal. The visitor sees it from cars which travel slowly around the scene, and which are fitted with telephonic connections with a phonograph that explains the features of the Canal Zone as the appropriate points are passed. Next to seeing the Canal itself, a sight of this miniature is the most interesting and instructive view possible of the great engineering feat. In one way it is even better than a trip through the Canal. It gives the broad general view impossible from any point on the Isthmus itself. In much the same class are the reproductions of the Grand Canyon and the Yelllowstone Park. The Grand Canyon has an added interest in the presence of Navajo and Hopi families living in reproductions of their desert homes. Representing other native races, there are the Samoan Village, the Maori Village, and the Tehuantepec Village. All these people are genuine and live in primitive style on the Zone, though, to tell the truth, they are quite likely to use college slang and know which fork to use first. Not on the Zone, but proper to be mentioned here, are the Blackfoot Indians brought to the Exposition from Glacier Park by the Great Northern Railroad. Eagle Calf is a real chief of the old days, and his band is a picturesque group. There is Toyland Grown Up, a product of the astonishing genius of Frederic Thompson, creator of Luna Park, covering nearly twelve acres and packed with Thompson's whimsical conceptions of the figures of the Mother Goose Tales, Kate Greenway's children, and soldiers and giants, and the familiar toys of the Noah's Ark style-all on a gigantic scale. Japan Beautiful, a concession backed by the Japanese Government, has many interesting features, including the enormous gilded figure of Buddha over the entrance and a reproduction of Fujiyama in the background. Then there is an Antarctic show entitled "London to the South Pole;" the Streets of Cairo; the Submarines, with real water and marine animals; Creation, a vast dramatic scene from Genesis; the Battle of Gettysburg; the Evolution of the Dreadnaught; and many other spectacles and entertainments of many classes, but all measuring up to a certain standard of excellence insisted upon by the Exposition. The Aeroscope, a huge steel arm that lifts a double decked cabin more than two hundred and fifty feet above the ground and then swings it around in a great circle over the Zone, is one of the thrillers. The Joy Zone has suffered from the excellence of the Exposition to which it is the side-show. The Exposition itself is so wonderful a sight and contains so vast a number of remarkable and interesting things that multitudes have been content to stay with it, too much engrossed to find time for any but a few of the best things on the Zone. No better evidence could be found of the beauty, interest and value of this Exposition. Appendix (A) Sculptures and Mural Paintings The following lists give the titles, locations and names of artists of the Exposition Sculptures and Mural Paintings. They do not include work exhibited in the Palace of Fine Arts, or in the state or foreign buildings, but only those which were designed for the adornment of the Exposition palaces, courts, and gardens. The lists also index all matter and illustrations describing or showing this "Exposition art." Figures in light-face type refer to pages in the text; those in black-face type, to illustrations. I. Sculptures. South Gardens.--Two Mermaid Fountains, by Arthur Putnam (21, 84, 99); Fountain of Energy, by A. Stirling Calder (83, 47). Palace of Horticulture--Figures at bases of spires, by Eugene Louis Boutier; Pairs of Caryatids, by John Bateman (21). Festival Hall.--The Torch Bearer (on domes), Bacchus, The Listening Woman, Flora and Pan, Flora and Dreaming Girl, Figures on cartouche over entrance, all by Sherry E. Fry (26, 26, 32). Tower of Jewels.--Cortez (east side of arch), by Charles Niehaus (46, 48); Pizarro (west side of arch), by Charles C. Rumsey; Priest, Soldier, Philosopher and Adventurer, by John Flanagan (46, 44); Armored Horseman (on terrace of tower), by F. M. L. Tonetti (46); Fountain of Youth, by Edith Woodman Burroughs (49, 84, 89, 53); Fountain of El Dorado, by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (49, 84, 89, 54). Palace of Varied Industries.--Man with a Pick, Tympanum group of Varied Industries, New World Receiving Burdens of Old, Keystone figure, Power of Industry, all by Ralph Stackpole (33, 37, 132); Victory (on the gables of all the central palaces), by Louis Ulrich (28, 18). Palaces of Manufactures and Liberal Arts.--Frieze over Portals, Craftsmen, Woman with Spindle, Man with Sledgehammer, all by Mahonri Young (33). Palace of Education.--Typanum group, Education, by Gustav Gerlach (34, 132); Panel, Male Teacher, by Cesare Stea; Panel, Female Teacher, by C. Peters (34). West Facade of Palace Group.--Thought (on columns flanking half domes), by Ralph Stackpole; The Triumph of the Field, by Charles B. Harley; Abundance, by Charles R. Harley; Ex Libris (half dome of Education), by Albert Weinert; Physical Vigor (half dome of Food Products), by Earl Cummings; Vestibule Fountains, by W. B. Faville (all on p. 34, 35). North Facade of Palace Group.--The Conquistador and The Pirate, both by Allen Newman (35, 43, 44). East Facade of Palace Group.--The Miner, by Albert Weinert (35). Column of Progress.--The Adventurous Bowman, by Herman A, MacNeil (56, 61, 57); The Burden Bearers (frieze at base of group), by Herman A. MacNeil (61); Frieze of Progress (frieze on pedestal), by Isidore Konti (61, 60). Court of the Universe.--Nations of East and West (on arches), by A. Stirling Calder, Leo Lentelli and Frederick G. R. Roth (52, 65, 63, 59). Genii on Columns, by Leo Lentelli; Pegasus Spandrels, by Frederick G. B. Roth; Medallions, by B. Bufano and A. Stirling Calder; The Stars, by A. Stirling Calder; Signs of the Zodiac, by Herman A. MacNeil (all on p. 52). Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun, by A. A. Weinmann (52, 90, 63, 69); The Elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, by Robert Aitken (52, 64); Music and Poetry, by Paul Manship (52). Court of the Ages.--Fountain of the Earth, by Robert Aitken (65, 66, 72, 91-5, 70, 73); Columns of Earth and Air, by Leo Lentelli (66, 67); Ages of Civilization (on Altar) and Thought (on side altars), by Chester Beach (66, 67, 70); Primitive Man, Primitive Woman, and The Hunter (on arcades), by Albert Weinert (66); Modern Time Listening to the Story of the Ages (in North Court), by Sherry E. Fry (67, 72). Court of Seasons.--The Harvest (on half dome), by Albert Jaegers; Rain and Sunshine (on columns), by Albert Jaegers; Feast of the Sacrifice (on pylons), by Albert Jaegers (76, 79); Fountain groups, The Seasons, by Furio Piccirilli (75-6, 90-1, 94); Attic figures of Abundance, and spandrels, by August Jaegers; Fountain of Ceres (forecourt), by Evelyn Beatrice Longman (77, 91, 79). Court of Flowers.--The Pioneer, by Solon Borglum (81, 97); Fountain of Beauty and the Beast, by Edgar Walter (81, 95, 100); Flower Girls (in niches), by A. Stirling Calder (87, 100); The Fairy (above Italian towers), by Carl Gruppe; Lions, by Albert Laessle. Court of Palms.--The End of the Trail, by James Earle Fraser (82, 96); Caryatids (on attic), by A. Stirling Calder and John Bateman; Spandrels (over portals), by Albert Weinert. Palace of Machinery.--Genius of Creation, by Daniel Chester French (98, 147); Steam Power, Electricity, Imagination, Invention; Friezes, Genii of Machinery; Reliefs on bases of columns, Application of Power to Machines; all by Haig Patigian (97, 111); Eagles, by C. H. Humphries (97). Palace of Fine Arts.--The Weeping Woman (on colonnade flower boxes), by Ulric H. Ellerhusen (102, 113); The Struggle for the Beautiful (three panels repeated on attic of Rotunda), by Bruno Louis Zimm (102, 114); Figures between panels, by Ulric H. Ellerhusen; Venus, Altar of Inspiration, by Ralph Stackpole (103, 197); Frieze of Genius (on Altar), by Bruno Louis Zimm; the Priestess of Culture (in Rotunda), by Herbert Adams (103); Aspiration (over main portal), by Leo Lentelli; Decorations on Flower Receptacles, by Ulric H. Ellerhusen (103). II. Mural Paintings. Tower of Jewels.--West panel--Joining of Atlantic and Pacific, center; Discovery, left; Purchase, right. East panel--Gateway of All Nations, center; Labor Crowned, left; Achievement, right; all by William de Leftwich Dodge (46, 53). Arch of the Nations of the East.--South panel--The Western March of Civilization; North panel--Ideals Attending Immigration; both by Edward Simmons (55-6). Arch of the Nations of the West.--North panel--Pioneers Leaving for the West; South panel--Pioneers Arriving on Pacific Coast; both by Frank Vincent Du Mond (56, frontispiece). Court of the Ages.--Earth, two panels (northwest corner of corridor); Air, two panels (southwest corner of corridor); Water, two panels (southeast corner of corridor); Fire, two panels (northeast corner of corridor); all by Frank Brangwyn (67, 68, 71, 74). Court of Seasons.--Art Crowned by Time (in half dome); Man Receiving Instruction in Nature's Laws (in half dome); Spring and Seedtime (two panels in corridor before niche of Spring); Summer and Fruition (two panels In corridor before niche of Summer); Autumn and Harvest (two panels in corridor before niche of Autumn); Winter and Festivity (two panels in corridor before niche of Winter); all by H. Milton Bancroft (75, 76). Court of Palms.--Fruits and Flowers (lunette over entrance of Palace of Education), by Childe Hassam; The Pursuit of Pleasure (lunette over entrance of Palace of Liberal Arts), by Charles Holloway; The Triumph of Culture, sometimes called The Victorious Spirit (lunette over entrance of Court of Seasons), by Arthur Mathews (all on p. 82). Rotunda, Palace of Fine Arts.--The Conception and Birth of Art, four panels alternated with four panels of the Golds of California. In order they are: The Birth of European Art, the Orange Panel, Inspiration in All Art, the Wheat Panel, the Birth of Oriental Art, Metallic Gold, Ideals in Art, the Poppy Panel; all by Robert Reid (103, 104). (B) Statistics of Construction Work Palace Size, feet Exhibit area Cost Mines and Metallurgy 451 x 579 5.75 acres $359,445 Transportation 579 x 614 7.25 acres $481,677 Agriculture 579 x 639 7.5 acres $425,610 Food Products 424 x 579 5.4 acres $342,551 Varied Industries 414 x 541 5. acres $312,691 Manufactures 475 x 552 5.35 acres $341,069 Liberal Arts 475 x 585 5.75 acres $344,180 Education 394 x 526 4.7 acres $425,610 Machinery 972 x 372 9. acres $659,665 Fine Arts 1100 x 186 5. acres $580,000 Horticulture 672 x 329 5. acres $341,000 Festival Hall seats 4000 $270,000 Tower of Jewels 435 feet high $428,000 Dome of Palace of Horticulture 185 feet high, 152 feet in diameter. Paved area within the Exposition grounds, 4,000,000 square feet, or 91.5 acres. At an average width of 40 feet, this is equal to nearly 20 miles of asphalt. (C) The Exposition Roster President.--Charles C. Moore. Vice-Presidents.--William H. Crocker, Reuben B. Hale, I. W. Hellman, Jr., M. H. de Young, Leon Sloss, James Rolph, Jr. Secretary.--Rudolph J. Taussig. Treasurer.--A. W. Foster. Board of Directors.--John Barneson, M. J. Brandenstein, John A. Britton, Frank L. Brown, George T. Cameron, Philip T. Clay, William H. Crocker, R. A. Crothers, M. H. de Young, A. I. Esberg, Charles S. Fee, H. F. Fortmann, A. W. Foster, H. B. Hale, I. W. Hellman, Jr., Homer S. King, Curtis H. Lindley, P. H. McCarthy, James McNab, Charles C. Moore, Thornwell Mullally, Dent H. Robert, James Rolph, Jr., A. W. Scott, Jr., Henry T. Scott, Leon Sloss, Charles S. Stanton, Rudolph J. Taussig, Joseph S. Tobin. Executive Staff.--Director-in-Chief, Frederick J. V. Skiff; Director of Works, Harris D. H. Connick; Director of Exhibits, Asher Carter Baker; Director of Exploitation, George Hough Perry; Director of Concessions and Admissions, Frank Burt. Architectural Commission.--George W. Kelham, San Francisco, Chief of Architecture; Willis Polk, William B. Faville, Clarence H. Ward, and Louis Christian Mullgardt, San Francisco; Robert Farquhar, Los Angeles; McKim, Mead & White, Carrere & Hastings, and Henry Bacon, New York. Associate Architects: Arthur Brown, Jr., G. Albert Lansburgh, Bernard R. Maybeck, San Francisco. Division of Works.--Director, Harris D. H. Connick; Assistant Director of Works and Chief of Department of Construction, A. H. Markwart; Chief of Architecture, George W. Kelham; Chief, Department of Sculpture, K. T. F. Bitter; Acting Chief, A. Stirling Calder; Chief, Department of Color and Decoration, Jules Guerin; Chief, Department Civil Engineering, E. E. Carpenter; Chief, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Guy L. Bayley; Chief, Department of Illumination, W. D'A. Ryan; Chief, Department of Landscape Gardening, John McLaren. Division of Exhibits.--Director, Asher Carter Baker; Chief, Department of Fine Arts, John E. D. Trask; Assistant Chief, Department of Fine Arts, Robert B. Harshe; Chief, Department of Education and Social Economy, Alvin E. Pope; Chief, Department of Liberal Arts, Theodore Hardee; Chief, Department Manufactures and Varied Industries, Charles H. Green; Chief, Department of Machinery, George W. Danforth; Chief, Department of Transportation, Blythe E. Henderson; Chief, Department of Agriculture, Thomas G. Stallsmith; Chief, Department of Live Stock, D. O. Lively; Assistant Chief, Department of Live Stock, I. D. Graham; Chief, Department of Horticulture, G. A. Dennison; Chief, Department of Mines and Metallurgy, C. E. van Barneveld. Other Department Heads.--Traffic Manager, Andrew M. Mortensen. General Attorney, Frank S. Brittain. Commandant of Exposition Guards, Captain Edward Carpenter, U. S. A. Director of Congresses, James A. Barr. Director of Music, George W. Stewart. Director of Special Events, Theodore Hardee. Chief of Special Events, Rolls E. Cooley. Chairman of Music Committee, J. J. Levison. California State Commission.--Governor Hiram W. Johnson, ex officio; Matt I. Sullivan, President, San Francisco; Chester H. Rowell, Fresno; Marshall Stimson, Los Angeles; Arthur Arlett, San Francisco. Commissioner General, W. D. Egilbert. Secretary, F. J. O'Brien. Controller, Leo S. Robinson. Woman's Board of the Exposition.--Honorary President, Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst; President, Mrs. F. G. Sanborn; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Lovell White, Mrs. I. Lowenberg, Mrs. W. H. Taylor, Mrs. John F. Merrill, Mrs. Frank L. Brown, Mrs. Irving M. Scott; Secretary, Mrs. Gaillard Stoney; Treasurer, Mrs. P. E. Bowles; Assistant Treasurer, Mrs. E. R. Dimond; Auditor, Mrs. Charles W. Slack. Directors, Mrs. Edson F. Adams, Mrs. Frank B. Anderson, Mrs. P. E. Bowles, Dr. Marian Bertola, Mrs. Frank L. Brown, Mrs. Aylett R. Cotton, Mrs. Francis Carolan, Mrs. Edwin R. Dimond, Mrs. Joseph A. Donohoe, Mrs. Joseph D. Grant, Mrs. Reuben B. Hale, Mrs. P. C. Hale, Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst, Mrs. I. W. Hellman, Jr., Mrs. C. Edward Holmes, Mrs. John Johns, Mrs. Henry Krebs, Mrs. Jesse N. Lillenthal, Mrs. I. Lowenberg, Miss Laura McKinstry, Mrs. John F. Merrill, Mrs. Robert Oxnard, Mrs. Horace D. Pillsbury, Mrs. George A. Pope, Mrs. F. &. Sanborn, Mrs. Henry T. Scott, Mrs. Laurence Irving Scott, Mrs. William T. Sesnon, Mrs. Ernest G. Simpson, Mrs. Charles W. Slack, Mrs. M. C. Sloss, Mrs. Gaillard Stoney, Mrs. William Hinckley Taylor, Mrs. William S. Tevis, Mrs. Lovell White, Mrs. Edward Wright. Foreign Commissioners Argentina.--Horacio Anasagasti, Resident Commissioner General; Alberto M. D'Alkaine, Secretary. Australia.--Alfred Deakin, Commissioner General, resigned; Niel Nielsen, New South Wales; F. W. Hagelthorn, Victoria; F. T. A. Fricke, Victoria, Deputy Commissioner; J. A. Robertson, Queensland; George Oughton, Secretary. Bolivia.--Manuel Vicente Ballivian, Commissioner General. Canada.--William Hutchison. Canadian Exhibition Commissioner. China.--Chen Chi, Resident Commissioner General; Allan S. Chow, Secretary. Cuba.--General Enrique Loynaz del Castillo, Commissioner General; Dr. Amando Montero, Secretary. Denmark.--Otto Wadsted, Resident Commissioner. France.--Albert Tirman, Commissioner General; Jean Guyffrey, Secretary. Guatemala.--Jose Flamenco, Resident Commissioner; Fernando Crux, Sec. Honduras.--Antonio A. Ramirez F. Fontecha, Commissioner General; Fernando Somoza Vivas, Resident Commissioner. Italy.--Ernesto Nathan, Commissioner General; Vito Catastini, Secretary. Japan.--Haruki Yamawaki, Resident Commissioner General; Shinji Yoshino, Secretary. Netherlands.--B. A. van Coenen Torchiana, Resident Commissioner. New Zealand.--Edmund Clifton, Commissioner General; M. O'Brien, Sec. Norway.--F. Herman Gade, Commissioner General; Birger A. Guthe, Sec. Persia.--Mirza Ali Kuli Khan, Commissioner General. Portugal.--Manuel Roldan, Commissioner General. Siam.--James H. Gore, Commissioner General; A. H. Duke, Secretary. Spain.--Count del Valle de Salazar, Representative. Sweden.--Richard Bernstrom, Commissioner General; Herman Virde, Sec. Turkey.--Vahan Cardashian, Imperial Adjutant High Commissioner. Uruguay.--Eduardo Perotti, Commissioner General. Commissioners From States and Islands National Commission.--William Phillips, Chairman; Franklin D. Roosevelt, Judge W. B. Lamar; F. N. Bauskette, Secretary. Arkansas.--F. B. T. Hollenberg, Commissioner General. California.--Matt L Sullivan, President; W. D. Egilbert, Commissioner General; F. J. O'Brien, Secretary. Hawaii.--R. P. Wood, Chairman. Idaho.--Jay A. Czizek, Executive Commissioner. Illinois.--Adolph Karpen, Chairman; Guy E. Cramer, Resident Executive; John G. Oglesby, Secretary. Indiana.--S. P. Hamilton, Resident Commissioner. Iowa.--W. W. Marsh, Chairman. Kansas.--George H. Hodges, President; H. S. Dean, Secretary. Maryland.--Roberdeau A. McCormick, Chairman; Robert J. Beachman, Sec. Massachusetts.--Peter H. Corr, Chairman; Charles O. Power, Secretary. Mississippi.--Isham Evans, Chairman; D. Ben Holmes, Secretary. Missouri.--John L. McNatt, Chairman; Norman M. Vaughan, Secretary. Montana.--David Hilger, Chairman; Frank A. Hazelbaker, Secretary. Nevada.--George T. Mills, Commissioner. New Jersey.--Robert S. Hudspeth, President; Charles F. Pancoast, Sec. New York.--Norman E. Mack, Chairman; Daniel L. Ryan, Secretary. North Dakota.--Governor L. B. Hanna, Chairman; Will E. Holbein, Sec. Ohio.--D. B. Torpey, Resident Commissioner. Oklahoma.--J. J. Dunn, Resident Commissioner; Mrs. Fred E. Sutton, Sec. Oregon.--O. M. Clark, Chairman; George Ryland, General Manager. Pennsylvania.--Martin G. Brumbaugh, President; A. G. Hetherington, Director in Charge; C. B. Carothers, Secretary. Philippines.--Leon M. Guerrero, President; W. W. Barkley, Secretary. Texas.--Mrs. Eli Hertzberg, Chairman; J. T. Bowman, Secretary. Utah.--Glen Miller, Chairman; Mae Lail, Secretary. Virginia.--W. W. Baker, Chairman; Alexander Forward, Secretary. Washington.--John Schramm, President; Charles G. Heifner, Executive Commissioner. West Virginia.--Paul Grosscup, Chairman; G. O. Nagle, Secretary. Wisconsin.--John T. Murphy, Chairman; Arthur W. Prehn, Resident Commissioner; D. E. Bowe, Secretary. (D) Bibliography The Panama-Pacific Exposition presents so many aspects of public importance that it will doubtless inspire a considerable library of books upon its various features. Those heretofore published, however, agree in testifying to the unprecedented appeal which it makes on its artistic side; they have attempted little more than to describe the architecture of the main exhibit palaces, and interpret the Sculpture and murals which adorn them. Of the titles given below, the first two volumes are wholly of this character. Mrs. James' little book has especial reference to the story told by the decorative Sculpture. The attractive Neuhaus volume is a more critical discussion of the Exposition art, as distinguished from exhibits in the Palace of Fine Arts, which are to be covered by Prof. Neuhaus' second book. To an outline of Exposition art, Mr. Cheney's booklet adds a brief, helpful account of the Fine Arts exhibit. Mr. Barry's more ambitious volume opens with an interesting chapter on the Exposition's inception and growth; the remainder of the text "is mainly devoted to the artistic features associated with the courts and the main palaces.". The other books named describe and show "Exposition art." Palaces and Courts of the Exposition, by Juliet James. 16mo., 151 pp.. including 32 illustrations. San Francisco, the California Book Co. The Art of the Exposition, by Eugen Neuhaus. 8vo., 100 pp., with 32 ills. San Francisco, Paul Elder & Co. An Art-Lover's Guide to the Exposition, by Sheldon Cheney. 12mo., 100 pp., including 20 ills. Berkeley, published by the author. The City of Domes, by John D. Barry. 12mo., 142 pp., with 48 ills. San Francisco, J. J. Newbegin. In the Court of the Ages (Poems), by Edward Robeson Taylor. 8vo., 33 pp., 7 ills. San Francisco, A. M. Robertson. The Sculpture and Murals of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, by Stella G. S. Perry. 12mo., 112 pp., including 47 ills. San Francisco, the Wahlgreen Co. The Galleries of the Exposition, by Eugen Neuhaus. 8vo., 108 pp., with 30 ills. Paul Elder & Co. The Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts, by Juliet James. 12mo., 32 ills. San Francisco, H. S. Crocker Co. Index In order not to overload this index with details which, for most readers, would render it inconvenient, only the more important Sculptures and murals among the "Exposition art" have been listed here, together with the different national and historical sections of the Fine Arts Palace, and the names of artists mentioned most frequently in the text. Fuller lists will be found on p. 130-133 (winners of grand prizes, medals of honor and gold medals in the Fine Arts Exhibit) and p. 194-5 (murals and Sculptures). Figures in light-face type refer to pages in the text, those in heavier type to the illustrations. Abbey, Edwin A., painter, 107, 115. Adams, Herbert, sculptor, 103, 104. "Adventurous Bowman, The," 56, 58. Agriculture, Palace of, 16; architecture and Sculpture, 35, 36, 51; exhibits, 146, 162. "Air" Sculpture by Aitken, 52; murals by Brangwyn, 67-71, 74. Aitken, Robert, sculptor, 52, 72, 91. "Among the 'White Birch Trunks," 128, 126. Arabian Nights, Fountain of, 82. Arch, Tower of Jewels, 42, 51, 53. Arches of the Court of Seasons, 77. Arches of the Rising and the Setting Sun, architecture, 61; Sculpture, 52. 55; murals, 55, 56; frontispiece, 59, 63. Architects, Board of, 13. Architecture, main palace group, 27-36; Tower of Jewels, 49; Court of the Universe, 51; Court of the Ages, 66-7; Court of Seasons, 76; Court of Flowers and Palms, 78; Palace of Machinery, 96; Fine Arts, 101-2. Argentina, appropriates $1,700,000 for its representation at P. P. I. E., 14; Fine Arts exhibit, 129, 131; forestry exhibit, 153; pavilion, 154, 156, 169. Arkansas, building, 176. Australia, Fine Arts exhibit, 131; pavilion, 155. 148. Autumn, Fountain of, 76, 91. Avenue of Palms, 16, 18. Aviation, 151, 188, 17, 192. Awards in Fine Arts exhibit, 130-133. Bacon, Henry, architect, 13, 75. Bancroft, H. Milton, mural painter, 75, 76. Baths of Caracalla, 96. Beach, Chester, sculptor, 66. Beachey, Lincoln, aviator, 161. "Beauty and the Beast," Fountain of, 81; described, 95, 100. Belgium, exhibits in French Pavilion, 108, 164. Bennett, Edward H., architect, plan for Exposition, 13. Bitter, Karl T. F., chief of Sculpture, 14. 104, 110. Blank Walls, use of in Exposition architecture, 28. Bolivia, pavilion, 156. Borglum, Solon, sculptor, 81. Boston Symphony Orchestra, 142-145. Brangwyn, Frank, painter, 67-71, 82; etchings, 110. Brown, Arthur, architect, 13. Burbank, Luther, exhibitor, 153. Burroughs, Edith Woodman, sculptor, 49, 89. Byzantine architecture, 27, 28. Calder, A. Stirling, sculptor, 52, 55, 61, 81, 83, 84. California, votes $5,000,000 bonds for Exposition, 13; Counties raise $2,500,000, 14; Mining exhibit, 150; building, 171, 179, 182. Canada, pavilion, 156, 161, 148. Ceres, Fountain of, 77, 91, 79. Chase, William M., painter, 117. Chicago, exhibit, 175. China, Fine Arts exhibit, 109, 127, 128, 132; industrial exhibits, 152; pavilion, 161, 162. Color of Exposition palaces, 36-41. Column of Progress, 16, 36; description, 50, 51, 56, 61, 57, 58; frieze, 61, 60; night illumination, 140. See also "Adventurous Bowman." "Cortez," 46, 48. Cortissoz, Royal, art critic, quoted, 140. Court, key to the palace group, 50. Court of Abundance, see Court of the Ages. Court of the Ages (or Court of Abundance), 16; its gardens, 20; architecture, Sculpture, and symbolism, 65-72, 70; Fountain of Earth, 72, 73; Brangwyn's murals, 67, 68, 71, 74; night illumination, 139, 140. Court of Flowers, 16; Garden in, 20; Portals, 34; architecture, Sculpture and gardening, 78, 81, 82, 95, 85; Fountain of "Beauty and the Beast," 81, 100; "The Pioneer," 81, 87. Court of Palms, 16; Portals, 34; architecture, Sculpture and gardening, 78, 81, 82, 95, 88, 93; "The End of the Trail," 82, 86. Court of Seasons, 16; architecture, Sculpture and murals, 75-77; night illumination, 139, 140, 79, 80, 94. Court of the Universe, 16; its gardens, 20; its coloring, 39; architecture, Sculpture and murals, 50-62; inscriptions, 62; night illumination, 139, 140. Coxhead, Ernest, architect, prepares first plans for Exposition, 14. Crocker, W. H., vice-president of the Exposition, 197. Cuba, rare trees and plants in Palace of Horticulture, 22, 25; Fine Arts exhibit, 122, 127, 132; industrial exhibits, 152; horticultural exhibit, 153; pavilion, 162. Deniville, Paul, his Imitations of travertine, 40, 96. Denmark, paintings, 108; pavilion, 162. De Young, M. H., vice-president of the Exposition, 197. Dodge, William de Leftwlch, mural painter, 46, 49. Du Mond, F. V., painter, 55, 56, 118. Duveneck, Frank, painter, 117. Earth, Fountain of, 66, 67, 72; symbolism of, 91, 92; Illumination, 95, 70, 73. "Earth," Sculpture by Aitken, 52, 64; murals by Brangwyn, 67-71. Education and Social Economy, Palace of, 16; architecture and Sculpture, 34, 35; exhibits in, 152, 138. El Dorado, Fountain of, 49, 84, 89, 54, "Elements," Sculptures by Aitken, 52, 64; murals by Brangwyn, 67-71, 74. Ellerhusen, Ulric, sculptor, 102, 103. "End of the Trail, The," 81, 82, 86. Energy, Fountain of, 56, 83-4, 47. Esplanade, 19. Etching, 121, 122, Fairy Tales, 82, Farquhar, Robert, architect, 13, 25. Faville, Wm. B., architect, 13, 27, 35. "Feast of the Sacrifice, The," 76, 79. Festival Hall, 16; architecture and Sculpture, 25, 26; organ, 26; music in, 141-5; organ an exhibit, 152; views of, 29, 82. Fine Arts, Palace of, relation to Exposition's architectural plan, 16, 36; architecture and Sculpture, 101-103; murals, 103, 104; statuary in rotunda and colonnade, 104, 130; should be preserved in Golden Gate Park, 104, 107; The Annex, 107, 109; night illumination, 140, 112, 113, 114, 119, 137. Fine Arts exhibit, 107-130; mainly contemporaneous, 107-8; great extent of the collection, 108; American art, 108-9; unexpected foreign representation, 109; the Futurists, 110; the United States section, 110, 115-122; Historical section, 110-115; Foreign sections, 122-130; awards of grand prizes, medals of honor, and gold medals, 130-3. "Fire," Sculpture by Aitken, 52, 64; murals by Brangwyn, 66-71. Fisheries, 163. Flanagan, John, sculptor, 46. "Flower Girl," 81, 100. Food Products, Palace of, 16; architecture and Sculpture, 34, 35; exhibits, 146, 153, 119. Forestry, 152, 155, 156, 177, Foster, A. W., treasurer of the Exposition, 197. Fountain of "Beauty and the Beast," 81, 95, 100. Fountain of Ceres, 77, 91, 79. Fountain of Earth, 66, 67, 72; symbolism of, 91, 92; Illumination of, 95, 70,73. Fountain of El Dorado, 49, 84, 89, 54. Fountain of Energy, 16; described, 83, 84, 47. Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun, 52, 90, 63, 69. Fountains of the Seasons, 75, 76, 90, 91; fountain of Summer, 94. Fountain of Youth, 49, 84, 89, 53. Fountain, The Mermaid, 84, 99. France, Fine Arts exhibit, 107, 108, 109, 110, 122-124, 130; pavilion, 162, 163, 164, 157, 158. Fraser, James Earle, sculptor, 82. French, Daniel C., sculptor, 98, 110. Frieseke, Frederic C., painter, 118, 121. Fry, Sherry E., 26. Futurists, The, 110. Gallen-Kallela, Axel, painter, 110. "Genius of Creation, The," 98, 147. Gerlach, Gustav, sculptor, 34. Germany, Fine Arts exhibit, 109, 129, 132; industrial exhibits, 151, 152. Grafly, Charles, 104. Great Britain, Fine Arts exhibit, 109, 115; industrial exhibits, 151. Greece, pavilion, 164. Greek architecture, 27, 78. Guatemala, pavilion, 161. Guerin, Jules, chief of color, 14; color scheme, 36-41, 49, 121. Hale, R. B., proposes Exposition, 11; vice-president, 197. Hassam, Childe, painter, 82, 117. Hastings, Thomas, architect, 13. Hawaii, exhibits, 153; building, 177. Hearst, Mrs. Phoebe A., 171. Hellman, I. W., Jr., vice-president of the Exposition, 197. "High Tide: Return of the Fishermen," 124, 125. Holloway, Charles, painter, 82. Honduras, pavilion, 161. Hoo Hoo, House of, 25. Horticulture, Palace of, 16; architecture and Sculpture, 21, 22; Cuban display, 22, 25; exhibits in, 153; view of, 24. Hungary, Fine Arts exhibit, 109, 132. Idaho building, 176. Illinois, building, 175, 180. Illumination, 95, 134-140, 37, 135, 137, 192. Impressionists, 110, 116. Indiana, building, 175. Inscriptions, on Tower of Jewels, 45, 46; In Court of the Universe, 61, 62; In Court of the Seasons, 77. Iowa, building, 175. Italian fountains, 35. Italian towers, 28, 18. Italy, Fine Arts exhibit, 107, 108, 109, 110, 122, 124, 127, 132; industrial exhibits, 151; pavilion, 164, 165, 159. Jaegers, Albert, sculptor, 76. Jaegers, August, sculptor, 76. Japan, Fine Arts exhibit, 109, 122, 132, 133; Mining exhibit, 150; industrial exhibits, 151, 152; pavilion, 165, 166, 169. Joy Zone, outlay of concessionaires, $10,000,000, 14, 16; described, 193-4. Kansas, building, 176. Keith, William, painter, 107, 117. Kelham, George W., architect, 13; describes co-operative plan of Exposition, 15; Courts of Flowers and Palms, 78. Konti, Isidore, sculptor, 56, 61. Ladd, Anna C., sculptor, 130. Lafayette, statue of, 104, 130, 114. Landscape Gardening, Importance in Exposition plan, 19, 20. Lemare, Edwin H., organist, 143, 145. Lentelli, Leo, sculptor, 55, 81, 104. Levison, J. B., head of music committee, 141, 142. Liberal Arts, Palace of, 16; architecture and Sculpture, 33, 34; exhibits in, 146, 150, 151; view of, 38. Lighting of Exposition, 134-140. Lincoln, Abraham, statue of, 130; relics in Illinois building, 175. "Listening Woman," 26, 32. Live-Stock exhibit, 16; classes and awards, 178-185. Longman, Evelyn Beatrice, sculptor, 77, 91. Machinery, Palace of, ground broken for, 14; relation to Exposition's architectural plan, 16, 36; architecture and Sculpture of, 96-98; exhibits in, 146, 149, 150; views of, 105, 106, 111. MacNeill, H. A., sculptor, 52, 56, 61. "Man with a Pick," 33. McKim, Mead and White, architects, 13, 51. McLaren, John, chief of landscape engineering, 14; Importance of his gardens in the Exposition scheme, 19, 20; his gardening conforms to color scheme, 41. Manufactures, Palace of, 16; architecture and Sculpture, 33, 34; exhibits in, 146, 151. Maryland, building, 174. Massachusetts, exhibits, 152; building, 173, 181. Mathews, Arthur F., painter, 82, 117. Maybeck, Bernard B., architect, 13, 25, 101, 102. Mermaid Fountain, 84, 99. Mines and Metallurgy, Palace of, 16; architecture and Sculpture, 35, 36; exhibits in, 150. Miniatures, Fine Arts exhibit, 121, 122. Mississippi, building, 174. Missouri building, 175, 176, 180. Montana, Mining exhibit, 150; building, 176. Montessori, Maria, educator, 152. Moore, C. C., president of the Exposition, 141, 197. Moorish domes, 27; towers, 28. "Mother of the Dead," 130, 120. Motion Pictures, used for exhibition purposes, 146, 149. Muck, Karl, director of Boston Symphony Orchestra, 143. Mullgardt, Louis Christian, architect, 13, 65-67, 72. Munch, Edvard, painter, exhibit in Fine Arts Annex, 109. Mural paintings, see list in Appendix, pp. 195, 196. Music at the Exposition, 141-5. Nations of the East and West, Arches of, 52, 55, 59, 63. Netherlands, The, Fine Arts exhibit, 109, 130, 133; Industrial exhibits, 152; horticultural exhibit, 153; pavilion, 166, 157. Nevada, building, 176. New Jersey, building, 173, 174. Newman, Allen, sculptor, 35. New Orleans, 13. New York City, building, 173. New York State, appropriates $1,000,000 for its representation at P. P. I. E., 14; building, 172, 173, 170. New Zealand, exhibits, 152, 153; forestry exhibit, 153; pavilion, 167. Niehaus, Charles, sculptor, 46. North Dakota, building, 176. Norway, Fine Arts Exhibit, 109, 133; pavilion, 167. Ohio, building, 174, 175. Oklahoma, building, 176. Oregon, exhibits, 152; building, 172, 191. Organ, in Festival Hall, 26, 141-5, 152; In Illinois building, 175. "Outcast, The," 130, 136. Palaces of main Exposition group, see Agriculture, Education, Food Products, Liberal Arts, Manufactures, Mines, Transportation, Varied Industries, Machinery, and Fine Arts. Panama, pavilion, 161. Panama Canal, the motive of the Exposition, 11, 28; reproduction of 193. Panama-Pacific Exposition; motive and planning, 11; first suggested, 11; plans interrupted by fire of 1906, 12; Exposition Company formed and subscriptions begun, 12; California and San Francisco vote bonds, 13; San Francisco wins Congressional approval, 13; national aid not asked, 13; site selected, 13; President Taft breaks ground, 13; Board of Architects appointed, 13; Ground Plan perfected, site prepared and work begun, 14; Exposition ready on time, 14; cost, $50,000,000, 14; Ground plan described, 16-21, 27-41. Patigian, Haig, sculptor, 98. Pennell, Joseph, 122. Pennsylvania, building, 173, 181. Pennsylvania Railway station, New York, 96, 107. Philadelphia, exhibit, 152. Philippines, The, Fine Arts exhibit, 128, 133; forestry exhibit, 152, 153; building, 177. Piccirilli, Furio, sculptor, 75, 91. Piccirilli, Attilio, sculptor, 130. Pietro, C. L., sculptor, 130. Pine and Redwood Bungalows, 25. "Pioneer, The," 81, 87. "Pioneer Mother," 104. "Pirate, The," 35, 44. Polk, Willis, architect, 13. Portals: Palace of Varied Industries, 28, 33, 18, 37; Manufactures and Liberal Arts, 33, 34; Education, 34, 35, 138. Half-domes, Education and Food Products, 35; on north facade, 35, 43, 44; east facade, 35, 36; on interior aisle, 36; in Courts of Flowers and Palms, 82. Portugal, Fine Arts exhibit, 109, 128, 129, 133; building, 167. Press Building, 26. "Priest, The," 46, 44. Putnam, Arthur, 84. Pyle, Howard, painter, 121. Redfield, E. W., painter, 117. Reid, Robert, painter, 103, 104, 118. Richardson, Symmes, architect, 56. Rising and Setting Sun, Fountains of, 52, 90, 63, 69. Rodin, Auguste, sculptor, 163; his statue, "The Thinker," 158. Rolph, James, Jr., vice-president of the Exposition, 197. Roman architecture, 27, 51, 61, 96. Roth, Frederick G. R., sculptor, 55, 61. Rumsey, Charles C., sculptor, 46. Ryan, W. D'A., illumination expert, 14, 45, 134. Sabin, Wallace, organist, 142. Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, sculptor, 130. Saint-Saens, Camille, composer, 142-5. San Francisco, votes 5,000,000 bonds for Exposition, 13; raises total of $12,500,000, 14; wins fight for Congressional approval, 13. Sargent, John S., painter, 107, 117. Schumann-Heink, Mme., singer, 143. Scudder, Janet, sculptor, 130. Sculpture, exhibits In Fine Arts Palace and its Colonnade and Rotunda, 108, 110, 117, 124, 125, 130; "Exposition Sculpture," adorning the palaces, courts and gardens, see list in Appendix, pp. 195, 196. Seasons, Court of, see Court of Seasons; Fountains of, see Fountains. Setting Sun, see Rising and Setting Sun. Siam, pavilion, 167. Simmons, Edward, mural painter, 55, 56. Sloss, Leon, vice-president of the Exposition, 197. Smith, Arthur, aviator, 151, 188, 192. Sousa, John Philip, musical conductor, 143-5. South Gardens, 16; hedge of mesembryanthemuin, 19; flowers in, 20; description of South Gardens and their buildings, 21-26; view of, 23. Spain, Fine Arts exhibit, 109, 128, 132. Sports and games, Exposition contests and prizes, 186-190. Spring, Fountain of, 75, 76, 91. Stackpole, Ralph, 33, 34, 103. Stars, In Court of Universe, 51, 52. Stewart, G. W., musical director, 142. St. Louis, city, exhibit, 152. Summer, Fountain of, 76, 91, 94. Sweden, Fine Arts exhibit, 109, 128, 133; pavilion, 167, 168, 160. Taft, William H., breaks ground for Exposition, 12, 13. Tarbell, Edmund C., painter, 117. Taussig, Rudolph J., secretary of the Exposition, 197. Texas, building, 176. "Thinker, The," 158. Tiffany, Louis C., exhibit In Fine Arts Palace, 118. Tonetti, F. M. L., sculptor, 46. Tower of the Ages, 66, 67, 139, 70. Tower of Jewels, 16; central feature of main palace group, 28, 33; architecture and Sculpture, 42-49; Illumination, 42; "jewels," 45; historical significance, 42-49; epitomizes the Exposition art, 49; relation to Court of the Universe, 51; night illumination, 134, 139, 140; views of, 47, 135. Transportation, Palace of, 16; architecture and Sculpture, 35, 36, 51; exhibits in, 150, 151. Travertine, Artificial, material of Exposition palaces, 36, 39, 40, 77, 96, 107. Trumbull, Edward, painter, 173. Turkey, pavilion, 168. Twachtman, John H., painter, 117. Tympanum, Palace of Varied Industries, 33, 138; Education, 34, 138. United States, Fine Arts exhibit, 108-110, 115-118, 121, 131. United States Government exhibits, 150, 152, 153. Uruguay, Fine Arts exhibit, 122, 127, 133; Industrial exhibits, 152. Utah, Mining exhibit, 150; building, 177. Varied Industries, Palace of, 16; its architecture and Sculpture described, 28, 33, 36; exhibits, 146, 151. "Victory," crowning all gables of main palace group, 28, 18. Virginia Building, 174. "Walled City," main group of exhibition palaces, 15; architecture of, 27-36; material and color, 36-41. Walter, Edgar, sculptor, 81, 95. Ward, Clarence R, architect, 13, 96. Washington, state, exhibits, 153; building, 172, 191. Water colors, in Fine Arts exhibit, 121, 128. "Water," murals by Brangwyn, 67-71. Weinert, Albert, sculptor, 35. Weinmann, A. A., sculptor, 52, 90, 115. Weir, J. Alden, painter, 121. West Virginia, building, 174. Whistler, James McNeill, painter, 107, 117, 122. Whitney, Gertrude Vanderbilt, sculptor, 49, 82, 84, 95, 110. Winter, Fountain of, 76, 91. Wisconsin, building, 175. Wolf, Henry, etcher, 122, 130. Young, Mahonri, 33, 34. Youth, Fountain of, 49, 84, 89, 53. Young Women's Christian Association Building, 26. Zimm, Bruno Louis, 102, 103. 
34124	----	THE PANAMA CANAL [Illustration: _Clinedinst--Washington, D.C._ COL. GEORGE W. GOETHALS, U.S.A., Chairman and Chief Engineer Isthmian Canal Commission.] THE PANAMA CANAL A HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE ENTERPRISE BY J. SAXON MILLS, M.A. BARRISTER-AT-LAW WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN, MANCHESTER, LEEDS PARIS, LEIPZIG, MELBOURNE, AND NEW YORK PREFACE. The literature on the subject of the Panama Canal is rather dispersed. A full and entertaining history of the project will be found in Mr. W. F. Johnson's "Four Centuries of the Panama Canal" (Cassell and Co., 1907), a work to which I am greatly indebted. Dr. Vaughan Cornish has given the results of much research and several visits to the canal in "The Panama Canal and its Makers" (T. Fisher Unwin, 1909), and in several lectures, especially one before the Royal Colonial Institute, June 11, 1912. An inexhaustible mine of information will be found in Mr. Emory R. Johnson's Official Report on Panama Canal Traffic and Tolls (Washington, 1912). The Report on the Trade and Commerce of the Republic of Panama for the year 1911, by Mr. H. O. Chalkley, Acting British Consul at Colon, contains useful information. A valuable series of articles on the Panama Canal appeared in _The Times_ of 1912. The _National Geographic Magazine_ of February 1911 contains an authoritative article by Colonel G. W. Goethals, Chief Engineer of the Canal, and the number for February 1912 an interesting appreciation by Mr. W. J. Showalter. In _Scribner's Magazine_ for February 1913, Mr. J. B. Bishop, Secretary of the Isthmian Canal Commission, writes a very useful paper on the Sanitation of the Isthmus. In his recent work on South America Mr. Bryce devotes one of his delightful chapters to the Isthmus of Panama. A chapter on the Panama Canal will be found in Mr. A. E. Aspinall's "The British West Indies," and many references in Mr. C. G. Murray's "A United West Indies." I must thank Mr. G. E. Lewin, the Librarian of the Royal Colonial Institute, for his unfailing help and courtesy. BUSHEY, 1913. CONTENTS. PREFACE 5 DATE HISTORY OF THE CANAL 11 I. THE SECRET OF THE STRAIT 15 II. CANAL PROJECTS 23 III. THE CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY AND THE SUEZ CANAL 42 IV. THE FRENCH FAILURE 52 V. THE HAY-PAUNCEFOTE TREATY 64 VI. THE UNITED STATES AND COLOMBIA 77 VII. A MINIATURE REVOLUTION 88 VIII. THE BATTLE OF THE LEVELS 112 IX. MAN AND THE GNAT 129 X. LIFE AT THE ISTHMUS 153 XI. THE PROBLEM OF CONSTRUCTION 172 XII. THE CULEBRA CUT 186 XIII. THE LOCKS 195 XIV. THE COMPLETED CANAL 207 XV. PANAMA AND THE ISTHMUS 226 XVI. THE NEW OCEAN HIGHWAYS 242 XVII. THE CANAL AND THE AMERICAS 265 XVIII. THE CANAL AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 284 XIX. THE NEW PACIFIC 316 APPENDIX I.--HAY-PAUNCEFOTE TREATY 323 APPENDIX II.--PANAMA DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 327 APPENDIX III.--HAY-BUNAU-VARILLA TREATY CLAUSES 1-9 AND 23 332 APPENDIX IV.--PROCLAMATION AS TO CANAL TOLL RATES 343 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Col. George W. Goethals, U.S.A. _Frontispiece_ Chairman and Chief Engineer Isthmian Canal Commission. Col. William C. Gorgas 144 Medical Department, U.S. Army, Head of the Department of Sanitation, Ancon. Culebra Cut, from West Bank 192 Gatun Locks, looking South-West 201 Gatun Upper Lock, looking North 208 Gatun Upper Lock--West Chamber 216 Pedro Miguel Locks 224 DATE HISTORY OF THE CANAL. Conquest of Constantinople by Turks 1453 Columbus's First Voyage 1492 Columbus discovers Bay of Limon 1497 Rodrigo de Bastidas, Balboa, and La Cosa reach the Isthmus 1500 Columbus's Fourth Voyage, vainly seeks the strait 1502 Balboa sights the Pacific Sept. 25, 1513 Pedrarias founds the old town of Panama 1519 Magellan discovers the straits that bear his name 1519-21 Gonzalez de Avila discovers Lake Nicaragua 1522 The quest of Isthmian Strait given up as hopeless _circa_ 1532 Gomara appeals to Charles V. to construct canal 1551 Drake sights the Pacific 1573 Philip III. directs surveys for Darien Canal 1616 English seize Jamaica 1655 Henry Morgan destroys old Panama 1671 Paterson's settlement at Panama 1698 Spanish surveys of Tehuantepec and Nicaragua 1771 and 1779 Von Humboldt's residence in Central America 1799-1804 Panama declares its independence and joins New Granada 1822 Overtures made by Central America to United States for canal 1825 Goethe's prophecies 1827 Dutch canal concession from Nicaraguan Government 1829 abandoned 1830 British Honduras annexed by Great Britain 1835 United States Treaty with New Granada 1846 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 1850 Panama Railway opened to traffic 1855 Dickinson-Ayon Treaty between United States and Nicaragua 1868 President Grant recommends canal under United States control 1869 Appoints Interoceanic Canal Commission 1869 Suez Canal opened 1869 La Société Civile Internationale du Canal Interocéanique founded 1876 Grant's Commission reports in favour of Nicaraguan route 1876 The De Lesseps Company formed 1878 Company starts work 1881 Bankruptcy of French company 1889 New Panama Company formed 1889 Construction work at Nicaragua 1890-3 Ferdinand de Lesseps died 1894 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty 1901 Spooner Act 1902 Panama revolts from Colombia 1903 Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty 1904 American occupation of Isthmus begins 1904 Completion of canal 1914 Formal opening 1915 THE PANAMA CANAL. CHAPTER I. THE SECRET OF THE STRAIT. It was either very careless or very astute of Nature to leave the entire length of the American continent without a central passage from ocean to ocean, or, having provided such a passage at Nicaragua, to allow it to be obstructed again by volcanic action. This imperviousness of the long American barrier had, as we shall see, important economic and political results, and the eventual opening of a waterway will have results scarcely less important. The Panama Canal will achieve, after more than four centuries, the object with which Columbus spread his sails westwards from the port of Palos--the provision of a sea-route westwards to China and the Indies. The capture of Constantinople in 1453 by the Turks interrupted the ancient trade routes between East and West. Brigands held up the caravans which plodded across the desert sands from the Euphrates and the Indus, and pirates swarmed in the Mediterranean and Red Sea, intercepting the precious cargoes of silks and jewels and spices consigned to the merchants of Italy. The eyes of all Europe were turned to the Atlantic, and an ocean route westwards to India and the Orient, the existence of which had been fabled from the days of Aristotle, became an economic necessity. Columbus, as every one knows, died in the belief that he had discovered this route, and that the lands he had visited were fringes and islands of the Eastern Asiatic continent. The geographers of those days greatly exaggerated the eastern extension of Asia, with the result that the distance from Europe to China and India was underestimated by at least one-half. This was a fortunate mistake, for it is improbable that if Columbus had known that Cathay and Cipangu (Japan) were a good 12,000 miles westwards from the coast of Spain he would have ventured upon a continuous voyage of that length in the vessels of his time. It was in his fourth voyage (1502) that Columbus first reached and explored the coastline of the isthmus and Central America. He was apparently not the first to land on the isthmus. That distinction belongs either to Alfonso Ojeda, who is said to have reached "Terra Firma" earlier in 1502, or to Rodrigo de Bastidas, who, we are told, set sail from Cadiz with La Cosa in 1500, and, reached the isthmus somewhere near Porto Bello. About the doings of Columbus on the mainland we get some detailed information from the Portuguese historian and explorer of the sixteenth century, Galvano. It is interesting to read that the great navigator visited the exact spot where the newly-constructed canal starts from the Caribbean coast. From the Rio Grande, we read, Columbus "went to the River of Crocodiles which is now called Rio de Chagres, which hath its springs near the South Sea, within four leagues of Panama, and runneth into the North Sea." It was this same river, as we shall see, that became the feeder of the canal when the high-level scheme was adopted. So far out of his reckoning was Columbus that at Panama he imagined himself to be ten days' journey from the mouth of the Ganges! One of his objects, as we know from his own journal, was to convert the Great Khan of Tartary to the Christian faith, and this entanglement in what he called "the islands of the Indian Sea" was a sore hindrance to that and all his other purposes. He began that search for the strait which engaged the attention and tried the temper of Spanish, Portuguese, and English navigators for the next thirty years. He had heard from the natives of the coast of "a narrow place between two seas." They probably meant a narrow strip of land as at Panama. But Columbus understood them to mean a narrow waterway, and rumours of such a passage no doubt existed then, as they still do among the isthmian tribes. He must also have heard accounts of the great ocean only thirty miles away, and it is rather surprising he should not have made a dash across and anticipated Balboa and Drake. In May 1503, however, he quitted the "Terra Firma" without solving the great secret, and he never returned to the mainland. He died in 1506, still in complete ignorance of the nature of his discovery. He knew nothing of the continent of America or of that seventy million square miles of ocean beyond, to which Magellan gave the name of "Pacific." The Holy Grail itself was not pursued with more persistence and devotion than this mythical, elusive strait by the navigators of the early years of the sixteenth century. The isthmian governor sent out from Spain went with urgent instructions to solve the "secret of the strait." In 1513 Balboa set himself to the great enterprise. If he could not discover a waterway he would at least see what lay beyond the narrow land barrier. From Coibo on the Gulf of Darien he struck inland on September 6 with a hundred Indian guides and bearers. It is eloquent of the difficulties of the country which he had to traverse that it was not until September 26 that he won, first of European men, his distant view of the nameless and mysterious ocean.[1] It was he, and not Cortéz, who "with eagle eyes, stared at the Pacific." "And all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise, Silent upon a peak in Darien." Cortéz was himself a persistent searcher for the mythical strait. He wrote home to the King of Spain saying, "If the strait is found, I shall hold it to be the greatest service I have yet rendered. It would make the King of Spain master of so many lands that he might call himself the lord of the whole world." These vain attempts had very important results. They led incidentally to the exploration of the whole coastline of the American continent. For example, Jacques Cartier, who was sent out by the King of France about this time to find "the shorter route to Cathay," searched the coast northwards as far as Labrador and thus prepared the way for the planting of a French colony in Canada. At last, in 1520, a sea-passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific was actually discovered by the first great circumnavigator, Magellan, but it was far away from the narrow lands between North and South America. Through the perilous straits that have ever since borne his name at the southern extremity of the continent, Magellan pushed his venturous way into the great ocean beyond. But even Magellan had no idea that a few miles south of his strait the land ended and Atlantic and Pacific mingled their waters in one great flood. That truth was accidentally discovered by the English Drake more than fifty years afterwards (1579). Drake had been driven southward by stormy weather when he made the discovery which almost eclipsed in its importance even Magellan's exploit. In his exultation, we are told, he landed on the farthest island, and walking alone with his instruments to its extremity threw himself down, and with his arms embraced the southernmost point of the known world. From that point Drake sailed up the western coast of South America, engaged mainly in his favourite pursuit of "singeing the King of Spain's beard"--capturing, that is, the treasure-ships bound to Panama. But he did not forget the more scientific duty of searching for the strait. Far northward he held his course, past the future California, till he must have been off the coastline of what is now British Columbia, ever hoping to find the Pacific outlet of the famous North-West Passage. But always the coast trended to the north-west, and Drake, giving up the quest, turned his prow westward and continued his voyage of circumnavigation. But we are over-running our dates and must return to events at the isthmus. It was about the year 1530 that the non-existence of a natural waterway became recognized. And no sooner was this fact accepted than projects for an artificial canal began to be put forward. It was clear to the geographers and traders of those days that an isthmian route westward offered great advantages to the routes _via_ the Cape of Good Hope, Magellan Straits, or the problematical North-West Passage. FOOTNOTES: [1] The eminence known as "Balboa Hill" in the American canal zone is certainly not that from which Balboa first sighted the Pacific, though very likely a tradition to that effect will now gradually be established. CHAPTER II. CANAL PROJECTS. It appears that the honour of first conceiving and proposing the project of an artificial waterway through the isthmus belongs to Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón, a cousin of Cortéz, who had been with Balboa at Panama. Cerón had been for twelve years engaged in the search for the strait, and had finally begun to doubt its existence. His thoughts turned to the isthmus at Panama, where the narrowness and low elevation of the land seemed to offer the likeliest chance of an artificial canal. We learn from the old historian Galvano that Cerón prepared plans for the construction of a waterway there--almost precisely along the route chosen for the American canal nearly four hundred years later. Cerón's death, however, put an end to this early project. It is interesting to find the Portuguese historian Galvano, who flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century, mentioning four possible routes for the canal--namely, Darien, Panama, Nicaragua, and Tehuantepec. The choice, however, quickly confined itself to the Panama and Nicaraguan lines. The reader may feel some surprise that at such an early date as this an engineering project should be seriously considered which was only accomplished in the end by the wealth and mechanical resources of one of the greatest of modern Powers. The explanation is that the tiny vessels of the early sixteenth century could have taken advantage of the natural rivers and lakes in the isthmus, especially those on the Nicaraguan route, and that far less artificial construction would have been necessary than in these days of the mammoth liner and warship. Charles V., King of Spain, seems to have been quite alive to the importance of these canal projects. In 1534 he directed the Governor of Costa Firme, the old name for the Panama district, to survey the valley of the Chagres, the river which supplies the water for the upper reaches of the American canal. This gentleman, however, seems scarcely to have shared the royal enthusiasm. He may be supposed to have known the isthmus at these points very well, and his scepticism about the prospect of canal construction there in those days was not wholly groundless. The Spanish historian Gomara, who wrote a history of the Indies in 1551 and dedicated it to Charles V., declared a canal to be quite feasible along any of the four routes mentioned by Galvano. It is true he recognized obstacles. "There are mountains," he wrote, "but there are also hands. If determination is not lacking, means will not fail; the Indies, to which the way is to be made, will furnish them. To a king of Spain, seeking the wealth of Indian commerce, that which is possible is also easy." But Charles V. died without making any practical advance in this enterprise, and a rather remarkable reaction took place under his successor, Philip II. It should be noted that by this time a permanent roadway had been established across the isthmus from Panama to Porto Bello, along which the Spanish treasure-convoys passed from sea to sea without much interruption. The rapidly growing power of the English at sea made Philip fear that, if a canal were built, he would be unable to control it, and would probably lose his existing monopoly of isthmian transit. So he issued a veto against all projects of canal construction. He even persuaded himself that it would be contrary to the Divine purpose to link together two great oceans which God had set asunder, and that any such attempt would be visited by a terrible nemesis.[2] So his Majesty not only forbade all such schemes but declared the penalty of death against any one who should attempt to make a better route across Central America than the land-route between Panama and Porto Bello. In course of time the king's beard was so horribly singed by English navigators and adventurers in the Caribbean Sea that the Atlantic end of the overland trail became almost useless, and the Spanish argosies were compelled to sail homewards round the far Magellan Straits. But in 1579, as we have seen, Sir Francis Drake ("El Draque" as he was called by the terrified Spaniards) had suddenly attacked, captured, and scattered the Spanish ships off the Pacific coast of South America. So the isthmian land-route was once more resumed, and it took the Spaniard all his time to hold that open. For many years no progress was made with the idea of an isthmian canal. War between England and Spain was the natural order of things in these Central American regions. In 1655 the English seized Jamaica, and soon afterwards established themselves on the coast of Honduras and Nicaragua. The old city of Panama, of which only a picturesque church-tower remains to-day, had been founded by a Spanish governor named Pedrarias in 1519. In 1671 the city was destroyed by that wicked Welsh buccaneer, Sir Henry Morgan. The town was rebuilt two years later by Alonzo Mercado de Villacorta, five miles west of the old site. The project of a canal across the isthmus was never allowed entirely to disappear. In 1694 a very determined attempt was made to plant a British colony on the isthmus at Darien, a little east of the Panama route. The pioneer was William Paterson, a Scotsman, who founded "the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies." Sir Walter Scott, in his "Tales of a Grandfather," thus describes the project:-- The produce of China, Japan, the Spice Islands, and Eastern India, brought to the Bay of Panama, were to be transferred across the isthmus to the new settlement, and exchanged for the commodities of Europe. In Paterson's enthusiastic words, "This door of the seas and key of the universe will enable its possessors to become the legislators of both worlds and the arbitrators of commerce. The settlers at Darien will acquire a nobler empire than Alexander or Cæsar, without fatigue, expense, or danger, as well as without incurring the guilt and bloodshed of conquerors." So 1,200 settlers set sail from Leith in July 1698, no doubt with a high hope and courage. In November the expedition arrived and established itself at a point of the coast still called Puerto Escoces, or Scotch Port, in Caledonian Bay, also named from the same event. "New Edinburgh" and "New St. Andrews" were founded, but the settlers soon got into difficulties. The climate was intolerable, and the project was opposed from the outset by the English and Dutch East India Companies, who were alarmed on the score of their own exclusive rights, while Spaniards and Indians were a perpetual menace. Broken down by these adversities the original settlers left the place, but were succeeded at once by another company which, after some successful fighting with the Spaniards, were compelled by the superior forces of the enemy to evacuate the settlements in the year 1700. It is possible that if this attempt at colonization had been made after and not before the Union of Scotland and Ireland it would have met with much less opposition in England, perhaps would have received government sympathy and support. In that case the isthmus would have been added to the British dominions, and a waterway might have been constructed under the British flag. It should be added that Paterson, who had personally surveyed the isthmus, positively declared that the construction of a canal was a feasible undertaking. During the eighteenth century, though surveying was carried out in many parts of the isthmus by European engineers, the project of a canal was never seriously taken up. It may be remembered that in 1780 our own Nelson was at Nicaragua, annexing the lake and getting control of the interoceanic route in this region, but doing little more than injuring his own health. With the nineteenth century, however, events began to move at the isthmus. The great scientist, Alexander von Humboldt, spent the first few years of the new century in Mexico and Central America. In his "Political Essay on New Spain" he described the impervious isthmus, "the barrier against the waves of the Atlantic," as for ages "the bulwark of the independence of China and Japan." The absence of any water communication at the isthmus between the two oceans has indeed had highly important political and economic results. It kept East and West far asunder. It removed the west coast of North America from the colonizing rivalries of the Old World. England and the United States seemed for long ages only semiconscious of their territories on the Pacific which were awaiting colonization. Even in recent times very few emigrants from Europe, who went out with the intention of going far west, penetrated much further than Chicago or Manitoba. Population and industrial enterprise were concentrated in the east of Canada and the United States, and have only begun within modern times to move effectually westwards. England was indeed so indifferent about her territories along a far coast, which could be reached only round the Horn or by an almost impossible land-transit, that in the settlement of the Oregon boundary in the middle of last century she accepted a Canadian frontier-line much further north than would otherwise have contented her. She had at least as good a right to California and the territories to the northwards as the descendants of her revolted colonists. The absence of a waterway at the narrow lands secured to the United States and to England their expansion westwards, but imposed on the westward movement a very slow and gradual pace. One result of the new canal will be a very rapid development of these Pacific slopes, especially those of British Columbia. The effect on South America of this complete severance of East and West has also been very important. The republics on the Pacific have been sheltered as much as possible from European influences. Immigration has been naturally restricted, the population, especially that of Chile, kept free from negro admixture, and the development of the countries effectually checked. The opening of the canal will, of course, have a contrary effect all along these lines. But, to return from this digression, Humboldt described six routes in Central America where a canal would be practicable, including that which was afterwards adopted at Panama. He investigated and discussed many physiographical questions in connection with the subject. There had arisen a general belief that the level of the Pacific was much higher than that of the Atlantic, and that a sea-level canal would therefore be impossible. Humboldt declared against this theory. But it is curious to find him favouring the idea that the construction of a tide-level canal might have the effect of diverting the Gulf Stream from our shores, and thus making the climate of our British islands much more rigorous and inhospitable. The researches of Humboldt in the West Indies and Central America much interested the scientist's great fellow-countryman, Goethe. A passage from Goethe's "Conversations with Eckermann" is worth quoting as an example of prophecy wonderfully fulfilled:-- Humboldt [said Goethe] has with great practical knowledge mentioned other points where, by utilizing some of the rivers which flow into the Gulf of Mexico, the end could perhaps be more advantageously attained than at Panama. Well, all this is reserved for the future, and for a great spirit of enterprise. But so much is certain: if a project of the kind succeeded in making it possible for ships of whatever lading or size to go through such a canal from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, quite incalculable results would ensue for the whole of civilized and uncivilized humanity. I should be surprised, however, if the United States were to let the opportunity escape them of getting such an achievement into their own hands. We may expect this youthful Power, with its decided tendency westwards, in thirty or forty years to have also occupied and peopled the extensive tracts of land beyond the Rocky Mountains. We may further expect that along the whole Pacific coast, where Nature has already formed the largest and safest harbours, commercial cities of the utmost importance will gradually arise, to be the medium of trade between China, together with the East Indies, and the United States. Were this to happen, it would be not alone desirable but even almost necessary that merchantmen as well as men-of-war should maintain a more rapid connection between the west and east coasts of North America than has previously been possible by the wearisome, disagreeable, and costly voyage round Cape Horn. I repeat, then: it is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a way through from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and I am certain they will compass it. This I should like to live to see, but I shall not. Secondly, I should like to live to see a connection established between the Danube and the Rhine. But this, too, is an undertaking so gigantic that I doubt its being accomplished, especially when I consider our German means. Thirdly and lastly, I should like to see the English in possession of a Suez Canal. These three great things I should like to live to see, and it would almost be worth while for their sakes to hold out for some fifty years. Many projects for canal construction, chiefly by the Nicaraguan route, were started and failed during the first half of the nineteenth century. The second decade of that century witnessed the revolt one by one of all the Spanish provinces in Central and South America. The Colombian Confederation, comprising Venezuela, Ecuador, and New Granada, achieved their independence in 1821. Panama quickly followed, and allied itself with New Granada (now Colombia). In 1825 the Central American envoy to the United States urged the American government to co-operate in the canal enterprise with the states he represented. The result was that Henry Clay, the American Secretary of State, ordered an official survey at Nicaragua, and scheme followed scheme in quick succession. In 1829 the King of Holland was granted a canal concession by the Nicaraguan government. This enterprise was frustrated by the outbreak of the revolution in the Netherlands and Belgium. It would be tedious to enumerate the many projects started during the following years. But it is worth recalling that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then a prisoner in the fortress of Ham, became interested in the subject, and while still a captive obtained a concession and franchise for a canal company from the Nicaraguan government. He published a pamphlet on the Isthmian Canal question which aroused a good deal of attention, though its author's interest was soon diverted to political events nearer home. A passage from his little book is interesting for its strong advocacy of the Nicaraguan route by the San Juan River and the lakes:-- The geographical position of Constantinople rendered her the queen of the ancient world. Occupying, as she does, the central point between Europe, Asia, and Africa, she could become the entrepot of the commerce of all these countries, and obtain over them immense preponderance; for in politics, as in strategy, a central position always commands the circumference. This is what the proud city of Constantine could be, but it is what she is not, because, as Montesquieu says, "God permitted that the Turks should exist on earth, as a people most fit to possess uselessly a great empire." There exists in the New World a state as admirably situated as Constantinople, and we must say, up to this time, as uselessly occupied. We allude to the State of Nicaragua. As Constantinople is the centre of the Ancient World, so is the town of Leon the centre of the New, and if the tongue of land which separates its two lakes from the Pacific Ocean were cut through, she would command by virtue of her central position the entire coast of North and South America. The State of Nicaragua can become, better than Constantinople, the necessary route of the great commerce of the world, and is destined to attain an extraordinary degree of prosperity and grandeur. France, England, and Holland have a great commercial interest in the establishment of a communication between the two oceans, but England has more than the other Powers--a political interest in the execution of this project. England will see with pleasure Central America becoming a powerful and flourishing state, which will establish a balance of power by creating in Spanish America a new centre of active enterprise, powerful enough to give rise to a feeling of nationality, and to prevent, by backing Mexico, any further encroachments from the north. The idea of a trans-isthmian canal seemed likely in the 'fifties of last century to prove a cause of discord, if not of war, between England and the United States. Under the rather "pushful" foreign policy of Lord Palmerston, England rapidly increased her influence and possessions in Central America. In 1835 "British Honduras" was practically constituted a British colony, and British influence was subsequently extended into Nicaragua and Mosquitia, thus covering the favourite route for an isthmian waterway. The United States were establishing themselves on the Pacific through their encroachments on Mexico. In 1846 they acquired the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, and naturally began to attach more importance to the canal project and to feel more sensitive as regards rival ambitions in Central America. Soon after they had acquired these Pacific territories, began the great rush for gold to California, and some shorter way from east to west became necessary than the sea-trail round the Horn or the weary wagon-trek over the broad North American continent. Already in 1846, before the Mexican War and the discovery of gold in California, the United States had made a treaty with New Granada, by which the former secured rights of transit over the isthmus "upon any modes of communication that now exist or may hereafter be constructed," and by which they guaranteed the sovereignty of New Granada over all the territories at the isthmus. It was under this treaty that the Panama Railway was constructed which brought the town of Colon (formerly Aspinwall) into existence, and was subsequently taken over by the United States government. This railroad made the isthmus for the first time a highway of world-traffic. It had a monopoly of isthmian transportation, and was able to make any charges it pleased. Steamship services to the southern and northern coasts of America from Panama were developed, and the railway succeeded so well that it paid down to 1895 an average dividend of 15 per cent. It was bought by the first French Panama Company for the outrageously high sum of £5,100,000. The existence of the railway really determined De Lesseps' choice of the Panama route, and the immense amount of excavation done by the French had a great deal to do in turn with the American choice of the same route, so that the construction of the Panama Railway was a highly important event at the isthmus. The United States took over the railroad from the French with the unfinished canal, together with a steamship service from Colon to New York, owned by the railroad. The rivalry between England and the United States along the Nicaraguan route became so acute and dangerous that a very important treaty was concluded between the two countries in 1850, when we may say that the Panama Canal question entered the domain of modern politics. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, so-called from Mr. John M. Clayton, the American Secretary of State, and Sir Henry Bulwer, British Minister at Washington, who negotiated it, held the field for fifty years, and became the subject of endless discussion between England and the United States. FOOTNOTES: [2] Herodotus tells a story how the people of Knidos were forbidden by the Delphic oracle to make a canal through the isthmus, along which their Persian enemies could advance by land to attack them. The oracle said that if Zeus had wished the place to be an island he would have made it one. There is a curious resemblance between this story and that related in the text. CHAPTER III. THE CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY AND THE SUEZ CANAL. The treaty of 1850 was concerned primarily with a canal along the Nicaraguan route--that is, as the preamble expresses it, a canal "between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by way of the river San Juan de Nicaragua and either or both of the lakes of Nicaragua or Managua to any port or place on the Pacific Ocean." But as Article VIII. says, it established "a general principle" relating to any waterway across the isthmus between North and South America. The two contracting parties undertook in the treaty that neither should "obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over the said canal," or "maintain any fortifications commanding the same, or in the vicinity thereof," or "occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume, or exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America." This agreement, as I said, subsisted for fifty years, but it was scarcely concluded when it was found inconsistent with the growing importance and ambition of the United States, where a demand quickly arose for an American-owned canal. Again there followed a series of schemes for canal construction at various points of the isthmus. For example, Dr. Edgar Cullen created some excitement in England in the early Victorian days by giving a very favourable account of the Caledonian route across the isthmus at Darien, in a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society. The doctor was received by the young queen and the Prince Consort, a corporation was formed, and an engineer sent out to make surveys from Caledonian Bay. A British and a French man-of-war were dispatched to the isthmus to make investigations. But the surveyor was driven from Caledonian Bay by local tribes, and so went on to Panama, giving a favourable report of that route on his return to England. But nothing came of these incidents, and the American Civil War in the early 'sixties diverted the attention of the United States from isthmian affairs. At the end of the war American interest revived, and public opinion set more and more against the idea of sharing a canal with any other Power. In 1869 President Grant gave the first public expression to the demand for an American canal under American control. "I regard it," he said, "as of vast political importance to this country that no European government should hold such a work." Later, in an article in the _North American Review_, he said, "I commend an American canal, on American soil, to the American people." Just before the President's declaration of policy the United States had concluded an important treaty, known as the "Dickinson-Ayon Treaty," with Nicaragua, securing a right of way for a canal over the Nicaraguan route; and, just afterwards, President Grant appointed an Interoceanic Canal Commission which investigated four routes for a canal, and finally, in 1875, reported unanimously in favour of the Nicaraguan route from Grey town to the San Juan River, to Lake Nicaragua, through the Rio del Medio and Rio Grande valleys, to Brito on the Pacific coast. In 1869 an event occurred which was to have a very decisive effect on isthmian affairs--the opening for traffic of the Suez Canal. These two isthmuses in the eastern and western hemispheres have some obvious features in common. They both link two vast continents and form a barrier between two oceans or oceanic systems. They are fairly equal in breadth--Suez, sixty miles, and Panama about fifty-four. The shortest line across each runs almost exactly north and south. And they were both until recent times uninhabited country. But there are many dissimilarities. The isthmus at Suez is a flat and sterile desert; that at Panama is hilly and covered with an almost impenetrable jungle of tropical vegetation. Again, Suez is a healthy district, whereas Panama was, until recent years, a pest-house as deadly as Sierra Leone or the Guinea coast. Mr. Bryce in his charming book on "South America" compares these two inter-continental causeways from a more historical point of view. He writes:-- A still more remarkable contrast, between these two necks of land, lies in the part they have respectively played in human affairs. The isthmus of Panama in far-off prehistoric days has been the highway along which those wandering tribes whose forefathers had passed in their canoes from North-eastern Asia along the Aleutian Isles into Alaska found their way, after many centuries, into the vast spaces of South America. But its place in the annals of mankind, during the four centuries that have elapsed since Balboa gazed from a mountain top rising out of the forest upon the far-off waters of the South Sea, has been small indeed compared to that which the isthmus of Suez has held from the beginning of history. It echoed to the tread of the armies of Thothmes and Rameses marching forth on their invasions of Western Asia. Along the edge of it Israel fled forth before the hosts of Pharaoh. First the Assyrian and afterwards the Persian hosts poured across it to conquer Egypt; and over its sands Bonaparte led his regiments to Palestine in that bold adventure which was stopped at St. Jean d'Acre. It has been one of the great highways for armies for forty centuries, as the canal cut through it is now one of the great highways for commerce. The turn of the isthmus of Panama is now come, and, curiously enough, it is the isthmus of Suez that brought that turn, for it was the digging of a ship canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, and the vast expansion of Eastern trade which followed, that led to the revival of the old designs, mooted as far back as Philip II. of Spain, of piercing the American isthmus. Thus the comparison of the two isthmuses becomes now more interesting than ever, for our generation will watch to see whether the commerce and politics of the Western World will be affected by this new route which is now being opened, as those of the Old World have been affected by the achievement of Ferdinand de Lesseps. It will be seen from this quotation how the completion of the Suez Canal affected the Panama project. Lesseps, fresh from his success at Suez and not contented with his great achievement there, was easily attracted by the schemes which were afoot for constructing a ship canal at another land-barrier which, like the isthmus at Suez, had obstructed the quickest lines of communication between East and West. In 1876 a corporation was established, called "La Société Civile Internationale du Canal Interocéanique," for the purpose of promoting canal schemes on the lower isthmus. Its head was Lieutenant Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse, who easily obtained a canal concession at Bogotá from the Colombian government. In 1879 an International Engineering Congress was assembled at Paris by Lesseps, whose partisans compelled a decision in favour of the Panama route. But the United States, determined by this time to construct a canal for themselves without any joint control or international guarantee of neutrality, opposed the French scheme from the outset. No amount of bluff from the French promoters affected this opposition. The American people had indeed some right to complain. The Colombian concession to the French was quite inconsistent with the treaty of 1846 between this South American republic and the United States. This treaty Lesseps tried to induce Colombia to abrogate, and every effort, fair and foul, was employed to overcome the American objection to the scheme. In 1880 Lesseps was fêted at a public banquet at New York, but even the personal presence of the great man failed to have the desired effect. President Hayes addressed a strong message to the Senate on the subject, a few passages of which are interesting as showing the very decided views now held by the American government and people:-- An interoceanic canal across the American isthmus will essentially change the geographical relations between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, and between the United States and the rest of the world. It will be the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and our Pacific shores, and virtually a part of the coastline of the United States. Our mere commercial interest in it is larger than that of all other countries, while its relation to our power and prosperity as a nation, to our means of defence, our unity, peace, and safety, are matters of paramount concern to the people of the United States. No other great Power would, under similar circumstances, fail to assert a rightful control over a work so closely and vitally affecting its interests and welfare. Without urging further the grounds of my opinion, I repeat, in conclusion, that it is the right and the duty of the United States to assert and maintain such supervision and authority over any interoceanic canal across the isthmus that connects North and South America as will protect our national interests. This, I am quite sure, will be found not only compatible with, but promotive of, the widest and most permanent advantage to commerce and civilization. The reader will see that all this is inconsistent with the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, under which the United States had actually undertaken to claim no such exclusive control as was now desired. Lengthy negotiations were now set on foot with England for the abrogation of a treaty which forbade the United States to build a canal of their own and prevented them from effectually opposing the French scheme. Lord Granville, however, saw no reason why England should abandon the treaty solely in the interests of the United States, and the negotiations were fruitless. Meantime the French persisted in their undertaking. Their canal was to be tide-level, twenty-eight feet deep, costing £26,400,000. A corporation entitled the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique de Panama was formed in 1881, and in the same year the work of construction was begun. So it looked as though the Americans were to lose all chance of constructing an isthmian canal under their own control. Events, however, were to decide otherwise. CHAPTER IV. THE FRENCH FAILURE. The French company began work on the isthmus in February, and such a rake's progress set in as the world has seldom seen. The name of Ferdinand de Lesseps inspired such confidence that plenty of money was forthcoming from the French people. A great deal of it was subscribed by small investors who could ill afford to lose their savings, and no fewer than 16,000 women took shares in their own names. The beginning of the excavations was celebrated with a "gala" performance in the little theatre at Panama, among the artistes being Sarah Bernhardt. Then began a drama or a melodrama of extravagance and profligacy lasting seven years. Money was poured out like the torrential flood-waters down the river Chagres. I have mentioned the exorbitant sum which the company paid for the Panama Railway. All the expenditure was on the same scale. Princely salaries were paid to the managers and directors, and elegant mansions erected for their accommodation. Building operations--warehouses, hospitals, hotels, etc.--were carried on "regardless." Mr. W. F. Johnson tells of a man who owned thirty acres of land useful mainly as a breeding-place for mosquitoes, but lying right across the route of the canal. It was worth perhaps 300 dollars. The man demanded just a thousand times that sum; the Colombian courts awarded it, and the French paid it. For one great mistake the French made was that they failed to secure a canal zone in which they would have exercised full powers of administration. They began to build their canal on Colombian territory, under Colombian control, and the consequence was that they were fleeced on every side. Probably this mistake was inevitable, as the United States would have vetoed any territorial concession by Colombia to France as a transgression of the Monroe doctrine. The isthmus rapidly degenerated into a moral as well as a climatic pest-house. Froude described the condition of things at Panama in one terrible sentence: "In all the world there is perhaps not now concentrated in any single spot so much swindling and villainy, so much foul disease, such a hideous dung-heap of moral and physical abomination." In fairness, however, it must be said that Lesseps himself cannot be held directly responsible for this state of affairs. He lived in Paris, and had probably little notion of what was happening at Panama. He furnished an example of the proverbial effects of too much success and prosperity. He seems to have become a superstitious believer in his own star, and to have thought that nothing could fail with which he was associated. Still less can the French nation be blamed for the wild doings of their representatives at the isthmus. And there is at least one redeeming feature in the conduct of this enterprise. In the midst of the moral and physical abominations that infested the isthmus during the French occupation, the engineering work went on steadily and conscientiously. Much of the French work was available for the Americans when they took over the task, and the engineers of the United States have always testified generously to the excellence of the French excavation and construction along the Canal route. It must be carefully noted that the French canal was to be sea-level like the Suez, Corinth, and Kiel Canals. The construction of such a waterway differed in many important ways from that of the high-level lock canal which the United States have completed. To understand this we must consider briefly the character of the country which lies between Panama and Colon. The dominant and decisive features of the isthmus at this point are the Chagres River and the Culebra Mountains. The Chagres enters the Caribbean a little west of Colon. Its valley runs right across the isthmus south-south-eastwardly towards Panama for about twenty-six miles, then, at a place called Bas Opisbo, suddenly swerves away to the north-east into the trackless and jungle-clad hill country. This valley is the only transverse trench which the isthmus affords at this stretch, and it has always fixed the attention of surveyors looking out for a canal site. If the isthmus had been a rainless desert like that of Suez, a canal could have been constructed by a further preparation of this river valley and some heavy excavations along the nine-mile reach from Obispo to the Pacific. The sea would then have been admitted, the ebb and flow of the Pacific (the Atlantic shore is almost tideless) being regulated by a tidal lock. But the problem is not nearly so simple. The isthmus is one of the rainiest places in the world, enjoying on the Atlantic side 140 inches of rain a year. At Panama the rate is much smaller, not more than 60 inches. In the central hills the rainfall averages 90 to 95 inches. The average number of rainy days in the year is 246 at Bohio (inland on the Atlantic side), 196 at Colon, and 141 at Panama. The reader must not imagine a perpetual downpour or drizzle. The rain comes down in thundering tropical cataracts, leaving spaces of fine weather between the storms. Still, the isthmus is undoubtedly rainy and damp, and it is this humidity which makes the climate so trying, though the variations of the thermometer are by no means extreme and the average air temperature not particularly high. For example, the average temperature at Panama ranges from 81.6 Fahrenheit in November to 86.1 in March--that is, during the hottest time of the day, from two to four o'clock p.m. The coolest time is from six to seven a.m., when the average temperature ranges between 74.0 in January to 76.6 in June. The yearly average daily temperature is 79.6. The thermometer seems never to have recorded 100 degrees Fahrenheit at Panama, whereas 104 has been touched even at Washington. But to return to the Chagres River. The tropical rains convert this stream very quickly into a raging torrent. The Chagres is capable of rising over forty feet in twenty-four hours. If the Chagres valley was to be the site of the canal, as was obviously necessary, how did the French propose to "care for" this tremendous and capricious flow of water? Mr. Johnson remarks that "those who have seen the antics of the Chagres under the stress of a characteristic isthmian rain must be pardoned if they regard the harnessing of the Chagres to the canal as something much like the harnessing of a mad elephant to a family carriage." The only course open to the French with their sea-level project was to divert the Chagres with its twenty-six tributaries, chief of which are the Gatun and the Trinidad, from its old valley into another channel, along which it could rage as it pleased on its short journey to the Caribbean. This would have been a tremendous, though probably not an impossible, task. The New Panama Company, which took the French work from the Lesseps Company in 1893, dropped the tide-level in favour of a lock or high-level canal, and adopted the plan of a dam across the river valley at Bohio, creating a lake above this point and discharging the flood waters to the level below by means of a spillway in the adjacent hills. We shall see later how the Americans adopted the same principle but modified it in practice. So much at present for the Chagres problem. The other main feature of the isthmus is met with about the point where the river suddenly changes its direction--that is at Bas Obispo, or Gamboa, about nine miles from the Pacific outlet. Here are the hills, the backbone or "continental divide," averaging over 300 feet high but rising to much higher points, which connects the Cordilleras of South with the Sierras of North America. For eight or nine miles the canal must run through this central barrier on its way to the Pacific. The earliest French notion was for a ship tunnel--a project perhaps never seriously contemplated. The only other course was to cut right down through this hilly country. That was a tremendous undertaking, which required, even for its inception, a good deal of the faith which is said to be able to "remove mountains." We shall look more closely at the famous "Culebra Cut" when we come to the American canal. Most of the work of the French companies consisted of the dredging of the sea-level channels at the Atlantic and Pacific ends. But they drove a pretty deep furrow as well through the Culebra Mountains, excavating in all about 22,600,000 cubic yards. With their sea-level scheme the French had, of course, a bigger proposition before them at the hills than their American successors. They would have had to cut right down below sea-level, whereas the bottom of the cut in the American lock-canal is forty feet above that level. Considering the difficulty the United States engineers have had with "slides" and "breaks" along the sides of their cutting, one suspects that the much deeper and narrower channel of the French would have proved impracticable. The French scheme gave a width to the channel at this point of only 74 feet, while the bottom width of the American canal is 300 feet. The French work at the "Cut" was all utilizable by the Americans, who, though with different machinery, adopted the same general method of excavation. In 1888 the French company suspended payments and went into bankruptcy. The canal was completed to the extent of about two-fifths, and had already cost nearly £80,000,000. It was said at the time that about one-third of this sum was spent on the canal, one-third wasted, and one-third stolen. The original capital with the eight subscription lists between 1882 and 1888 produced nominally £78,701,020, but actually only £40,309,348, the loss in discounts, etc., amounting to £38,391,672. The collapse of the company was followed by investigations and trials in France. Ten senators and deputies, together with the directors, were brought to trial. Ferdinand and his son Charles de Lesseps were, among others, condemned to fines and imprisonment, but the sentences upon the Lesseps were never carried out. Neither the son nor the father was probably responsible for the iniquities which had marked the history of the company. The genius who had created the Suez Canal was indeed completely broken down by the tragical conclusion of his second venture, and died in 1894 in a condition of mental and physical collapse. But financial profligacy was not the only cause of the French failure. Disease and death fought against the enterprise from the first. Yellow fever and malaria caused as much mortality among the French employees as would suffice for a great military campaign. Sir Ronald Ross, the great expert in tropical diseases, was told in 1904, when at the isthmus, that the French attempt cost at least 50,000 lives. This may have been an over-estimate, but there is no doubt that the mortality was terrible, and would probably have brought the French operations to an end even if greater economy and honesty had prevailed in the administration. It must not be supposed that the French made no provision for the victims of these endemic diseases. Excellent hospitals were built at Ancon, near Panama, at a cost of over a million of money; while those at Colon cost more than a quarter of a million--in both cases about three times a fair and honest price. At the time of the French occupation of the isthmus nothing was known of the real nature and cause of yellow fever and malaria, of the manner in which they are transmitted, and the only effective means of prevention. All the recent and marvellous advance in scientific knowledge of these diseases was available when the Americans began their work, and was applied with the greatest efficiency and success. Medical science, quite as much as engineering skill, made a Panama canal possible, and we shall have a good deal more to say on this subject when we come to describe the American operations. Let us not forget, then, that despite their failure the French did a great deal of good work, which they passed on many years afterwards to their American successors. A quantity of the French machinery, tools, and hardware was also available. It is true that among this was included a large consignment of snow-shovels (for use at sea-level less than 10 degrees from the Equator!), and a quantity of petroleum torches for the festivities which were one day to celebrate the completion of the canal. But a great deal of the plant was in good condition. The extravagance and corruption which prevailed at the isthmus during the first French company were almost incredible. But it may be doubted whether any other nation could have succeeded in the 'eighties of last century where the French failed. CHAPTER V. THE HAY-PAUNCEFOTE TREATY. In 1893 a new corporation, known as the New Panama Canal Company, took over all the assets of the De Lesseps Company, including the railway, and the work of construction was continued, or at least not wholly interrupted. Meanwhile the people of the United States were not greatly displeased at the collapse of the great French enterprise. They became more and more determined to construct an American canal under American control. The Nicaraguan route was still favoured by many as compared with that at Panama. In 1887 a surveying party was sent to Nicaragua, and the next year the Maritime Canal Company was established to promote the building of a canal there. It is important to notice this particular scheme, for under it work was actually begun. Wharves, warehouses, and a breakwater were constructed at Greytown, a railway was built, and some progress made with the canal itself. Outside the Panama route this was the only actual work of canal construction performed in Isthmian and Central America. The project failed owing to the great depression of trade which occurred in 1893 and the impossibility of getting more capital. It should be noticed that these projects of constructing an American canal at Nicaragua quite independently of Great Britain were right in the teeth of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, which still remained in force. Most sensible persons saw that the first preliminary to an American canal was to get this treaty abrogated or modified. But this purpose and canal schemes in general were delayed by the outbreak in 1898 of the Spanish-American War. This was a naval war, and the United States were to feel the inconvenience and danger of having no sea communication between their eastern and western coasts except _via_ the far southern extremity of the continent. United fleet action over the whole theatre of the war was rendered impossible. An event soon occurred which finally completed the conviction of the American people that, in the words of President Grant, "an American canal on American soil" was a national necessity. At the beginning of the war the battleship _Oregon_, one of the finest ships in the United States navy, lay off San Francisco. She was not wanted there, but she was very badly wanted at the West Indies, the main scene of the naval struggle. To get there the _Oregon_ had to sail 13,400 miles round Cape Horn instead of 4,600 miles _via_ a Panama canal, if there had been one. Everybody in the United States knew that the precious warship was making that perilous journey exposed all the way to the attack of the enemy. If she had been lost, the course of the war might have been very different, and even the delay of this long passage was a serious consideration at so critical a time. However, the vessel arrived safely and in a record time off Florida, and the suspense and anxiety of the American people were changed into jubilation. But "never again" was the moral they drew from this painful and exciting experience. At the end of the war a fresh canal campaign broke out in Congress, the claims of Nicaragua and Panama being urged by their respective champions. The outcome of this rivalry was the appointment of a commission, the third of the kind, to go to the isthmus and investigate both Nicaragua and Panama. We shall have something to say about the report of this commission, which was issued in December 1900. But already, before that appeared, negotiations had been set on foot between the United States and Great Britain with regard to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. Allusions to the subject by Mr. M'Kinley in his second message to Congress had brought the question prominently before the people of both countries. The president had spoken thus:-- That the construction of such a maritime highway is now more than ever indispensable to that intimate and ready communication between our eastern and western seaboards demanded by the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands and the prospective expansion of our influence and commerce in the Pacific, and that our national policy now more imperatively than ever calls for its control by this government, are propositions which I doubt not the Congress will duly appreciate and wisely act upon. It is obvious that the annexation by the United States of Hawaii and the Philippines, the beginnings of an American oversea empire, had greatly strengthened the case for a canal owned and controlled by the United States, and bringing the eastern coasts, the governmental centre of the States, into far more direct communication with these new acquisitions in the west. Mr. M'Kinley's pronouncement was soon followed by conversations between Mr. John Hay, the American Secretary of State, and Lord Pauncefote, British Ambassador at Washington. The result was a treaty which was laid before the Senate in February 1900. This first attempt, however, was unsuccessful. The American people were annoyed to find that it did not abrogate the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, but left the United States with something very short of that independent control which they desired. Amendments were introduced, and, so altered, the treaty was ratified by the Senate on December 20, 1900. But in this new shape it proved unacceptable to the British government, and it was permitted to lapse; Lord Lansdowne, however, suggesting that another attempt at agreement should be made. It may be asked why Great Britain, who had hitherto taken the view that it had nothing to gain, and perhaps much to lose, from the reconsideration of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, should now have been so willing to bring it under review. There was a variety of reasons. The government of the United States had protested for nearly fifty years against the agreement, and this pertinacity, together with the changed conditions since the Spanish-American War, may have weighed with the British government. Then the Alaskan boundary question was at that time still under discussion between the two countries, and a settlement was proving difficult. An obstinate resistance to the United States over the canal question might have continued that deadlock indefinitely. At this time, too, England was at the beginning of the Boer War, and finding that business a good deal more intricate than she had expected. The sentiment of Anglo-American friendship had also grown much warmer since the days when Lord Granville had repulsed the advances of Mr. Blaine. In November 1901 a new treaty made its appearance. This was ratified by the Senate without amendment, and was ultimately concluded between the two Powers, being known as the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.[3] It is very important to note the provisions of this treaty, because it establishes what is known as the political "status" of the new canal. The Hay-Pauncefote expressly supersedes the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and provides for the construction of a canal (mentioning no particular route) "under the auspices of the government of the United States," which country is "to have and enjoy all the rights incident to such construction, as well as the exclusive right of providing for the regulation and management of the canal." It adopts the principles of "neutralization" which were embodied in the Treaty of Constantinople of 1888 in connection with the Suez Canal. Both treaties provide for:-- 1. Freedom of transit in time of peace or war for the vessels of all nations. 2. Freedom of the canal and its terminals from blockade. 3. A code of procedure for war-vessels entering or leaving the canal. No special reference is made to the question of fortification, but the United States are to be at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder. A treaty, however, subsequently concluded between the United States and the Republic of Panama (known as the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty) contains the following provision:-- If it should become necessary at any time to employ armed forces for the safety and protection of the canal, or of the ships that make use of the same, or the railways and auxiliary works, the United States shall have the right, at all times and in its discretion, to use its police and its land and naval forces or to establish fortifications for these purposes. But the most important provision of all related to the question of the charges and other conditions of traffic through the canal. The meaning of the section seems plain enough, though it became a subject of rather acute controversy:-- The canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and war of all nations observing these rules, on terms of entire equality; so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions and charges of traffic, or otherwise. Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable. This provision is reaffirmed in Article XVIII. of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty. There is no doubt that the British government regarded this promise of equal treatment as some compensation for the surrender of those rights of joint construction and control which Great Britain enjoyed under the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. In fact, Mr. Hay, in a memorandum he sent to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, described the treaty as a sort of contract between Great Britain and the United States by which the former gave up those rights just mentioned in return for the "rules and principles" included in the new treaty, the chief among these being, of course, the provision about equality of treatment for all nations. It was, therefore, a surprise when the United States government decided that the expression "all nations" did not include the United States themselves, and that it was quite open to them to give preferential treatment to their "coastwise" traffic. Under the term "coastwise" the United States include the sea-traffic not only between ports along a continuous coast, but between such points as San Francisco or Washington and the Philippine Islands. As a matter of fact, an amendment proposed by Mr. Burd in the Senate, reserving to the United States the right of favouring its "coastwise" traffic, had been defeated, when the new treaty was under discussion. But, leaving these controversial questions, the most important thing for us to notice is that the Panama Canal has what is known as an "international status." It is not quite the sole and absolute property of the United States in the sense in which the Kiel Canal belongs to Germany, the Corinth Canal to Greece, and the Amsterdam or North Sea Canal to the Netherlands. Its status is governed by treaties which impose certain obligations and restrictions upon the United States and lay down certain rules of administration. It was intended at first to make the status of the Panama and the Suez Canal identical. But there are considerable differences. The "neutrality" of the Suez Canal is guaranteed by all the Powers of Europe, that of the Panama Canal by two only, England and the United States, and it is safeguarded and maintained by the United States alone. Then the Suez Canal is and must remain unfortified, while the Panama Canal will be strongly fortified by the United States. The reader may wonder what precisely is meant by the word "neutral" as applied to the new waterway. The position will be as nearly as possible that indicated by Dr. Vaughan Cornish in the following passage:-- If there be a war in which the United States is not a party, the canal will be used by belligerents in exactly the same way as was the Suez Canal--for example, in the Russo-Japanese War--and the government of the United States has pledged itself to see that such neutrality is preserved. But if there be a war in which the United States is a party, the circumstances of fortification and operation by the United States in fact render it impossible for the other belligerent to use the canal, and are intended to have that effect. This being so, the United States is preparing to defend the canal from attack. Thus it is important to the proper understanding of the undertaking on which the United States government has embarked that we should clearly realize that the canal is only neutral in a restricted sense.[4] As a matter of fact the status of the Panama Canal lies somewhere between neutralization and American control. The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty also lays down the rules which are to be observed by the ships of war of a belligerent using the canal and the waters adjacent to the canal--that is, within three marine miles of either end. They are similar to those in force at Suez, and need not be repeated here. FOOTNOTES: [3] Appendix i. [4] "The Panama Canal and its Makers," pp. 42, 43. CHAPTER VI. THE UNITED STATES AND COLOMBIA. Those citizens of the United States who thought that with the disappearance of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty all the difficulties in the way of obtaining a canal of their own had also disappeared were doomed to a severe disappointment. They had not reckoned with a South American republic on the verge of bankruptcy and suddenly presented with a glorious opportunity to fill its empty treasury. Two preliminaries were necessary before the United States could settle down at the isthmus of Panama to the work of canal construction. They had to purchase the concession, the unfinished works and the other assets of the New Panama Company, at as reasonable a price as they could obtain; and, secondly, it was necessary to conclude a treaty with Colombia, securing to the United States on satisfactory terms the perpetual control of a strip of territory on the isthmus from sea to sea within which the canal could be constructed. The first of these undertakings presented, as it turned out, no great difficulty. The New Panama Company had begun to despair of its own ability to get a canal finished across the isthmus, and to realize that their best course was to transfer the whole business to the United States. This disposition had been greatly strengthened by the Report of the Third Canal Commission, issued in December 1900. Probably the members of the commission were convinced of the advantages of the Panama route and the desirability of continuing the work of the French engineers. But they were shrewd people. They dwelt in their report on the improbability that the New Panama Company would sell its property to the United States, and on the difficulty of getting the Colombian concession transferred. They decided, therefore, that "the most practicable and feasible route for an isthmian canal to be under the control, management, and ownership of the United States is that known as the Nicaraguan route." The commission probably foresaw the effect such a decision was likely to have on the directors and shareholders of the New Panama Company. If an American canal were constructed at Nicaragua, all the property and work of the company at Panama would be thrown on the scrap-heap. The company estimated the value of its property at $109,141,500, a price which the commission, representing the American government, declined to look at. The commission thought $40,000,000 quite enough for the property, and so completely were the Americans master of the situation that that price was agreed upon in January 1902. The commission thereupon issued a supplementary report, which reversed the former decision and recommended the Panama route and the purchase of the French property. Then arose in the Congress of the United States a tremendous conflict between the Nicaraguans and the Panamanians, the champions of the two routes which had so long been in rivalry. The former party insisted that Panama was farther from the United States than Nicaragua, and therefore the journey from the eastern to the western seaboard of the States would be longer. They argued that Panama was unfavourable to sailing vessels on account of the prevailing calms on that coast; that it would be easier to deal with Costa Rica and Nicaragua than with Colombia; and that Nicaragua was "the traditional American route" as compared with the Frenchified Panama. The claims of the old Darien route were also advanced. This was probably done by American railway people who were against any canal, for the Darien route would have involved a rock tunnel five miles long and three hundred feet broad, the attempt to achieve which would probably have ended all canal adventures at the isthmus. From these discussions emerged the celebrated "Spooner Bill," under which the Panama Canal has been constructed. It empowered the American government to secure the rights and property of the Panama Company for not more than $40,000,000; to obtain from Colombia the perpetual control of a strip of land, not less than six miles wide, in which the canal should run; and then to proceed with the work. But if it should prove impossible to come to terms with Colombia and the New Panama Company, then the Nicaraguan project was to be revived. We shall see how, in the sequel, this latter proviso came very near fulfilment. But, as a matter of fact, the Spooner Bill marks the end of the great battle of the routes which had lasted for four centuries. The purchase price of the New Panama Company's property was happily settled, but the purchase was of course conditional on the conclusion of a satisfactory agreement between the United States and Colombia. It was no use for the United States to acquire unfinished canal-works if they were to be prevented from continuing and completing them. The situation was interesting. The Republic of Colombia was extremely "hard up." Its currency was debased, its treasury empty, its debt rapidly increasing through a large annual deficit. The government, if one may so express it, of the Colombian Republic was therefore not likely to overlook the chance of "making a bit" out of the necessities of the bigger and richer republic farther north. The United States wished to get their concession as cheaply as possible; Colombia wished to sell as dearly as possible. This is not infrequently the case with buyers and sellers; but Colombia pushed her haggling a little too far, and in the end very badly overreached herself. The United States began by proposing terms on which they might obtain the desired strip of territory. The conditions were carefully laid down. The territory was to remain under Colombian sovereignty, but to be administered by the United States. Sanitary and police services were to be maintained by both governments jointly. Colombia was to police the zone, with the help of the United States if necessary. But the business terms were chiefly interesting to Colombia. The United States were to pay Colombia a bonus of $7,000,000 in cash, and after fourteen years an annuity of $250,000. These terms, which were not ungenerous, the Colombian minister at Washington declined to accept. A brilliant idea had, indeed, struck the statesmen of the Colombian Republic. They had remembered that the concession to the Panama Company lapsed in October 1904, and that all its property that could not be carried away would revert to the Colombian government. Only defer any agreement with the United States till then, and the $40,000,000 to be paid to the New Panama Canal Company by the United States would drop like a golden nest-egg into the empty exchequer of the Colombian Republic. It was a brilliant idea, but the Colombian method of pursuing it was rather too crude and obvious. In order to meet the Colombian government the United States improved their offer, considerably increasing the bonus and making other changes. An agreement, known as the Hay-Herran Treaty, was actually arranged between the United States and Colombia, the latter represented by her minister at Washington, Dr. Tomas Herran. This treaty, before it became operative, had to be ratified by the Congress of Colombia, and the president of that state took care that a congress should be elected which would do no such thing. Meantime all kinds of influences, secret and open, were at work. The German "colonial party" had become interested in the question, and had conceived the possibility of Germany, rather than the United States, succeeding to the French concession. It is quite certain that the United States would have resisted any such proceeding, if necessary by actual war. There is little doubt, also, that the party in the United States which had supported the Nicaraguan scheme were throwing every obstruction in the way of a satisfactory agreement between the big and the little republic. The reader may guess what was the anxiety of the New Panama Canal Company during all this diplomacy and intrigue. They knew that the completion of the sale of its property to the United States depended on an agreement being concluded between that country and Colombia; and they also knew that unless they sold before October 1904, they would have practically nothing to sell, because the franchise and possessions of the company would be forfeited to the Colombian government at that date. It would be better to sell on the best terms they could obtain to Germany or anybody else before the fatal day arrived. Meantime the United States brought every force of argument and menace to bear on the Colombian government. Secretary Hay sent urgent dispatches to the American minister at Bogotá. He reminded Colombia that the decision to adopt the Panama route was not irrevocable. The Spooner law authorized the American president to await only "a reasonable time" for an agreement with Colombia. Having waited so long, he was able and indeed bound to resume the Nicaraguan project. When the Colombian Congress duly rejected the Hay-Herran Treaty in August 1903, the New Panama Company became very seriously alarmed. Other offers of purchase were renewed, and the situation became critical for the United States. The American counsel for the company, Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, who had done his utmost to promote the agreement, had the utmost difficulty in keeping his clients to their compact with the United States. He made a hurried trip to Paris, where he said something which had the desired effect. There is no reason to believe that Mr. Cromwell took any part in the surprising events which were soon to alter the entire situation. But he had heard the proverbial "little bird," and the tidings he passed on brought the New Panama directors to the desired mood of patience and expectancy. Colombia meanwhile kept on marking time. She suggested that a new treaty should be negotiated between the United States and Colombia, to be ratified by the Colombian Senate some time in 1904. That would have put the clock forward splendidly, but the device was duly understood at Washington. In October a committee of the Colombian Senate reported to the Senate a recommendation that no agreement should be concluded with the United States until the French concession had lapsed. This recommendation was not acted upon by the Colombian Senate, nor yet were any steps taken towards the negotiation of a new treaty. The American government gave a generous interpretation to the "reasonable time" specified in the Spooner Bill, and kept on waiting in the hope that the Colombian Congress would still change its mind and ratify the Hay-Herran Treaty, whose terms, as we have seen, were liberal to the Colombian Republic. But when the congressional session at Bogotá came to an end on October 31, 1903, without any further action over the Hay-Herran Treaty, the Americans concluded that the whole business was over so far as negotiations with Colombia on the Panama question were concerned. Obviously the only course was to turn to the Nicaraguan alternative. And the Colombian government no doubt thought it had won the day by sheer force of astute statesmanship. Then came a coincidence more astonishing than any since the day when Mr. Weller, senior, upset the Eatanswill outvoters (purely by accident) into another canal. The Panama revolution broke out, and the United States suddenly and without further difficulty obtained all they wanted of the isthmus. And Colombia? She lost every stick and stone of the canal which was to have been hers in October 1904, never made a farthing on a Panama deal, got no thanks from Germany or anybody else, and lost a whole province into the bargain. Such were the results of very astute statesmanship at Bogotá. CHAPTER VII. A MINIATURE REVOLUTION. It was not to be expected that Panama, one of the constituent provinces of the United States of Colombia, would be very enthusiastic about all this haggling and intriguing at Bogotá. Panama asked for nothing better than that a rich and powerful country like the United States should continue the French enterprise and carry it through. The canal would run right through the province, and would bring it into the main stream of the world's traffic and commerce. No doubt the central government at Bogotá would skim off as much as possible of this new wealth and prosperity at the isthmus; but even so, Panama would reap a great advantage from the running of this new and much-frequented highway of communication between east and west through its territory. The dealings of the central government with the United States had roused a growing disgust and resentment at the isthmus. The relations between the province of Panama with New Granada and its successor Colombia had been very chequered ever since the revolt of the Spanish colonies in Central and South America in the early years of last century. Panama declared her independence in 1821, and allied herself at once with New Granada. But troubles began forthwith. Again and again the isthmian province seceded from New Granada or Colombia, and was induced to return by promises of more favourable terms of union, these always remaining unfulfilled. In his annual message to Congress in 1903, President Roosevelt enumerated some fifty-three "revolutions, rebellions, insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks" that had occurred at the isthmus in fifty-seven years. Not long before these difficulties between the United States and Colombia, Panama had received a new constitution which was far from satisfactory to the people of the province. There was in truth little to be gained by a continued allegiance to the government at Bogotá. Some idea of the depths to which Colombia had sunk through a long course of bad administration and corruption may be gathered from a passage in the official address of Dr. Marroquin on his becoming vice-president of Colombia in 1898. He said:-- Hatred, envy, and ambition are elements of discord; in the political arena the battle rages fiercely, not so much with the idea of securing the triumph of principles as with that of humbling, and elevating persons and parties; public tranquillity, indispensable to every citizen for the free enjoyment of what he possesses either by luck or as the fruit of his labour, is gradually getting unknown; we live in a sickly atmosphere; crisis is our normal state; commerce and all other industries are in urgent need of perfect calmness for their development and progress; poverty invades every home. The notion of mother country is mistaken or obliterated, owing to our political disturbances. The conception of mother country is so intimately associated with that of political disorders, and with the afflictions and distrust which they engender, that it is not unusual to hear from one of our countrymen what could not be heard from a native of any other country: "I wish I had been born somewhere else." Could many be found among us who would feel proud when exclaiming, "I am a Colombian," in the same way as a Frenchman does when exclaiming, "I am a Frenchman"? This was a cheerful pronouncement for a people to hear from the lips of a man who was just assuming high office in their midst. It suggests some further reasons why the Panamanians should have so readily asserted their independence once more when the negotiations between Colombia and the United States fell through. Long before that happened, before the Colombian Congress which was to deal with the Hay-Herran Treaty had assembled, a much-respected citizen of Panama, Dr. Manuel Amador (Guerrero), had written to the Colombian president warning him that serious consequences would follow at Panama if that treaty were not ratified. For answer the central government foisted on Panama a candidate for Congress who was well known as an enemy of the United States and of the isthmian canal scheme. Representations to the government at Bogotá were useless, and Panama saw the prospect of a canal being constructed through her territory fading into distance. Then it was that an eminent Panamanian, José Agustin Arango, a senator at the Colombian Congress of 1903, who had vainly urged the ratification of the Hay-Herran Treaty, conceived the idea that Panama might declare her independence and then make her own treaty with the United States regarding a trans-isthmian canal. It soon turned out that the same idea had struck many others, and a junta of zealous conspirators was quickly formed. Señor Arango chanced to meet Dr. Amador one day at the offices of the Panama Railroad, and unfolded his revolutionary design to that gentleman. The doctor proved highly sympathetic. There was indeed no difficulty in finding adherents. Señor Arango, Dr. Amador, and C. C. Arosemena undertook the conduct of the movement, and among the other leaders were Señor Arango's sons and sons-in-law, Nicanor A. de Obarrio, Federico Boyd, Tomas and Ricardo Arias, and Manuel Espinosa. A very important person, General Esteban Huertas, commander of the troops in Panama, was easily enrolled, as were also alcaldes, chiefs of police, and other important officials. The first thing to do was to sound official opinion in Washington as to what treatment the revolted province might expect from the American government. Moreover, revolutions cost money, and supplies must be obtained from somewhere. So Dr. Amador and Ricardo Arias were deputed to go to the United States. There they called on Mr. Cromwell, the counsel of the New Panama Company, who gave them very little encouragement. Moreover, they were carefully "shadowed" by Colombian agents, so that they were able to cable to their expectant friends at the isthmus only the single depressing word, "desanimado" (disappointed). Then Dr. Amador called at the office of a Panamanian friend and sympathizer, Joshua Lindo, and asked for counsel in his difficulties. Mr. Lindo at once suggested that the likeliest person to help was Mr. Bunau-Varilla, who had been chief engineer under the French Canal Company. It is interesting to know that this gentleman had been a fellow-student of Alfred Dreyfus, and had given effective help in the campaign which ended in that officer's liberation from the island prison not so very far from the isthmus of Panama. Unfortunately, said Mr. Lindo, Mr. Bunau-Varilla was in Paris; but even as the friends deplored his absence the telephone rang, Mr. Lindo answered the call, and lo! Mr. Bunau-Varilla announced his return to New York. Such a coincidence might well seem providential, for Mr. Varilla proved a friend in need and in deed. He promised the necessary funds as well as other practical help, and asked for only one return--that he might be appointed minister of the reconstituted Panama to the United States for just so long a time as was necessary for the arrangement of the new treaty between the two countries for the construction of the isthmian canal. It is not surprising, therefore, that the next telegram sent home by the revolutionary agents was more cheerful. It consisted of the single word "esperanzas" (hopes). Dr. Amador now made some efforts to ascertain the sentiment and intentions of the United States government. He called on Mr. Hay, the Secretary of State, at the state department. Now it is obvious that when a gentleman calls at a foreign office and announces himself as a conspirator against a government with which that office has friendly relations, the visitor cannot expect much practical help and sympathy. But the authorities at Washington, whose nerves were raw from the prolonged struggle with Colombia, would scarcely have been human if they had not felt a secret joy at a movement which promised such an ample retribution on Colombia and so easy a settlement of the Panama problem. Dr. Amador was politely informed that he must pay no more calls at the department. But he had seen and heard enough to assure him that the United States would at least remain neutral, and, if the revolution succeeded, would conclude a canal treaty with the new republic. He felt that there were two very important conditions to be fulfilled. Firstly, the revolution must be effected without bloodshed, for public sympathy in the United States would be alienated by any fighting or violent disturbance. The conspirators were also not without a certain natural solicitude for their own skins. Secondly, there must be a brand-new government ready to take the place of the Colombian administration so soon as this was abolished. The scene now changes to the isthmus. The conspirators were inclined at first to be sceptical about Dr. Amador's report of the probable attitude of the United States, but on November 2, 1903, the arrival of the American gunboat _Nashville_ at Colon reassured them. The _Nashville_ had come, as American men-of-war had frequently come in the past to Colon or Panama, not to take sides with any party in a scrimmage, but calmly and impartially to maintain order and keep transit open at the isthmus, in accordance with treaty obligations. The orders to the _Nashville_, as subsequently to the _Boston_ and the _Dixie_, were these:-- Maintain free and uninterrupted transit. If interruption threatened by armed force, occupy line of railroad. Prevent landing of any armed force with hostile intent, either government or insurgent, either at Colon, Porto Bello, or other point.[5] A similar order was sent to Rear-Admiral Glass at Acapulco, who was to proceed to Panama with the same object. But the coming _coup d'état_ was known at Bogotá as well as at Washington. The date fixed for the outbreak was November 4. General Huertas was to be ready with his troops, and the signal to be given by the blowing of bugles by the firemen. But the Colombian government at last decided to act, and on November 3 the steamer _Carthagena_ arrived at Colon, having on board General Tovar with a force of about four hundred and fifty men. The commander with three other resplendent warriors, Generals Castro, Alban, and Amaya, at once took train for Panama; while their troops, many of whom had brought their wives, camped out in the streets of Colon. These events were duly telephoned to Panama. The news reached Dr. Amador and his friends at ten o'clock, just an hour before the arrival of the Colombian officers. It was "a crowded hour of glorious life" for the conspirators, some of whom found the excitement too much for their nerves, disappeared from the scene, and gave up the conspiracy business altogether. But the leaders were of better mettle, and while the trans-isthmian train was rapidly bringing the representatives of the established government to Panama a good many plans were discussed. The desperate nature of the occasion may be gathered from the fact that one of the proposals was to drug the Colombian officers, and when thus disabled convey them to durance vile. In great perplexity Dr. Amador sought General Huertas; but he had put on his dress uniform and gone to the station to meet his superiors. So matters were to be allowed to take their own course. At eleven o'clock a gush of glittering uniforms, fifteen in all, counting the generals and the staffs, descended upon the Panama platform. One might almost have expected them to advance to the footlights and announce their arrival and intentions in a four-part chorus. Here obviously were the properties, the stage scenery, and the artistes, principals and chorus, of a first-rate comic opera. In the harbour lay three Colombian gunboats whose political views were not fully ascertained, though it was thought the commanders had been won over to the revolutionary cause. The new arrivals were welcomed by General Huertas and conducted to headquarters, while the conspirators, no doubt with quickened pulses, awaited subsequent events from a distance. The Colombian officers wished to be conducted forthwith to the fortifications and the sea-wall. Now this was precisely what General Huertas, whose heart beat loyally under his official gold braid to the cause of freedom and independence, wished to avoid, and for two reasons: firstly, it would have been easy for the federal generals to signal to the gunboats in the harbour and thus get command of the entire situation; secondly, on that same sea-wall there were some modern quick-firing guns, behind which even fifteen men might quickly get the whole city at their mercy. So General Huertas determined that on the whole he would conduct his guests anywhere but to the sea-wall. He suggested that there were better ways of spending the hot hours of the day than in going round fortifications in stiff and sweltering uniforms. After luncheon, followed by a little siesta behind sun-shutters, would be a better time for the business of inspection. The generals were probably both hot and hungry, and they allowed themselves to be persuaded. But even as they lunched their suspicions seemed to have awakened. Some one, it is said, warned them of the trap into which they had walked. And moreover, why did the Bogotá troops not arrive from Colon? What exactly happened is not recorded, but it is a fact that the generals suddenly insisted on the Panama troops being paraded and themselves being conducted to the fortifications. General Huertas made some excuse for leaving the luncheon room, and outside the door found Dr. Amador, the respectable physician of Panama, now an arch-conspirator, though without the black mantle and stiletto. "The contrast between these two men," writes Mr. Johnson, "was most striking. The one was advanced in years, venerable and stately in aspect, and yet impetuous as youth. The other was only a boy in stature and scarcely more than a boy in years, yet at the time deliberate and dilatory. The latter, however, quickly responded to the zealous initiative of the former. 'Do it,' exhorted Dr. Amador in an impassioned whisper, 'do it now.'" The business was soon over. Huertas ordered out his soldiers, who knew well enough what was going to happen. Then, as the military swells from Bogotá came on the ground, the little general gave the order, the rifles were levelled on the Colombians, and they were walked off to police headquarters and safely locked up. Then Governor Obaldia was also arrested and taken to prison, but this was only a formality. He was an ardent conspirator, but as he represented the central government, it was thought desirable to perform the symbolical act of arresting and deposing him. He was at once released. There was now no going back. The next step was to announce the fact of the revolution to the gunboats, in the harbour, which were still a doubtful factor. Two of them, the _Padilla_ and the _Chucuito_, remained silent; but the third, the _Bogotá_, sent word that if the generals were not released by ten o'clock it would turn its guns on to the city. The generals were, of course, not released, so at ten o'clock the _Bogotá_ launched three shells into the city. One of these killed an unfortunate and innocent Chinese coolie near the barracks, and that was the only casualty that occurred during the whole course of the great Panama revolution. Then the _Bogotá_, that deed of slaughter accomplished, steamed out of the harbour. The next morning the gunboat _Padilla_, which had been considering the situation during the night, suddenly made up its mind, steamed in to a snug anchorage under the fortified sea-wall, and hoisted the flag of free and independent Panama. The _Padilla_ might have been called upon to make good its new allegiance, for a report was spread that the terrible _Bogotá_ was returning to bombard, this time to good purpose. So a letter was drawn up by the consuls of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Ecuador, Guatemala, Salvador, Denmark, Belgium, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Honduras, and Peru, protesting against the bombardment of a defenceless city without due notice to the consular corps as contrary to the rights and practices of civilized nations. What answer the justly enraged commander of the _Bogotá_ would have returned to this rather representative address cannot be known, for the _Bogotá_, no doubt unnerved by the sensation of casting three live shells into a live town, never returned to witness the devastation it had wrought. What in the meantime was occurring at Colon? Why had the 450 Colombian soldiers not flown to the rescue and vengeance of their captured officers? The explanation is simple, though perhaps unexpected--they could not pay their railway fares! After the departure of the generals for Panama on November 3, Colonel Torres, who had been left in charge of the government troops, demanded a "special" to take them across the isthmus. The superintendent of the line intimated that specials were procurable, but that fares must be paid. And the fares of 450 persons ran into money, in fact nearly $2,000 in gold, or quite a little wheelbarrowful of the depreciated Colombian silver. Anywhere but in Panama or Ruretania the plea of state necessity, which in presence of the 450 needed no demonstration, would have procured some concession from the railway authorities. But the railway rules provided for no such emergencies. No fare, no journey--that was the immutable railway law, and Colonel Torres had to lead his men back to their street encampments. It is one of the many remarkable coincidences at this juncture that the telegraphic and telephonic system also broke down, the wires refusing to transmit any messages from Colon to the officers at Panama. At last, on November 4, Colon received the news of the revolution and the impounding of the Colombian officers. Some little impatience then appeared among the Colombian troops. They actually threatened to seize the railway and go across in spite of regulations. Also it was rumoured that Colonel Torres, losing for a moment his self-command, threatened to kill every American citizen in Colon unless his fellow-officers were at once liberated. At any rate, that rumour was duly reported to the commander of the _Nashville_, who, on the strength of it, at once landed fifty bluejackets to preserve the peace of the town. The commander also wrote to the alcalde of Colon and the chief of the police, giving the gist of an official order he had received from Washington. The order pointed out that to allow the passage of Colombian troops from Colon to Panama would excite a conflict between the forces of the two parties, and would thus interrupt the free and open transit of the isthmus which the United States was bound to maintain. The commander had therefore instructed the superintendent of the railways to afford carriage to the troops of neither party. Never was officer so outrageously impeded in the performance of his obvious duty as Colonel Torres. And right in the middle of the situation thus created the _Carthagena_, which had brought the Colombian troops to Colon, sailed demurely home. In a few days there assembled some nine or ten vessels of the United States navy at Colon or Panama. On November 4 it was announced that the United States would permit the landing of no forces hostile to Panama within fifty miles of the city of Panama or anywhere at all on the Caribbean coast. Was not the United States government compelled by treaty obligations to preserve peace, the paying of fares, and "free and uninterrupted transit" at the isthmus? How unreasonable to suggest that the great and grown-up republic was protecting and taking the side of the little baby republic which had just been born at Panama! But the 450 soldiers encamped with their wives in the streets of Colon were becoming an inconvenience, and it was highly desirable to remove this substantial lump of grit from the machinery of revolution. The commander of these troops himself helped to effect that object. He, in fact, offered to take his little army away in return for a satisfactory honorarium. The Panama treasury fortunately contained at that time a sum of $140,000 in debased Colombian coinage, worth about $56,000 in gold. A little of this might well be expended on clearing the country of the Colombian troops. The commander accepted $8,000 in gold, and quickly bundled the loyal troops and their spouses on board the Royal Mail steamship _Orinoco_ for passage homewards. He himself did not propose to return home and report himself. His scheme was to go to Jamaica and spend his suddenly acquired wealth in "that loveliest of the Antilles." Then a cruel thing happened. The 450 got wind of the bargain their commander had made with the Panama government, and by a swift logical process concluded that the $8,000 which had been paid for their departure belonged to themselves as well as to their commander. So they laid hands on the hapless officer and took all the money from him. We may imagine the annoyance of the gentleman who had betrayed his country, dishonoured his name, and then lost the "tip" which had made it all worth while. His subsequent proceedings are nowhere recorded. Just after the Colombian troops had set sail homewards a special train arrived at Colon bringing the captive generals, who had promised to go home without further fuss. They left Colon on November 12, so that they had plenty of time to contemplate the beginnings of the new régime in Panama. All kinds of reports began to arrive about the intentions of the government at Bogotá. A naval expedition was said to be on the way from Buenaventura, but the United States navy had instructions to take care of any experiments of that sort. Then the news came that a land expedition was approaching along the isthmus. That would have implied a real triumph of original exploration. It would have meant clearing a road for troops through impenetrable jungle, through which it is hard to cut the narrowest track by means of the machete or the long Spanish cutlass. The untamed San Blas Indians, who permit no white man to spend a single night in their territory, would have mobilized against the invasion, and so would the wild cats and anacondas and monkeys, who share with the Indians the sovereignty of that tangled wilderness. The revolution was an accomplished fact, and Colombia could do nothing but accept the inevitable and reflect on the disappointment of her golden dreams. The revolutionists had been ready with their constitutional arrangements. The municipal council of Panama had met immediately after the _coup d'état_. It was unanimously voted that Panama should be a free and independent republic, and a provisional ministry was at once appointed. These proceedings were ratified the same afternoon at a mass meeting of the people of Panama held in the cathedral square. A formal manifesto was also issued, constituting a declaration of independence and a justification of the revolt. It opens magniloquently: "The transcendental act that by a spontaneous movement the inhabitants of the isthmus of Panama have just executed is the inevitable consequence of a situation which has become graver daily." It goes on to set forth the grievances of Panama under the Colombian connection and the events which had led to the revolution. It ends in an almost pathetic note:-- At separating from our brothers of Colombia we do it without hatred and without any joy. Just as a son withdraws from his paternal roof, the isthmian people in adopting the lot it has chosen have done it with grief, but in compliance with the supreme and inevitable duty it owes to itself--that of its own preservation and of working for its own welfare. We therefore begin to form a part among the free nations of the world, considering Colombia as a sister nation, with which we shall be whenever circumstances may require it, and for whose prosperity we have the most fervent and sincere wishes.[6] By November 7 the new government had settled down so steadily to its work, and so obviously commanded the adherence of the whole people, that it received formal recognition from the United States in these words:-- As it appears that the people of Panama have, by unanimous movement, dissolved their political connection with the Republic of Colombia and resumed their independence, and as there is no opposition to the provisional government in the state of Panama, I have to inform you that the provisional government will be held responsible for the protection of the persons and property of citizens of the United States, as well as to keep the isthmian transit free, in accordance with the obligations of existing treaties relative to the isthmian territory. We need not dwell upon the desperate efforts made by the Colombian government to retrieve the situation. A respected Colombian, General Reyes, was sent to Washington to offer to revive the old Hay-Herran Treaty, with modifications greatly in the American interest, if the United States would help to restore Colombian sovereignty at the isthmus. But all was in vain. Colombia must lie on the bed she had made, and before the end of the year the new republic had been recognized by all the leading Powers of the world. The new government was true to the undertaking on the strength of which Mr. Bunau-Varilla had given his help and support to the movement. On November 7 he was appointed minister of Panama to the United States, and on November 18 the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty[7] was signed at Washington, which finally placed the United States in a position to begin the work of canal construction at the isthmus. FOOTNOTES: [5] See "Four Centuries of the Panama Canal," p. 188 (W. F. Johnson). [6] For full text of declaration see Appendix ii. [7] Appendix iii. CHAPTER VIII. THE BATTLE OF THE LEVELS. By the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty the United States guaranteed and undertook to maintain the independence of the Republic of Panama. The new republic granted to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a strip ten miles wide and extending three nautical miles into the sea at either terminal, with all lands lying outside of the zone necessary for the construction of the canal, and with the islands in the Bay of Panama. The cities of Panama and Colon were not embraced in the canal zone, but the United States assumed their sanitation and, in case of need, the maintenance of order therein. All railway and canal property rights belonging to Panama and needed for the canal passed to the United States, including any property of the railway and canal companies in the cities of Panama and Colon. The works, property, and personnel of the canal and railways were exempted from taxation in the cities of Colon and Panama as well as in the actual canal zone. Free immigration of the workers and free importation of supplies for the construction and operation of the canal were granted. Provision was made for the use of military force and the building of fortifications by the United States for the protection of the transit. The United States were to pay $10,000,000 down on exchange of ratifications and an annuity of $250,000, beginning nine years from the same date. It will be noticed that the United States enjoyed in the canal zone all the rights, though not the name and title, of sovereignty. The treaty was finally ratified on February 26, 1904, and four days later the first Isthmian Canal Commission, consisting of seven members, was appointed by President Roosevelt to arrange for the conduct of the great enterprise. Careful instructions were given to the commission. The Isthmian Canal Commission were authorized and directed:-- First.--To make all needful rules and regulations for the government of the zone, and for the correct administration of the military, civil, and judicial affairs of its possessions until the close of the fifty-eighth session of Congress. Second.--To establish a civil service for the government of the strip and construction of the canal, appointments to which shall be secured as nearly as practicable by merit system. Third.--To make, or cause to be made, all needful surveys, borings, designs, plans, and specifications of the engineering, hydraulic, and sanitary works required, and to supervise the execution of the same. Fourth.--To make, and cause to be executed after due advertisement, all necessary contracts for any and all kinds of engineering and construction works. Fifth.--To acquire by purchase or through proper and uniform expropriation proceedings, to be prescribed by the commission, any private lands or other real property whose ownership by the United States is essential to the excavation and completion of the canal. Sixth.--To make all needful rules and regulations respecting an economical and correct disbursement and an accounting for all funds that may be appropriated by Congress for the construction of the canal, its auxiliary works, and the government of the canal zone; and to establish a proper and comprehensive system of bookkeeping showing the state of the work, the expenditures by classes, and the amounts still available. Seventh.--To make requisition on the Secretary of War for funds needed from time to time in the proper prosecution of the work, and to designate the disbursing officers authorized to receipt for the same. The work of this commission was not wholly satisfactory, and in April 1905 another was appointed, which was ordered to meet at Panama quarterly, the first commission having conducted its operations from Washington. The first two and a half years of the American occupation were spent mainly in preparing for the great task. One very important question had now to be finally decided. The battle of the routes was over, and now began the battle of the levels. We have seen that the French began with the idea of a tide-level canal. The New Panama Canal Company had changed to the lock or high-level plan, but the French had not advanced in their work to the point when the one or the other scheme must be definitively adopted. The excavation they had carried out was all available for either type of canal. But the Americans had now to come to a decision. A few more words about the main physical features of the isthmus are necessary for the reader to understand the nature of the problem. The two most important factors in the problem, as we have seen, are, firstly, the river Chagres with its tributaries, the Trinidad, Gatun, and twenty others; and, secondly, the range of low hills on the Pacific side through which any canal from Colon to Panama must pass. The river Chagres is a great mountain torrent which enters the Caribbean Sea a little west of Colon. The canal follows its course inland for about 26 miles, when the river valley turns sharply north-east and the canal continues straight on to the Pacific. The Chagres is not a river to be despised. The rainfall on the isthmus is very heavy, especially on the Atlantic side, where 140 inches per annum have been recorded. The isthmian rivers are all liable to quickly-swelling floods, the Chagres at Gamboa having been known to rise 35-½ feet in twenty-four hours. The two different types of canal involve equally different methods of dealing with this formidable stream. It must either be harnessed to the work or firmly and finally shut off from any interference with the canal. De Lesseps, who had chosen the tide-level scheme, proposed to turn the Chagres and other rivers into diversion channels, so that they could get safely to the sea without crossing the line of the canal or having any connection with it. This would have involved a work of excavation and construction scarcely less gigantic than the building of the canal itself. On the other plan, the Chagres and its tributaries would be made the feeders of the upper reaches of the canal. So far from being politely shown off the premises, the question rather was whether they would be able to supply sufficient water all the year round for the needs of the canal. Then this harnessing of the Chagres meant the taming of its waters in a huge artificial lake, in which the impetuous current would be quenched and through which the dredged channel of the waterway would run. The New Panama Company had recommended the construction of a huge dam for this purpose at Bohio towards the Atlantic end of the canal, and this plan had been adopted by the first American Isthmian Commission, which issued its report in 1901. I may add that the Spooner Act, which authorized the construction of a canal, also contemplated a lock or high-level waterway. As we shall see, Bohio was not in the end adopted as the site of the big dam, but Gatun, where it is now constructed, with its concrete spillway carrying away the overflow waters of the lake down the old Chagres channel to the near Atlantic. I need not say that these were two very different ways of "caring for" the Chagres and its affluents. The tide-level canal would also, of course, be supplied with sea-water, while the high-level will be a fresh-water canal. Colonel Goethals, the chief engineer of the canal, anticipates rather a curious result from this latter circumstance. He thinks the bed of the upper reaches of the canal will in course of time be quite paved with the barnacles washed by the fresh-water from the bottoms of the great ocean-going vessels passing through the canal. The second physical feature is the hill country or the "Continental Divide" which the canal enters near the point where the Chagres River crosses its course. Here runs the famous Culebra Cut, the nine-mile-long artificial canyon, the biggest excavation in the world. Now the highest elevation of these hills along the centre line of the canal was 312 feet above sea-level. The bottom of the canal at the cutting is 40 feet, so that the vertical depth of the cut on the centre line is 272 feet. The engineers of the tide-level scheme would have had not only to excavate 85 feet deeper--that is, to 45 feet below sea-level--but to make the cutting immensely wider in order to avoid the danger of disastrous landslides. This would have meant an enormous amount of additional work, as well as expense. Nevertheless, the controversy between the two principles was very warmly and equally sustained. It may be mentioned that Mr. Bunau-Varilla was an especially ardent advocate of the tide-level scheme. In fact, he was not for calling the waterway a canal at all; he would have christened it "the Straits of Panama." However, a decision was necessary, and in 1905 a board of consulting or advisory engineers was appointed, mainly to consider whether the canal should be constructed at high-level or sea-level. Five members were appointed by European governments, and the president was Major-General George W. Davis, formerly of the United States army. The instructions given to this board by President Roosevelt will afford a very clear idea of the problem it had to solve:-- There are two or three considerations which I trust you will steadily keep before your minds in coming to a conclusion as to the proper type of canal. I hope that ultimately it will prove possible to build a sea-level canal. Such a canal would undoubtedly be best in the end, if feasible; and I feel that one of the chief advantages of the Panama route is that ultimately a sea-level canal will be a possibility. But while paying due heed to the ideal perfectibility of the scheme from an engineer's standpoint, remember the need of having a plan which shall provide for the immediate building of a canal on the safest terms and in the shortest possible time. If to build a sea-level canal will but slightly increase the risk, then, of course, it is preferable. But if to adopt the plan of a sea-level canal means to incur a hazard, and to insure indefinite delay, then it is not preferable. If the advantages and disadvantages are closely balanced, I expect you to say so. I desire also to know whether, if you recommend a high-level multi-lock canal, it will be possible, after it is completed, to turn it into or substitute for it, in time, a sea-level canal without interrupting the traffic upon it. Two of the prime considerations to be kept steadily in mind are: First.--The utmost practicable speed of construction. Second.--Practical certainty that the plan proposed will be feasible; that it can be carried out with the minimum risk. The quantity of work and the amount of work should be minimized as far as possible. There may be good reason why the delay incident to the adoption of a plan for an ideal canal should be incurred; but if there is not, then I hope to see the canal constructed on a system which will bring to the nearest possible date in the future the time when it is practicable to take the first ship across the isthmus--that is, which will in the shortest time possible secure a Panama waterway between the oceans of such a character as to guarantee permanent and ample communication for the greatest ships of our navy and for the larger steamers on either the Atlantic or the Pacific. The delay in transit of the vessels owing to additional locks would be of small consequence when compared with shortening the time for the construction of the canal or diminishing the risks in its construction. In short, I desire your best judgment on all the various questions to be considered in choosing among the various plans for a comparatively high-level multi-lock canal; for a lower level, with fewer locks; and for a sea-level canal. Finally, I urge upon you the necessity of as great expedition in coming to a decision as is compatible with thoroughness in considering the conditions. The board went to the isthmus and investigated the subject with great care. In January 1906 they issued three reports. A majority of eight to five pronounced in favour of the sea-level scheme "as the only one giving reasonable assurance of safe and uninterrupted navigation." "Such a canal," it said, "can be constructed in twelve or thirteen years' time; the cost will be less than $250,000,000; it will endure for all time." The minority were just as confidently in favour of a high-level canal. They concluded:-- In view of the unquestioned fact that the lock canal herein advocated will cost about $100,000,000 less than the proposed sea-level canal; believing that it can be built in much less time; that it will afford a better navigation; that it will be adequate for all its uses for a longer time, and can be enlarged, if need should arise, with greater facility and less cost, we recommend the lock canal at elevation 85 for adoption by the United States. The third report was made by the chief engineer, Mr. Stevens, who, quite apart from all considerations of expense, was strongly in favour of the high-level plan. The three reports were considered by the canal commissioners, a majority of whom ultimately agreed with the minority of the advisory board. They admitted that a sea-level canal was ideally the best, but considered that the cost of making such a canal sufficiently wide would be prohibitive. They declared therefore for a lock canal at an elevation of 85 feet above sea-level. They gave their decision thus:-- It appears that the canal proposed by the minority of the board of consulting engineers can be built in half the time and at a little more than half the cost of the canal proposed by the majority of the board, and that when completed it will be a better canal, for the following reasons: 1. It provides greater safety for ships and less danger of interruption to traffic by reason of its wider and deeper channels. 2. It provides quicker passage across the isthmus for large ships or a large traffic. 3. It is in much less danger of damage to itself or of delays to ships from the flood-waters of the Chagres and other streams. 4. Its cost of operation and maintenance, including fixed charges, will be less by some $2,000,000 or more per annum. 5. It can be enlarged hereafter much more easily and cheaply than can a sea-level canal. 6. Its military defence can be effected with as little or perhaps less difficulty than the sea-level canal. 7. It is our opinion that the plan proposed by the minority of the board of consulting engineers is a most satisfactory solution of an isthmian canal, and therefore we recommend that the plan of the minority be adopted. In February 1906 the president referred the question for final decision to Congress. In his message on the subject he spoke thus:-- It must be borne in mind that there is no question of building what has been picturesquely termed "the Straits of Panama"--that is, a waterway through which the largest vessels could go with safety at uninterrupted high speed. Both the sea-level canal and the proposed lock canal would be too narrow and shallow to be called with any truthfulness a strait, or to have any of the properties of a wide, deep water strip. Both of them would be canals, pure and simple. Each type has certain disadvantages and certain advantages. But, in my judgment, the disadvantages are fewer and the advantages very much greater in the case of a lock canal substantially as proposed in the papers forwarded herewith; and a careful study of the reports seems to establish a strong probability that the following are the facts: The sea-level canal would be slightly less exposed to damage in the event of war; the running expenses, apart from the heavy cost of interest on the amount employed to build it, would be less; and for small ships the time of transit would probably be less. On the other hand, the lock canal, at a level of 80 feet or thereabouts, would not cost much more than half as much to build, and could be built in about half the time, while there would be very much less risk connected with building it, and for large ships the transit would be quicker; while, taking into account the interest on the amount saved in building, the actual cost of maintenance would be less. After being built, it would be easier to enlarge the lock canal than the sea-level canal. The law now on our statute books seems to contemplate a lock canal. In my judgment a lock canal as herein recommended is advisable. If the Congress directs that a sea-level canal be constructed, its direction will, of course, be carried out. Otherwise, the canal will be built on substantially the plan for a lock canal outlined in the accompanying papers, such changes being made, of course, as may be found actually necessary. In June 1906 Congress finally decided for a high-level canal, and the controversy was officially closed. But the friends of the sea-level scheme were by no means silenced. Whenever any serious difficulty occurred in the construction of the canal on the lock principle their voices were heard again. In fact, the conflict cannot be said to have ended until 1909, and even then it is not certain that the sea-levellers modified their convictions. CHAPTER IX. MAN AND THE GNAT. Almost at the beginning of their great task the Americans were faced with a problem which involved the success or failure of the whole enterprise. I have said something about the climate and health conditions at the isthmus. It is fairly certain that yellow fever and malaria would have wrecked the French undertaking even if there had been no other obstacles to its success. It is not less probable that if the Americans had been in no better a position to wage war with these plagues, their work at the isthmus would also have been in vain. The French had built excellent hospitals and provided efficiently for the comfort and recovery of those who were stricken with these diseases. But being totally ignorant of the sources and method of transmission of malaria and yellow fever, they could do nothing effectual in the way of prevention and eradication. They could only take the individual victim when they found him and do their best to cure him. They still believed that malaria was produced by climatic conditions, by marshy emanations, mists, and so forth. The fleecy clouds which gather round the isthmian hills in the rainy season were given the very undeserved title of "the white death" by the French workers at the isthmus. Yellow fever, again, was just as mistakenly attributed to the climate, and especially to filthy ways of living. It is not surprising that, with these misconceptions, medical skill should have been almost useless during the French occupation, and that the employees at the isthmus should have died in their thousands. But since the days of the Lesseps company, science had thrown a flood of light on the nature of these tropical scourges and the secret of their transmission. As these medical and scientific pioneers made a Panama Canal possible, though their names are not directly linked with its construction, we may look back for a few moments at their triumphs of discovery. The credit for first discovering that malaria is not due to poisonous emanations or contagion but is carried from people infected with the disease by the _anopheles_ mosquito belongs to Major (now Sir) Ronald Ross, formerly of the Indian Medical Service, who devoted himself to this subject during the last years of the 19th century. By a series of experiments he proved that malaria is due to the presence in the human blood of an organism which is conveyed from person to person by this mosquito, and that the mosquito is harmless unless it has become infected with the germ by biting a person who has caught malaria. The value of this discovery was soon shown by practical applications. Major Ross was engaged by the Suez Canal Company to deal with the malaria which had become firmly established at Ismailia, a little town of 10,000 inhabitants on that canal. No fewer than 2,500 cases had been supplied in one year by this small population. The new methods founded on the new discovery proved so effectual that in three years the disease was stamped out, and there has been no relapse ever since. The same results were achieved at Port Said. Now, if malaria is thus caused by mosquito bite, there was some _à priori_ reason for thinking that yellow fever might be transmitted in the same way. At any rate the insect was again laid under a very grave suspicion. The opportunity for studying this further question was afforded during the Spanish-American war, when a serious outbreak occurred among the troops occupying Havana, in Cuba. The doctors were quite unable to deal with this most terrible of all diseases. Knowing nothing whatever of its cause, their treatment of it could be only experimental and casual. So a board of inquiry was formed consisting of four army surgeons serving in Cuba--Walter Reed, James Carroll, Jesse W. Lazear, and Aristides Agramonte. The experiments were begun in June 1900, and continued into the next year. Of these four, Dr. Agramonte was not liable to the disease, and Dr. Reed was called away on duty to Washington. The other two determined to experiment on their own persons rather than risk the lives of other people. Dr. Carroll first allowed himself to be bitten by the mosquitoes, not the _anopheles_ but another variety known as the _stegomyia_. He fell ill with a bad attack of yellow fever, which very nearly cost him his life. Later, in the yellow fever hospital, Dr. Lazear deliberately allowed a mosquito to feed on his hand. In four days he was down with the disease in so acute a form that he died of it--a true martyr, if ever there was, to the cause of science and the welfare of mankind. These and other experiments proved conclusively that yellow fever, like malaria, is transmitted by mosquito bites, but it was still uncertain how soon after biting an infected person the mosquito becomes itself harmful and how soon a person stricken with malaria is able to infect a healthy mosquito. So further experiments were necessary, and volunteers were invited to offer themselves for this service. Everybody in the army knew what had happened to Doctors Carroll and Lazear, but in spite of this plenty of willing martyrs appeared. The first to present themselves were two young soldiers from Ohio, John R. Kissinger and John J. Moran. Dr. Reed talked the matter over with them, explaining fully the danger and suffering involved, and stating the money consideration offered by General Wood. Both young men declared that they were prepared to undergo the experiment, but only on condition that they should receive no pecuniary reward. When he heard this declaration, Dr. Reed touched his hat with profound respect, saying, "Gentlemen, I salute you!"[8] Kissinger took the disease from the mosquito bites, and recovered. A room was prepared for Moran, a sort of mosquito den into which fifteen gnats, all suffering from yellow fever, had been admitted. Major Reed describes what happened:-- At noon on the same day, five minutes after the mosquitoes had been placed therein, a plucky Ohio boy, Moran by name, clad only in his night-shirt and fresh from a bath, entered the room containing the mosquitoes, where he lay down for a period of thirty minutes. Within two minutes of Moran's entrance he was being bitten about the face and hands by the insects, that had promptly settled down upon him. Seven, in all, bit him at this visit. At 4.30 p.m. the same day, he again entered and remained twenty minutes, during which time five others bit him. The following day, at 4.30 p.m., he again entered and remained fifteen minutes, during which time three insects bit him; making the number fifteen that had fed at these three visits. On Christmas morning, at 11 a.m., this brave lad was stricken with yellow fever, and had a sharp attack, which he bore without a murmur. But still the demonstration was not complete. It was necessary to prove by equally undeniable evidence that yellow fever is not conveyed by contagion with the clothes and persons of infected people. These experiments were even more trying and heroic than those which preceded. A small wooden hut, 14 by 20 feet, was prepared, and into this was stored a large amount of bedding and clothes which had been used and worn by persons suffering from the fever. The building was carefully guarded against the intrusion of mosquitoes, and a temperature of seventy-six degrees, with a sufficient moisture, maintained. For twenty consecutive days Dr. Clarke and his men went into this room, handled, wore, and slept in the contaminated clothing, although the stench was so offensive as to be almost appalling. They emerged from the ordeal in perfect health, proving beyond possibility of dispute that the disease was not contagious, and that the mosquito was the sole method of transmission. When distributing the credit for the new channel of world-traffic through the isthmus of Panama, let us not forget Dr. Lazear who sacrificed his life and the many others who cheerfully risked their lives to establish truths and facts without which the construction and continued operation of the canal would almost certainly have been impossible. One mosquito may look very much like another, but the _stegomyia_ and the _anopheles_ differ in many important respects. The latter finds its most favourable breeding-places in stagnant pools of fresh water, such as are left by the heavy rains of the isthmus. It is essentially a gnat of the country-side. The _stegomyia_, on the other hand, inclines to a more frivolous town life. Cisterns and tanks and other receptacles for storing water are his favourite haunts. In length of life and power of flight the species also differ, though these details are not yet fully ascertained. The _stegomyia_ is said to live three months. Dr. Cornish states that it becomes dangerous only by attacking man during the first three days of yellow fever, and that, even then, twelve days elapse before its bite is infectious. Six days after a man has been bitten by an infected _stegomyia_ he falls ill with yellow fever, and for the next three days he is capable of transmitting it to the healthy mosquito. Mr. Bishop informs us that if there is no fresh case of yellow fever within a period of sixty days after the latest one in an epidemic, it is a safe conclusion that the disease has been stamped out, because there is no mosquito alive to carry the parasite. After a period of ninety days all doubt on the subject is removed.[9] If a community, therefore, which has thus got rid of its last case of yellow fever could be completely isolated, yellow fever could never possibly return. It could only be reintroduced from outside. It should be possible, with a proper system of sanitation and quarantine, to free any district entirely from this awful scourge. The case of the _anopheles_ and his little contribution to human suffering is very different. Whereas the victim of yellow fever either dies or gets better and quickly ceases to be a source of infection to the mosquito, the victim of malaria seldom dies of the disease, but he remains infectious to the _anopheles_ for three years. The disease does not simply attack new-comers or white people. Natives of the isthmus and the West Indies are subject to it, and, indeed, seem to be in a chronically malarious condition. It is said that 50 per cent. of the population of the isthmus were found in 1904-5 to have the parasite of malaria in their systems. It is difficult to estimate or imagine the part played by this widespread malady on conditions of life and civilization within the tropics. Sir Ronald Ross, the greatest living authority on the subject, made some interesting remarks in an address at the Royal Colonial Institute in January of this year. He said:-- Nothing has been more carefully studied of recent years than the existence of malaria amongst indigenous populations. It often affects every one of the children, probably kills a large proportion of the new-born infants, and renders the survivors ill for years; only a partial immunity in adult life relieves them of the incessant sickness. Here in Europe nearly all our children suffer from certain diseases--measles, scarlatina, and so on. But these maladies are short and slight compared with the enduring infection of malaria. When I was studying malaria in Greece in 1906, I was struck with the impossibility of conceiving that the people who are now intensely afflicted with malaria could be like the ancient Greeks who did so much for the world; and I therefore suggested the hypothesis that malaria could only have entered Greece at about the time of the great Persian wars. One can scarcely imagine that the physically fine race and the magnificent athletes figured in Greek sculpture could ever have spent a malarious and splenomegalous childhood. And, conversely, it is difficult to imagine that many of the malarious natives in the tropics will ever rise to any great height of civilization while that disease endures amongst them. I am aware that Africa has produced some magnificent races, such as those of the Zulus and Masai, but I have heard that the countries inhabited by them are not nearly so disease-ridden as many of the larger tracts. At all events, whatever may be the effect of a malarious childhood upon the physique of adult life, its effects on the mental development must certainly be very bad, while the disease always paralyzes the material prosperity of the country where it exists in an intense form. The isthmus of Panama was beautifully adapted to the breeding of the _anopheles_ and the widest dissemination of malaria. In fact, the canal zone taken over by the Americans was perhaps the most malarial strip of territory in the world. The heavy rains leave the country covered with those marshes and pools from which these little ghostly insects are always rising in swarms, ready to carry the germs of disease from the sick to the healthy and thus perpetuate and extend the domain of this distressing malady. The reader will notice that, as the yellow fever victim is only infectious to the mosquito for three days, while the malarial person can convey the poison for three years, it is a much more practical problem to eradicate yellow fever than to stamp out malaria. It is true the causes of malaria are now fully known and the only effective methods of propagation ascertained. If one could isolate all malarial patients, including all who are capable of transmitting the disease, in buildings screened with fine copper-gauze to keep out the mosquitoes and thus gradually diminish the area of infection to vanishing point, it would not be necessary to deal with the breeding-places of the mosquitoes, and man and the gnat might live together in perfect amity. But with fifty and even seventy per cent. of the people malarially infected, such a heroic course is obviously impossible, and one can hope only to diminish to a considerable degree the prevalence of the disease. The first two and a half years of the American occupation of the isthmus was spent in looking round and preparing for the great work. It soon became evident that the most pressing and immediate task was one of cleaning up and sanitation. In July 1904, Colonel W. C. Gorgas, whose name will always be associated with the triumphs won over disease at the isthmus, became the head of the department of sanitation under the Canal Commission. He quickly recognized that everything depended on the efficiency and success of his own department. "The experience of our predecessors," he wrote, "was ample to convince us that unless we could protect our force against yellow fever and malaria we would be unable to accomplish the work."[10] When the Americans took over, yellow fever, though present, was quiescent, but the figures began almost at once to mount up. In December 1904 there were six cases on the isthmus and one death. In January 1905 there were nineteen cases and eight deaths, seven and one respectively among the canal employees. In May there were thirty-three cases, twenty-two on the canal, with seven deaths in all, including three employees. In June there was an alarming advance. Sixty-two cases occurred on the isthmus, thirty-four of them among the employees. There were nineteen deaths, six on the canal. Something like a panic then set in among the Americans engaged on the canal works. Many threw up their positions, and the homeward-bound steamers were filled with employees fleeing from this real "yellow peril." In the annual report of the Commission for 1905 we read:-- A feeling of alarm, almost amounting to panic, spread among the Americans on the isthmus. Many resigned their positions to return to the United States, while those who remained became possessed with a feeling of lethargy or fatalism, resulting from a conviction that no remedy existed for the peril. There was a disposition to partly ignore or openly condemn all preventive measures. The gravity of the crisis was apparent to all. This loss of moral tone was the most dangerous symptom of all. A feeling of "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die" gained possession of the canal workers, and in the indifference of despair many tore down the nettings over the windows of the canal building and began to neglect all the sanitary precautions enjoined on them by the department. Evidently a calamity was in prospect which would have brought to an end, perhaps for ever, American canal ambitions at the isthmus. The restoration of public confidence and sense of responsibility seems to have been due largely to Mr. Charles E. Magoon, governor of the canal zone. He set himself to rebuke and remove the morbid bravado then prevailing. "He began by frankly and publicly declaring that he, personally, was afraid of the fever, and that in his opinion all non-immunes who professed not to be afraid were 'talking rot!' Then he ordered all the window-screens to be repaired and kept in place, and announced that if any man was caught leaving them open or tearing holes in them, something uncommonly unpleasant would happen to him. Now when a man of Judge Magoon's mental and physical stature admits that he is afraid, any lesser man is a fool to say he isn't; and when a man of Judge Magoon's resolution gives an order and prescribes a penalty for its violation, that order is very likely to be obeyed."[11] [Illustration: _Clinedinst--Washington, D.C._ COL. WILLIAM C. GORGAS, Medical Dept., U.S. Army, Head of the Department of Sanitation, Ancon.] Governor Magoon arrived at the isthmus in May 1905, just as the yellow fever epidemic was reaching its climax. From that moment he and Colonel Gorgas, to whom he gave the most complete support, set themselves to fight the fever. The first thing to do was to get all the patients within screened buildings, whether the hospital or their own homes, so that no _stegomyia_ mosquitoes could saunter in and take the poison. Then the towns of Colon and Panama were handed over to a campaign of spring-cleaning such as the world has never witnessed. Then the canal building was thoroughly fumigated with pyrethrum powder or sulphur, and not simply the official building but every single house in the city of Panama was similarly disinfected. Dust and refuse were everywhere burnt. A very efficient system of inspection was adopted, and a rigid quarantine enforced against all foreign places whence the yellow plague could be imported into the zone. But more important than the immediate expedients were the more permanent sanitary improvements carried out in Colon and Panama. These towns were repaired with brick or cement, and provided with what they had never yet enjoyed, a proper system of drainage. Waterworks were also constructed outside the towns, and a supply of pure water made available for every household. Hitherto water had had to be stored during the dry season in tanks and cisterns, in which the _stegomyia_ mosquito revelled exceedingly. These were now no longer necessary, and stagnant water, wherever it collected in the town, was drained away. In order to expedite these splendid reforms, Governor Magoon withdrew the workers from the canal and concentrated all efforts on the sewers and waterworks. So speedily was the work carried forward that the water was turned on for public use from the main in the Cathedral Plaza on July 4. The results of this drastic campaign were soon apparent in the dwindling of the yellow fever returns. In July there were still forty-two cases and thirteen deaths on the isthmus, with twenty-seven cases and ten deaths among the employees. August showed a great improvement, with twenty-seven cases and nine deaths on the isthmus, and twelve cases and only one death on the canal. The improvement continued through September, October, November, and in December only one case was reported on the isthmus and one on the canal. Three months having elapsed since the last case, and, therefore, every _stegomyia_ which could possibly be infected with malaria having departed this life, the epidemic was entirely past and over. As I have pointed out, there cannot possibly be any return of it under these conditions unless the infection is brought from without. And if any new cases are at once isolated and screened from afternoon calls of the mosquito, the outbreak may be easily and infallibly suppressed. We may say, therefore, that the yellow spectre at the isthmus has been shorn of all its terrors. Malaria is, however, a very different proposition. A corresponding crusade has been carried on for six years against the little _anopheles_ gnat, the little criminal who carries the malarial poison. His happy breeding-grounds are in open country marshes and pools, and there is no lack of these in the canal zone. It was impossible to deal with the entire three-quarters of a million acres of that territory, but wherever the canal workers were settled determined war was waged against the mosquitoes. It should be remembered that the _anopheles_ can fly only about a hundred or two hundred yards. The jungle was therefore cleared away for a few hundred yards round each village and settlement, marshes and pools in this area were drained off, and into all the ditches where stagnant water had collected oil was poured, which so effectually turns the mosquito's stomach that it never recovers. Some 1,200 acres of the zone were thus treated, and of course the regulations as to house-screening applied to malaria no less than to yellow fever. The employees were also supplied freely and generously with quinine. The result has been not the eradication of malaria, but the reduction of the cases to about one-third the number at which they stood in 1906. Yet even so, among the 40,000 employees on the canal during the year ending June 30, 1912, there were 7,000 malaria cases in the hospitals, with 32 deaths, 22 of these being white people. The heavy rainfalls at the isthmus will probably prevent the complete sanitation of the country in this respect, for the simple reason that the destruction of the _anopheles_ mosquito or the eradication of the malarial germ can never be complete. There will always be people going about with the malarial organism in their blood, and always _anopheles_ mosquitoes ready to become infected with it and to carry the infection about. But, as we have seen, much can be done by the means described to reduce the ravages of the disease. In 1906, out of a working force of 26,000, there were 21,739 cases of malaria. We have seen how this figure had been brought down in 1912. In 1906 it was almost certain that any white person coming to reside at the isthmus would catch malaria. Now it is quite possible to live there in perfect health, quite free from any malarial infection. It may be useful to mention that the entire death-roll among the employees on the Panama Canal and railway from the American occupation down to June 30, 1912--that is, about eight years--was 5,141, of whom 284 were Americans. Of this total, 4,119 died of disease and 1,022 from violence or accident. During the same period 49 American women and 87 American children died.[12] Sir Ronald Ross, as I have said, was told by the British Consul at Panama in 1904 that the French lost in the nine years of their occupancy some 50,000 lives, principally from malaria and yellow fever. This may be an over-estimate, but there is no doubt that the American figure shows an enormous improvement on the French. It is easy to conclude that what has been done in sanitation at the isthmus of Panama may be done anywhere else in the tropics, where malaria and yellow fever prevail. That may be true, but we must also remember that the work of Panama had behind it all the wealth and resources of a mighty republic of 90,000,000 citizens. The expenditure on these hygienic purposes at the isthmus has been enormous, though not a penny has been wasted. Down to the end of December, 1912, the total outlay of the Department of Sanitation was $15,500,000. Waterworks, sewers, etc., accounted for another $2,500,000, so that we get a grand total expenditure on sanitation of $18,000,000. This will certainly rise to $20,000,000 before the canal is finished, so that for the ten and a half years of its construction there will have been an annual expenditure for all health purposes of $1,900,000. It is not likely that there will be many tropical areas of this kind with so large a sum available for the luxury of scientific sanitation. Again, it must be noticed that the administration had special advantages at the isthmus. It exercised something like military authority. It had absolute powers of deportation, and could enforce its regulations as it pleased. And in considering the statistics it must also be borne in mind that not only the physical but the moral and mental health of the work-people at the isthmus was promoted in every way. We shall look into the life of the Panama construction camps in the next chapter. The social interest and amusement provided for the employee must have counted for something beside the sewering and screening and mosquito-hunting. All the same, the success achieved at Panama is full of hope and promise for tropical life in the future. Colonel Gorgas writes encouragingly:-- I think the sanitarian can now show that any population coming into the tropics can protect itself against these two diseases (malaria and yellow fever) by measures that are both simple and inexpensive; that with these two diseases eliminated life in the tropics for the Anglo-Saxon will be more healthful than in the temperate zones; that gradually, within the next two or three centuries, tropical countries, which offer a much greater return for man's labour than do the temperate zones, will be settled up by the white races, and that again the centres of wealth, civilization, and population will be in the tropics, as they were in the dawn of man's history, rather than in the temperate zone, as at present. Apart from the question of disease, it is far from certain that the white man can ever remain as "fit," as capable of bodily labour, in equatorial regions as in his native temperate conditions, or that his descendants will also maintain the same standard of health and strength. Ordinary non-professional opinion would perhaps discount Colonel Gorgas's forecast as a little too optimistic. FOOTNOTES: [8] "Sanitation of the Isthmus." Mr. J. B. Bishop in _Scribner's Monthly_, February 1913. [9] _Scribner's Monthly_, February 1913, p. 248. [10] _Journal American Medical Association_, July 6, 1907. [11] "Four Centuries of the Panama Canal." [12] See _Scribner's Magazine_, February 1913, p. 251. CHAPTER X. LIFE AT THE ISTHMUS. Before we go on to describe the canal and its method of construction, we must look at the sort of social life and civil administration which has prevailed since the Americans arrived. Construction camps in tropical climes are not usually distinguished for order and good morals. The Americans determined to make an exception at Panama. They had a perfectly free hand and the enjoyment of all sovereign rights at the isthmus, and were able to construct a brand-new little state on the most approved and ideal principles. We have seen what instructions were given by President Roosevelt to the first commission. An entire administrative system had to be established within this little plot 10 miles wide and 50 long. Laws had to be framed and civil government established, with all the needful accessories of judicial courts, police force, fire-brigades, customs and revenue service, post-offices, public works and financial department. The administration carried what is known as "paternalism" to all lengths. That is, it did all the catering and providing itself, and left little or nothing to private companies. Of course, everything had to be imported, for the little territory itself produced nothing. Whole villages and settlements with all the accessories of social life had to be built along the line of works. Over 2,000 structures, including offices, hospitals, hotels, messes, kitchens, shops, storehouses, and living quarters, were constructed, and more than 1,500 buildings taken over from the French, which were made available by necessary repairs. Colonel Goethals gives us a brief insight into the work of the Commissary Department of the Panama Railroad:-- The Commissary Department of the Panama Railroad Company was enlarged until it is now [1911] a great department store, supplying to the employees whatever may be necessary for their comfort and convenience. Manufacturing, cold-storage, and laundry plants were established, and turn out each day about 90 tons of ice, 14,000 loaves of bread, 2,400 rolls, 250 gallons of ice-cream, 1,000 pounds of roasted coffee, and 7,500 pieces of laundry. Four or five refrigerator cars, loaded with meats, vegetables, and such fruits as can be obtained, are sent out on the night freight to distant points, and every morning a supply train of about 16 cars, of which number six to eight are refrigerator cars, leaves Cristobal at 4.30 to distribute foodstuffs and laundry to the local commissaries along the line, where the employees make their purchases, and where the hotels, messes, and kitchens secure their supplies for the day. A graphic and representative picture of one of the construction settlements along the canal was given by the correspondent of _The Times_ at Panama.[13] He chose "Emperador," or "Empire," as the typical village. This is the headquarters of the central division of the construction work, and is situated about halfway along the great Culebra Cut. The correspondent writes:-- According to the census just completed, it contains 7,152 inhabitants, of whom 1,757 are whites, 3,701 negroes, 1,569 mestizos, 101 Chinese, and 24 East Indians. North of the main street is a section called the "native town," apparently because it is inhabited by natives of other countries than Panama, but really because here was situated the native hamlet alongside which the French built their construction camp in 1881. It is occupied by the part of the population not employed by the government, and here are the American saloons, the Spanish _cantinas_ and restaurants, Chinese shops, East Indian fancy-work shops, and negro tailoring and shoemaking places. On the south side of the American settlement are the labour "camps," consisting of barracks and eating-places. All the buildings are of wood, constructed to last not over ten years; and none are large, excepting the administration buildings and the club-house. On three sides of the village are the huts of the labourers who prefer the half-jungle life with its freedom; and here, with discomfort and squalor and liberty, is the only picturesque part of the settlement; all else is orderly, of one pattern, almost smug. On the fourth side the village is limited by the canal itself. In the centre of the village is the commissariat, where the canal and railroad workers buy their food and clothing. Here congregate every morning the housewives of the village to do their shopping, and at night, after work, the men, to complete the family purchases. There is a similar store in each canal village--eighteen in all. The commissariat does away with the middleman's profit and buys in such large quantities, and for cash, that it obtains the lowest prices, while the many ways in which the materials purchased can be used prevent waste. If there is cause for complaint on the part of any class in the canal workers, that class is the bachelors, for they are discriminated against in the matter of quarters. But good provision is made for their meals, at the so-called "hotels" for the white employees, and the messes and kitchens for Spanish and negro labourers. Another remarkable evidence of how the canal administration stands _in loco parentis_ to all its work-people is that it has provided twenty-six churches and maintains fifteen ministers of religion. This is interesting because it shows how the state, when conducted on common-sense principles, may provide for religious instruction without causing any offence or inflicting any injustice. The administration treated all denominations with perfect impartiality. Of the fifteen ministers it supported, four were Episcopalian, four Baptist, three Roman Catholic, one Wesleyan, and one Presbyterian. But this was not the entire provision of churches and chapels on the isthmus. There were fourteen other churches not under direct government control, but assisted by the government in many ways. Of the forty in all, thirteen were Episcopalian, seven Baptist, seven Roman Catholic, two Wesleyan, and eight undenominational. As I have pointed out, the moral sanitation of the isthmus was cared for as well as the physical. For example, in September 1905, a man living in the canal zone was charged with running a roulette table. He pleaded that he owned a concession from the Republic of Panama. That excuse was not allowed, and he was sentenced to fine and imprisonment for transgressing one of the canal zone laws. Gambling, which had always been one of the Panamanian vices, was quite forbidden within the zone. Remembering the descriptions given of the state of morals at the isthmus during the French occupation, one cannot help being struck with the contrast afforded by the American regime. Criticisms of the canal scheme, of climatic and social conditions in the zone, appeared in the early days from time to time. Mr. Johnson quotes an example which is so amusing as to bear repetition:-- A land as feverish to the imagination as to the body is Panama. It is a land making a fitting environment to the deeds of conspiracy, piracy, loot, cruelty, and blood that have principally made its history for centuries. This gloomy, God-forsaken isthmus is a nightmare region. One descriptive writer has truly said of it that it is a land where the flowers have no odour, the birds no song; where the men are without honour and the women without virtue. He is not far wrong. The birds, brilliant as is their plumage, have no musical notes. The dense forests teem with bright-hued parrots, parroquets, and other birds, which squeak and scream but do not sing. There are beautiful orchids to be found in the swamps and jungles--fair to look upon, but they have no odour. The oranges have green skins instead of golden, the plantains must be fried to make them fit to eat, the reptiles and insects are often venomous, and myriads of parasites are ever ready to invade the human body and bring disease and death. In the atmosphere itself is something suggestive of the days of the old pirates and their fiendish cruelties and orgies. There is no life in the air; it is depressing, damp, miasmatic, and intensely hot. For a great part of the year thunder-showers succeed each other all day long and half the night, with sheet lightning all around the horizon after dark. There is practically no twilight, day passing almost instantly into night. It is no wonder that this uncanny land has made its residents degenerate into plotters, revolutionists, murderers, and thieves. Its aspect is one of darkness, treachery, and curse. President Roosevelt had something to say on these recurring criticisms in a message to Congress in January 1906. He wrote:-- From time to time various publications have been made, and from time to time in the future various similar publications, doubtless, will be made, purporting to give an account of jobbing or immorality or inefficiency or misery as obtaining on the isthmus. I have carefully examined into each of these accusations which seemed worthy of attention. In every instance the accusations have proved to be without foundation in any shape or form. They spring from several sources. Sometimes they take the shape of statements by irresponsible investigators of a sensational habit of mind, incapable of observing or repeating with accuracy what they see, and desirous of obtaining notoriety by widespread slander. More often they originate with or are given currency by individuals with a personal grievance. The sensation mongers, both those who stay at home and those who visit the isthmus, may ground their accusations on false statements by some engineer who, having applied for service on the commission and been refused such service, now endeavours to discredit his successful competitors, or by some lessee or owner of real estate who has sought action or inaction by the commission to increase the value of his lots, and is bitter because the commission cannot be used for such purposes, or on the tales of disappointed bidders for contracts, or of office-holders who have proved incompetent, or who have been suspected of corruption and dismissed, or who have been overcome by panic and have fled from the isthmus. Every specific charge relating to jobbery, to immorality, or to inefficiency, from whatever source it has come, has been immediately investigated, and in no single instance have the statements of these sensation mongers and the interested complainants behind them proved true. The only discredit adhering to these false accusations is to those who originate and give them currency, and who, to the extent of their abilities, thereby hamper and obstruct the completion of the great work in which both the honour and the interest of America are so deeply involved. It matters not whether those guilty of these false accusations utter them in mere wanton recklessness and folly, or in a spirit of sinister malice to gratify some personal or political grudge. The soundness and purity of the canal zone administration has long ago been established beyond all question and cavil. The Americans have given an example to the world how a great work of this kind, involving the gathering together of a large multitude of workers from many races and nations, may be carried on without those moral and physical evils which have marked too many enterprises of the kind. In fact, the way in which the Americans have arranged and controlled the life of the canal zone stands quite as much to their credit as the skill and determination they have shown in the actual construction of the canal. But we have said nothing yet about the workers themselves on the canal. The Americans, on taking over the work from the French, found about 700 West Indian negroes engaged in excavating the Culebra Cut. From this contingent as a nucleus a much larger army of workers was built up. The numbers rapidly grew. In December 1905 there were 5,000 employees; in 1906, 24,000; in 1908, 31,000; the highest figure being reached in 1910, when there were 50,000 workers available for duty. Of the employees, speaking roughly, one-seventh have been white Americans, all, of course, skilled workers, one-seventh European labourers, and five-sevenths West Indian negroes. The British West Indies, especially Barbados, have continued to be the main source of labour supply. But the West Indian at the outset left a great deal to be desired in his work and efficiency. In 1905 complaints were made on the subject by the chairman of the canal commission to the President of the United States. In 1906 the chief engineer reported:-- The criticisms of the character of the common labour which were made in last year's report still hold good. Our labour consists almost entirely of West Indian negroes, and their efficiency is very low, although we have a few of this class who are fairly steady workers--by this it is meant that they average to work all the time, but the great body of them do not. The majority work just long enough to get money to supply their actual bodily necessities, with the result that, while we are quartering and caring for twenty odd thousand of these people, our daily effective force is many thousands less. Preliminary steps have been taken toward securing a large number of Spanish labourers direct from the north-west provinces of Spain, also for the securing of a trial shipment of Cantonese Chinese, as it is believed that the introduction of labourers of different nationalities will be beneficial. The Chinese project was frustrated through the influence of trade unions in the United States, backed up by representations from the Pacific coast states. The West Indian labourer quickly began to earn a better report. It was found that his inefficiency was largely due to insufficient and improper food. He speedily improved when turned on to the generous and nourishing diet provided in the zone. In order to be certain that he had the full advantage of the provided meals, the price of them was very wisely deducted from his wages. Moreover, the American foremen soon began to learn that the men from Barbados, Trinidad, and elsewhere were British subjects and could not be treated as though they were southern state "coons." With a better understanding and more sympathetic treatment of the black employees, much more work was got out of them, and a good deal of the credit for the building of the Panama Canal is due to the 30,000 workers[14] who have been recruited mainly from the British islands in the West Indies. But the southern European contingent has been found to be excellent material. It was thought that the work-people of Spain, Italy, and Greece would take more easily to navvying work in the tropics than people from more northerly regions of the temperate zone. The results were, on the whole, satisfactory. The Greeks were, it is true, not equal to the Italians or the Spaniards, and very few of them were recruited for canal work. The Italians, also, though several thousands of them were engaged, proved rather hard to handle. They were bitten with collectivist ideas, and inclined to act on trade union lines. The Spaniard was, in every way, the most satisfactory workman introduced from Europe. He was taken in an unsophisticated state directly from his village in Galicia or Castile. He was tractable and orderly, and quick and ready to learn. Hard labour under the tropical sun and in the hot damp of the isthmus seemed to have no exhausting or enervating influence whatever upon him. The Spaniard shows no sign of settling down on the isthmus. He either goes home with his savings or on to railway work in Brazil. Some 9,000 have been directly recruited, but this number does not include all the Spanish labourers whose muscle has helped to the completion of this great work. A word or two should be said about the wages earned on the canal. The West Indian recruit was offered 6-½d. an hour for common labour and an eight-hour day, in addition to free quarters, medical care, and repatriation. Meals were supplied to him at the rate of 1s. 2-½d. per day. Later the pay of all not under contract was reduced to 5d. per hour, and the price of the three meals to 1s. 1-½d. Negro artisans, such as carpenters, masons, blacksmiths and others, of whom there were some 5,000 employed in connection with the canal works, received pay varying from 8d. to 22d. per hour. There were in 1912 4,400 negro artisans receiving 8d. an hour or more, while 400 received 1s. an hour, and the work was constant. The European labourer, in addition to free quarters, received $1.60 per eight-hour day, and more for overtime work. He was charged 40 cents a day for his three meals, which left him a minimum net wage per day of $1.20, or a little less than thirty shillings a week. Many, however, received more, and a good number of Spanish work-people must have gone home with a nice little nest-egg in their pockets. The skilled labour was done almost entirely by United States employees, though the "gold roll," as it was called, included at first some Europeans. The pay was excellent, the social life, with its gymnasia, billiard-rooms, concerts and so forth, attractive, and the commissariat, with its three good meals at a fixed charge, quite up to the standard of a good hotel. The billets on the isthmus were therefore popular, and about 7,000 Americans on an average have been in employment there. As I have pointed out, the responsibility for the construction of the canal was vested in the President of the United States, who acted through an executive commission resident in the canal zone. The work was organized in a large number of departments, each responsible for a big task. These were excavation and dredging; locks and dams; machinery and buildings (also responsible for paving and other improvements in Colon and Panama); labour, subsistence, and quarters; material and supplies; sanitation (responsible also for hygiene in Panama and Colon, which towns are technically outside the zone); civil administration; the Panama railroad. There were also some smaller divisions, such as accounts and an office of a purchasing officer in Washington, nearly all the supplies for the canal being obtained in the United States. It should be added that the Republic of Panama is responsible for the policing of the two big towns, but the department of civil administration of the Panama Canal Commission employed 200 police, 88 of which were native West Indians. This busy hive of labour will soon present a very different aspect. With the approach of the canal to completion the numbers of the workmen will gradually be reduced. A drastic process of sifting and selection will be carried out among the Americans employed on the works. Only about 2,500 men will be necessary to operate the canal, when it is in full working order. These will be established at the locks and other important points. In fact, the canal authorities recommend a complete depopulation of the isthmus except, of course, the terminal cities and the operating stations on the canal. Otherwise, they think, a large expense for sanitation will be necessary which might thus be avoided. But the question of defence must not be forgotten. It will certainly be found advisable to maintain a pretty large American garrison at the isthmus, and to the population we have mentioned perhaps even 8,000 American troops must be added. The busy scenes still prevailing in the canal zone will now soon have disappeared like a dream, and the future traveller who looks from the ship-rail over the shining waters of Gatun Lake or beyond to the vast and silent tropical forest will have difficulty in reconstructing the spectacle which the narrow lands presented during the ten strenuous years of construction. FOOTNOTES: [13] _The Times_, September 26, 1912. [14] This is the figure of official recruiting. Very many more came to the isthmus of their own accord. CHAPTER XI. THE PROBLEM OF CONSTRUCTION. We may now begin to consider the canal itself, the problems which its designers had to solve, the methods of construction, and the features of the completed work. As we have seen, the first two and a half years were a time mainly of preparation for the titanic enterprise of excavation and construction. In fact, it might have been better if the work during that period had been entirely restricted to scavenging, sewering, and so forth. The labourers were hurried a little too fast to the isthmus, before the isthmus was properly cleaned up to receive them. Hence the yellow fever panic and difficulties which might have been avoided. The people of the United States were responsible for this over-haste at the start. The great thing, they cried, is to "make the dirt fly." They wanted evidence that the steam-navvies were actually at work in the bed of the canal and that the task was well in hand. In fact, the public at home took an interest in the canal operations which was sometimes embarrassing. Some newspaper man at the isthmus would report an accident or unforeseen difficulty, probably with a good deal of exaggeration, an anxious excitement sprang up among the people, and special commissions had to go to the isthmus in order to investigate the true state of affairs and if possible restore confidence at home. As the reader knows, the Americans had no clean slate on which to write at Panama. They succeeded two French companies which had been at work for twenty years. True, the New Panama Canal Company which succeeded the Lesseps Company had not greatly perspired over the undertaking. It had kept a certain amount of work going, chiefly in order to maintain its concession. All the same, the French had ploughed a pretty deep furrow between Colon and Panama, and much of the work they had done was fortunately available whichever type of canal should be adopted, high-level or tide-level. They had carried out a good deal of dredging for the channel through the tidal flats at either end of the canal, and they had made a very visible impression on the "continental divide" at what is known as the Culebra Cut. Altogether the French companies excavated 81,548,000 cubic yards. The Americans inherited from their predecessors a large amount of machinery and tools, in addition to a great deal of work well done. Much of the machinery, even of the Lesseps Company, was found to be in serviceable condition, and operations could be continued with it, though the extent and efficiency of the plant was, of course, as time went on, greatly increased. The main problem which the American engineers had to solve was how to deal with the Chagres River. On the tide-level scheme, that violent and capricious stream, which in the rainy season was navigable for half its length of 100 miles, would have had to be diverted into another channel or ponded back in its upper waters by a high dam at Gamboa, some of the overflow of which might perhaps have been permitted to pass into the canal. But, as we have seen, the Chagres would have to be utilized and at the same time controlled if the high-level plan was adopted. A river which is capable of rising 35-½ feet in twenty-four hours needed a great deal of regulation and discipline before it could be used as the feeder of the upper reaches of a lock canal. The only way to do this was to diffuse its waters over a vast artificial lake which it would keep full, but in which its floods and current would be effectually tamed. This could only be done by a huge dam intercepting the course of the river in its lower reaches, at some point before it entered the Caribbean Sea. When the New Panama Canal Company changed its plans and decided for an elevated waterway, it was intended to construct such a barrier at Bohio, a point much higher up stream than Gatun, the site ultimately chosen by the American engineers. The Isthmian Canal Commission which reported in 1901, also arranged for a dam at Bohio to control the Chagres River. On this plan the river would have been intercepted much higher up, and the artificial lake would have been much smaller. But when the Americans finally decided on the high-level type in 1906, the site of the proposed dam was shifted from Bohio to Gatun, nearer the river's mouth, which involved the inundation of a much vaster area of country. This position for the dam was first suggested by a French engineer, Godin de Lépinay, who, in a paper read before the congress of engineers in Paris in 1879, advocated a lock canal with a dam controlling the Chagres River at Gatun. This, then, was the biggest problem peculiar to the high-level scheme, for the cutting through the "continental divide," though an even more titanic labour, would have had to be accomplished whatever type of canal had been adopted. No feature of the construction has been subject to so much criticism and anxious solicitude as this Gatun dyke. On it depends the maintenance of Gatun Lake and the supply of water for the canal. If the dam fails, everything fails. The real cause of the difficulty was the foundation upon which this big artificial hill had to be laid. The great dam at Assouan in Egypt is based upon the eternal granite, upon which masonry of natural stone is built. It is, therefore, part and parcel of the solid framework of our planet, and will probably last as long. The Gatun dam is, however, founded upon the alluvial deposits of the Chagres River. This alluvium consists of gravel firmly cemented with mud and clay, and is unquestionably water-tight. These deposits go down in places to a depth of 280 feet before the solid rock is reached. The dam had, therefore, to be laid down on the top of them. Now this foundation, though water-tight, is soft. It would have been impossible to place upon it a massive structure of rock or concrete. The deposits would have given way under its weight. The only plan was to dump down in the valley an earthen dam, making it very broad so as to distribute the weight over as large a space as possible of the alluvium underneath. A steep slope would have been impossible, for the weight of the central portion would have pushed the clay and gravel outwards, and the whole mass would have subsided. The earth-dam was to block the valley through which the Chagres had hitherto flowed uninterruptedly to the sea. This valley is a mile and a half wide, and this is, therefore, the length of the dam. Its base is 2,100 feet wide. It is 398 feet through at the surface of the water, 100 feet wide at the top, and was to be 115 feet above sea-level. The last figure has, it seems, been brought down to 104 feet, which will be an advantage, as the weight upon the foundations will be proportionately less. In the middle of the dam the level of the lake is controlled by a channel called the "spillway," with walls and floor of concrete, by which the surplus waters will be sluiced off into the old bed of the Chagres River and so passed on to the sea. The entrance to this channel is closed with falling gates or doors. This safety-valve will no doubt be capable of dealing with the biggest and quickest rise of the lake-level that is ever likely to take place. It can pass off 137,000 cubic feet of water a second, the water issuing at a speed of 35 feet a second. But, to complete the security, the big culverts of the mighty Gatun locks close by can be turned open, and 170,000 cubic feet a second carried off there. Indeed, as regards the Gatun Lake the anxiety, if there be any, is that the water-supply will be insufficient rather than dangerously excessive. The level of the lake is to be kept at 85 feet above mean sea-level--that is, the dam, or a considerable length of it, will be exposed to what is called a "head" of water of 85 feet. The lake itself will be 164 square miles in extent. There have been many rational anxieties on the sufficiency of the dam. A certain American senator, however, who visited the works during the construction, worried himself rather unnecessarily on this last figure. Colonel Goethals was showing a congressional delegation round the works, and in the course of the survey they came to the dam with the broad expanse of water behind it. "Colonel," he said, "how is it that so small a body of earth as the Gatun dam can hold in check such a tremendous body of water as the Gatun Lake?" The chief engineer explained that the pressure of a body of water is determined by its height and not by its volume. The inquirer seems not to have been satisfied with the statement of this hydrostatic law. Senator Knox, afterwards Secretary of State, then came to his aid. "Senator," he said, "if your theory were true, how could the dykes of Holland hold in check the Atlantic Ocean?" This was a clincher, and the sceptic joined in the laugh at his own expense. All the same, the Gatun dam has two extremely responsible and heavy duties to perform. It has to withstand the horizontal thrust of a head of 85 feet of water so as not to be carried bodily down the Chagres bed into the Atlantic. And it has to block up the valley so effectually that the water of the lake shall not percolate through at any point. There is every reason to believe that, in spite of all alarums and excursions during its construction, it will fulfil both these requirements. Its composition and construction may be briefly described. Two bulwarks of big rocky fragments were built up on either outer line or "toe" of the structure. This rough material was obtained from the lock site, or Mindi, or the Culebra Cut twenty-six miles away. The area between these piles is filled with silt, and water pumped into it by hydraulic dredges from the Chagres valley. The surplus water is carried off through pipes. The sodden silt remains and is packed down and consolidated by atmospheric pressure. Such a "hydraulic fill" is impervious to water, the thrust or "head" of which is very quickly lost in the minute interstices or pores of the material. It will be seen how such a structure differs from a dam of concrete or stone masonry. It is porous, while at the same time impervious to water. The future traveller through the Panama Canal will probably never guess the immensity of the labour that has gone to the building of the Gatun dam. Already, indeed, it looks so much like a part of the natural landscape that it might well escape special observation altogether. Yet nothing less than 21,145,931 cubic yards of material were laid down--enough to make a wall of earth three feet high and three feet thick reaching nearly halfway round the world. The spillway itself contains 225,485 cubic yards of concrete. It will be noticed that in the dam proper there is no core of masonry or puddled chalk or clay whatever. It was at one time intended that there should be. I have alluded to the alarmist rumours that were raised again and again at Panama and created much uneasiness in the United States. These were especially concerned with the great dam, and that word must have frequently been on the lips of the engineers in more than one significance. Every possible test was applied to determine the exact character of the underlying materials, to ascertain whether there was any connection between the swamp areas to the north and south through the deposits in the gorges which the earthwork was to bridge, to prove the ability of the material below to support the structure, and to find out whether suitable material for the dam could be found in its neighbourhood. "As the result of all these investigations," wrote Colonel Goethals,[15] "it may be briefly stated that the underlying material is impervious to water; that it possesses ample strength to uphold the structure that will be placed upon it, and, the subsoil being impervious, that there is no connection between the swamps above and the sea below." In order to make assurance doubly sure, Colonel Goethals planned the dam so as to include triple interlocking steel sheet-piling across the valley, driven down to bedrock, and decided to carry the dam to a height of 135 feet. Even so, the news of a collapse was wired home, and this so impressed President Roosevelt that he sent a commission of engineers to the isthmus accompanied by President-elect Taft. The investigations had a different result from what had been expected. Instead of being dissatisfied with the size and strength of the dam, the engineers declared that it was being built too high and that the steel piling was unnecessary. It must be admitted, therefore, that the efficiency of the Gatun dam has been subjected to the most rigorous tests, and that no further anxiety on the subject need be felt. With the blocking of the Chagres outlet at Gatun, the waters of the lake have gradually accumulated until they cover an area of 164 square miles. Not only the Chagres itself but its tributaries, the Trinidad and others, are thus ponded back. The reservoir extends up a number of long and winding arms, and is thus very irregular in shape. The bed of the channel itself was cleared of brushwood and trees, but the rest of the valley was thickly overgrown. As the waters rose, therefore, and gradually submerged this primeval forest, a rather dismal spectacle was presented of decay and destruction. The lake has, indeed, completely altered the aspect of the country. Villages and even small towns, whose names had come down from the days of the old navigators, lie buried for ever beneath the waters of Lake Gatun. Even now the great expanse of water with its wooded islands looks like a natural feature of the landscape rather than yesterday's creation of engineering enterprise. The vessels in transit will, of course, keep to the dredged and buoyed channel, but the channel will itself be invisible, and the traveller, after tossing on the restless Caribbean Sea, will enjoy the full sensation of a cruise over a landlocked fjord or lake. Lake Gatun is indeed twice the size of Lago Maggiore and four-fifths the size of Lake Geneva. The journey from Gatun to Bas Obispo, where the waterway again assumes the appearance of a canal and enters the Culebra gorge, is 22 miles, but the same 85-foot level is maintained right to the locks at Pedro Miguel, where the waters of Lake Gatun are again retained by a dam connecting the walls of the lock with a hill to the west. The rest of the lake is held in by the natural configuration of the country, the only outlets being at the Gatun spillway and, of course, through the locks. But we must not overlook the main purpose of the lake, which is to supply the water for the canal and the lockages. For this purpose everything, of course, depends on the rainfall at the isthmus, and the question arises whether this may be relied upon to replenish the canal with the needful water-supply. Colonel Goethals estimates that in an average dry season 58 "lockages," or transits of the canal, per day would be possible, which is a greater number than the twenty-four hours of the day would permit, allowing vessels to follow each other at intervals of one hour. Happily, a resource is still left if the supply of water should show signs of proving insufficient. At Alhajuela, on the Chagres River, some nine or ten miles above Obispo, there is an excellent site for a dam, forming a reservoir where some of the surplus water of the rainy season could be stored and supplied to the canal as required in the dry months. Details of the construction of such a dam were prepared in connection with a former canal-scheme, and would be available in case of need. FOOTNOTES: [15] _The National Geographic Magazine_, February 1911. CHAPTER XII. THE CULEBRA CUT. The most famous section of work on the canal has been that at the vertebra or "continental divide," which runs along the isthmus on the Pacific side and had to be pierced through by any canal running from Colon to Panama. This tremendous work, known as the "Culebra Cut," from the name of one of the hills, extends for nine miles from Bas Obispo to Pedro Miguel. Mr. Bryce has truly said, referring to this section, that "never before on our planet have so much labour, so much scientific knowledge, and so much executive skill been concentrated on a work designed to bring the nations nearer to one another and serve the interests of all mankind."[16] The bottom of the canal in the cut, as in the channel through Lake Gatun, is 40 feet above sea-level. The highest elevation of the original surface of the ground above the centre line of the canal was 312 feet above sea-level, so that the total excavation along this saddle was 312 minus 40, or 272 feet. This was, however, not actually the highest point of excavation. Gold Hill, close to the canal line, is 534 feet above sea-level, and from the top of this hill a new and steeper slope had to be made. The surface of the water is 85 feet above sea-level, and so is 227 feet below the original saddle at its highest elevation. We have already noticed that a tide-level canal would have involved an excavation 85 feet deeper, and the width of the cutting would have had to be immensely wider. The slides and breaks which have rendered the American excavation so much more difficult lead one to suppose that the tide-level cutting might have proved impracticable. All the work at Culebra performed by the French was available for their successors. The French companies accounted for 18,646,000 cubic yards of material on this section. They had already cut down 152 feet below the original surface at its highest elevation, and the cliff they had cut in the face of Gold Hill was 374 feet in vertical height. It is well to mention such figures, as some people imagine that the French wasted all their time and resources at Panama. It may be added that the bottom width of the channel adopted by the French engineers was 74 feet, whereas that of the American canal will be 300 feet. Many descriptions have been given by visitors of the spectacle presented in this long and deep gash through the mountains during the progress of the excavations. From these and the numerous photographs taken at that stage the traveller will be able to reconstruct the scene--the two hundred miles of railroad construction track, laid down tier above tier at different levels; the thousands of men busily at work; the roar and smoke of the dynamite tearing the rock into fragments; the mighty steam-shovels like great dragons burying their iron teeth in the surface of the bank, engulfing a huge mouthful, then swinging round and belching it all into the dirt trucks, to be carried off to the dumping-ground at Gatun near the Atlantic or Balboa at the Pacific end of the canal. At Culebra, Colonel Goethals made the "dirt fly" to the full satisfaction of public opinion in the United States. All sorts of devices and machinery were employed to hasten and economize the process. For example, there was the Ledgerwood Unloader. Railway trucks provided with flaps were used, these flaps making a single platform of the whole train. At the rear of the train was a plough which could be drawn by a wire rope attached to a drum carried on a special car in the fore part of the train. When the train arrived at the dumping-ground the drum was started, and the plough, advancing from the rear, swept the 320 cubic yards and rock from the sixteen cars in seven minutes. Then there was a "track-shifter," invented by an employee on the isthmus, which lifted and relaid the railway lines as the spoil-tracks had to be shifted. This powerful engine raised the track and ties clear of the ground and deposited them from three to nine feet sideways. The "spoil trains" were treated with all the respect which is accorded to the fastest mail trains of the day on an English main line. They followed one another from the cutting at intervals of three minutes, and any delay, of course, balked the mammoth steam-shovel of its gluttonous meal on the stones and rubble of the mountain-side. Any cause of delay was at once reported by telephone to the superintendent of transportation at Empire, and the obstruction was immediately dealt with. By this persistent concentration on the main object the dirt has been made to fly not only more speedily but more cheaply. One of the most serious causes of anxiety and difficulty along the canal line were the "slides" and "breaks" which kept occurring in the Culebra Cut. To use a condensed Americanism, the sides would not "stay put." Large masses of material would slide or move from the banks into the excavated area, closing off the drainage, upsetting the steam-shovels, and tearing up the tracks. A very unpleasant phenomenon was the lifting of the shovels in the bottom of the canal due to the bulgings of the earth there. It is not necessary to enter into the distinction between "slides" and "breaks," or into the learned disquisitions that have been written about them. It is sufficient for us to note that they added immensely to the amount of material which had to be got out of the Culebra gorge. Colonel Goethals tells us that of the 14,325,876 cubic yards removed during the year 1909, 884,530 cubic yards, or 6 per cent., were due to slides; that in 1910 of 14,921,750 cubic yards removed, 2,649,000, or 18 per cent., came from slides or breaks that had previously existed or that had developed during the year. It might have been imagined that these discouraging additions to the work would have seriously delayed progress on the canal and put forward the date of its completion. But able and economic organization triumphed over all these lets and hindrances. At the beginning of the American excavations the engineers estimated that 103 million cubic yards of "dirt" had still to be removed, and that this work would take nine years to accomplish. But that estimate of material proved to be greatly below the mark. Enlargements of the canal and the unforeseen collapses in the Culebra Cut brought up the total to 195 million cubic yards. It is a remarkable evidence of the efficiency and economy of the American organization that this immense task will have been completed in about six years of actual full-swing work. Some idea of the way in which Colonel Goethals made the dirt fly may be gathered from the fact that in the first five years of his directorship, down to April 1912, he removed 160 million cubic yards of material. "If all this material," writes Mr. Showalter, "could be placed in a solid shaft of the shape of the Washington Monument, with a base as large as an average city block, it would tower more than six miles skyward, overtopping the earth's loftiest mountain peak by more than a mile. Again, if it were to be loaded on to the big Lidgerwood dirt cars used on the canal, it would make a string of them reaching over two and a half times around the earth, and requiring a string of engines reaching from New York to Sac Francisco to move them." It is indeed a remarkable achievement that, while the amount of material to be removed was increased by about 90 per cent., the time of removal was cut down by 30 per cent. Nor has the increase of the work added to the estimate of cost. The total cost of the completed canal was fixed in 1908 at 375 million dollars. Yet, in spite of the increased excavations, enough of this sum, it is calculated, will be left over to build a new breakwater, and perhaps a big storage reservoir at Alhajuela on the upper reaches of the Chagres River. In the Culebra Cut, despite the landslides, the cost of excavation has actually been reduced by more than one-third. [Illustration: Culebra Cut, from West Bank, showing Shovels at Work.] The pessimists have of course been busy with these landslides in the "Cut." They predicted that the canal along this section would always be exposed to danger from that source. But here, too, every precaution has been taken. The engineers have given a much lower slope to the sides of the canal, which is therefore wider at the top than had been originally planned. The slopes will also be sown with creeping grasses and other plants, which will bind down the surface soil. When the forty-five feet of water are in the canal, the bottom will be held down by the weight, and the bulgings no longer take place. Moreover, any earth that, in spite of all precautions, still manages to slide into the canal should be easily dealt with by the big 20-inch suction dredges, which can be brought up through the locks and set to work. So we need not trouble much about the stability of things along this nine-mile section through the Culebra Mountains. Here as elsewhere it is possible to give only a very general idea of the difficulties which were encountered and overcome in the course of construction. The drainage of the "Cut" during the work was in itself a heavy and important task. It was necessary to keep out the water of the surrounding country and to rid the excavated area of water collecting in it. A system of diversion channels, carrying off the Obispo River and its tributaries, effected the first object, and the second problem was solved by gravity drains and pumps. On the whole, this mighty trench through the isthmian hills is not only the biggest thing to the credit of a nation which delights in bigness, but the greatest achievement of its kind the world has ever seen. FOOTNOTES: [16] "South America," p. 26. CHAPTER XIII. THE LOCKS. The Panama Canal belongs to the "age of concrete." All other vast works of construction, such as the Pyramids of antiquity and the Assouan Dam of to-day, have been built of live natural rock. At Panama everything--locks, wharves, piers, breakwaters--has been constructed of concrete. The Americans have not only built these incomparable piles of masonry; they have manufactured the material out of which they are built. This circumstance makes the rapid completion of the canal all the more wonderful. Not less than four and a half million cubic yards of artificial stone have been produced for the built portions of the canal and its accessories. This amount of concrete, we are informed, would make an ordinary sidewalk nine feet wide by six inches thick reaching more than twice round the earth. The broken stone which is one of the ingredients of concrete was quarried and transported from Porto Bello--a name famous in the annals of West Indian romance--20 miles to the east of Colon; while the sand came mostly from Nombre de Dios, also a celebrated place 20 miles further to the east, the Atlantic terminal of the old paved trans-isthmian road along which the Spanish mule convoys brought the silver of the Incas from Panama. Millions of yards of stone came from Porto Bello. Hundreds of bargeloads of sand came from Nombre de Dios and from islands in the Atlantic and Pacific. Myriads of barrels of cement were shipped from the United States to Cristobal, an outskirt of Colon, thence carried by barges to Gatun or by railway to the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores lock sites. Dozens of mighty "mixers" were ready to receive these diverse materials. Each of these could accommodate ten tons of sand, cement, crushed stones, and water. This indigestible mixture the machine would toss and churn round for a minute or so in its interior and then belch it all out in the shape of unhardened artificial stone. The belief in concrete among the builders of the Panama Canal has been almost a superstition. They invented a sort of cement gun to shoot sand and water against the sides of the Culebra Cut, so as to form a coating of solid artificial rock, but the experiment rather deserved than achieved success. Of course all such structures as lighthouses were built wholly of concrete, and it is reported that even barges were constructed of this adaptable material. As regards concrete and its nature and behaviour nothing was taken for granted. Every means was taken of testing such important matters as the effect of sea-water on this material, the time it takes for these huge masses of artificial stone to settle, and many other questions on the answer to which the permanence and stability of the locks and the entire waterway would depend. The Panama Canal, writes Mr. Showalter, is "the greatest effort man ever has made, and perhaps ever will make, to simulate the processes of geologic ages, and do in days what Nature required unreckoned years to accomplish." These remarks about concrete naturally lead us to the subject of the Panama locks, the magnificent stairway at Gatun, the single-step locks at Pedro Miguel (or, as the worker quickly Anglicized it, Peter Magill), and the double-step flight at Miraflores. The most impressive of these is the colossal duplicated three-step flight at Gatun, up which the vessel in transit is lifted from the end of the sea-level seven-mile-long entrance channel through Limon Bay to Gatun up to the surface of Gatun Lake, 85 feet above the level of the sea. This giant staircase has been constructed in a cutting through the hill which retains at this end the waters of the artificial lake. A tremendous amount of excavation, upwards of 5,000,000 cubic yards, was necessary, and the locks, which are constructed entirely of concrete, contain about 2,046,100 cubic yards of that material. The chambers of all the locks in the canal will have a usable length of 1,000 feet and a width of 110 feet. These dimensions should prove large enough for the largest ships not only existing but likely to be constructed for many years to come. They satisfy the requirement of the Spooner Act that the canal shall be "of sufficient capacity and depth to afford convenient passage for vessels of the largest tonnage and greatest draft now in use, and such as may reasonably be expected." More than 95 per cent. of the ships now afloat are less than 600 feet in length, so that a good margin is allowed. We may be certain that the American government has given the closest attention to the question of the length and breadth of the lock-chambers, for the canal, we must remember, is primarily a military passage for the purpose of transferring, if need be, the entire American fleet from the Atlantic to the Pacific seaboard. The locks of the Kiel Canal, it may be added for purposes of comparison, have an available length of 492 feet and a width of 82 feet. The vessel, then, in order to gain the level of Gatun Lake from the Atlantic entrance, has to pass through a flight of three successive locks. The maximum lift is 32 feet, or about four feet higher than at any other locks now in use. All the locks along the Panama Canal are duplicated--that is, there are two parallel sets with a common centre-wall--so that two ships could be simultaneously put through both flights in the same or in opposite directions. This "double-tracking" is in itself one of the many precautions taken against accidents at the locks. There are no locks in the world where these precautions are so minute and numerous. It is all of course in the interests of the owners to inspire the maximum of confidence in maritime circles. Complete efficiency in the operation of the canal, absolute safety for the vessels and cargoes entrusted for ten or twelve hours to its keeping, are the elementary conditions of success. Each lock through which the vessel passes is equipped with two pairs of mitre gates--that is, double swinging doors--the biggest lock-gates in the world; but in all cases the uppermost locks have a second pair of gates, so that if some unruly vessel were to ram open one set of gates there would still be another set ready to receive it. But even this is not all. Heavy chains are stretched across the channel with the ends attached to hydraulic paying-out machinery. These chains and their attachments are capable of bringing to a dead stop a vessel of 10,000 tons moving at the rate of five miles an hour. And still the precautionary devices are not exhausted. Let us suppose that all these barriers were broken down, though such a disaster is almost beyond the bounds of things possible. At the head of each flight of locks there are provided great cantilever swing-bridges which can be thrown across the channel in case of accident. From these bridges a series of nickel-steel wicket girders could be let down. The lower ends of these girders would drop into a sort of sill at the bottom of the rushing waters. The girders would then act as small perpendicular runways, down which large steel sheets on rollers would be let down, gradually damming back the escaping waters. And lastly, in order to avoid all recourse to these emergency contrivances, it is ordained that no vessel shall enter any chamber of any locks under its own steam. Nearly all the accidents that happen in locks are due to the vessels being worked independently of the lock authorities when passing through. Captains may be as anxious as possible to avoid mistakes, but there is many a slip possible between an order and its fulfilment. So the lock operators are not going to be responsible for the safety of a vessel which is not entirely under their own control. None will be allowed to negotiate the locks under its own motive-power. A series of electric towing-stations will be set up on the side walls of the locks. When a vessel approaches it will be brought to a standstill outside the locks. Then four of these towing engines will be fastened to it by means of hawsers--two at the stem, in order to draw the vessel into the locks, and two at the stern, to check its speed and bring it to a standstill when necessary. And this control will of course be exercised all through its passage to the upper or lower levels. We should certainly not hear of any accidents in the lock-chambers of the Panama Canal. [Illustration: Gatun Locks, looking South-West, showing North End of the Locks.] It is expected that a vessel will be passed through the three locks at Gatun in about fifty minutes, though some delay may be caused in the approach. On the Atlantic side the water of the canal will be smooth, and the ship will be in some degree sheltered from the winds, so that there should be no difficulty in the approach from that direction. Coming from Lake Gatun to the locks the vessel may experience a little rough water, though there is seldom a great force of wind there, and the lake will be free from currents. As regards the Pacific side, the ocean there fully corresponds with its name. It is always calm, and not the slightest difficulty may be anticipated from either winds or waves or currents. Over thirty miles away at the southern extremity of the Culebra Cut the vessel in transit will be lowered from the high-level lake 30 feet down to the surface of another artificial lake much smaller in content, held at a surface-height of 55 feet above sea-level. These are the single-step duplicate locks known as the Pedro Miguel or "Peter Magill." The construction of these locks required 770,000 cubic yards of cement. On the west side of these locks is the other dam which, with the mighty Gatun dam at the other end, holds up the waters of Lake Gatun. This smaller dam is also of earth, and is about 1,400 feet long and 40 feet wide at the top. It is subjected to a maximum "head" of water of 40 feet, but the average is from 25 to 30 feet. The length of the lake, which is known by the pretty name of "Miraflores," between the Peter Magill and the next set of locks, is about 2,000 yards, and the lake itself covers about 1,200 acres. Its waters are held up at 55 feet above sea-level by two dams at the Miraflores locks. These are the third and last set of locks for a ship proceeding from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They are in two steps, or, to use the more technical expression, "two in flight," and they drop the vessel from the Miraflores Lake at 55 feet elevation down to sea-level. It must be noticed, however, that the fluctuations in the tide of the Pacific end are about 20 feet, and that the height of the lake is given for mean tide. In other words low water during "spring" tides is 10 feet below the average sea-level. The maximum lift for these locks therefore will be 65 feet. There are two dams holding up the waters of the Miraflores Lake, one to the west of earth, and one to the east of concrete. The former is 2,300 feet long and 40 feet wide at the top. The average "head" to which it is subjected is 30 feet, the maximum 40. Its construction is similar to that at Gatun. The concrete dam is about 500 feet long, and is provided with regulating works similar to and of the same dimensions as those at Gatun, the crest in this instance being 39 feet above mean tide-level, with seven openings, allowing a discharge of 7,500 cubic feet per second. The locks themselves will require 1,312,000 cubic feet of concrete. I should add that these dams at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores are, unlike their big brother at Gatun, founded upon the solid bedrock. There has, therefore, been no question as to their permanence and stability. Moreover, as will have been noticed, the pressure of water is only about a half of that at Gatun. The relaying of most of the old Panama railroad was proceeding _pari passu_ with the construction of the canal. Two sections of the old line, one from Colon to Mindi at the Atlantic end, the other from Corozal to Panama at the Pacific end, could be used for the new. All the rest had to be built. The greater portion of the old track was, indeed, submerged beneath the waters of Lake Gatun. The line is also being doubled throughout almost its entire length. It was originally intended to carry the line through the Culebra Cut along a berm 10 feet above the water surface, to be left for this purpose during the excavations of the channel; but the "slides" interfered with this project, and a new line to the east of the Cut was selected. The heavy embankments along the railway were among the most useful and convenient "dumps" for the material taken out of the Culebra cutting. As a great part of the railroad passes through the lake, culverts of reinforced concrete are provided to equalize the water on both sides of the embankments. South of Miraflores the new railway passes through a tunnel 800 feet long, and a striking feature of the canal is a steel bridge across the Chagres River near Gamboa, almost a quarter of a mile long. We need not dwell on the excavations of the tidal stretches of the canal on the Atlantic and Pacific ends or through Lake Gatun. A good deal of the French work was available at the tidal levels, but a vast amount of excavation had still to be done by steam-shovels as well as dredges, rocky elevations being found in both channels. Below the Miraflores locks a million and a half cubic yards of rock had to be removed. There will be some tidal current at the Pacific end, but as the sea-level section here will be 500 feet wide, the current will never run faster than about one foot per second. The sea is practically tideless at the Atlantic terminal, the variation being only 2.5 as a maximum, whereas at the Pacific it is 21.1. CHAPTER XIV THE COMPLETED CANAL. We may now begin to consider the canal as a whole and in its completed state. From deep water in Limon Bay, 41-foot depth at mean tide, to deep water outside Panama, 45-foot depth at mean tide, is just about 50 miles. The greater part of the canal is at high elevation, only 15 miles of it being at sea-level. We shall note the varying depths and widths of the channel when we take our imaginary journey along it. Here it is enough to say that the minimum width will be 300 feet, the minimum depth 41 feet, the breadth and depth being, however, for the greater portion of its course, greater than these dimensions. Its highest point above sea-level, as the reader already knows, is 85 feet--that is, 85 feet at the surface of the water, and 40 feet at the canal bottom. The depth along this stretch is therefore 45 feet. The Panama Canal, though not so long as the Kiel and Suez Canals, is very much broader and deeper. Suez is 108 feet wide and 31 feet deep as _minima_; Kiel, 72 feet and 29-½ feet. The Manchester Ship Canal is 120 feet by 26 feet. In length Panama, with its 50 miles, comes third, Suez being 90, Kiel 61, and Manchester 35-½ miles long. During the building of the canal the department of construction and engineering was arranged in three divisions--the Atlantic, embracing the engineering construction from deep water in the Caribbean Sea to include the Gatun locks and dam; the central division, extending from Gatun to Pedro Miguel; and the Pacific division, from Pedro Miguel to deep water in the Pacific Ocean. For the ordinary student, however, the channel divides naturally into four sections, the Atlantic level, the lake, the cutting, and the Pacific section (in two levels separated by locks). The invisible channel of the waterway begins at the mouth of Limon Bay, about eight miles from Gatun locks. Limon, also known as Colon or Navy Bay, is about three miles wide and three and a half miles long from north to south. It is shallow, from three to seven fathoms deep, and seems to be steadily growing shallower. This is not surprising, as it is fully exposed to the "northers," which blow with terrific force from the Caribbean, and no doubt carry into the bay a good deal of detritus from the bottom of the sea. The heavy rains of the isthmus must also scour the land perpetually down into the bay. On the east side of the bay is the flat Manzanillo Island, a mile long by three-quarters broad, on which stands the city of Colon. This town, which was once known as Aspinwall, owes its existence to the Panama Railway, of which it is the northern or Caribbean terminus. Its position on the railway gave it an advantage over the old town of Chagres, a little distance along the coast to the west, which, though once a flourishing port, has now fallen on evil days. Near Colon is Cristobal, the new Atlantic terminal of the canal. [Illustration: Gatun Upper Lock, looking North from Lighthouse.] Without some protection the entrance to the canal would have been exposed to the extremely violent storms which occur in the Caribbean during the winter months. During these storms vessels cannot lie safely in Colon harbour, and could not safely enter or issue from the canal. So a breakwater two miles long has been run out from Toro point in an easterly direction, covering the extremity of the canal. A glance at the map will suggest a thought that this barrier will not provide sufficient protection, and that another breakwater will have to be run out from the eastern shore. Such a further protection will be provided if the need should arise. At this point then, west of Colon and at the mouth of Limon Bay, our vessel enters the buoyed submarine channel of the canal and speeds onwards along the first section of the waterway, 500 feet in bottom-width and 41 feet deep, towards the locks at Gatun. But the locks are not yet visible. It is not until the fifth mile--that is, at Mindi--that a bend of the canal opens that gigantic structure to view, and by that time the vessel has left the broad waters and is enclosed within banks. The experience which awaits the traveller who has looked forward with some excitement to see the world's greatest wonder of to-day has been vividly imagined by Mr. Bryce. Our late American Ambassador writes:-- The voyager of the future, in the ten or twelve hours of his passage from ocean to ocean, will have much variety. The level light of the fiery tropic dawn will fall on the houses of Colon as he approaches it in the morning, when vessels usually arrive. When his ship has mounted the majestic staircase of the three Gatun locks from the Atlantic level, he will glide slowly and softly along the waters of a broad lake which gradually narrows toward its head--a lake enclosed by rich forests of that velvety softness one sees in the tropics, with vistas of forest-girt islets stretching far off to right and left among the hills; a welcome change from the restless Caribbean Sea which he has left. Then the mountains will close in upon him, steep slopes of grass or brushwood rising two hundred feet above him as he passes through the great Cut. From the level of the Miguel lock he will look southward down the broad vale that opens on the ocean flooded with the light of the declining sun, and see the rocky islets rising, between which in the twilight his course will lie out into the vast Pacific. At Suez the passage from sea to sea is through a dreary and monotonous waste of shifting sand and barren clay. Here one is for a few hours in the centre of a verdant continent, floating on smooth waters, shut off from sight of the ocean behind and the ocean before--a short sweet present of tranquillity between a stormy past and a stormy future. The Gatun locks, each chamber of which is a sort of "canyon of cement," will almost oppress the imagination with the sense of immensity. At the foot of the locks the vessel will surrender its own volition and entrust itself wholly to the canal operators. It will be attached to the electric apparatus ashore and gently towed into the lock-chambers. In less than an hour it should have climbed the three gigantic steps and be afloat on the surface of the lake, 85 feet above sea-level. The traveller might fail even to notice of himself the great dam which abuts on the locks to the west. He may be surprised to hear that the whole being of the canal depends upon that earthwork, and that with the Culebra Cut it absorbed the greater part of the labour and skill and solicitude of the canal-builders. The Gatun dam has indeed been so adopted and transfigured by Nature that it appears only a part, and not a very conspicuous part, of the landscape. Nor would our traveller, without previous information, guess the history of the great expanse of water which stretches to right and left up many a distant arm or loch and round many a picturesque island, and over which his vessel, once more resuming its own power and control, begins to advance. The buoys alone indicate that the channel, the true and well-wrought link between the two oceans, still holds its course through the bed of the lake. Mr. Bryce has pointed out what a pleasant interlude in a long ocean journey will be afforded by this placid glide of 22 miles over the inland lake from Gatun to Gamboa. The bottom widths through the lake are 1,000 feet for 16 miles, 800 feet for 4 miles, and 500 feet for about 3 miles. At Gamboa the vessel enters the eight-mile section of the Culebra Cut. Here again, though the traveller in future days will need no reminding of the enterprise represented by this tremendous trench driven through the backbone of the isthmus, he will have to imagine the busy scene during the days of construction which will then have disappeared. He must try to reproduce what was little less than a manufacturing town at Gorgona, just near the entrance to the Cut, where stood the machine shops, boiler shops, smith shops, car shops, pattern shops, where repairs of all kinds were made and machines of all sorts and sizes constructed. He should think of that model residential town to the west of the Cut where the chief engineer and his assistants lived, surrounded by the quarters of the men, each dwelling protected with its fine wire netting to exclude the mosquitoes, the whole settlement scrupulously clean and bright with well-kept lawns and flowerbeds. All this will have passed away with the crowds of workers who interrupted for a dozen years the stillness of the primeval forest. Nature and silence will in a large degree have resumed their sway, but the world will not forget the debt it owes to that conquering industrial army which divided the land here in order to unite the nations. Through the cutting the bottom width of the canal is 300 feet. Having accomplished the eight or nine mile passage through the deep gorge, the vessel reaches the end of the high-level section at the Pedro Miguel locks. Here she is gently lowered 30 feet down to the bosom of little Miraflores Lake, held at 55 feet above sea-level. The length of this subsection is about a mile and a half, and it ends at the Miraflores locks, where the ship is lowered by two steps to the level of the Pacific. Then follows the last stage of this eventful transit--the eight-mile tidal section along which the vessel glides between low swamps to her own element of deep sea-water beyond the new port of Balboa, west of Panama, whose wharves are being constructed from the waste material of the inland excavations. The new breakwater which runs out from Balboa to Naos Island suggests wind and storm. But eternal calm reigns along these shores, and the object of the breakwater is to protect the line of the canal, not from heavy seas, but from the silt-bearing currents from the east which set at right angles to the channel. Constant dredging was necessary to prevent the bed of the canal becoming filled with this sediment. The dyke has proved very effectual for this purpose. Such is the Panama Canal which has for so many centuries been the desire of the nations, and which is now one of the permanent geographical features of the globe. It is so well and truly constructed that nothing short of an earthquake could ever seriously damage it. The question naturally arises whether this ultimate danger needs to be seriously considered. Panama is rather suspiciously close to a region where geological conditions are not remarkable for stability. The earthquake at Kingston a few years ago was as destructive a calamity as those of Messina and San Francisco. Costa Rica, too, almost an isthmian country, enjoys a very bad reputation for this kind of friskiness. Panama, however, seems happily to lie outside the zone of such disturbances. Slight earthquake shocks have been felt, probably only the reflections of severer shocks elsewhere. But there is no record or tradition of a really serious convulsion. There is, indeed, one visible and reassuring evidence of the self-possession of the earth's surface in this region. To the east of the modern city of Panama is the site of old Panama, of which the lofty tower of the old cathedral--a pathetic and picturesque object--is still standing. This shows that there has been no serious earthquake here for the greater part of four centuries. Still, the danger--great or small--does exist, and it threatens a high-level canal, with its elaborate lock-machinery and masonry, far more than it would have affected a canal at sea-level. No very severe convulsion might be necessary to throw one of these locks out of gear, and the entire canal, therefore, out of operation for a considerable time. But against such perils there is no guarding, and every precaution having been taken against foreseeable and preventable dangers, all else must be left to the disposal of that Providence "which by his strength setteth fast the mountains," "who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever." [Illustration: Gatun Upper Lock--West Chamber.] It seems incredible that the canal should ever be in danger of injury or destruction from the attack of any civilized Power, because all nations are apparently interested in its preservation. What, then, is the meaning of these slopes which are being prepared for forts and batteries at either end of the canal? "With the two great forts at the two ends of the canal," writes Mr. Showalter, "fitted with four 14-inch guns, six 6-inch guns, and twelve 12-inch mortars, with twelve companies of coast artillery, one battery of field artillery, four regiments of infantry, and one squad of cavalry, there is not likely to arise a time when these fortifications, backed up by the American navy, will fail to command a proper and wholesome respect from other nations." Yet if the object were simply to maintain the neutrality of the canal, the best course would seem to have been to leave the canal entirely unfortified, as is the case at Suez, and trust to the moral influence of the great Powers and their common interest in keeping the canal free and open to the world's traffic. Obviously the idea of making the canal zone a big military camp and arsenal is not so much to "police" the passage as a great international waterway, but to defend it and the zone as a position of immense strategic importance to the United States. President Hayes, in a message to the Senate in 1880, spoke of the canal as "the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and Pacific ports, and _virtually a part of the coastline of the United States_." The words I have italicized seem to show that the United States regard the new passage rather as wholly proprietary, like those of Kiel and Corinth, than as international in status, like the Suez Canal. In the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty there is no specific reference to fortification. The only allusion to the defence of the canal occurs in the second subsection of the third clause: "The United States shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder." The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is rather more specific in its provisions on this subject, though even that instrument seems scarcely to have contemplated an armament and garrison on the large and permanent scale intended at the isthmus.[17] England has, however, acquiesced in the proposed fortification. The decision is not likely to be challenged in any other quarter. The United States have built the canal with their own money and enterprise. They are more closely and immediately interested in the passage than any other Power, and so long as they fulfil their undertaking to afford equal treatment in tolls and other respects to the commerce of all nations, nobody is likely to protest against the presence of American men and guns at the isthmus. Indeed, there is some force in the plea that the complete neutralization of the canal would be inconsistent with American control and operation. In time of war the Americans would have had either to refrain from using the canal for their warships (an unthinkable proposition) or to permit their enemy or enemies to use it on equal terms. This would have meant a rather painful experience for the American engineers, managers, workmen, and others on the isthmus. They would have been obliged to put the enemy's vessels through the canal, and thus commit a sort of legalized treason against their own government by giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy. So it comes to this--that the canal will be neutral at all times except when the United States are themselves a belligerent. Then it will become part and parcel of the sovereign dominions of the great American Republic. But the United States will have to stand all the ulterior possibilities of this position. If they were at war the canal would be at once liable to attack. In fact it would invite attack as a very vulnerable point in their armour. It has been truly said that the canal zone will have all the disadvantages, without any of the advantages, of an island. It will be entirely dependent on imported supplies and isolated from the centre of American power. If the American fleet lost the command of the sea even for a short time, the enemy could land troops at any part of the isthmus, march them against any point of the extended canal line and inflict on the United States a wound in a very sensitive, if not a vital region. So that instead of simply doubling the efficiency of the existing American fleet, by enabling it to be transferred swiftly and bodily from the western to the eastern coast, it may rather add to the naval responsibilities of the States and compel a considerable increase in their sea-power. To Englishmen, however, this development of the power and resources of the United States ought to bring no feelings but those of pleasure and satisfaction. In view of the great secular struggle between East and West for supremacy in the Pacific, which some people think will fill the pages of future world history, anything that strengthens the position and prestige of Anglo-Saxondom as the main guardian of Western ideas and principles should be welcome to all the members of that race. It is estimated that the fortification of the canal will cost about $12,000,000. This added to the $375,000,000, the estimated cost of construction, will bring the entire bill up to the round and goodly sum of $400,000,000 or £80,000,000. This puts all other expenditure on artificial water-channels into the shade, as the Suez Canal cost only £19,000,000, the Manchester Ship Canal £15,000,000, and the Kiel Canal £8,000,000. As regards this expense and the possibilities of revenue returns, Colonel Goethals has written an interesting passage:-- Much has been said and predicted as to the commercial value of the canal to the United States. In this connection it must be remembered that the commercial shipping of this country never required the canal. The trip of the _Oregon_ in 1898 settled the question of the advisability of constructing an isthmian canal, and had the canal been built at that time, thereby saving that trip around the Horn, there is no question that it would have been agreed generally that the canal, even at an expenditure of $375,000,000, was worth while. In whatever light the Panama Canal is viewed, it will have paid for itself if in time of war or threatened war a concentration of the fleet is effected without that long, tedious, uncertain route followed by the _Oregon_. It will practically double the efficiency of that fleet, and, notwithstanding the fact that we are a peaceful nation, our outlying possessions make the Panama Canal a military necessity, and it must be so recognized. From this point of view the debt should be charged to the account which necessitated its construction, and whatever revenues are derived from other sources are so much to the good. The traffic that will utilize the canal depends upon the tolls that will be charged, and the President has asked the Congress for legislation which will enable the establishment of rates. There is another policy which, if adopted, will have a material bearing on the revenues of the enterprise. Through the Panama railroad a large expenditure of money has been made for providing the present working forces with supplies of all kinds. Though the railroad has been reimbursed for this plant through fixed charges on sales, it should not be abandoned, but utilized for furnishing shipping with its needed supplies. Suitable coaling plants should be erected for the sale of coal to vessels touching at or passing through the canal. In addition, since oil is now used on a number of ships plying in the Pacific, such fuel should also be on hand for sale by the canal authorities. The extensive machine shops now located at Gorgona must be moved before the completion of the canal, and they should be established in connection with a dry dock that will be needed for commercial purposes, and utilized as a revenue producer for the canal. This policy also needs Congressional action. With properly regulated tolls, and with facilities for fully equipping, supplying, and repairing ships, the Panama route would offer many advantages and bring to it a sufficiently remunerative return to pay, not only the operating expenses, but to gradually absorb the debt which the United States has incurred by its construction. We shall return to the question of tolls in a later chapter. [Illustration: Pedro Miguel Locks, from Hill on East Bank.] FOOTNOTES: [17] See _ante_, page 71. CHAPTER XV. PANAMA AND THE ISTHMUS. It may be convenient to deal here with a few detached questions before inquiring into the commercial and maritime changes likely to be produced by the canal. The reader understands the position of the United States at the isthmus. They control a zone of territory ten miles wide running across from Panama to Colon. These two towns are, however, not included politically, though they are geographically, within the zone. This narrow strip of territory with its precious canal runs right through a foreign country in which the social and political conditions existing must be a matter of importance to the canal-owners. One cannot help wondering how long this state of things is likely to continue. Panama, the youngest of the South and Central American republics, is no better than the rest in its governmental principles. Indeed, the republic had scarcely got into being when it was threatened with a military revolution. A pompous and polysyllabic self-importance, coupled with a levantine standard of business and financial ethics, scarcely promises a long continuance of the present political relations with a great republic which is not likely to see its achievement at the isthmus in the smallest degree prejudiced or endangered. Some interesting little details of Panamanian manners have been reported. For example, Chinese immigration is forbidden by law, yet, strange to say, most of the retail trade of the isthmus is in Celestial hands. This is because the law against immigration gave the opportunity for the formation of a syndicate with the collusion of the authorities, by which Chinese were introduced at a rate of $200 entrance fee. The judicial standards which prevail in this little Bumbledom may be gathered from another story. The mate of a British ship was recently sentenced to twelve years' hard labour for manslaughter, because he was held responsible on no evidence whatever for the loss of a ship and the lives of several relatives of _those serving on the jury_. It is scarcely to be expected that a people for whom ideals and standards of this kind are good enough will take much trouble to develop their country. An efficient and responsible administration might make a good deal of these narrow lands between the two oceans, a territory of 33,000 square miles, larger, that is, than Scotland or Ireland. It is perhaps as well that the construction of the canal has not made many Panamanian fortunes or produced any great boom in trade. Otherwise the withdrawal of the industrial army from the zone might have had the effect produced when the French canal works were shut down. A grievous famine desolated the whole country. This is not likely to happen again. The zone has been largely an independent and detached enclave, such as never existed during the French occupation, when the Panamanians became dependent for work and wage on the industrial invaders. The American canal employees have done very little shopping in Panama and Colon, because they could buy every necessity and luxury duty-free in the United States government stores. Some trade may be lost owing to the departure of the workers, but it is hoped that this will be more than replaced by the growing stream of tourists who will come to visit the "big ditch," and increased business brought by the shipping which will pass through the canal. With a little thrift and enterprise the Panamanians might have profited much more from the long period of construction. They might have supplied the zone with a good many more articles. As it was, the only contribution the country made to the zone or to the towns was about 28,000 head of cattle killed annually. The country is almost entirely dependent on imported supplies, only a small fraction of which it pays for by exports. Here is a little instructive table of the Panamanian commerce:-- Imports. Exports. 1908 £1,561,362 £365,410 1909 £1,751,261 £300,495 1910 £2,008,679 £353,866 1911 £1,980,488 £179,941[18] The excess of imports over exports looks rather alarming, but it is adequately explained by the British Consul at Colon as "a measure of the commercial value to Panama of its transit trade and of the trade with canal employees and tourists." The great bulk of the imports is consumed in the two towns of Panama and Colon, for, as in most of the South American republics, the interior is undeveloped and therefore self-supporting, being still in the "pack-mule" stage of civilization. In 1911 the imports into Panama from the United States amounted to £1,024,589, from the United Kingdom to £454,541, and from Germany to £223,845. France, Italy, and Spain exported to Panama smaller quantities. The exports from Panama to the United States amounted in 1910 to £301,684 (1911, first six months, £150,990); to the United Kingdom, to £33,055 (1911, first six months, £15,921), with smaller values to Germany and France. The reader will be interested to learn what sort of things Panama exports. Here, then, is a list of the principal exports for 1910, the last full year available:-- 1910. £ Bananas Bunches 3,643,900 184,257 Cacao Kilos 18,021 940 Cocoanuts " 6,305,238 31,534 Cocobolo " 1,203,522 7,132 Gold " 2,748 26,995 Hides " 567,454 16,973 Horns " 6,893 1,410 Ivory Nuts " 2,102,743 26,527 Mother-of-pearl shell " 625,008 10,183 Rubber " 6,305,238 31,534 Sarsaparilla " 32,553 2,099 Skins " 257,740 4,750 Tortoise shell " 3,829 3,334 The United Fruit Company has now, in the province of Bocas del Toro, 32,000 acres of bananas under cultivation and 1,000 acres planted in cacao, with about 165,000 trees; the bananas being exported to the United States, and the chocolate to the United States and Europe. There should be a considerable increase in rubber production during the next few years, as 150,000 rubber trees have been recently planted in this province, and these will soon be ready for tapping. Nearly all the rubber exported at present is taken from the wild trees growing in the virgin forests of this province. A curious article of exportation is the ivory nut, or _tagua_, which in value now comes next after bananas. These nuts are collected by Indians on the Caribbean coast, brought to Colon, and there bought by merchants and shipped to New York and Hamburg. They are used to make the big buttons which are now so fashionable, and probably a good many English girls who are wearing coats "made in Germany," are carrying about a number of these ivory nuts which not long ago were lying on the tropical shores of the Caribbean. The timber exports from Panama would grow rapidly with proper exploitation. Exports of mahogany, cedar, and cocobolo have already begun. The gold exports come mainly from the mines of the Darien Company, a French company which has been working for years. The whole isthmus is strongly under suspicion of gold. All the streams show evidence of it, and prospectors are always searching the Darien country and the provinces of Los Santos and Veraguas for the saint-seducing metal. No other minerals are worked in the isthmus. There are "coal-deposits" of a sort in the canal zone, but the coal is of no commercial value. The only railway at present existing in the republic is that between Colon and Panama, the entire stock of which is owned by the United States government, and is worked as a company under the laws of the state of New York. This line, which has had to be largely reconstructed owing to the course of the new canal, was opened in 1855. It is rather surprising that it should not have been more extensively employed for traffic between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America. As a matter of fact, it was the main highway of transcontinental traffic until 1869, when the Missouri River was first linked up with the Pacific coast by the Union and Central Pacific Railroads, and the first continuous line across the States came into existence. After that date the traffic fell off very rapidly. The causes of this decline are various. To begin with, the great trunk-lines across the States competed ruthlessly with the old isthmian route, getting control of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which was for long the only regular line between the west coasts of the United States and Panama. Then the French and American construction work has seriously interfered with the route by limiting the amount of commercial freight that could be handled across the isthmus. Another cause of depression has been the opening of the Tehuantepec route in South Mexico. In 1906 the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company made an agreement with the Tehuantepec National Railway, which runs across the isthmus, and withdrew its vessels from the old Magellan route, establishing regular services between New York and Puerto Mexico on the Atlantic side, and on the Pacific between Salina Cruz, the Pacific terminal of the canal, and the west coast ports of the United States and Hawaii. The route so organized was opened in 1907, and has proved very successful, chiefly owing to the enormous increase in the sugar exports from Hawaii. The intercoastal traffic by Tehuantepec from New York to Pacific ports advanced from 114,900 tons in 1906 to 295,800 tons in 1911, and from Pacific ports to New York from 32,000 tons in 1906 to 162,500 in 1911. All this competition hit the Panama route very badly. The Atlantic to Pacific traffic by that railroad rose from 25,914 tons in 1906 to 46,394 tons in 1910, and the Pacific to Atlantic from 24,937 tons to 32,482 tons between the same years. But in 1911 there came a sudden expansion to 96,420 tons (Atlantic to Pacific), and to 115,508 tons (Pacific to Atlantic), owing largely to the development of shipping services on both isthmian terminals. In fact, the commercial freight has had to be seriously held up and restricted in the interests of canal construction and the shipment of canal material. The reader will perhaps ask whether the Tehuantepec route is likely to compete seriously in the future with the Panama Canal. The distance from New York to San Francisco is 1,016 nautical miles less _via_ Tehuantepec than _via_ Panama, and from New Orleans 1,573 miles less. The difference to Honolulu in favour of the Tehuantepec transit is almost exactly the same. But the difference in time will be a good deal less than these figures indicate. The cargo has to be transferred from shipboard to railroad on one side of the isthmus of Tehuantepec and retransferred on the other. This means on the average about four days' delay. At Panama, a vessel can pass through the canal in half a day, or, reckoning other causes of detention, coaling, etc., the total isthmian transit should not take more than one day. Then there is the question of expense. The cost of transferring freight at Tehuantepec could not be less than $2.50 per cargo ton. A Panama toll of $1.20 per vessel ton, net register, would be equivalent to about $0.60 per cargo ton, giving Panama an advantage of $2 over Tehuantepec. And the inconvenience and damage resulting from transhipment, from which a through service through the canal is free, will also be a considerable point in favour of the waterway. It is not likely, however, that Tehuantepec will be ruined by the opening of the canal. Considerable short-distance coasting trade is sure to continue along that route, and it will share in the general benefit of the developments which await Isthmian and Central America. Has Panama any danger to fear from its old rival the Nicaraguan canal project? The United States seems to have forestalled this possible challenge of Panama's monopoly of water transit over the isthmus. Just as I write comes the news of a new treaty between the United States and Nicaragua, securing to the former, for the payment of $3,000,000, the exclusive rights to construct a canal through Nicaraguan territory. The United States are reported also to have obtained under the treaty possession of Fonseca Bay, one of the few places on the west coast of Central America affording ample deep water facilities. Moreover, the Colombian Chargé d'Affaires in London recently made the following communication to the press:-- I have received from my government the following information respecting certain propositions made to Colombia by the government of the United States, which the government of Colombia has not accepted. The American propositions were as follows: 1. That Colombia should grant the United States an option for the construction of an interoceanic canal, starting from the Gulf of Uraba on the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, through the region of the Atrato River. 2. That Colombia should give to the American government the right to establish coaling stations in the islands of San Andres and Providencia, which are located in the Caribbean Sea. 3. In consideration of the above, the United States to pay to Colombia $10,000,000 and to use their good influence for the settlement of pending differences between Colombia and Panama. Also to grant Colombia preferential rights for the use of the canal and the settlement by arbitration of the claims of Colombia against the Panama Railroad Company. The government of Colombia declined to accept the above proposals, insisting, at the same time, that all questions pending between Colombia and the United States should be settled by arbitration. It is evident that the United States are not going to permit any competitive canal scheme in Central America if they can help it. What will be the effect of the opening of the canal on Panamanian prosperity? The local merchants fear that the system of state-supply, which has prevailed in the zone during the constructional period, will be continued after completion and extended to the shipping which will pass through the canal, and that coal and ship-chandlery will become American government monopolies. Much depends on whether the Panamanian merchant will be allowed to import freely through Colon and compete in the supplying of the ships in transit. No serious development can be expected in Panama until the country is better provided with railways. The only other line in contemplation is one from Empire, on the Culebra Cut, to David, a town close to the Pacific near the far western frontier, in the province of Chiriqui. This line would be 289 miles in length, and branches from it are proposed to Anton, 5 miles, and to Los Santos, about 67 miles. It is pretty safe to prophesy that the blue streak through the isthmus of Panama will have a gradual but sure effect on the politics of Central America. The need to protect the canal, and to surround it with orderly conditions, social and political, will compel a good many states to put themselves to amendment or force the big republic responsible for the canal to provide them with good government whether they like it or not. If the United States had to intervene in Cuba in order to put down anarchy or misrule, they may be persuaded by an even stronger necessity to intervene in the affairs of Central America in the defence of the Panama Canal. It would be no surprise, especially after recent events in Mexico, if the south-western frontier of the States gradually advanced down the broad and narrow isthmus until it reached and passed the line of the canal. This would be quite in accordance with the law which makes it almost inevitable that a great and well-governed Power should absorb weaker states along its borders, especially when these are unable to keep their houses in order. There is always the danger that foreign Powers will intervene in the affairs of these republics in the interests of their bondholders, and this would compel in turn the intervention of the United States in order to make good the Monroe doctrine, which is directed against any such foreign interference in American affairs. In order to avoid these complications Mr. Taft actually proposed not long ago to refund the debts of Honduras and Nicaragua, placing the custom-houses under the control of American officials. The object was partly to secure loans advanced by American bankers, but partly also to satisfy European bondholders and to make the politics of these republics more stable. Nothing came of this significant project. But I should not care to ensure, except at a very high premium, the permanence of the political arrangements now existing in these regions when the Panama Canal is in working order and becomes more and more essential to the safety and prosperity of the great republic. The canal may in the long run be not "virtually" but actually "a part of the coastline of the United States." FOOTNOTES: [18] Six months. CHAPTER XVI. THE NEW OCEAN HIGHWAYS. I have already mentioned that England and Europe gained much more from the opening of the Suez Canal than the United States. Before the Suez Canal was opened, the voyage both from Liverpool and from New York to Asia and Australia was made _via_ the Cape of Good Hope. Liverpool had then an advantage over New York of 480 miles in the journey to all Asiatic and Australian as well as East African ports. When the Suez Canal was opened the route to Asia was _via_ the Mediterranean and Red Seas for both Liverpool and New York. But New York is 3,207 miles from Gibraltar, while Liverpool is only 1,283, so that Liverpool has had an advantage of 1,924 miles instead of 480, as formerly, on the voyage to Asiatic ports. In other words, Liverpool gained a competitive benefit of 1,444 miles from the opening of the Suez Canal. Now let us take the voyage to Australia from New York and Liverpool. From New York the journey is still made _via_ the Cape of Good Hope, but from Liverpool chiefly _via_ Suez. Liverpool is 1,622 miles nearer than New York to Australia _via_ Suez, but only 480 miles nearer round the Cape. Liverpool therefore has owed a competitive "pull" of 1,142 miles over New York to the Suez Canal. Let us remember, therefore, that the Suez Canal has largely diminished the advantage which the western route sought by Columbus and his successors would once have conferred upon England and Europe in the voyage to the Far East. The opening of the Panama Canal will readjust the balance which was tilted against the United States when the Suez Canal was opened in 1869. The United States will gain far more than the western ports of Europe from the new highway through the American isthmus. Speaking broadly, Suez was a British, Panama is an American proposition. There are so many facts and figures in connection with the changes in distances and sea-routes as the result of the construction of the Panama Canal that it may save the reader's attention to lay down a few more obvious effects in succession. We can then go on to look at the subject in closer detail. 1. The canal reduces the distance between New York on the eastern and all ports on the western seaboard of America _north of Panama_ by 8,415 geographical miles. The saving from New Orleans is much greater. 2. Liverpool is brought 6,046 miles nearer to all ports on the western seaboard of America (of course including Canada) north of Panama. 3. The saving between New York and the Pacific ports of America _south of Panama_ depends how far south those ports are. But on the average the shortening of distance is 4,709 miles. The saving varies from 8,415 miles at Panama to about 1,004 miles at Punta Arenas, the strange little town on the Straits of Magellan. New Orleans and the Gulf ports benefit still more. [Illustration: OCEAN ROUTES] 4. Liverpool is brought on an average about 2,600 miles nearer to Pacific ports of America _south of Panama_. The shortening of distance varies from 6,046 miles at Panama itself down to zero at a point between Punta Arenas and Coronel (the most southerly commercial port of Chile). 5. All the Pacific ports of the Americas are, _via_ Panama, 2,759 miles nearer to New York than to Liverpool. 6. The Panama Canal will not bring any port in Australia or the East Indies, nor any ice-free port in Asia or Asiatic islands, nearer to any European port. Of all ports on the western Pacific coasts, only those of New Zealand and a few very chilly ones in Siberia will be brought nearer to Liverpool. 7. All of Asia and all of Australia, with the exception of New Zealand, will be nearer Europe by way of the Suez Canal than by way of the Panama route. 8. Nearly all Japan, Shanghai, Hong-kong, the Philippines, New Guinea, all Australia (save a far western strip), and all New Zealand are brought nearer the Atlantic and Gulf ports of the United States and the Atlantic ports of Canada. 9. The relative distances from New York and Liverpool to the Atlantic coast of South America (nearly all way down), to Africa, and to Asiatic ports south of Hong-kong are unchanged. 10. It is New York and not Liverpool which is now nearer to Yokohama, Sydney, and Melbourne. Wellington, in New Zealand, formerly equidistant between the two great ports, is now 2,739 miles nearer to New York than to Liverpool. Sydney, which was formerly over 1,500 miles nearer Liverpool (_via_ Suez) than New York (_via_ Cape of Good Hope), now becomes 2,424 miles nearer New York (_via_ Panama) than Liverpool (_via_ Suez). 11. Nearly the whole of the Atlantic seaboard in the Old World and the New is brought nearer to the Pacific ports of the United States and Canada. 12. The Panama Canal cannot invade the main traffic field of the Suez route--the countries of Southern Asia, East Africa, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. The competitive region of the two canals lies east of Singapore. [Illustration: THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA] The reader will gather from the last proposition that the scene of the new battle of the routes will lie in the Western Pacific, and this probably will also be the scene of the main industrial and commercial competitions of the future. It is in these regions, Australasia and the countries along the Pacific Asiatic coasts, that the traffic zones of the Suez and Panama Canals touch or overlap. The positive effect on relative distances from American and European ports is of great importance to commercial developments in these regions. Let us look at the geographical results of the Panama Canal a little more closely. On pages 252, 253 are two tables transcribed from the official report of 1912 on Panama Canal Traffic and Tolls, by Mr. Emory R. Johnson. The following tables are given by Dr. Vaughan Cornish:-- Reduction miles New York to-- (geog.). Yokohama { by Suez 13,564 } { by Panama 9,835 } 3,729 Shanghai { by Suez 12,514 } { by Panama 10,855 } 1,629 Sydney { by Cape of Good Hope 13,658 } { by Panama (_via_ Tahiti) 9,852 } 3,806 Melbourne { by Cape of Good Hope 13,083 } { by Panama (_via_ Tahiti) 10,427 } 2,656 Wellington, { by Straits of Magellan 11,414 } N.Z. { by Panama 8,872 } 2,542 Hong-kong { by Suez 11,655 { by Panama 11,744 Manila { by Suez 11,601 } (Philippines) { by Panama _via_ San Francisco } 16 { and Yokohama 11,585 } { by Panama, Honolulu and Guam 11,729 Comparative distances (in nautical miles) from New York and Liverpool to New Zealand, Australia, Philippines, China and Japan, _via_ Suez and Panama Canals. ----------+--------------------------+-------------------------+---------- | New York _via_ | Liverpool _via_ |Difference | Panama Canal. | Suez Canal. |in favour To +----------------+---------+---------------+---------+of Suez -, | Ports of Call. |Distance.| Ports of Call.|Distance.|Panama +. ----------+----------------+---------+---------------+---------+---------- Wellington|Panama and | 8,851 |Aden, Colombo, | | | Tahiti | | King George | | | | | Sound, and | | | | | Melbourne | 12,889 | +4,138 Sydney | " | 9,811 |Aden, Colombo, | | | | | King George | | | | | Sound, | | | | | Adelaide, and| | | | | Melbourne | 12,235 | +2,424 Adelaide |Panama, Tahiti, | 10,904 |Aden, Colombo, | | | Sydney, and | | and King | | | Melbourne | | George Sound | 11,142 | +238 Manila |Panama, San | 11,548 |Aden, Colombo, | | | Francisco, and| | and Singapore| 9,701 | -1,847 | Yokohama | | | | Hong-kong | " | 11,383 | " | 9,785 | -1,598 Shanghai | " | 10,839 |Aden, Colombo, | | | | | Singapore, | | | | | and Hong-kong| 10,637 | -202 Tientsin | " | 11,248 |Aden, Colombo, | | | | | Singapore, | | | | | Hong-kong, | | | | | and Shanghai | 11,377 | +129 Yokohama |Panama and San | 9,798 | " | | | Francisco | | | 11,678 | +1,880 ----------+----------------+---------+---------------+---------+---------- Distances (in nautical miles) from Liverpool _via_ the Panama and Suez routes to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippine Islands, China, and Japan. ----------+---------------+---------+---------------+---------+---------- | | | | | In favour To | Suez Route. |Distance.| Panama Route. |Distance.|of Suez -, | | | | | Panama +. ----------+---------------+---------+---------------+---------+---------- Adelaide |Aden, Colombo, | |Panama, Tahiti,| | | and King | | Sydney, and | | | George Sound | 11,142 | Melbourne | 13,478 | -2,336 Melbourne |Aden, Colombo, | |Panama, Tahiti,| | | King George | | and Sydney | 12,966 | -1,312 | Sound, and | | | | | Adelaide | 11,654 | | | Sydney |Aden, Colombo, | |Panama and | | | King George | | Tahiti | 12,385 | -150 | Sound, | | | | | Adelaide, and| | | | | Melbourne | 12,235 | | | Wellington|Aden, Colombo, | | " | 11,425 | +1,564 | King George | | | | | Sound, and | | | | | Melbourne | 12,989 | | | Manila |Aden, Colombo, | |Panama, San | | | and Singapore| 9,701 | Francisco, | | | | | and Yokohama | 14,122 | -4,421 Hong-kong | " | 9,785 | " | 13,957 | -4,172 Tientsin |Aden, Colombo, | | " | 13,822 | -2,445 | Singapore, | | | | | Hong-kong, | | | | | and Shanghai | 11,377 | | | Yokohama | " | |Panama and San | | | | 11,678 | Francisco | 12,372 | -694 ----------+---------------+---------+---------------+---------+---------- As figures are rather confusing and difficult to retain in the memory, let us find a more graphic way of indicating this zone in the Western Pacific where the chief conflict of canal and commerce is likely to take place in the future. Let us mark out a block of sea and land between the lines of latitude 40° north and 40° south and the lines of longitude 120° east and 160° east of Greenwich. This zone includes Japan and Korea, Shanghai and the Philippines, New Guinea, and all Australia except the farthest western coastline. New Zealand lies outside it. Now along its western margin, the Suez and Panama routes to New York are equal in length. Along its eastern margin, which lies outside Japan and Australia (_not_ New Zealand), and only traverses the scattered islets of the Pacific, the Suez and Panama routes to Liverpool are equal in length. Now look down an imaginary line near the centre of the zone but running rather west of north and east of south. Along this line all places are the same distance from New York and Liverpool by Panama and Suez respectively. Can we, then, roughly forecast the changes in ocean trade-routes which will result from this new channel of communication between East and West? For this purpose we may divide the world traffic into three parts--firstly, that part of it which the canal is almost certain to secure; secondly, that for which it will have to fight with competitive routes; thirdly, that which it will have no chance of securing. As regards the first, Panama will almost certainly attract most, if not all, the traffic which flows from the eastern American and Gulf ports to Hawaii and the west coast of North and South America, and of the traffic from the United Kingdom and the west of Europe to the whole western seaboard of America. We have already seen the regions where the Panama Canal will have to compete with the existing routes. Roughly, they comprise Pacific Asia, a part of the East Indies, and Australasia. These regions represent an enormous volume of traffic from which Panama will have to try to detach as large a share as possible. The third part is the main traffic-field of Suez--that is, Southern Asia, East Africa, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. No efforts on the part of Panama, no reductions of canal tolls, could possibly lure any of this traffic from its determination to Suez; the competitive region of the two canals lies all east of Singapore, and the greater part of the commerce of that region with Western Europe will still continue to move _via_ Suez. The question of tolls at Panama is, of course, very important in its bearing upon the future popularity of the canal. It would certainly not have done to make the Panama charges higher than those at Suez. These latter have been reduced as from January 1, 1912. They are now 6.25 francs ($1.206) per net ton for loaded vessels. The passenger tolls are 10 francs a passenger above twelve years of age, and 5 francs for each child from three to twelve years old. If these figures had been exceeded at Panama the traffic there would have suffered. On the other hand, the attempt to attract traffic by a great reduction on tolls would have involved a loss on the assured traffic between the eastern and western coasts of America which would have more than counterbalanced the probable gain. Mr. Taft's proclamation fixing the Panama tolls will be found at the end of the book. It will be seen that the charge of $1.20 is almost identical with the Suez toll. There are, however, to be no passenger tolls at Panama. It must not be forgotten that the Suez Canal could very well afford to lower its charges to meet the new competition. A dividend of 30 per cent. leaves a considerable margin for this purpose. [Illustration] And we must remember that tolls, however important, are not by any means the only determinants of traffic-routes. All sorts of commercial and freight considerations come into play. For example, the shortest way from Japan to the eastern coasts of North America will be _via_ Panama. Fully loaded vessels will certainly go that way. But the ship that leaves the land of the cherry blossom only partly loaded and wanting to make up a full freight may choose the route past Asia and through the Suez Canal as being more likely to serve that object. Then the cost of coal is an important point. Other things being equal, shipowners will select the routes by which coal is cheapest and the coaling stations nearest each other. With plenty of cargo coming along and good freight rates it is desirable to reserve as little bunker space as possible. I cannot go into this question at any great length, but in the competition with the Suez route it will be quite as important to have abundant and cheap coal at Colon (the pun is accidental!) and Panama as to keep the transit dues moderate. But we have not yet exhausted the motives which may help to prompt the choice of one route rather than another. There is the question of climatic conditions--storms and winds and currents. In this respect Panama should have a decided advantage over Suez. The Red Sea, as everybody knows, is red hot. This is not good for some sorts of cargo, and so terrible is the heat at times that the stokers are said to be unable to maintain the steam at full pressure. This may involve an appreciable delay in the 1,310-mile run from Suez to Aden. Moreover, from a temper and character point of view, the North Pacific and Caribbean are distinctly superior to the Indian Ocean and the North Atlantic. The deliverance which the Panama Canal will afford to many vessels and steamship lines from the perils and savageries of "Cape Stiff," as the sailors call the Horn, or the reefs and currents of Magellan's Straits, is in itself one of the blessings of the new route. Travellers tell us that the biggest ocean rollers in the world are found on the Pacific coast of America just a little north of the southern straits. For these reasons insurance rates _via_ Panama are likely to be lower than those round the far south of the American continent. There is good reason to believe that the Panama Canal will pay its way without imposing any new burden on the taxpayers of the United States. It will probably not produce the dividends of the Suez Canal. It will have cost four times as much, and is unlikely for many years to command quite as large a volume of traffic. The increase in the traffic at Suez has been enormous during the last fifteen years, owing largely to the development of the resources of the Far East with the help of western capital. The net tonnage of vessels passing through the canal in 1911 was 18,324,794, and the total passengers were 275,651. All forecasts of the traffic _via_ Panama must, of course, be speculative, but it may be mentioned that the net register tonnage of vessels that might have advantageously used a Panama Canal in 1910 is officially estimated at 8,328,029. Before discussing the more economic and commercial results likely to follow from the opening of the canal, there are one or two subsidiary questions we may consider. Is the Panama Canal likely to be used by sailing vessels? The prevailing idea is that it will be no more practicable a route for such craft than the Suez Canal. Winds, tides, and currents have much more to say to the sailing vessel than to the steamer, and the terminals of the canal, especially on the Pacific end, are not always easy of approach to wind-driven ships. One effect of the opening of the Panama Canal will be to hasten the decline of these old-fashioned and more beautiful craft. It must not be imagined that the "windjammer" or "limejuicer," in the sea-going vernacular, has already nearly disappeared from the seven seas. A great deal of the world's commerce is still carried on in such vessels. They still battle their way round the Horn laden with the timber of Oregon or British Columbia and the nitrates of Chile. But the unsuitability of the Panama transit for sailing vessels will unquestionably lead to their quicker decline. It is interesting to see how steam has gradually ousted sail in the world's shipping. In 1873-4 the sea-going sail tonnage of the world was 14,185,836 tons. This declined to 11,636,289 in 1888-9; to 8,693,769 in 1898-9; and to 6,412,211 in 1910-11; while steam tonnage increased from 4,328,193 in 1873-4 to 41,061,077 in 1910-11. For many reasons, climatic and economic, we may safely assume that the Panama Canal will be confined exclusively to "steam circles." Steamers will be substituted for the "limejuicers" in every canal-using line, and the snowy canvas will be banished to other regions. Hitherto, such freights as coal, lumber, grain, nitrate of soda, and sugar have been considered specially suited for sail transportation, because they are shipped as full vessel cargoes and do not require rapid transportation or delivery. But even such cargoes are certain to be largely transferred to the steamship when it is realized that the Panama Canal is "no road" for sailing vessels. Another interesting question is the probable effect of the canal on the American mercantile marine. The ocean-going merchantmen of the United States engaged in the foreign trade are practically non-existent, though the "coasting" trade, which includes the trade of Hawaii and the Philippines with the United States, is strictly reserved to American vessels, ships flying foreign flags being entirely excluded. But these latter, which are in the main British, carry on all the foreign trade of the United States with South America, New Zealand, Australia, Northern China and Japan. It is almost unbelievable that in 1908 there was not a single steamship flying the flag of the United States between the United States ports and those of Brazil, the Argentine, Chile, or Peru. The mails from New York and the other Atlantic ports of the American republic go, or went until quite recently, _via_ Europe, though New York is 370 miles nearer Brazil, etc., than the Old World coasts.[19] The reasons for this want of a foreign-trade mercantile marine are chiefly the greater cost of shipbuilding in the United States and the requisitions with regard to wages and food of the American trade-unions. The result of the high standards of comfort thus imposed has been that the cost in wages and food to run American ships under American conditions across the Pacific is double that in European or Japanese steamers. It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that some people in the United States regard the Panama Canal as a very disinterested gift from the United States to humanity at large, especially perhaps to Great Britain and Japan--as an example of altruism run mad. But while the United States may not be ready to reap the full advantage of the canal at the start, it is highly probable that its opening will lead to a rapid growth in the United States merchant service. A larger coasting fleet will be required with larger vessels, and this will lead to a general development of the larger classes of shipbuilding. At present no vessels are permitted to fly the American flag unless American-built. A large number of American-owned vessels are therefore registered under the flags of some foreign nation. As the United States begins to compete in cheapness and efficiency of shipbuilding with other countries, the chief motive for this foreign registration will be removed. Great Britain cannot expect to be the chief carrier of United States trade for ever. This is indeed one of many directions in which the opening of the Panama Canal may tend rather to the disadvantage than to the benefit of the United Kingdom. There is no reason why the United States should not build up a mercantile marine as swiftly as Germany and Japan have done. England will have to consider seriously this and many other probable effects of the canal closely touching her most important interests. I will conclude this chapter with an interesting little fact which may already have occurred to the reader. From the moment the Panama Canal is opened it will be possible for the first time to sail all round the world from England wholly in the northern hemisphere and without crossing the Equator. Who will be the first circumnavigator along the all-northern trail? FOOTNOTES: [19] Many persons may have expected these countries to be much nearer New York. They do not realize that _nearly all South America lies east of North America_. Washington is on the same meridian as Callao on the coast of Peru. Antofagasta and Iquique, the chief nitrate ports of Chile, have the longitude of Boston. The eastern point of Brazil lies 2,600 miles east of New York, and is _equidistant from New York Bay and the English Channel_. CHAPTER XVII. THE CANAL AND THE AMERICAS. The likely effects of the Panama Canal on international commerce and the development of the world's resources is so big a subject that one can do little more than indicate the larger probabilities. The influence of the canal on the British Empire must be left to another chapter. Here we shall have to consider mainly the case of the United States, the country which stands to gain far more than any other from this new link between East and West. The most obvious result of the new event, as it was the main object of the canal's construction, must be the immensely quickened all-sea communication between the eastern and western coasts of North America. The motive for the building of the canal was military rather than commercial. It was rendered necessary by painful experience during the Spanish-American War of the effects of the 14,000-mile sea journey between the two seaboards of the republic. But the commercial results will not be the less important because they were not foremost in the object and motive of the canal-builders. It is pretty clear that what we may call the main developmental effect of the canal will be felt along that Pacific coast of the Americas which has been so long shut out from the great centres of industrial enterprise in the New World and the Old. We are so accustomed to regard the United States as a fully developed and fully equipped country that we forget how slowly her population and industries advanced westward from the Atlantic coasts. Even now it cannot be said that the railroad communications between the east and the Pacific states beyond the great mountain-divide of the Rockies are fully equal to the carriage of the produce which is or should be exchanged between east and west. The transcontinental lines have scarcely yet furnished a cheap and satisfactory connection between the Pacific coast states and their largest and most natural markets. Hitherto the railways have had to compete with only three alternative routes: (1) the all-sea route round Cape Horn for sailers, and through Magellan Straits for steamers; (2) the route _via_ Panama, with railroad transit over the isthmus; (3) the route _via_ Tehuantepec, with railroad transit over that isthmus from Puerto Mexico on the Gulf to Salina Cruz on the Pacific. The new canal will be a much more formidable competitor. It is highly important that the industries of the United States should have the benefit of this healthy tug-of-war between railroad and canal, and the government is perfectly justified in keeping that competition open, even to the length of forbidding the use of the canal to ships owned, controlled, or operated by railway companies. There is no fear that the Panama Canal, even if it prospers exceedingly, will ruin the transcontinental railroads. The report of the Isthmian Canal Commission in 1901 made some interesting remarks on this subject, and they are as pertinent to-day:-- The competition of the canal will affect, first, the volume and rates of the through business of the Pacific railroads, and secondly, the amount of their local traffic. At the beginning of their existence these railways depended almost entirely upon their through traffic; but their chief aim throughout their history has been to increase the local business, which is always more profitable than the through traffic; and although the great stretch of country crossed by them is still in the infancy of its industrial development, the local traffic of some, if not all, of the Pacific roads has already become of chief importance. A vice-president of one of the railway systems states that since 1893 "the increase in business of the transcontinental lines has not come from the seaports, but from the development of the intermediate country." The canal can certainly in no wise check the growth of this local traffic, and the evidence strongly supports the belief entertained by many persons that the canal will assist largely in the industrial expansion of the territory served by the Pacific railways. If this be true, the proximate effect of the isthmian canal in compelling a reduction and readjustment of the rates on the share of the transcontinental railway business that will be subject to the competition of the new water route, will be more than offset by the ultimate and not distant expansion of the through and local traffic, that must necessarily be handled by rail. It seems probable that the increase in the population of the country, and the growth in our home and foreign trade, will early demonstrate the need of the transportation service of both the canal and the railways. The reduction of freight through the use of the canal is sure to give a big stimulus to many leading industries of the Pacific states. One of the most important is the lumber industry. California and Oregon are very rich in forests of pine, spruce, cedar, and redwood, the last being much in demand in Atlantic countries. A good deal of this timber is exported to Europe and the eastern states, and it has all to be carried in sailing ships round Cape Horn. It is calculated that the opening of the Panama Canal will reduce the freight by 50 per cent., which means that all this Pacific coast timber will be correspondingly increased in value. The exports eastwards are sure to advance rapidly with the new means of transport. Grain, wine, and fruit will benefit, and the manufactured goods from the industrial states of the east will flow through the same channel to the western states in an ever-increasing volume. Every staple industry of the United States will feel the new stimulus, and England and Europe generally are certain to feel the pressure of this new competitive power of the American republic. In cotton and iron goods especially the exports from the eastern and southern states are bound to forge ahead. Manufactured cotton goods exported from the southern states have had to be carried by rail to the western ports, and thence by steamer to China and Japan, or else eastward by the Suez Canal, sometimes even _via_ England or Germany. We may imagine what a boon the Panama Canal will be to this trade, and how conveniently it will lie for the Gulf ports and all their raw and manufactured exports. American iron and steel will also be immensely strengthened for competition with those of England and Europe in the markets of China, Japan, British Australasia, and along the coast of South America. We need not describe in detail effects which are likely to be felt over the entire range of American industry. The United States appears, indeed, to be on the verge of tremendous developments. In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute,[20] that well-known physical geographer and economist, Dr. F. B. Vrooman, gave us a hint of further American enterprises in civil engineering, after the Panama Canal is opened:-- The isthmian canal is but a part of the greater American waterways project. As soon as this is finished it is possible that the United States will start in a large way with the project of the artificial canalization of the Mississippi with its 16,000 miles of already navigable waters and a drainage basis of 1,280,000 square miles. The cutting-through of an ocean-ship canal to the Great Lakes will make seaport towns of the Canadian cities on the Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Superior. The Saskatchewan and the Red River can be canalized for 1,000 miles, and a short haul from Winnipeg will open the whole Saskatchewan valley from near the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains--downstream, but for this short portage--all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, and thence to Panama and the Pacific ports. Every transcontinental freight-rate in Canada and the United States will be reduced, and perhaps some in the middle interior. As this great southern movement starts up the industries of the southern states will receive a new impulse. The Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea will spring into a new life, together with the West Indies and Central America and the vast and fertile interior drained by the Orinoco and the Amazon. CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN AMERICA. But there are no countries which will hear the call of the canal so nearly and clearly as those of Central and Southern America. It is astonishing how that forty-mile wide land barrier between the two oceans has isolated all the western shore of the continent. The Panama Canal Railroad has done very little to modify the situation. The Pacific coast of America has looked westwards over its waste of waters, and has scarcely been reached by the industrial and economic forces at work behind it in the Old and New Worlds. Its trade has been carried on mostly with Europe, and especially England, in sailing vessels that have plodded round the distant Horn. An interesting example of this geographical and commercial detachment of the west coast of Central and South America is furnished by the port of Mazatlan in Western Mexico. From this place there are considerable exports of logwood and mahogany. But thirty times as much of this lumber has gone to Europe as to the east of the American continent. On the opposite or eastern side of Mexico is Tampico, where the returns of trade are just the reverse, the United States being the largest customer for its exports. Despite the old Spanish paved roads across the isthmus at Panama, by which the silver and pearls of Peru and the Pacific were conveyed to Nombre de Dios and Porto Bello, for shipment to Spain, despite the sixty years of the little Panama Railway, the American continent even in its narrowest parts has been something like an impenetrable screen between east and west. Four centuries of continued agitation and effort to get the water through show how seriously this physical divorce has been felt, and give an earnest of the large results which are sure to follow the completion of the task. There have been other reasons for the backward development of western South America. To begin with, the Spanish, not a progressive and pioneering race, laid their hands on these countries four hundred years ago, and have held them politically or racially ever since. This would not in itself have kept out the Anglo-Saxon or the German. But these countries have not yet been greatly needed as an outlet of the surplus populations of Europe. Even the United States is very far from being filled up, and Canada is likely to be giving away farms for many years to come. The Teutonic race, to which above all others the trusteeship of Western civilization is committed, has left these Spanish Americas, with their revolutions coming almost as frequently and regularly as the seasons, comparatively unvisited. As yet the North European emigration to the southern continent has been mainly confined to Argentina and Southern Brazil. In one respect the isthmian breakwater has been profitable to these states of the Pacific coast. It has sheltered them largely from the negro element which has spread so widely over the West Indies and the southern United States. But Japan and China are already there, and the yellow will be laid on more and more thickly unless these countries are brought quickly within the zone of Western ideas and enterprise. And that process is likely to begin with the opening of the canal. The backwardness of these regions is indeed almost unbelievable. Most people think of them as producing mainly nitrates and revolutions. But their possible resources and products are illimitable, and are only awaiting the organized capital of the West to be made available for human service. As yet these Latin republics are in their middle ages of development. There are few railways, only one continuous transcontinental line having been completed between Valparaiso, through Mendoza, to Buenos Aires. Their internal communications are carried on mainly by the pack mule, as they have been since the days of Pizarro and Valdivia. Each country, of course, has a foreign trade, but the people of the interior, the Indians or mixed breeds, live in isolated communities which are self-sufficing, raise their own food and make their own simple manufactures, knowing little or nothing of the products of foreign countries. The whole coast and its hinterland is engaged almost solely in what are known as "extractive" industries--that is, in mining or agriculture. The exports consist mainly of foodstuffs and raw materials, nitrate, ores of copper, silver, and gold, grain, sugar, cotton, cocoa, coffee, wool, hides, rubber, and woods. With these the people pay for their manufactured goods, and these come mainly from Europe, and chiefly also from the United Kingdom. The mineral wealth of the northern parts, especially the Andean plateau, is still enormous, though vast quantities have been extracted. For centuries the Andes furnished the civilized world with most of the bullion used for its current coinage. Between 1630 and 1803 Peru alone sent out £250,000,000 worth of silver. Bolivia has contributed £800,000,000 worth; the famous mines of Potosi alone accounted for £600,000,000 worth of this metal. The nitrate works of Chile are in the hands of Englishmen and Germans, and American and other foreigners hold the sugar plantations of Peru. But, as I have said, the range of production is enormous and only awaits the stimulus of imported capital. To give one example of the variety of products, it is said that the Aconcagua valley in Chile would alone furnish annually from its vineyards 1,000,000 gallons of claret, if the grapes were not used to produce a local drink named "chica." There is no sign of the exhaustion of any of the natural products of these regions. Even the nitrate of soda, that most valuable of fertilizers, though it is being shovelled out at a great rate, covers about 220,000 acres, or about 400 miles from north to south, and is sufficient to last for a very long time to come. Nitrate, minerals, wheat, barley, wool, hides--these are the main exports of the Pacific west, the returning imports being cotton goods, machinery, steel rails, woollens, coal, and all sorts of miscellaneous manufactures and supplies. But, as I said, the trade has been almost wholly with Europe, England enjoying a very predominant position. The United States have competed with Europe at great disadvantages. The trade has been mostly carried on in sailing vessels. Now such craft, to get from New York to South America, have been obliged to sail eastwards almost as far as the Canaries in order to catch the trade winds and weather Cape St. Roque on the coast of Brazil. The sailing vessel from Europe, on the other hand, sails right past the Canaries, and can give the American ship ten days' start in the journey to any part of South America south or west of the most easterly point of Brazil. If the reader will turn back to the chapter on the new distances he will see how the little streak of blue water at Panama will alter all this. Take one little fact to illustrate the change. Callao, on the coast of Peru, is, before the opening of the canal, farther by steam from New York than is the South Pole, but the Panama Canal will bring the city 1,000 miles nearer to New York by steam than San Francisco will then be. The canal will reduce the distance from New York to the Chilean nitrate port of Iquique by 5,139 miles (nautical), to Valparaiso by 3,747, to Coronel (farther south) by 3,296, to Valdivia (about 1,000 miles north of Magellan's Straits, nearly at the farthest southern limit of the commercially important part of western South America) by 2,900. Take Iquique, an important North Chilean nitrate port. By Panama this place is 4,004 miles from New York, but 6,578 from Liverpool. Their respective distances _via_ Magellan were 9,143 and 9,510. It looks, therefore, as though the United States, with its new advantages, which begin when the first vessel is passed through the Panama locks, would have a good chance of securing for the future the main share of the South American trade. Its cotton, iron and steel goods, electrical machinery, etc., will be able to compete on very different terms with those of England and Germany. Cotton manufactures have reached Chile and the other countries of Pacific South America by a rather absurdly roundabout route. The raw cotton has been grown in the southern parts of the United States, carried to Europe for manufacture, and brought back to South America _via_ the Straits of Magellan. These goods will, we may be sure, tend in future to go direct from the American factories _via_ New York, Charleston, or New Orleans, without trans-shipment, thus saving about 7,000 miles of transportation. A very small part of the American trade with these countries has passed by the Panama railroad. The rates charged by the steamers which have picked up the goods for the west coast at Panama have been kept so high as to be practically prohibitive. It has actually been cheaper to send goods from the United States by way of England or Germany--that is, a journey of 14,000 miles--than by way of Panama, a journey of three or four thousand. One of the surest results, then, of the Panama Canal opening will be a rapid development of the Pacific coasts of America, especially of South America, and a great expansion of trade between these countries and the United States. The effect of the canal on the Atlantic coasts and hinterland of South America will naturally be less striking. There has never been much interchange of trade between the two coasts of the southern continent, for the simple reason that their products are not complementary but mostly identical. Most of the trade of the eastern coast states is with the countries of the North Atlantic. But some trade to the more northerly and tropical parts of this coast is certain to flow through the canal. Lumber from the Pacific coasts of North America is used in Atlantic South America, and a part of this trade, which is likely to grow in extent, will be passed through the canal. It should be noticed, however, that the temperate reaches of the eastern coast of South America farther to the south will be nearer the Pacific coasts of the United States and Canada _via_ the Horn and the Straits of Magellan owing to the big easterly projection of Brazil. We must leave the probable effects of the Panama Canal on the British possessions in America to another chapter. It has not been possible to deal with prospective commercial developments in great detail. Only some general idea could be given of the vast changes and developments in progress. On the day on which I am writing the Washington correspondent of _The Times_ summarizes the meaning and effect of the Panama Canal in three rather formidable words. He says it "symbolizes commercial Pan-Americanism." The canal is going to help America to keep its trade more to itself. It represents in commerce and economics what the Monroe doctrine represents in politics. It will immensely assist the United States to become the chief industrial supplier of the great continent, with the other states mainly as agricultural or mining annexes. One incident in the furthering of this ambition was the attempt to conclude a treaty of reciprocity with Canada, the effect of which, as Mr. Taft admitted, would have been to make Canada such an "annexe" of the republic. The Canadian people, however, realizing the ulterior political and commercial effects of such a treaty, refused to ratify it. Canada, in fact, belongs to another political and economic system. She gives valuable trade-preference to the manufactures of the mother-country in the Old World, and there is happily no reason to believe that she will abandon the Imperial ideals for the objects of continental Pan-Americanism. After all, the citizens of Canada and the United States are mostly of the same stock, speaking the same language and cherishing the same great traditions. The two branches of the Anglo-Saxon family ought to be able, while each maintaining its own life and growth, to remain happily side by side, sharing in the new prosperity which the world owes to this latest achievement of the great republic. FOOTNOTES: [20] March 19, 1912. CHAPTER XVIII. THE CANAL AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE. One of the most important results of the Panama Canal, one which is likely to have the largest influence on future political history, seems scarcely to have been noticed by writers on this subject. I have shown how much nearer Australia and New Zealand are brought to New York than to Liverpool, owing to the isthmian passage. They are brought of course proportionately nearer to the eastern provinces, which are also the governmental headquarters of Canada. But the moving away, so to speak, of these great countries from England, and their closer approximation to the great and growing branches of the Anglo-Saxon stock in America, has the effect of locating the centre of gravity of the English-speaking races more firmly and permanently than ever in the New World. When Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have grown for another quarter of a century, and the United States have reaped for so long the advantage in wealth and power of the new waterway, the little islands of the United Kingdom may begin to appear as a detached and distant fragment, rather than as the "heart and hearth," of the British Empire and the English-speaking world. In the eighteenth century, when the English plantations in America began to develop their manufactures and had increased rapidly in population, the question was discussed in England how long she could continue to control an oversea empire, likely to be in time more populous and prosperous than the home-country itself, from these far-away islands of the Old World. It was actually suggested at that time that the King of England should carry his crown and throne where the most part of his subjects were congregated. That suggestion is not likely to be repeated. We have found a way of harmonizing local self-government with imperial unity. But the position of England in her empire is sure to be greatly modified as time goes on, and the Panama Canal, by bringing these vast and undeveloped continents and isles of the far south-west so much nearer to North America than to the imperial centre, cannot fail to have some influence in this direction. From a commercial point of view, its effect will be to increase the value and importance of those trade preferences which Australia gives the home country in her markets. Probably no single country in the world, certainly no portion of the British Empire, stands to gain so tremendously from the opening of the canal as British Columbia. England has not yet realized what enormous resources are locked up in this province of the furthest west, which looks out from a hundred harbours to the Pacific and across to the awakening East. The long haul across the continent, the interminable sea-trail round the Horn, twice crossing the equator, kept British Columbia, until lately, outside the thought and interest, not only of Englishmen, but even of the Canadians of the administrative East. Even with the gradual filling of the empty middle and west, geography would have continued to be against British Columbia. But the Panama Canal makes all the difference. This province will no longer look vaguely and dreamily to the western sea-spaces and a still half-slumbering Orient. She will suddenly find herself at one end of a sea-route which will shorten her distance from New York by 8,415 miles and from Liverpool by 6,046 miles. Her timber and other produce will no longer toil wearily in the holds of the "windjammer" down the whole length of Northern, Central, and Southern America. There at Balboa, less than halfway down, is the entrance of the long-desired short-cut to the world-centres of progress and enterprise. The electric thrill of this new circuit will be felt not only along the havens and fjords of the British Columbian coast, but nearly a thousand miles inland. We may say that almost the whole western half of Canada, where the golden wheat frontiers are ever advancing, will face about and henceforth look west instead of east. All the corn and produce of Alberta and Western Saskatchewan will flow, not eastwards as heretofore, but to the Pacific shores, there to be shipped for transit _via_ the canal to the southern and eastern United States, to the north and east of South America, and to the Old World over the Atlantic. Even the eastern and western fronts of the Dominion will feel the grip of a new link, which may serve important naval and defensive interests for Canada. The new Pacific outlet will have many advantages over the eastern. For one thing, it is always ice-free, whereas the eastern route is icebound for five months in the year. Even now, I understand, it is appreciably cheaper in winter to send wheat from Calgary to Liverpool by Vancouver than by St. John's, New Brunswick. The freight-rate between British Columbian and United Kingdom ports should be at least halved when the canal is in operation. Of all cities in any clime or hemisphere, Vancouver seems to stand most surely on the threshold of a new and mighty future. She will have "greatness thrust upon her." Her citizens are preparing for the spacious days that are about to set in. A "Great Vancouver" will probably arise from the nine local municipalities, to provide an area and administration worthy of the dawning era. Dr. F. B. Vrooman eloquently voiced the sentiment of the great port and of British Columbia at a recent luncheon of the Progress Club at Vancouver. He said:-- We are on the verge of nothing less than a revolution of the world's commerce, and industry, and finance, which now, as sure as fate, are destined to be transferred to the lands of the Pacific Ocean. It is not only revolution. It is such a revolution as never has been and never again can be foreordained before chaos primeval for this twentieth century of the Christian era, for there are no more hemispheres to cut in two. There are no more oceans, with half the water area on the world and twenty million square miles more than all the land surface of the globe, to be suddenly transferred into the arena of world trade. There are no more continents with the widest reaches, the richest resources, and the densest populations of the world to be awakened and developed after Asia has achieved its resurrection. Therefore I say to you that there has got to be one port at least in the British Empire big enough to be equal to the greatest opportunity the world ever offered any city since time began. And if that city is not destined to be Vancouver, it will be for one, and for only one, reason--because the men of Vancouver have been too timid and feeble, too shortsighted and too little to take hold of what the good God has offered them. I have already alluded to the question of coal in connection with the new canal. All the new routes will have to be cheaply and abundantly "coaled," or they will be at a great disadvantage in the competition for traffic with Suez. The Isthmian Canal Commission of 1899-1901 pointed out that the coaling stations at San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver will in the future bear about the same relation to the route _via_ the Panama Canal to the Orient as the coaling stations at or near the Suez Canal bear to the route from Europe _via_ Suez to the Orient. Among the Pacific Islands, at Colon and Panama, and among the West Indies coal will have to be stored in big quantities for the tramps and liners and warships which will soon be drawn along these seaways by the new canal. British Columbia has coal illimitable, and this interest alone ought to be quickly and mightily developed in the coming years. Happily there are men of imagination and public spirit in this great Pacific province of the empire who understand what the canal means to it in future wealth and welfare, and are preparing its people to take advantage of the new opportunities. Let an eloquent British Columbian, Dr. Vrooman again, open for us the broad and bright prospect:-- New markets will be found on the Atlantic for British Columbia lumber and paper. This new large demand will increase the price. But the saving of freight is an enormous item. The present freight-rates from Vancouver to Liverpool are sixteen dollars per 1,000 feet. The canal will give British Columbia a rate of about eight dollars per 1,000 feet. This difference per 1,000 will add to the value of British Columbia timber destined for Europe. But it is for more reasons than this that British Columbia is destined to be a vast Imperial industrial workshop. While her agricultural and horticultural possibilities are far beyond what is generally supposed, British Columbia is in natural resources and raw materials of industry one of the richest areas on the globe. But above all is she rich in mechanical power--water-power and coal. These are about to be opened up and developed. Their development soon will be beyond computation, for, roughly speaking, there is not an investment in British Columbia to-day which will not be directly increased in value by the new canal; but also much indirectly in the impetus given to development. This one thing--this canal--costing us nothing--will double, quadruple, and quintuple values out there in a few brief years. With easier access will come new trade, and new demands will create new products, and soon the innumerable water-powers of British Columbia will start the wheels of a thousand new industries. The illimitable resources of the province will be opened up, developed, and utilized at home or shipped abroad. The value of every town lot and of every acre of land of the 395,000 square miles of the province will be greatly enhanced; town sites will be hewed out of the forests, and the forests themselves--every stick of wood of their 182,000,000 acres of forest and woodland--will be increased in value directly, by reason of cheaper shipping alone, to the extent of several dollars per 1,000 feet; and in the items of lumber and wood-pulp alone the Panama Canal will make as a free gift to British Columbia considerably more than the United States is spending on the whole canal. The mines of British Columbia, which have already produced over £70,000,000, will leap forward with renewed prosperity. Her fisheries, which have produced £21,000,000, will be more extensively developed and, let us hope, be made again a British asset--since they are wholly in the hands of the Japanese, who not only send their earnings home to Japan, but are criminally wasteful in their methods. The coal deposits of the province, which promise to be the most extensive in the world, will, with immense deposits of iron, be opened to the world's markets. It is said that the coal-fields of one small district in the Kootenay are capable of yielding 10,000,000 tons of coal a year for over seven thousand years, and a new district has been discovered within a twelvemonth which the provincial mineralogist told me on Christmas Eve was the most important economic discovery ever made in British Columbia, where there are known to be 1,000 square miles of the best of anthracite, and which is probably the richest known anthracite district in the New World west of Pennsylvania.[21] The references to coal are especially interesting in this passage. It is an evidence of the public alertness in this matter that the British Columbian government has just appointed a special commissioner "to investigate and report upon all circumstances and conditions incident to the production and sale or other disposition of coal in British Columbia." It may be certain, therefore, that the opening of the canal will be followed by a rapid growth of exports from Canadian ports, serving a thousand miles of hinterland, many of the vessels returning laden with the manufactures of the eastern United States and Europe, both streams of traffic flowing through the isthmian canal. But we must not overlook the growth in passenger traffic. The sea-passage round by the canal from Europe to the Pacific states of North America will be much cheaper and to many people more pleasant than the fatiguing transcontinental railway journey. Fresh brain and muscle will enter Canada by its western portals, new needs will arise, new industries spring up, a new æon of progress and enterprise begin on the far Pacific slopes when the first vessel mounts and descends the mighty steps of this wonder-working isthmian highway. THE WEST INDIES. But there is another region of the British Empire which will benefit only less, if less at all, than the Pacific province of Canada. The West Indies will feel at once the throb of a new life and interest when the canal is thrown open to the world's traffic. These "pearls of ocean," the oldest of England's oversea possessions, have lain hitherto in what the Americans call a "dead end." They are thrown across the entrances to a land-girt sea, the Mediterranean of the New World, from which there has hitherto been no exit to the west or the south, but only a return by the same passages to east and north. A glance at a map will show how these islands, the Greater and Lesser Antilles,[22] cluster round the Atlantic end of the canal and beset all the possible sea-routes from east and north and south-east. Every vessel that makes from the Atlantic for the canal entrance or quits the canal for the Atlantic will have to pass through this star-thick storied archipelago. The islands naturally fall into two groups, with the names I have just mentioned. The Greater Antilles, lying further to the west and north-west, consist of Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, these last being administered by Jamaica. To this group belongs, geographically and historically, the mainland colony of British Honduras, a territory rather larger than Wales, whose great value England has scarcely begun to appreciate. The Lesser Antilles, stretched like a jewelled coronet round the eastern entrance to the Caribbean, consist, north to south, of the Virgin Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica (these forming the Leeward Islands Confederation), St. Lucia, Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada, Trinidad, and Tobago (the Windward Islands). With this group goes naturally British Guiana, on the continent east of the Spanish Main, a territory much larger than Great Britain, which should also begin to develop its vast resources more adequately when the canal is opened. These islands, being largely inhabited by black people, cannot be entrusted with complete self-government like purely white communities. They are under various forms of what is known as crown colony government. For example, Trinidad and the Windward Islands are under the complete control of the British Colonial Office, while Barbados and Jamaica enjoy a large measure of self-rule. But this division into a large number of small governments without any connection with each other is extremely expensive, and proposals have been made for a federation of the British West Indies either in one great system, including them all, with British Honduras and Guiana thrown in, or in two systems embracing respectively the Greater and the Lesser Antilles. England, it must be confessed, has treated her splendid West Indian empire very badly. In order that she might have sugar "dirt-cheap" at home she allowed the great staple product of the isles and mainland, cane-sugar, to be brought to the verge of ruin by the competition of European bounty-fed beet-sugar. Happily there was a statesman of strong imperial sympathies in England, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who arranged the Brussels Sugar Convention with certain Powers of Europe, all of which agreed to suppress their own bounties and to impose countervailing duties on bounty-fed sugar imported from countries outside the convention. This gave the West Indies a fairer chance of competition, and they quickly felt the benefit. But the convention was always opposed in England by certain industries in which sugar is used and is therefore wanted as cheap as possible, and notice has recently been given, despite the protests and alarms of the West Indies, that England intends to withdraw from the convention. And this, too, without any sort of compensation for the sugar-islands, which had begun to rely upon the protection against unfair competition afforded by that instrument. England has withdrawn her garrisons and, what is still more serious, almost her entire navy from the West Indies. When the terrible earthquake occurred at Kingston in Jamaica in 1907, there was no English ship-of-war anywhere near to render help and to maintain order, and this duty had to be performed by vessels of the American fleet. Five days after that disaster the correspondent of _The Times_ wrote: "It is difficult to describe the sense of humiliation with which an Englishman surveys Kingston harbour this evening--two American battleships, three German steamers, a Cuban steamer, and one British ship; she leaves to-night, and the white ensign and the red ensign will be as absent from Kingston harbour as from the military basins of Kiel and Cherbourg." And this is what England calls ruling the waves and being mistress of the seas! Later in the same year she had another lesson. Rioting broke out in St. Lucia, once, but no longer, an important naval base. It was a whole week before an English cruiser arrived, though a Dutch man-of-war, the _Gelderland_, was anchored in the spacious harbour of Castries, St. Lucia's capital. This, one must allow, is a slovenly way of conducting a great empire. If these methods are pursued after the Panama Canal is opened, the results will be disastrous. A complete change will have to be made in the attitude of England and the Colonial Office to the British West Indian Islands. For these islands, instead of being tucked away in a sort of cul-de-sac, or inland lake, will henceforth be thrown right across or alongside the main highways of the world's ocean-traffic. Look again at the map and see how the most direct sea-route from New York, the eastern states and Canada to Colon and Cristobal comes down through the Windward Passage, between Cuba and Haiti, and then right past the eastern end of Jamaica, quite close to the magnificent bay on which Kingston stands. Look again and see how the routes from Liverpool, Southampton, and the Old World pass through the Lesser Antilles, either Leeward or Windward, further east. The most direct of these trails passes through the Virgin Islands, the most northerly group, and one of these is said to possess a harbour of which a good deal might be made. But this is not by any means the only line of approach to the entrance of the canal. A more southerly route near Barbados or Trinidad might be chosen, and certainly would be chosen by vessels intending to call at ports along the old Spanish Main. Trinidad will indeed lie right across the direct route from ports on the Pacific coasts of the United States and Canada, as well as from the Far East, to Brazil and the Atlantic coast of South America--a trade which may well grow to very large proportions, considering the vast undeveloped resources of the Orinoco and Amazon basins. Valuable deposits of petroleum have also been discovered in Trinidad, and this should add greatly to the wealth and importance of that island as oil replaces coal for fuel. Oil-bunkering stations will be wanted at many points in the West Indies. Trinidad and Kingston seem likely to benefit most from the traffic to and from Cristobal, the new Atlantic terminal of the canal. Both are splendidly equipped by Nature to act as coaling and repairing stations as well as centres for the distribution of goods. Kingston has a superb harbour, and so also has Port of Spain (the capital of Trinidad) in the Gulf of Paria, a natural landlocked harbour in which the fleets of the whole world could lie in safety--and, it is important to add, outside the hurricane zone. Trinidad lies right athwart the mouths of the Orinoco River. The years that are coming will see a tremendous development of the resources of these rich tropical basins, and Port of Spain is a natural port of exit and entry for the trade of regions where Raleigh sought the fabled Manoa or El Dorado. It is too soon to try to indicate in detail the effects which the Panama Canal is likely to have on the trade and production of the islands themselves. The sugar industry is reviving under the influence of the Treaty of Reciprocity concluded between a large number of the islands and the Dominion of Canada. Probably the sugar for the tea-tables and apple-tarts of Vancouver, and a good many places far to the north and east, will be brought from the West Indies to Vancouver. But the islands will benefit more directly and immediately through the immense growth of traffic in the Caribbean Sea, the supply of coal and other necessities to this increased shipping, and in general through the publicity the islands will enjoy, which will mean a growing invasion of "globe-trotters," and consequently a big development of agricultural resources and an influx of new capital. An almost certain and immediate result of the new route, I may say in passing, will be a large increase of the tourist traffic to England and Europe from the western coasts of North and South America. When the fares are lowered, and the traveller can do the journey wholly by water, without the trouble of changing from railroad to steamer, we may be sure that a rapidly growing tide of passengers will set eastwards as well as westwards through the canal. But, to return to the West Indies, every nation is preparing to develop or establish in these regions harbours and coaling-stations and other facilities for its trade. For example, a Danish company proposes to establish connection between Copenhagen and San Francisco through the island of St. Thomas, one of the Virgin group. At St. Thomas, by the way, is shown the castle of Edward Teach, or "Blackbeard," the very beau ideal of a skull and crossbones pirate who, according to "Tom Cringle's Log," wore a beard in three plaits a foot long, and a full-dress purple velvet coat, under which bristled many pistols and two naked daggers over eighteen inches long, and who had generally a lighted match in his cocked hat with which he lit his pipe or fired a cannon, as the occasion demanded. "One of his favourite amusements when he got half-slewed was to adjourn to the hold with his compotators, and, kindling some brimstone matches, to dance and roar as if he had been the devil himself, until his allies were nearly suffocated. At another time he would blow out the candles in the cabin and blaze away with his loaded pistols at random right and left.... He was kind to his fourteen wives as long as he was sober, and never murdered above three of them." This very improper, but picturesque, gentleman was run down at last by H.M. frigates the _Lime_ and the _Pearl_ to a creek of North Carolina, where, with thirty men in an eight-gun schooner, he made a desperate fight for life, killing and wounding more than the number of his own crew, and dying where he fell, faint with the loss of blood, overcome by superior numbers alone. Whether "Blackbeard" ever inhabited the castle at St. Thomas may be questioned, but the island ought to benefit from the canal, as it lies right across the main entrance to the Caribbean from the Atlantic. The German steamship lines are awake to the new opportunities, the Hamburg-Amerika preparing for the new emigrant traffic between Europe and Western America. Germany, it is said, is negotiating for a coaling-station in Hayti, which, with its two negro republics, stands to profit immensely from the new conditions. No one has troubled much about this splendid island of late. It has had a dark and terrible history. Discovered by Columbus, who called it _Hispaniola_, it was occupied by the Spanish adventurers who found alluvial gold there. Then it became the headquarters of the "buccaneers" who succeeded to the gallant and courtly sea-rovers of the Elizabethan period and became formidable about the year 1630. One of these buccaneers was that Henry Morgan who sacked the old town of Panama in 1671, and then became quite a respectable character, governor of Jamaica, and dubbed knight by Charles II. It was in Hispaniola, or Hayti, that this species of Western viking got their name. The island had been depopulated by the Spaniards, but the cattle and hogs they had introduced became wild and repopulated the land in their own kind. Thus Hispaniola became a splendid provisioning base for the ships of the buccaneers. They hunted the cattle and preserved the meat, smoke-drying it in the Indian fashion. This industry was called _boucanning_, and from it the buccaneers were named. Hispaniola was the mother colony of the Spanish Empire in the West Indies which has now wholly disappeared, very unfortunately for Spain in view of the enhanced value these islands will now soon acquire. In 1795 it was ceded to France, and soon afterwards the emancipated slaves gained possession of the island, and after a period of anarchy and bloodshed established their independence. It is divided into two negro and mulatto republics, Hayti and San Domingo, and, as might have been expected, has sunk to the lowest depths of possible human degradation. Fetishism, human sacrifice, and even cannibalism prevail in this sea-girt Paradise, placed right among the possessions of the most civilized Powers of the world and now across the main ocean routes from the West to the United States, Canada, and the Old World. Can anybody believe that beautiful Hispaniola, an island 30,000 square miles in extent, whose economic and strategic value will be increased a hundredfold in the years that are coming, will long remain under this blighting shadow of ignorance and barbarism? Here certainly the Panama Canal will work a beneficent political change. France, too, is beginning to look up her possessions and opportunities in the Caribbean. Here her two islands, Martinique and Guadeloupe, are placed most conveniently for her ships coming westwards from Havre, Bordeaux, and St. Nazaire, while Tahiti and New Caledonia will pass them on over the Pacific to the Far East. M. Gilquin, writing in _La vie Maritime_, says:-- In Martinique, Guadeloupe, New Caledonia, and Tahiti our commerce--that is to say, exports and imports together--was, in the year 1909, ninety millions of francs; this rose to one hundred and twenty-two millions in 1910, and it is probable that when we get the figures for 1911 they will be found to be even more favourable. It is certain that with the opening of the Panama Canal a great increase in traffic will take place, and possessing, as we do, ports so advantageously placed on the principal lines of route, we should benefit extensively by that development of traffic between Europe and the western coasts of both North and South America. In order that we may reap the benefit, however, of the situation of our colonial harbours, it is necessary that these be taken in hand at once and rendered fit for the commerce they will be called upon to handle. And what is England doing to prepare for the new epoch in these regions where she has planted her flag on so many rich and beautiful islands, strung like pearls of necklace and tiara over these warm tropical seas? We hear of Jamaica providing a new site for coaling and ships' repairs near Kingston, of harbour improvements at Port of Spain (Trinidad) and St. George (Grenada), of oil-bunkering stations at Barbados and St. Lucia. All this is good, but England will have to enter upon a very different policy for the future with regard to her West Indian empire. She must show that she values her priceless inheritance in and round the Caribbean; that she is determined to maintain her position, to promote her commerce, and to further the interests of all her subjects in these regions. What the West Indies need in order to be able to take the new opportunity by the forelock are organization and combination. Schemes have been proposed for federalizing the constitution of the islands--placing them, that is, under a strong central government for those purposes that are common to them all. There are many difficulties in the way of such proposals. The nearest island of the Greater Antilles is 1,000 miles away from the nearest of the Lesser, so that Nature seems to have pronounced for the present against any federal scheme embracing all the islands. But space is always shrinking. Wireless telegraphy and aeroplanes may make 1,000 miles an inconsiderable distance for such political purposes. The Leeward Islands have already been organized under a single federal government, and it ought to be possible to extend the system. Moreover, the islands and the colonies on the continent are learning the value of common consultation and action in such matters as quarantine, and they meet together in annual agricultural conferences. We need not wait for a formal and complete federal constitution. Some central council for consultation on the best means of taking advantage of the new opportunities, some central fund for promoting common objects, such as advertising the wonderful attractions of the islands and preparing for the birds of passage that will soon be coming from every civilized country in the Old and New World--all this is possible now. It is important, too, that the West Indian colonies should have some assembly or council through which they can address the Imperial Power with a single voice. England can give these colonies invaluable help. She can assist them to develop those steamship and telegraphic communications between the islands which are still so inadequate. She can indicate the best locations for harbours, coaling and repairing stations, and the other facilities which the new traffic will require. In view of the certain growth in wealth and prosperity, the colonies ought to be able by contributions among themselves to provide a substantial fund for objects they can carry out in common for the advantage of each and all. Some valuable information and very practical suggestion will be found in the report of the West Indian Commission presided over by Lord Balfour of Burleigh which was issued in 1910. Besides recommending a system of reciprocal trade preference between Canada and the West Indies, the commissioners made important proposals with regard to steamship and telegraphic communications. They favoured the public ownership and operation of the West Indian cables and possibly of the whole system northward to Halifax. They wrote:-- The single cables now connecting Halifax with Bermuda and Bermuda with Jamaica ought either to be duplicated or supplemented by wireless. A cable should be laid between Bermuda and Barbados, with a branch to Trinidad, and perhaps another to British Guiana. The cables which run from Jamaica to the eastern islands and British Guiana, sometimes single and sometimes duplicate, are very old. The bed of this part of the Caribbean being trying for cables, we believe it would be found advantageous in most cases not to renew them, but to replace them by wireless installations. If these were well arranged, they might form a satisfactory connection between the eastern islands and Jamaica and an alternative route to Bermuda, and render unnecessary duplication of the suggested Bermuda-Barbados cable. While it is desirable to connect British Honduras with Jamaica, we consider that the probable volume of traffic would not warrant the cost of a cable. We therefore recommend the employment of wireless for this purpose. Small installations should also be supplied to the outlying Leeward and Bahamas Islands. England will have to foster the welfare of her possessions in these regions as she has never done before. The Brussels Convention forbade her to give any preference to sugar produced in her own dominions. But she is about to step out of that agreement, and will be at liberty, if she thinks fit, to encourage by preferential favours the one great staple for which these colonies can find no substitute. There may be differences of opinion on the fiscal question, but surely everybody must agree that the naval power and political prestige of the British Empire must be represented in the Caribbean Sea by something rather more impressive than two small and obsolete cruisers. If England is to maintain her position against the severer competition she will now have to face, if she is to get her share of the new commerce now in prospect, she will have to give her traders, and shippers, and merchants all the confidence and encouragement which her flag should inspire. One or two well-equipped naval bases, a squadron of up-to-date cruisers for police and patrol work in the Caribbean and down the Pacific coasts of America, are indispensable. There must be no more earthquakes and destructions of British cities with never a British vessel to bring the sorely-needed help, no more riots in British islands with only a Dutch warship standing helplessly by. Both British Columbia and the West Indies have complained with reason of the absenteeism of the British fleet from their shores. The necessity for concentrating all our naval power in the North Sea to meet the German menace has no doubt been the cause of these withdrawals from the outer sea-marches of the empire. But at any cost this wrong will have to be righted in the future. The West Indies and British Columbia are just the two portions of the empire which the Panama Canal may benefit most and most immediately, and they have a right to expect the support and co-operation of the imperial government wherever it can be given. All the Powers of the world will be afloat on the Caribbean and along the Pacific sea-trails to Balboa. Let the white ensign return to these seas and shores as an earnest to all that the same national spirit that won for England her political and commercial supremacy avails to maintain it now and in the new era which is just dawning. FOOTNOTES: [21] From the already-quoted paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute, March 19, 1912. [22] Marco Polo, following Aristotle's nomenclature, had given the name of "Antilla" to an island off the eastern coast of Asia. The name was transferred by Columbus, or Peter Martyr, to the islands of the Caribbean. CHAPTER XIX. THE NEW PACIFIC. Some readers may perhaps think that these forecasts of the results of running a canal through the isthmus of Panama are somewhat exaggerated. It is sufficient to point out to such a critic how different the course of American and world history might have been if Nature had left a practicable channel between the two Americas. The effect of erecting an artificial passage there in these days may be even greater than at present we can imagine. Some of these results will be apparent at once; others may take decades or even centuries to materialize. Many of the commercial and political results which have followed the construction of the Suez Canal were quite unforeseen in 1869. We may be similarly mistaken in our forecast with regard to the Panama Canal. Mr. Bryce suggests that if a dozen experts were, in 1914, to write out and place in the libraries of the British Museum and of Congress their respective forecasts bearing on this subject, sealed up and not to be opened till A.D. 2000, they might make curious reading in that year. We may venture to predict that the results of Panama will be much more profound and revolutionary than those of Suez. The Panama Canal, says Mr. Bryce, is "the greatest liberty man has ever taken with Nature." It will involve a far greater shifting of centres of gravity, political and commercial, a more radical readjustment of ideas and points of view than the Suez Canal. As the past four hundred years have belonged to the Atlantic, the present century and others to come may belong to the Pacific. That area of 70,000,000 square miles may become the main theatre of the rivalries--commercial, political, and racial--of the most powerful nations of East and West. Some believe that the world is advancing to that loud and fateful day when East and West will fight out their long difference in some naval and aerial Armageddon on and above this miscalled Pacific. Without straining our imaginations to this extent, we may well observe that the canal brings Eastern and Western civilizations into much closer contact and competition than before. Mr. Kipling has informed us that East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet; and a still earlier author, desiring to give the penitent sinner the uttermost consolation, declared that the Lord removes his transgressions from him "as far as the east is from the west." The new canal rather diminishes the force of such similitudes. It is not simply that the east of Canada and the United States, as representing Western civilization, is brought much closer to China and Japan; that the passage from West to East which the early navigators vainly sought is now thrown open. The important thing is that the Pacific is going to be the scene of commercial and political rivalries in which the slowly awakening people of China and the already wide-awake people of Japan will take part. All the Pacific Ocean westward to 160 degrees of longitude east of Greenwich is brought nearer to England and the western coasts of Europe. The entire ocean right back to the western extremity of Australia is brought closer to the governmental and industrial centres of the United States and Canada. English people have been thinking "Atlantically" up to now. The Pacific, held at an unimaginable distance by a broad continent or an abyss of ocean, has been known to them chiefly through stories of adventure among its coral islands familiar to their childhood. Yet England is the greatest Pacific Power in the world. British Columbia alone has a Pacific sea-front longer than the United States, and holds 383,000 square miles, an area as large as France and Spain put together. And yet the population of that vast and fertile province is only 134,000. And what of the lonely continent that bounds this oceanic abyss in the far south-west? Australia, without New Zealand, is about 3,000,000 square miles in extent, and has to-day a white population of about 4,600,000, or about 4,700,000 people all told. The northern part of this mighty island-continent, known as the "Territory," 560 miles wide, 900 miles long, and 523,620 square miles in extent, a region of great potential wealth, has a total European population of 1,274! And to the north and north-west there are a billion (1,000,000,000) brown and yellow people, packed together in crowded islands and territories, whose mere overspill would quickly fill that delectable island-continent to the south where England has done so little to make good her nominal title to sovereignty by actual and effective settlement. Such a possession, an empire in itself, held so precariously and offering such a ceaseless temptation to swarming land-hungry hordes, is rather a weakness than a strength to England on the threshold of the new era. And from all this Pacific region and its adjuncts where she has secured all the empty and desirable plots and pegged out so many claims for posterity, she has had to withdraw her fleets, as Rome had to draw in her legions from the outer provinces to defend the central heart of her empire. We may hope that this North Sea danger, so embarrassing and disastrous in its strategic needs to a power like England, whose empire is scattered over every ocean and continent, may disappear through the growth of better relations between the German and Anglo-Saxon branches of the Teutonic race. To that stock more than any other is committed the defence of Western and Christian ideas, and the great issues of the future may compel a Pan-Teutonic alliance, embracing the British and German Empires and the United States. England has two responsibilities in the Pacific--the one to herself and her empire, and the other to Christendom and Western civilization. If she is true to the former, she cannot well be false to the latter. She must bring her fleets back to this great ocean and assert an influence in its politics proportionate to her territorial domains and the extent of her commerce in those regions. But there are objects more important than the interests of any single Power. The entire coast of the Pacific from Behring Straits to the Horn, and round south by New Zealand and Australia, must be kept "white"--reserved, that is, for the Occidental and Christian races. Perhaps the United States may one day so far modify the Monroe doctrine as to welcome Germany to a sovereign foothold among the unstable politics of South America, in order to strengthen still more the outposts of Christian civilization in the Western hemisphere. It is possible to talk great nonsense about what is called the "yellow peril." No sensible person imagines that the nimble Japanese, the inscrutable Chinaman, and the subtle Hindoo are suddenly going to rise as one man and throw down the gage of challenge to Christianity and the West. East, like West, has its own political and religious divisions; nevertheless it is impossible to foresee what the results of the Oriental resurgence may mean, and England and the United States, and perhaps Germany, may some day have a joint responsibility in the Pacific compared with which their rivalries among themselves may seem trifling and irrational. But I do not wish to end this little book with presages of future discord. We must all hope that the Panama Canal will prove a new and powerful influence for peace, that it will bring even East and West together, not in strife and suspicion, but in friendship and a better mutual understanding. There is surely a human interest and sympathy transcending even those racial divisions which may seem most insuperable. The great nation which has given this splendid gift to the world should ask no better or more selfish reward than that it may contribute to the welfare and progress of humanity at large. APPENDIX I. THE ISTHMIAN CANAL CONVENTION (COMMONLY CALLED THE HAY-PAUNCEFOTE TREATY), 1901. 1. The high contracting parties agree that the present treaty shall supersede the aforementioned (Clayton-Bulwer) convention of April 19, 1850. 2. It is agreed that the canal may be constructed under the auspices of the government of the United States either directly at its own cost, or by gift or loan of money to individuals or corporations, or through subscription to or purchase of stock or shares, and that, subject to the provisions of the present treaty, the said government shall have and enjoy all the rights incident to such construction, as well as the exclusive right of providing for the regulation and management of the canal. 3. The United States adopts as the basis of the neutralization of such ship canal the following rules substantially as embodied in the Convention of Constantinople, signed the 28th October, 1888, for the free navigation of the Suez Canal; that is to say: First.--The canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these rules, on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation or its citizens or subjects in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or otherwise. Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable. Second.--The canal shall never be blockaded, nor shall any right of war be exercised nor any act of hostility be committed within it. The United States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder. Third.--Vessels of war of a belligerent shall not revictual nor take any stores in the canal except so far as may be strictly necessary; and the transit of such vessels through the canal shall be effected with the least possible delay in accordance with the regulations in force, and with only such intermission as may result from the necessities of the service. Prizes shall be in all respects subject to the same rules as vessels of war of the belligerents. Fourth.--No belligerent shall embark or disembark troops, munitions of war or warlike materials in the canal except in case of accidental hindrance of the transit, and in such case the transit shall be resumed with all possible despatch. Fifth.--The provisions of this article shall apply to waters adjacent to the canal, within three marine miles of either end. Vessels of war of a belligerent shall not remain in such waters longer than twenty-four hours at any one time except in case of distress, and in such case shall depart as soon as possible, but a vessel of war of one belligerent shall not depart within twenty-four hours from the departure of a vessel of war of the other belligerent. Sixth.--The plant, establishment, buildings and all works necessary to the construction, maintenance and operation of the canal shall be deemed to be parts thereof for the purpose of this treaty, and in time of war, as in time of peace, shall enjoy complete immunity from attack or injury by belligerents, and from acts calculated to impair their usefulness as part of the canal. 4. It is agreed that no change of territorial sovereignty or of international relations of the country or countries traversed by the before-mentioned canal shall affect the general principle of neutralization or the obligation of the high contracting parties under the present treaty. 5. The present treaty shall be ratified by the President of the United States by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof, and by His Britannic Majesty; and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington or at London at the earliest possible time within six months from the date thereof. APPENDIX II. THE PANAMA DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 1903. The transcendental act that by a spontaneous movement the inhabitants of the isthmus of Panama have just executed is the inevitable consequence of a situation which has become graver daily. Long is the recital of the grievances that the inhabitants of the isthmus have suffered from their Colombian brothers; but those grievances would have been withstood with resignation for the sake of harmony and national union had its separation been possible and if we could have entertained well-founded hopes of improvement and of effective progress under the system to which we were submitted by that republic. We have to solemnly declare that we have the sincere and profound conviction that all the hopes were futile and useless, all the sacrifices on our part. The isthmus of Panama has been governed by the Republic of Colombia with the narrow-mindedness that in past times was applied to their colonies by the European nations--the Isthmian people and territory were a source of fiscal resources and nothing more. The contracts and negotiations regarding the railroad and the Panama Canal and the national taxes collected in the isthmus have netted to Colombia tremendous sums which we will not detail, not wishing to appear in this exposition which will go down to posterity as being moved by a mercenary spirit, which has never been nor is our purpose; and of these large sums the isthmus has not received the benefit of a bridge for any of its numerous rivers, nor the construction of a single road between its towns, nor of any public building nor of a single college, and has neither seen any interest displayed in advancing her industries, nor has a most infinite part of those sums been applied toward her prosperity. A very recent example of what we have related above is what has occurred with the negotiations of the Panama Canal, which, when taken under consideration by Congress, was rejected in a summary manner. There were a few public men who expressed their adverse opinion, on the ground that the isthmus of Panama alone was to be favoured by the opening of the canal by virtue of a treaty with the United States, and that the rest of Colombia would not receive any direct benefits of any sort by that work, as if that way of reasoning, even though it be correct, would justify the irreparable and perpetual damage that would be caused to the isthmus by the rejection of the treaty in the manner in which it was done, which was equivalent to the closing of the doors to future negotiations. The people of the isthmus, in view of such notorious causes, have decided to recover their sovereignty and begin to form a part of the society of the free and independent nations, in order to work out its own destiny, to insure its future in a stable manner, and discharge the duties which it is called on to do by the situation of its territory and its immense richness. To that we, the initiators of the movement effected, aspire and have obtained a unanimous approval. We aspire to the formation of a true republic, where tolerance will prevail, where the law shall be the invariable guide of those governing and those governed, where effective peace be established, which consists in the frequent and harmonious play of all interests and all activities, and where, finally, civilization and progress will find perpetual stability. At the commencement of the life of an independent nation we fully appreciate the responsibilities that state means, but we have profound faith in the good sense and patriotism of the Isthmian people, and we possess sufficient energy to open our way by means of labour to a happy future without any worry or any danger. At separating from our brothers of Colombia we do it without hatred and without any joy. Just as a son withdraws from his paternal roof, the Isthmian people in adopting the lot it has chosen have done it with grief, but in compliance with the supreme and inevitable duty it owes to itself--that of its own preservation and of working for its own welfare. We therefore begin to form a part among the free nations of the world, considering Colombia as a sister nation, with which we shall be whenever circumstances may require it, and for whose prosperity we have the most fervent and sincere wishes. José Agustin Arango, Federico Boyd, Tomas Arias. APPENDIX III. THE PANAMA CANAL CONVENTION (COMMONLY CALLED THE HAY-BUNAU-VARILLA TREATY), 1904. The United States of America and the Republic of Panama being desirous to insure the construction of a ship-canal across the isthmus of Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Congress of the United States of America having passed an Act approved June 28, 1902, in furtherance of that object, by which the President of the United States is authorized to acquire within a reasonable time the control of the necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia, and the sovereignty of such territory being actually vested in the Republic of Panama, the high contracting parties have resolved for that purpose to conclude a convention and have accordingly appointed as their plenipotentiaries-- The President of the United States of America, John Hay, Secretary of State, and the government of the Republic of Panama, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Panama, thereunto specially empowered by said government, who after communicating with each other their respective full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed upon and concluded the following articles: Article 1. The United States guarantees and will maintain the independence of the Republic of Panama. Article 2. The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of said canal of the width of ten miles extending to the distance of five miles on each side of the centre line of the route of the canal to be constructed; the said zone beginning in the Caribbean Sea three marine miles from mean low water mark, and extending to and across the isthmus of Panama into the Pacific Ocean to a distance of three marine miles from mean low water mark, with the proviso that the cities of Panama and Colon and the harbours adjacent to said cities, which are included within the boundaries of the zone above described, shall not be included within this grant. The Republic of Panama further grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of any other lands and waters outside of the zone above described which may be necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the said canal or of any auxiliary canal or other works necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the said enterprise. The Republic of Panama further grants in like manner to the United States in perpetuity all islands within the limits of the zone above described and in addition thereto the group of small islands in the Bay of Panama, named Perico, Naos, Culebra, and Flamenco. Article 3. The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, power and authority within the zone mentioned and described in Article 2 of this agreement and within the limits of all auxiliary lands and waters mentioned and described in said Article 2 which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory within which said lands and waters are located to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights, power or authority. Article 4. As rights subsidiary to the above grants the Republic of Panama grants in perpetuity to the United States the right to use the rivers, streams, lakes and other bodies of water within its limits for navigation, the supply of water or water-power or other purposes, so far as the use of said rivers, streams, lakes and bodies of water and the waters thereof may be necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the said canal. Article 5. The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity a monopoly for the construction, maintenance and operation of any system of communication by means of canal or railroad across its territory between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Article 6. The grants herein contained shall in no manner invalidate the titles or rights of private landholders or owners of private property in the said zone or in or to any of the lands or waters granted to the United States by the provisions of any Article of this treaty, nor shall they interfere with the rights of way over the public roads passing through the said zone or over any of the said lands or waters unless said rights of way or private rights shall conflict with rights herein granted to the United States, in which case the rights of the United States shall be superior. All damages caused to the owners of private lands or private property of any kind by reason of the grants contained in this treaty or by reason of the operations of the United States, its agents or employees, or by reason of the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the said canal or of the works of sanitation and protection herein provided for, shall be appraised and settled by a joint commission appointed by the governments of the United States and the Republic of Panama, whose decisions as to such damages shall be final and whose awards as to such damages shall be paid solely by the United States. No part of the work on said canal or the Panama railroad or on any auxiliary works relating thereto and authorized by the terms of this treaty shall be prevented, delayed or impeded by or pending such proceedings to ascertain such damages. The appraisal of the said private lands and private property and the assessment of damages to them shall be based upon their value before the date of this convention. Article 7. The Republic of Panama grants to the United States within the limits of the cities of Panama and Colon and their adjacent harbours and within the territory adjacent thereto the right to acquire by purchase or by the exercise of the right of eminent domain, any lands, buildings, water rights or other properties necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation and protection of the canal and of any works of sanitation, such as the collection and disposition of sewage and the distribution of water in the said cities of Panama and Colon, which, in the discretion of the United States, may be necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the said canal and railroad. All such works of sanitation, collection and disposition of sewage and distribution of water in the cities of Panama and Colon shall be made at the expense of the United States, and the government of the United States, its agents or nominees shall be authorized to impose and collect water rates and sewage rates which shall be sufficient to provide for the payment of interest and the amortization of the principal of the cost of said works within a period of fifty years, and upon the expiration of said term of fifty years the system of sewers and water works shall revert to and become the properties of the cities of Panama and Colon respectively; and the use of the water shall be free to the inhabitants of Panama and Colon, except to the extent that water rates may be necessary for the operation and maintenance of said system of sewers and water. The Republic of Panama agrees that the cities of Panama and Colon shall comply in perpetuity with the sanitary ordinances whether of a preventive or curative character prescribed by the United States, and in case the government of Panama is unable or fails in its duty to enforce this compliance by the cities of Panama and Colon with the sanitary ordinances of the United States the Republic of Panama grants to the United States the right and authority to enforce the same. The same right and authority are granted to the United States for the maintenance of public order in the cities of Panama and Colon and the territories and harbours adjacent thereto in case the Republic of Panama should not be, in the judgment of the United States, able to maintain such order. Article 8. The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all rights which it now has or hereafter may acquire to the property of the New Panama Canal Company and the Panama Railroad Company as a result of the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Colombia to the Republic of Panama over the isthmus of Panama, and authorizes the New Panama Canal Company to sell and transfer to the United States its rights, privileges, properties and concessions, as well as the Panama Railroad and all the shares or part of the shares of that company; but the public lands situated outside of the zone described in Article 2 of this treaty now included in the concessions to both said enterprises and not required in the construction or operation of the canal shall revert to the Republic of Panama except any property now owned by or in the possession of said companies within Panama or Colon or the ports or terminals thereof. Article 9. The United States agrees that the ports at either entrance of the canal and the waters thereof, and the Republic of Panama agrees that the towns of Panama and Colon shall be free for all time, so that there shall not be imposed or collected custom-house tolls, tonnage, anchorage, lighthouse, wharf, pilot, or quarantine dues or any other charges or taxes of any kind upon any vessel using or passing through the canal or belonging to or employed by the United States, directly or indirectly, in connection with the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the main canal, or auxiliary works, or upon the cargo, officers, crew, or passengers of any such vessels, except such tolls and charges as may be imposed by the United States for the use of the canal and other works, and except tolls and charges imposed by the Republic of Panama upon merchandise destined to be introduced for the consumption of the rest of the Republic of Panama, and upon vessels touching at the ports of Colon and Panama and which do not cross the canal. The government of the Republic of Panama shall have the right to establish in such ports and in the towns of Panama and Colon such houses and guards as it may deem necessary to collect duties on importations destined to other portions of Panama and to prevent contraband trade. The United States shall have the right to make use of the towns and harbours of Panama and Colon as places of anchorage, and for making repairs, for loading, unloading, depositing, or transshipping cargoes either in transit or destined for the service of the canal and for other works pertaining to the canal. * * * * * Article 23. If it should become necessary at any time to employ armed forces for the safety or protection of the canal, or of the ships that make use of the same, or the railways and auxiliary works, the United States shall have the right, at all times and in its discretion, to use its police and its land and naval forces or to establish fortifications for these purposes. * * * * * APPENDIX IV. PANAMA CANAL TOLL RATES. By the President of the United States of America, Washington, November 14, 1912. A PROCLAMATION. I, William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the power and authority vested in me by the Act of Congress, approved August twenty-fourth, nineteen hundred and twelve, to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection and operation of the Panama Canal and the sanitation and government of the canal zone, do hereby prescribe and proclaim the following rates of toll be paid, by vessels using the Panama Canal. 1. On merchant vessels carrying passengers or cargo one dollar and twenty cents ($1.20) per net vessel ton--each one hundred (100) cubic feet--of actual earning capacity. 2. On vessels in ballast without passengers or cargo forty (40) per cent. less than the rate of tolls for vessels with passengers or cargo. 3. Upon naval vessels, other than transports, colliers, hospital ships, and supply ships, fifty (50) cents per displacement ton. 4. Upon army and navy transports, colliers, hospital ships and supply ships one dollar and twenty cents ($1.20) per net ton, the vessels to be measured by the same rules as are employed in determining the net tonnage of merchant vessels. The Secretary of War will prepare and prescribe such rules for the measurement of vessels and such regulations as may be necessary and proper to carry this proclamation into full force and effect. THE END. 
41807	----	images generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 41807-h.htm or 41807-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41807/41807-h/41807-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41807/41807-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through the the Google Books Library Project. See http://www.google.com/books?id=I0X49oGRUYMC&oe Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. THE PANAMA CANAL * * * * * [Illustration: The 5 Points of Authority] The 5 Points of Authority in this Book 1. All of the chapters in this book pertaining to the actual construction of the Canal were read and corrected by Colonel George W. Goethals, Chairman and Chief Engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission. 2. All of the illustrations were made from photographs taken by Mr. Ernest Hallen, the official photographer of the Commission. 3. The book contains the beautiful, colored Bird's-eye View of the Canal Zone, made under the direction of the National Geographic Society, as well as the black-and-white official map of the Canal. 4. The extensive index was prepared by Mr. G. Thomas Ritchie, of the staff of the Library of Congress. 5. The final proofs were revised by Mr. Howard E. Sherman, of the Government Printing Office, to conform with the typographical style of the United States Government. "The American Government," by the same author, was read by millions of Americans, and still holds the record as the world's best seller among all works of its kind. * * * * * [Illustration: ATLANTIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN Courtesy, National Geographic Magazine, Washington, D. C. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE PANAMA CANAL Copyright, 1913, by the J. N. Matthews Co., Buffalo, N. Y.] THE PANAMA CANAL by FREDERIC J. HASKIN Author of "The American Government," etc. [Illustration: logo] Illustrated from photographs taken by ERNEST ALLEN Official Photographer of the Isthmian Canal Commission Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1913 Copyright, 1913, by Doubleday, Page & Company All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co. New York PREFACE The primary purpose of this book is to tell the layman the story of the Panama Canal. It is written, therefore, in the simplest manner possible, considering the technical character of the great engineering feat itself, and the involved complexities of the diplomatic history attaching to its inception and undertaking. The temptation to turn aside into the pleasant paths of the romantic history of ancient Panama has been resisted; there is no attempt to dispose of political problems that incidentally concern the canal; in short, the book is confined to the story of the canal itself, and the things that are directly and vitally connected with it. Colonel Goethals was good enough to read and correct the chapters relating to the construction of the canal, and, when shown a list of the chapters proposed, he asked that the one headed "The Man at the Helm" be omitted. The author felt that to bow to his wishes in that matter would be to fail to tell the whole story of the canal, and so Colonel Goethals did not read that chapter. Every American is proud of the great national achievement at Panama. If, in the case of the individual, this book is able to supplement that pride by an ample fund of knowledge and information, its object and purpose will have been attained. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The grateful acknowledgments of the author are due to Mr. William Joseph Showalter for his valuable aid in gathering and preparing the material for this book. Acknowledgments are also due to Colonel George W. Goethals, chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission, for reading and correcting those chapters in the book pertaining to the engineering phases of the work; to Mr. Ernest Hallen, the official photographer of the Commission, for the photographs with which the book is illustrated; to Mr. Gilbert H. Grosvenor, editor of the _National Geographic Magazine_, for permission to use the bird's-eye view map of the canal; to Mr. G. Thomas Ritchie, of the Library of Congress, for assistance in preparing the index; and to Mr. Howard E. Sherman, of the Government Printing Office, for revising the proofs to conform with the typographical style of the United States Government. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Land Divided--The World United 3 II. Greatest Engineering Project 23 III. Gatun Dam 32 IV. The Locks 45 V. The Lock Machinery 57 VI. Culebra Cut 70 VII. Ends of the Canal 82 VIII. The Panama Railroad 93 IX. Sanitation 105 X. The Man at the Helm 118 XI. The Organization 133 XII. The American Workers 145 XIII. The Negro Workers 154 XIV. The Commissary 164 XV. Life on the Zone 176 XVI. Past Isthmian Projects 194 XVII. The French Failure 206 XVIII. Choosing the Panama Route 221 XIX. Controversy with Colombia 233 XX. Relations with Panama 246 XXI. Canal Zone Government 256 XXII. Congress and the Canal 268 XXIII. Sea Level Canal Impossible 277 XXIV. Fortifications 283 XXV. Fixing the Tolls 295 XXVI. The Operating Force 309 XXVII. Handling the Traffic 317 XXVIII. The Republic of Panama 326 XXIX. Other Great Canals 335 XXX. A New Commercial Map 347 XXXI. American Trade Opportunities 358 XXXII. The Panama-Pacific Exposition 368 THE ILLUSTRATIONS Birdseye View of the Panama Canal Zone _Color insert_ FACING PAGE George W. Goethals, Chairman and Chief Engineer 10 A Street in the City of Panama 11 Theodore Roosevelt 18 William Howard Taft 18 Woodrow Wilson 18 Vendors in the Streets of Panama 19 A Native Boy Marketing 19 Lieut. Col. W. L. Sibert 43 The Upper Locks at Gatun 43 Toro Point Breakwater 43 Concrete Mixers, Gatun 50 A Center Wall Culvert, Gatun Locks 50 The Machinery for Moving a Lock Gate 51 Steam Shovels Meeting at Bottom of Culebra Cut 74 L. K. Rourke 74 The Man-made Canyon at Culebra 75 The Disastrous Effects of Slides in Culebra Cut 82 U. S. Ladder Dredge "Corozal" 83 A Mud Bucket of the "Corozal" 83 W. G. Comber 83 Col. William C. Gorgas 106 The Hospital Grounds, Ancon 106 Lieut. Frederic Mears 107 The Old Panama Railroad 107 Sanitary Drinking Cup 114 Mosquito Oil Drip Barrel 114 Spraying Mosquito Oil 114 Typical Quarters of the Married Laborer 115 A Native Hut 115 Maj. Gen. George W. Davis 138 Rear Admiral J. G. Walker 138 Theodore P. Shonts 138 John F. Wallace 138 John F. Stevens 138 Charles E. Magoon 138 Richard Lee Metcalfe 139 Emory R. Johnson 139 Maurice H. Thatcher 139 Joseph Bucklin Bishop 139 H. A. Gudger 139 Joseph C. S. Blackburn 139 Brig. Gen. Carroll A. Devol 146 American Living Quarters at Cristobal 146 Harry H. Rousseau 147 Lowering a Caisson Section 147 John Burke 170 Meal Time at an I. C. C. Kitchen 170 Washington Hotel, Colon 171 Major Eugene T. Wilson 171 The Tivoli Hotel, Ancon 171 Floyd C. Freeman 178 I. C. C. Club House at Culebra 178 A. Bruce Minear 179 Reading Room in the I. C. C. Club House, Culebra 179 Col. Chester L. Harding 202 The Gatun Upper Locks 202 Lieut. Col. David D. Gaillard 203 Culebra Cut, Showing Cucaracha Slide in Left Center 203 The Man of Brawn 210 Ferdinand de Lesseps 211 An Old French Excavator Near Tabernilla 211 Philippe Bunau-Varilla 211 S. B. Williamson 234 The Lower Gates, Miraflores Locks 234 Middle Gates, Miraflores Locks 235 H. O. Cole 235 The Pay Car at Culebra 242 Edward J. Williams 242 Uncle Sam's Laundry at Cristobal 243 Smoke from Heated Rocks in Culebra Cut 266 Tom M. Cooke 267 The Post Office, Ancon 267 A Negro Girl 274 A Martinique Woman 274 San Blas Chief 274 An Indian Girl 274 An Italian 274 A Timekeeper 274 A Spaniard 274 A Negro Boy 274 Testing the Emergency Dam, Gatun Locks 275 Col. Harry F. Hodges 275 The Ancon Baseball Park 298 Caleb M. Saville 399 Gatun Spillway from Above and Below 299 An Electric Towing Locomotive in Action 306 Blowing Up the Second Dike South of Miraflores Locks 307 DIAGRAMS A Graphic Illustration of the Material Handled at Panama 25 A Cross Section of the Gatun Dam 35 Plan of the Gatun Dam and Locks 36 A Profile Section of the Canal 40 From a Model of Pedro Miguel Lock 48 A Cross-section of Locks, Giving an Idea of Their Size 49 One of the 92 Gate-leaf Master Wheels 64 A _Mauretania_ in the Locks 67 The Effect of Slides 72 Average Shape and Dimensions of Culebra Cut 75 The _Corozal_ and its Method of Attack 85 International Shipping Routes 351 A Map Showing Isthmus with the Completed Canal 379 The Panama Canal "_I have read the chapters in 'The Panama Canal' dealing with the engineering features of the Canal and have found them an accurate and dependable account of the undertaking._" GEO. W. GOETHALS. THE PANAMA CANAL CHAPTER I THE LAND DIVIDED--THE WORLD UNITED The Panama Canal is a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, cut through the narrow neck of land connecting the continents of North and South America. It is the solution of the problem of international commerce that became acute in 1452 when the Eastern Roman Empire fell before the assaults of the Turks, and the land routes to India were closed to Western and Christian Europe. Forty years after the Crescent supplanted the Cross on the dome of St. Sophia in Constantinople, Columbus set sail to seek a western route to the Indies. He did not find it, but it was his fortune to set foot on the Isthmus of Panama, where, more than four centuries later, the goal of his ambition was to be achieved; not by discovery, but by virtue of the strength and wealth of a new nation of which he did not dream, although its existence is due to his own intrepid courage. Columbus died not knowing that he had multiplied the world by two, and many voyagers after him also vainly sought the longed-for western passage. Magellan sought it thousands of leagues to the southward in the cold and stormy seas that encircle the Antarctic Continent. Scores of mariners sought it to the northward, but only one, Amundsen, in the twentieth century, was able to take a ship through the frozen passages of the American north seas. Down the western coast of the new continent from the eternal ice of Alaska through the Tropics to the southern snows of Tierra del Fuego, the mighty Cordilleras stretch a mountain barrier thousands and thousands and thousands of miles. Where that mountain chain is narrowest, and where its peaks are lowest, ships may now go through the Panama Canal. The canal is cut through the narrowest part of the Isthmus but one, and through the Culebra Mountain, the lowest pass but one, in all that longest, mightiest range of mountains. There is a lower place in Nicaragua, and a narrower place on the Isthmus east of the canal, but the engineers agreed that the route from Colon on the Atlantic to Panama on the Pacific through Culebra Mountain was the most practicable. The canal is 50 miles long. Fifteen miles of it is level with the oceans, the rest is higher. Ships are lifted up in giant locks, three steps, to sail for more than 30 miles across the continental divide, 85 feet above the surface of the ocean, then let down by three other locks to sea level again. The channel is 300 feet wide at its narrowest place, and the locks which form the two gigantic water stairways are capable of lifting and lowering the largest ships now afloat. A great part of the higher level of the canal is the largest artificial lake in the world, made by impounding the waters of the Chagres River, thus filling with water the lower levels of the section. Another part of the higher level is Culebra Cut, the channel cut through the backbone of the continent. Almost before Columbus died plans were made for cutting such a channel. With the beginning of the nineteenth century and the introduction of steam navigation, the demand for the canal began to be insistent. Many plans were made, but it remained for the French, on New Year's Day of 1880, actually to begin the work. They failed, but not before they had accomplished much toward the reduction of Culebra Cut. They expended between 1880 and 1904 no less than $300,000,000 in their ill-fated efforts. In 1904 the United States of America undertook the task. In a decade it was completed and the Americans had spent, all told, $375,000,000 in the project. Because the Atlantic lies east and the Pacific west of the United States, one is likely to imagine the canal as a huge ditch cut straight across a neck of land from east to west. But it must be remembered that South America lies eastward from North America, and that the Isthmus connecting the two has its axis east and west. The canal, therefore, is cut from the Atlantic south-eastward to the Pacific. It lies directly south of Pittsburgh, Pa., and it brings Peru and Chile closer to New York than California and Oregon. The first 7 miles of the canal, beginning at the Atlantic end, run directly south and from thence to the Pacific it pursues a serpentine course in a southeasterly direction. At the northern, or Atlantic, terminus are the twin cities of Colon and Cristobal, Colon dating from the middle of the nineteenth century when the railroad was built across the Isthmus, and Cristobal having its beginnings with the French attempt in 1880. At the southern, or Pacific, terminus are the twin cities of Panama and Balboa. Panama was founded in 1673 after the destruction by Morgan, the buccaneer, of an elder city established in 1519. The ruins of the old city stand 5 miles east of the new, and, since their story is one, it may be said that Panama is the oldest city of the Western World. Balboa is yet in its swaddling clothes, for it is the new American town destined to be the capital of the American territory encompassing the canal. The waterway is cut through a strip of territory called the Canal Zone, which to all intents and purposes is a territory of the United States. This zone is 10 miles wide and follows the irregular line of the canal, extending 5 miles on either side from the axis of the channel. This Canal Zone traverses and separates the territory of the Republic of Panama, which includes the whole of the Isthmus, and has an area about equal to that of Indiana and a population of 350,000 or about that of Washington City. The two chief Panaman cities, Panama and Colon, lie within the limits of the Canal Zone, but, by the treaty, they are excepted from its government and are an integral part of the Republic of Panama, of which the city of Panama is the capital. Cristobal and Balboa, although immediately contiguous to Colon and Panama, are American towns under the American flag. The Canal Zone historically and commercially has a record of interest and importance longer and more continuous than any other part of the New World. Columbus himself founded a settlement here at Nombre de Dios; Balboa here discovered the Pacific Ocean; across this narrow neck was transported the spoil of the devastated Empire of the Incas; here were the ports of call for the Spanish gold-carrying galleons; and here centered the activities of the pirates and buccaneers that were wont to prey on the commerce of the Spanish Main. Over this route, on the shoulders of slaves and the back of mules, were transported the wares in trade of Spain with its colonies not only on the west coasts of the Americas, but with the Philippines. Not far from Colon was the site of the colony of New Caledonia, the disastrous undertaking of the Scotchman, Patterson, who founded the Bank of England, to duplicate in America the enormous financial success of the East India Company in Asia. Here in the ancient city of Panama in the early part of the nineteenth century assembled the first Pan American conference that gave life to the Monroe doctrine and ended the era of European colonization in America. Here was built with infinite labor and terrific toll of life the first railroad connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans--a railroad less than 50 miles in length, but with perhaps the most interesting story in the annals of railroading. Across this barrier in '49 clambered the American argonauts, seeking the newly discovered golden fleeces of California. This was the theater of the failure of Count de Lesseps, the most stupendous financial fiasco in the history of the world. And this, now, is the site of the most expensive and most successful engineering project ever undertaken by human beings. It cost the French $300,000,000 to fail at Panama where the Americans, at the expenditure of $375,000,000, succeeded. And, of the excavation done by the French, only $30,000,000 worth was available for the purpose of the Americans. That the Americans succeeded where the French had failed is not to be assigned to the superiority of the American over the French nation. The reasons are to be sought, rather, in the underlying purposes of the two undertakings, and in the scientific and engineering progress made in the double decade intervening between the time when the French failure became apparent and the Americans began their work. In the first place, the French undertook to build the canal as a money-making proposition. People in every grade of social and industrial life in France contributed from their surpluses and from their hard-earned savings money to buy shares in the canal company in the hope that it would yield a fabulously rich return. Estimates of the costs of the undertaking, made by the engineers, were arbitrarily cut down by financiers, with the result that repeated calls were made for more money and the shareholders soon found to their dismay that they must contribute more and yet more before they could hope for any return whatever. From the beginning to the end, the French Canal Company was concerned more with problems of promotion and finance than with engineering and excavation. As a natural result of this spirit at the head of the undertaking the whole course of the project was marred by an orgy of graft and corruption such as never had been known. Every bit of work was let out by contract, and the contractors uniformly paid corrupt tribute to high officers in the company. No watch was set on expenditures; everything bought for the canal was bought at prices too high; everything it had to sell was practically given away. In the next place, the French were pitiably at the mercy of the diseases of the Tropics. The science of preventive medicine had not been sufficiently developed to enable the French to know that mosquitoes and filth were enemies that must be conquered and controlled before it would be possible successfully to attack the land barrier. Yellow fever and malaria killed engineers and common laborers alike. The very hospitals, which the French provided for the care of the sick, were turned into centers of infection for yellow fever, because the beds were set in pans of water which served as ideal breeding places for the death-bearing stegomyia. In this atmosphere of lavish extravagance caused by the financial corruption, and in the continual fear of quick and awful death, the morals of the French force were broken; there was no determined spirit of conquest; interest centered in champagne and women; the canal was neglected. Yet, in spite of this waste, this corruption of money and morals, much of the work done by the French was of permanent value to the Americans; and without the lessons learned from their bitter experience it would have been impossible for the Americans or any other people to have completed the canal so quickly and so cheaply. The Americans brought to the task another spirit. The canal was to be constructed not in the hope of making money, but, rather, as a great national and popular undertaking, designed to bring the two coasts of the great Republic in closer communication for purposes of commerce and defense. The early estimates made by the American engineers were far too low, but the French experience had taught the United States to expect such an outcome. Indeed, it is doubtful if anybody believed that the first estimates would not be doubled or quadrupled before the canal was finished. [Illustration: Signature of George Goethals _Chairman and Chief Engineer_] [Illustration: A STREET IN THE CITY OF PANAMA] The journey of the U. S. S. _Oregon_ around the Horn from Pacific waters to the theater of the War with Spain in the Caribbean, in 1898, impressed upon the American public the necessity of building the canal as a measure of national defense. Commercial interests long had been convinced of its necessity as a factor in both national and international trade, and, when it was realized that the _Oregon_ would have saved 8,000 miles if there had been a canal at Panama, the American mind was made up. It determined that the canal should be built, whatever the cost. From the very first there was never any question that the necessary money would be forthcoming. It is a fact unprecedented in all parliamentary history that all of the appropriations necessary for the construction and completion of the Isthmian waterway were made by Congress without a word of serious protest. During the same War with Spain that convinced the United States that the canal must be built, a long forward step was taken in the science of medicine as concerned with the prevention and control of tropical diseases. The theory that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes had been proved by a Cuban physician, Dr. Carlos Finley, a score of years earlier. An Englishman, Sir Patrick Manson, had first shown that disease might be transmitted by the bites of insects, and another Englishman, Maj. Roland Ross, had shown that malaria was conveyed by mosquitoes. It remained, however, for American army surgeons to demonstrate, as they did in Cuba, that yellow fever was transmissible only by mosquitoes of the stegomyia variety and by no other means whatsoever. With this knowledge in their possession the Americans were able to do what the French were not--to control the chief enemy of mankind in torrid climes. In the first years of the work the public, and Congress, reflecting its views, were not sufficiently convinced of the efficacy of the new scientific discoveries to afford the means for putting them into effect. The Isthmian Canal Commission refused to honor requisitions for wire screens, believing that they were demanded to add to the comfort and luxury of quarters on the Zone, rather than for protection against disease. But the outbreak of yellow fever in 1905 was the occasion for furnishing the Sanitary Department, under Col. W. C. Gorgas, with the necessary funds, and thus provided, he speedily and completely stamped out the epidemic. From that time on, no one questioned the part that sanitation played in the success of the project. The cities of Panama and Colon were cleaned up as never were tropical cities cleaned before. All the time, every day, men fought mosquitoes that the workers in the ditch might not be struck down at their labors. The Americans, too, made mistakes. In the beginning they attempted to build the canal under the direction of a commission with headquarters in Washington. This commission, at long distance and by methods hopelessly involved in red tape, sought to direct the activities of the engineer in charge on the Isthmus. The public also was impatient with the long time required for preparation and insistently demanded that "the dirt begin to fly." The work was begun in 1904. It proceeded so slowly that two years later the chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission asserted that it must be let out to a private contractor, this being, in his opinion, the only way possible to escape the toils of governmental red tape. The then chief engineer, the second man who had held that position while fretting under these methods, was opposed to the contract system. Bids were asked for, however, but all of them were rejected. Fortunately, Congress from the beginning had left the President a practically free hand in directing the course of the project. Mr. Roosevelt reorganized the commission, made Col. George W. Goethals, an Army engineer, chairman of the commission and chief engineer of the canal. The constitution of the commission was so changed as to leave all the power in the hands of the chairman and to lay all of the responsibility upon his shoulders. It was a master stroke of policy, and the event proved the choice of the man to be admirable in every way. From the day the Army engineers took charge there was never any more delay, never any halt in progress, and the only difficulties encountered were those of resistant Nature (such as the slides in Culebra Cut) and those of misinformed public opinion (such as the absurd criticism of the Gatun Dam). The Americans, too, in the early stages of the work were hampered by reason of the fact that the final decision as to whether to build a sea-level canal or a lock canal was so long delayed by the conflicting views of the partisans of each type in Congress, in the executive branches of the Government, and among the engineers. This problem, too, was solved by Mr. Roosevelt. He boldly set aside the opinion of the majority of the engineers who had been called in consultation on the problem, and directed the construction of a lock canal. The wisdom of this decision has been so overwhelmingly demonstrated that the controversy that once raged so furiously now seems to have been but a tiny tempest in an insignificant teapot. One other feature of the course of events under the American régime at Panama must be considered. Graft and corruption had ruined the French; the Americans were determined that whether they succeeded or not, there should be no scandal. This, indeed, in part explains why there was so much apparently useless circumlocution in the early stages of the project. Congress, the President, the engineers, all who were in responsible position, were determined that there should be no graft. There was none. Not only were the Americans determined that the money voted for the canal should be honestly and economically expended, but they were determined, also, that the workers on the canal should be well paid and well cared for. To this end they paid not only higher wages than were current at home for the same work, but they effectively shielded the workers from the exactions and extortions of Latin and Oriental merchants by establishing a commissary through which the employees were furnished wholesome food at reasonable prices--prices lower, indeed, than those prevailing at home. As a result of these things the spirit of the Americans on the Canal Zone, from the chairman and chief engineer down to the actual diggers, was that of a determination to lay the barrier low, and to complete the job well within the limit of time and at the lowest possible cost. In this spirit all Americans should rejoice, for it is the highest expression of the nearest approach we have made to the ideals upon which the Fathers founded our Republic. It is impossible to leave out of the reckoning, in telling the story of the canal, the checkered history of the diplomatic engagements on the part of the United States, that have served both to help and to hinder the undertaking. What is now the Republic of Panama has been, for the greater part of the time since continental Latin America threw off the yoke of Spain, a part of that Republic having its capital at Bogota, now under the name of Colombia, sometimes under the name of New Granada, sometimes a part of a federation including Venezuela and Ecuador. The United States, by virtue of the Monroe doctrine, always asserted a vague and undefined interest in the local affairs of the Isthmus. This was translated into a concrete interest when, in 1846, a treaty was made, covering the construction of the railroad across the Isthmus, the United States engaging always to keep the transit free and open. Great Britain, by virtue of small territorial holdings in Central America and of larger claims there, also had a concrete interest, which was acknowledged by the United States, in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, under which a projected canal should be neutral under the guarantee of the Governments of the United States and Great Britain. For years the United States was inclined to favor a canal cut through Nicaragua, rather than one at Panama, and, after 1898, when the American nation had made up its mind to build a canal somewhere, the partisans of the Panama and Nicaragua routes waged a bitter controversy. Congress finally decided the issue by giving the President authority to construct a canal at Panama, with the proviso that should he be unable to negotiate a satisfactory treaty with Colombia, which then owned the Isthmus, he should proceed to construct the canal through Nicaragua. Under this threat of having the scepter of commercial power depart forever from Panama, Colombia negotiated a treaty, known as the Hay-Herran treaty, giving the United States the right to construct the canal. This treaty, however, failed of ratification by the Colombian Congress, with the connivance of the very Colombian President who had negotiated it. But President Roosevelt was most unwilling to accept the alternative given him by Congress--that of undertaking the canal at Nicaragua--and this unwillingness, to say the least, encouraged a revolution in Panama. This revolution separated the Isthmus from the Republic of Colombia, and set up the new Republic of Panama. As a matter of fact, Panama had had but the slenderest relations with the Bogota Government, had been for years in the past an independent State, had never ceased to assert its own sovereignty, and had been, indeed, the theater of innumerable revolutions. The part the United States played in encouraging this revolution, the fact that the United States authorities prevented the transit of Colombian troops over the Panama Railway, and that American marines were landed at the time, has led to no end of hostile criticism, not to speak of the still pending and unsettled claims made by Colombia against the United States. Mr. Roosevelt himself, years after the event and in a moment of frankness, declared: "I took Panama, and left Congress to debate it later." Whatever may be the final outcome of our controversy with Colombia, it may be confidently predicted that history will justify the coup d'état on the theory that Panama was the best possible site for the interoceanic canal, and that the rupture of relations between the territory of the Isthmus and the Colombian Republic was the best possible solution of a confused and tangled problem. These diplomatic entanglements, however, as the canal is completed, leave two international disputes unsettled--the one with Colombia about the genesis of the canal undertaking, and the other with Great Britain about the terms of its operation. Congress, in its wisdom, saw fit to exempt American vessels engaged exclusively in coastwise trade--that is to say, in trade solely between ports of the United States--from payment of tolls in transit through the canal. This exemption was protested by Great Britain on the ground that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, which took the place of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, provided that the canal should be open to all nations on exact and equal terms. The future holds the termination of both these disputes. Congress, that never begrudged an appropriation, indulged in many disputes concerning the building and operation of the canal. First, there was the controversy as to site, between Nicaragua and Panama. Next, came the question as to whether the canal should be at sea level or of a lock type. Then there was the question of tolls, and the exemption of American coastwise traffic. But, perhaps the most acrimonious debates were on the question as to whether or not the canal should be fortified. Those who favored fortification won their victory, and the canal was made, from a military standpoint, a very Gibraltar for the American defense of, and control over, the Caribbean. That this was inevitable was assured by two facts: One that the trip of the _Oregon_ in 1898 crystallized public sentiment in favor of constructing the canal; and the other that the canal itself was wrought by Army engineers under the direction of Colonel Goethals. Colonel Goethals never for a moment considered the possibility that Congress would vote against fortifications, and the whole undertaking was carried forward on that basis. If the military idea, the notion of its necessity as a feature of the national defense, was the determining factor in initiating the canal project, it remains a fact that its chief use will be commercial, and that its money return, whether small or large, nearly all will be derived from tolls assessed upon merchant vessels passing through it. [Illustration: THE THREE PRESIDENTS UNDER WHOSE DIRECTION THE CANAL WAS BUILT] [Illustration: VENDERS IN THE STREETS OF PANAMA] [Illustration: A NATIVE BOY MARKETING] The question of the probable traffic the canal will be called upon to handle was studied as perhaps no other world-wide problem of transportation ever was. Prof. Emory R. Johnson was the student of this phase of the question from the beginning to the end. He estimates that the canal in the first few years of its operation will have a traffic of 10,000,000 tons of shipping each year, and that by 1975 this will have increased to 80,000,000 tons, the full capacity of the canal in its present form. Provision has been made against this contingency by the engineers who have so constructed the canal that a third set of locks at each end may be constructed at a cost of about $25,000,000, and these will be sufficient almost to double the present ultimate capacity, and to take care of a larger volume of traffic than now can be foreseen. Americans are interested, first of all, in what the canal will do for their own domestic trade. It brings Seattle 7,800 miles nearer to New York; San Francisco, 8,800 miles nearer to New Orleans; Honolulu 6,600 miles nearer to New York than by the Strait of Magellan. Such saving in distance for water-borne freight works a great economy, and inevitably must have a tremendous effect upon transcontinental American commerce. In foreign commerce, also, some of the distances saved are tremendous. For instance, Guayaquil, in Ecuador, is 7,400 miles nearer to New York by the canal than by the Strait of Magellan; Yokohama is nearly 4,000 miles nearer to New York by Panama than by Suez; and Melbourne is 1,300 miles closer to Liverpool by Panama than by either Suez or the Cape of Good Hope. Curiously enough, the distance from Manila to New York, by way of Suez and Panama, is almost the same, the difference in favor of Panama being only 41 miles out of a total of 11,548 miles. The difference in distance from Hongkong to New York by the two canals is even less, being only 18 miles, this slight advantage favoring Suez. But it is not by measure of distances that the effect of the canal on international commerce may be measured. It spells the development of the all but untouched western coast of South America and Mexico. It means a tremendous up-building of foreign commerce in our own Mississippi Valley and Gulf States. It means an unprecedented commercial and industrial awakening in the States of our Pacific coast and the Provinces of Western Canada. While it was not projected as a money-making proposition, it will pay for its maintenance and a slight return upon the money invested from the beginning, and in a score of years will be not only self-supporting, but will yield a sufficient income to provide for the amortization of its capital in a hundred years. The story of how this titanic work was undertaken, of how it progressed, and of how it was crowned with success, is a story without a parallel in the annals of man. The canal itself, as Ambassador Bryce has said, is the greatest liberty man has ever taken with nature. Its digging was a steady and progressive victory over sullen and resistant nature. The ditch through Culebra Mountain was eaten out by huge steam shovels of such mechanical perfection that they seemed almost to be alive, almost to know what they were doing. The rocks and earth they bit out of the mountain side were carried away by trains operating in a system of such skill that it is the admiration of all the transportation world, for the problem of disposing of the excavated material was even greater than that of taking it out. The control of the torrential Chagres River by the Gatun Dam, changing the river from the chief menace of the canal to its essential and salient feature, was no less an undertaking. And, long after Gatun Dam and Culebra Cut cease to be marvels, long after the Panama Canal becomes as much a matter of course as the Suez Canal, men still will be thrilled and impressed by the wonderful machinery of the locks--those great water stairways, operated by machinery as ingenious as gigantic, and holding in check with their mighty gates such floods as never elsewhere have been impounded. It is a wonderful story that this book is undertaking to tell. There will be much in it of engineering feats and accomplishments, because its subject is the greatest of all engineering accomplishments. There will be much in it of the things that were done at Panama during the period of construction, for never were such things done before. There will be much in it of the history of how and why the American Government came to undertake the work, for nothing is of greater importance. There will be something in it of the future, looking with conservatism and care as far ahead as may be, to outline what the completion of this canal will mean not only for the people of the United States, but for the people of all the world. Much that might be written of the romantic history of the Isthmian territory--tales of discoverers and conquistadores, wild tales of pirates and buccaneers, serio-comic narratives of intrigue and revolution--is left out of this book, because, while it is interesting, it now belongs to that antiquity which boasts of many, many books; and this volume is to tell not of Panama, but of the Panama Canal--on the threshold of its story, fitted by a noble birth for a noble destiny. CHAPTER II GREATEST ENGINEERING PROJECT The Panama Canal is the greatest engineering project of all history. There is more than the patriotic prejudice of a people proud of their own achievements behind this assertion. Men of all nations concede it without question, and felicitate the United States upon the remarkable success with which it has been carried out. So distinguished an authority as the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, late British ambassador to Washington, and a man not less famous in the world of letters than successful in the field of diplomacy, declared before the National Geographic Society that not only is the Panama Canal the greatest undertaking of the past or the present but that even the future seems destined never to offer any land-dividing, world-uniting project comparable to it in magnitude or consequence. We are told that the excavations total 232,000,000 cubic yards; that the Gatun Dam contains 21,000,000 cubic yards of material; and that the locks and spillways required the laying of some 4,500,000 cubic yards of concrete. But if one is to realize the meaning of this he must get out of the realm of cubic yards and into the region of concrete comparisons. Every one is familiar with the size and shape of the Washington Monument. With its base of 55 feet square and its height of 555 feet, it is one of the most imposing of all the hand reared structures of the earth. Yet the material excavated from the big waterway at Panama represents 5,840 such solid-built shafts. Placed in a row with base touching base they would traverse the entire Isthmus and reach 10 miles beyond deep water in the two oceans at Panama. Placed in a square with base touching base they would cover an area of 475 acres. If all the material were placed in one solid shaft with a base as large as the average city block, it would tower nearly 100,000 feet in the air. Another illustration of the magnitude of the quantity of material excavated at Panama may be had from a comparison with the pyramid of Cheops, of which noble pile some one has said that "All things fear Time, but Time fears only Cheops." We are told that it required a hundred thousand men 10 years to make ready for the building of that great structure, and 20 years more to build it. There were times at Panama when, in 26 working days, more material was removed from the canal than was required to build Cheops, and from first to last the Americans removed material enough to build sixty-odd pyramids such as Cheops. Were it all placed in one such structure, with a base as large as that of Cheops, the apex would tower higher into the sky than the loftiest mountain on the face of the earth. Still another way of arriving at a true conception of the work of digging the big waterway is to consider that enough material had to be removed by the Americans to make a tunnel through the earth at the equator more than 12 feet square. [Illustration: A GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE MATERIAL HANDLED AT PANAMA] But perhaps the comparison that will best illustrate the immensity of the task of digging the ditch is that of the big Lidgerwood dirt car, on which so much of the spoil has been hauled away. Each car holds about 20 cubic yards of dirt, and 21 cars make a train. The material removed from the canal would fill a string of these cars reaching about three and a half times around the earth, and it would take a string of Panama Railroad engines reaching almost from New York to Honolulu to move them. Yet all these comparisons have taken account of the excavations only. The construction of the Panama Canal represents much besides digging a ditch, for there were some immense structures to erect. Principal among these, so far as magnitude is concerned, was the Gatun Dam, that big ridge of earth a mile and a half long, half a mile thick at the base, and 105 feet high. It contains some 21,000,000 cubic yards of material, enough to build more than 500 solid shafts like the Washington Monument. Then there was the dam at Pedro Miguel--"Peter Magill," as the irreverent boys of Panama christened it--and another at Miraflores, each of them small in comparison with the great embankment at Gatun, but together containing as much material as 70 solid shafts like our Washington Monument. Besides these structures there still remain the locks and spillways, with their four and a half million cubic yards of concrete and their hundreds and thousands of tons of steel. With all these astonishing comparisons in mind, is it strange that the digging of the Panama Canal is the world's greatest engineering project? Are they not enough to stamp it as the greatest single achievement in human history? Yet even they, pregnant of meaning as they are, fail to reveal the full and true proportions of the work of our illustrious army of canal diggers. They tell nothing of the difficulties which were overcome--difficulties before which the bravest spirit might have quailed. When the engineers laid out the present project, they calculated that 103,000,000 cubic yards of material would have to be excavated, and predicted that the canal diggers would remove that much in nine years. Since that time the amount of material to be taken out has increased from one cause or another until it now stands at more than double the original estimate. At one time there was an increase for widening the Culebra Cut by 50 per cent. At another time there was an increase to take care of the 225 acres of slides that were pouring into the big ditch like glaciers. At still another time there was an increase for the creation of a small lake between the locks at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores. At yet another time it was found that the Chagres River and the currents of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans were depositing large quantities of silt and mud in the canal, and this again raised the total amount of material to be excavated. But none of these unforeseen obstacles and additional burdens dismayed the engineers. They simply attacked their problem with renewed zeal and quickened energy, with the result that they excavated in seven years of actual operations more than twice as much material as they were expected to excavate in nine years. In other words, the material to be removed was increased 125 per cent and yet the canal was opened at least 12 months ahead of the time predicted. How this unprecedented efficiency was developed forms in itself a remarkable story of achievement. The engineers met with insistent demands that they "make the dirt fly." The people had seen many months of preparation, but they had no patience with that; they wanted to see the ditch begin to deepen. It was a critical stage in the history of the project. If the dirt should fail to fly public sentiment would turn away from the canal. So John F. Stevens addressed himself to making it fly. Before he left he had brought the monthly output almost up to the million yard mark. When that mark was passed the President of the United States, on behalf of himself and the nation, sent a congratulatory message to the canal army. Many people asserted that it was nothing but a burst of speed; but the canal diggers squared themselves for a still higher record. They forced up the mark to two million a month, and straightway used that as a rallying point from which to charge the heights three million. Once again the standard was raised; "four million" became the slogan. Wherever that slogan was flashed upon a Y.M.C.A. stereoptican screen there was cheering--cheering that expressed a determined purpose. Finally, when March, 1909, came around all hands went to work with set jaws, and for the only time in the history of the world, there was excavated on a single project, 4,000,000 cubic yards of material in one month. With the dirt moving, came the question of the cost of making it fly. By eliminating a bit of lost motion here and taking up a bit of waste there, even with the price of skilled labor fully 50 per cent higher on the Isthmus than in the States, unit costs were sent down to surprisingly low levels. For instance, in 1908 it was costing 11-1/2 cents a cubic yard to operate a steam shovel; in 1911 this had been forced down to 8-7/8 cents a yard. In 1908 more than 18-1/2 cents were expended to haul a cubic yard of spoil 8 miles; in 1911 a cubic yard was hauled 12 miles for a little more than 15-1/5 cents. Some of the efficiency results were astonishing. To illustrate: One would think that the working power of a ton of dynamite would be as great at one time as another; and yet the average ton of dynamite in 1911 did just twice as much work as in 1908. No less than $50,000 a month was saved by shaking out cement bags. It was this wonderful efficiency that enabled the United States to build the canal for $375,000,000 when without it the cost might have reached $600,000,000. In 1908, after the army had been going at regulation double-quick for a year, a board was appointed to estimate just how much material would have to be taken out, and how much it would cost. That board estimated that the project as then planned would require the excavation of 135,000,000 cubic yards of material, and that the total cost of the canal as then contemplated would be $375,000,000. Also it was estimated that the canal would be completed by January 1, 1915. After that time the amount of material to be excavated was increased by 97,000,000 cubic yards, and yet so great was the efficiency developed that the savings effected permitted that great excess of material to be removed without the additional expense of a single penny above the estimates of 1908, and in less time than was forecast. Although the difficulties that beset the canal diggers were such as engineers never before encountered, they were met and brushed aside, and all the world's engineering records were smashed into smithereens. It required 20 years to build the Suez Canal, through a comparatively dry and sandy region. When the work at Panama was at its height the United States was excavating the equivalent of a Suez Canal every 15 months. Likewise it required many years to complete the Manchester Ship Canal between Liverpool and Manchester, a distance of 35 miles. This canal cost so much more than was estimated that money was raised for its completion only with the greatest difficulty. Yet at Panama the Americans dug four duplicates of the Manchester Ship Canal in five years. All of this was done in spite of the fact that they had to work in a moist, hot, enervating climate where for nine months in a year the air seems filled with moisture to the point of saturation, and where, for more than half the length of the great ditch, the annual rainfall often amounts to as much as 10 feet--all of this falling in the nine months of the wet season. A few comparisons outside of the construction itself will serve to illustrate the tremendous proportions of the work. Paper money was not handled at all in paying off the canal army. It took three days to pay off the force with American gold and Panaman silver. When pay day was over there had been given into the hands of the Americans, and thrown into the hats of the Spaniards and West Indian negroes, 1,600 pounds of gold and 24 tons of silver. When it is remembered that this performance was repeated every month for seven years, one may imagine the enormous outlay of money for labor. The commissary also illustrates the magnitude of the work. Five million loaves of bread, a hundred thousand pounds of cheese, more than 9,000,000 pounds of meat, half a million pounds of poultry, more than a thousand carloads of ice, more than a million pounds of onions, half a million pounds of butter--these are some of the items handled in a single year. Wherever one turns he finds things which furnish collateral evidence of the magnitude of the work. The Sanitary Department used each year 150,000 gallons of mosquito oil, distributed thousands of pounds of quinine, cut and burned millions of square yards of brush, and spent half a million dollars for hospital maintenance. No other great engineering project has allowed such a remarkable "margin of safety"--the engineering term for doing things better than they need to be done. The engineers who dug the canal took nothing for granted. No rule of physics was so plain or so obvious as to escape actual physical proof before its acceptance, when such proof was possible. No one who knows how the engineers approached the subject, how they resolved every doubt on the side of safety, and how they kept so far away from the danger line as actually to make their precaution seem excessive can doubt that the Panama Canal will go down in history as the most thorough as well as the most extensive piece of engineering in the world. CHAPTER III GATUN DAM The key to the whole Panama Canal is Gatun Dam, that great mass of earth that impounds the waters of the Chagres River, makes of the central portion of the canal a great navigable lake with its surface 85 feet above the level of the sea, and, in short, renders practicable the operation of a lock type of canal across the Isthmus. Around no other structure in the history of engineering did the fires of controversy rage so furiously and so persistently as they raged for several years around Gatun Dam. It was attacked on this side and that; its foundations were pronounced bad and its superstructure not watertight. Doubt as to the stability of such a structure led some of the members of the Board of Consulting Engineers to recommend a sea-level canal. Further examination of the site and experimentation with the materials of which it was proposed to construct it, showed the engineers that it was safe as to site and satisfactory as to superstructure. The country had about accepted their conclusions, when, in the fall of 1908, there was a very heavy rain on the Isthmus, and some stone which had been deposited on the soil on the upstream toe of the dam, sank out of sight--just as the engineers expected it to do. A story thereupon was sent to the States announcing that the Gatun Dam had given way and that the Chagres River was rushing unrestrained through it to the sea. The public never stopped to recall that the dam was not yet there to give way, or to inquire exactly what had happened, and a wave of public distrust swept over the country. To make absolutely certain that everything was all right, and to restore the confidence of the people in the big project, President Roosevelt selected the best board of engineers he could find and sent them to the Isthmus in company with President-elect Taft to see exactly what was the situation at Gatun. They examined the site, they examined the material, they examined the evidence in Colonel Goethal's hands. When they got through they announced that they had only one serious criticism to make of the dam as proposed. "It is not necessary to tie a horse with a log chain to make sure he can not break away," observed one of them, "a smaller chain would serve just as well." And so they recommended that the crest of the dam be lowered from 135 feet to 115 feet. Still later this was cut to 105 feet. They found that the underground river whose existence was urged by all who opposed a lock canal, flowed nowhere save in the fertile valleys of imagination. The engineers had known this a long time, but out of deference to the doubters they had decided to drive a lot of interlocking sheet piling across the Chagres Valley. "What's the use trying to stop a river that does not exist?" queried the engineers, and so the sheet piling was omitted. As a matter of fact, Gatun Dam proved the happiest surprise of the whole waterway. In every particular it more than fulfilled the most optimistic prophecies of the engineers. They said that what little seepage there would be would not hurt anything; the dam answered by showing no seepage at all. They said that the hydraulic core would be practically impervious; it proved absolutely so. Where it was once believed that Gatun Dam would be the hardest task on the Isthmus it proved to be the easiest. Culebra Cut exchanged places with it in that regard. Gatun Dam contains nearly 22,000,000 cubic yards of material. Assuming that it takes two horses to pull a cubic yard of material it would require twice as many horses as there are in the United States to move the dam were it put on wheels. Loaded into ordinary two-horse dirt wagons it would make a procession of them some 80,000 miles long. The dam is a mile and a half long, a half mile thick at the base, 300 feet thick at the water line, and 100 feet thick at the crest. Its height is 105 feet. Yet in spite of its vast dimensions it is the most inconspicuous object in the landscape. Grown over with dense tropical vegetation it looks little more conspicuous than a gradual rise in the surface of the earth. Passengers passing Gatun on the Panama Railroad scarcely recognize the dam as such when they see it, so gradual are its slopes. An excellent idea of the gentle incline of the dam may be had by referring to the accompanying figure, which shows the outlines of a cross section of the dam. The materials of which it is constructed are also shown there. Starting on the upstream side there is a section made of solid material from Culebra Cut. Beyond this is the upstream toe of the dam, which is made of the best rock in the Culebra Cut. After this comes the hydraulic fill. This material is a mixture of sand and clay which, when it dries out thoroughly, is compact and absolutely impervious to water. It was secured from the river channel and pumped with great 20-inch centrifugal pumps into the central portion of the dam, where a veritable pond was formed; the heavier materials settled to the bottom, forming layer after layer of the core, while the lighter particles, together with the water, passed off through drain pipes. In this way the water was not only the hod carrier of the dam construction, but the stone mason as well. Where there was the tiniest open space, even between two grains of sand, the water found it and slipped in as many small particles as were necessary to stop it up. [Illustration: A CROSS-SECTION OF THE GATUN DAM] Above the hydraulic fill on the upstream side is a layer of solid material, while that part of the face of the dam exposed to wave action is covered with heavy rock. The same is true of the crest. On the downstream half of the dam there is approximately 400 feet of hydraulic fill, then 400 feet of solid fill, then a 30-foot toe, and then ordinary excavated material. The Chagres Valley is a wide one until it reaches Gatun. Here it narrows down to a mile and a half. It is across this valley that the Gatun Dam is thrown in opposition to the seaward journey of the Chagres waters. At the halfway point across the valley there was a little hill almost entirely of solid rock. It happened to be planted exactly at the place the engineers needed it. Here they could erect their spillway for the control of the water in the lake above. [Illustration: GATUN LAKE PLAN OF THE GATUN DAM AND LOCKS] The regulation of the water level in Gatun Lake is no small task, for the Chagres is one of the world's moodiest streams. At times it is a peaceful, leisurely stream of some 2 feet in depth, while at other times it becomes a wild, roaring, torrential river of magnificent proportions. Sometimes it reaches such high stages that it sends a million gallons of water to the sea between the ticks of a clock. In controlling the Chagres, the engineers again took what on any private work would have been regarded as absurd precaution. In the first place, Gatun Lake will be so big that the Chagres can break every record it heretofore has set, both for momentary high water and for sustained high water, and still, with no water being let out of the lake, it can continue to flow that way for a day and a half without disturbing things at all. It could flow for two days before any serious damage could be done. Thus the canal force might be off duty for some 45 hours, with the outlet closed, before any really serious damage could be done by the rampage of the river. But of course no one supposes that it would be humanly possible that two such contingencies as the highest water ever known, and everybody asleep at their posts for two days, could happen together. When the water in the lake reached its normal level of 87 feet the spillway gates would be opened, and, if necessary, it would begin to discharge 145,000 feet of water a second. This is 17,000 feet more than the record for sustained flow heretofore set by the Chagres. But if it were found that even this was inadequate the culverts in the locks could be brought into play, and with them the full discharge would be brought up to 194,000 feet a second, or 57,000 more than the Chagres has ever brought down. But suppose even this would not suffice to take care of the floods of the Chagres? The spillway is so arranged that as the level of the water in the lake rises the discharging capacity increases. With the spillway open, even if the Chagres were to double its record for continued high water, it would take many days to bring the lake level up to the danger point--92 feet. When it reached that height the spillway would have a capacity of 222,000 feet, which, with the aid of the big lock culverts, would bring the total discharge up to 262,000 feet a second--only 12,000 cubic feet less than double the highest known flow of the Chagres. But this is only characteristic of what one sees everywhere. Whether it be in making a spillway that would accommodate two rivers like the Chagres instead of one, or in building dams with 63 pounds of weight for every pound of pressure against it, or yet in building lock gates which will bear several times the maximum weight that can ever be brought against them, the work at Panama was done with the intent to provide against every possible contingency. The spillway through which the surplus waters of Gatun Lake will be let down to the sea level, is a large semicircular concrete dam structure with the outside curve upstream and the inside curve downstream. Projecting above the dam are 13 piers and 2 abutments, which divide it into 14 openings, each of them 45 feet wide. These openings are closed by huge steel gates, 45 feet wide, 20 feet high, and weighing 42 tons each. They are mounted on roller bearings, suspended from above, and are operated by electricity. They work in huge frames just as a window slides up and down in its frame. Each gate is independent of the others, and the amount of water permitted to go over the spillway dam thus can be regulated at will. When a huge volume of water like a million gallons a second is to be let down a distance of about 60 feet, it may be imagined that unless some means are found to hold it back and let it descend easily, by the time it would reach the bottom it would be transformed into a thousand furies of energy. Therefore, the spillway dam has been made semicircular, with the outside lines pointing up into the lake and the inside lines downstream, so that as the water runs through the openings it will converge all the currents and cause them to collide on the apron below. This largely overcomes the madness of the water. But still further to neutralize its force and to make it harmless as it flows on its downward course, there are two rows of baffle piers on the apron of the spillway. They are about 10 feet high and are built of reinforced concrete, with huge cast-iron blocks upon their upstream faces. When the water gets through them it has been tamed and robbed of all its dangerous force. The spillway is so constructed that when the water flowing over it becomes more than 6 feet deep it adheres to the downstream face of the dam as it glides down, instead of rushing out and falling perpendicularly. The locks are situated against the high hills at the east side of the valley, after which comes the east wing of the dam, then the spillway, then the west wing of the dam, which terminates on the side of the low mountain that skirts the western side of the valley. With the hills bordering the valley and the dam across it, the engineers have been able to inclose a gigantic reservoir which has a superficial surface of 164 square miles. It is irregular in shape and might remind one of a pressed chrysanthemum, the flower representing the lake and the stem Culebra Cut. The surface of the water in this lake is normally 85 feet higher than the surface of the water seaward from Gatun and Miraflores. The lake is entirely fresh water supplied by the Chagres River. The accompanying figure shows the profile of the canal. [Illustration: A PROFILE SECTION OF THE CANAL] The Chagres River approaches the canal at approximately right angles at Gamboa, some 21 miles above Gatun. The lake will be so large that the river currents will all be absorbed, the water backing far up into the Chagres, the river depositing its silt before it reaches the canal proper. With the currents thus checked, the Chagres will lose all power to interfere with the navigation of the canal, although upon the bosom of its water will travel for a distance of 35 miles all the ships that pass through the big waterway from Gatun to Miraflores. This fresh water will serve a useful purpose besides carrying ships over the backbone of the continent. Barnacles lose their clinging power in fresh water, and when a ship passes up through the locks from sea level to lake level and from salt water to fresh, the barnacles that have clung to the sides and bottom of the vessel through many a thousand mile of "sky-hooting through the brine" will have their grip broken and they will drop off helplessly and fall to the bed of the lake, which, in the course of years, will become barnacle-paved. How many times in dry-dock this will save can only be surmised, but the ship that goes through the canal regularly will not have much bother with barnacles. The engineer who worked out the details of the engineering examination of the dam in 1908 was Caleb M. Saville, who had had experience on some of the greatest dams in the world. In the first place, the whole foundation was honeycombed with test borings, and several shafts were sunk so that the engineers could go down and see for themselves exactly what was the nature of the material below. There are some problems in engineering where a decision is so close between safety and danger that none but an engineer can decide them. But Gatun Dam could speak for itself and in the layman's tongue. After investigating the site and getting such conclusive evidence that the proverbial wayfaring man might understand it the engineers next conducted a series of experiments to determine whether or not the material of which they proposed to build the dam would be watertight. They wanted to make sure whether enough water would seep through to carry any of the dam material along with it. The maximum normal depth of the water is 85 feet. The material it would have to seep through is nearly a half mile thick. In order to determine how the water would behave they took some 3 feet of the material and put it in a strong iron cylinder with water above it and subjected it to a pressure equivalent to a head of 185 feet of water. Only an occasional drop came through. If only an occasional drop of clear water gets through 3 feet of material under a pressure of 185 feet of water, it does not require a great engineer to determine that there will not be any seepage through more than a thousand feet of the same material under a head of only 85 feet. And that is only a sample of their seeking after the truth. When they had gone thus far it was then decided to build a little dam a few yards long identical in cross section with Gatun Dam. It was built on the scale of an inch to the foot, by the identical processes with which it was intended to build the big dam. The result only added confirmation to the other experiments. With a proportionate head of water against it, it behaved exactly as they had concluded the big dam would when completed. Every engineer who has read Saville's report pronounces it a masterpiece of engineering investigation. It proved conclusively that the site of the dam is stable, and the dam itself impervious to seepage. The engineers who visited the Isthmus at the time with President-elect Taft unanimously agreed that those investigations removed every trace of doubt. [Illustration: LIEUT. COL. W. L. SIBERT THE UPPER LOCKS AT GATUN] [Illustration: TORO POINT BREAKWATER] The Gatun Dam covers about 288 acres. The material in it weighs nearly 30,000,000 tons. The pressure of the highest part of the dam on the foundations beneath amounts to many tons per square foot. The old bugaboo about earthquakes throwing it down is a danger that exists only in the minds of those who see ghosts. Some of the biggest earth dams in the world are located in California. The Contra Costa Water Company's dam at San Leandro is 120 feet high and not nearly so immense in its proportions as Gatun Dam, yet it weathered the San Francisco earthquake without difficulty. In Panama City there is an old flat arch that once was a part of a church. It looks as though one might throw it down with a golf stick, and yet it has stood there for several centuries. As a matter of fact, Panama is out of the line of earthquakes and volcanoes, but even if shocks much worse than those at San Francisco were to come, there is no reason to fear for the safety of the big structure. The lack of knowledge of some of those who in years past criticized the Gatun Dam was illustrated by an amusing incident that occurred at a senatorial hearing on the Isthmus. Philander C. Knox, afterwards Secretary of State, was then a Senator and a member of the committee which went to the Isthmus. Another Senator in the party had grave doubts about the stability of Gatun Dam, and asked Colonel Goethals to explain how a dam could hold in check such an immense body of water. Colonel Goethals, in his usual lucid way, explained that it was because of that well-known principle of physics that the outward pressure of water is determined by its depth and not by its volume--that a column of water 10 feet high and a foot thick would have just as much outward pressure as a lake 200 square miles in extent and 10 feet deep. Still unconvinced, the Senator pressed his examination further. At this juncture Senator Knox, who is a past master at the art of answering a question with a question, interposed, and asked his colleague: "Senator, if your theory holds good, how is it that the dikes of Holland hold in check the Atlantic Ocean?" CHAPTER IV THE LOCKS Ships that pass Panama way will climb up and down a titanic marine stairway, three steps up into Gatun Lake and three steps down again. These steps are the 12 huge locks in which will center the operating features of the Isthmian waterway. The building of these locks represents the greatest use of concrete ever undertaken. The amount used would be sufficient to build of concrete a row of six-room houses, reaching from New York to Norfolk, via Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and Richmond--houses enough to provide homes for a population as large as that of Indianapolis. The total length of the locks and their accessories, including the guide walls, approximates 2 miles. The length of the six locks through which a ship passes on its voyage from one ocean to the other is a little less than 7,000 feet. If one who has never seen a lock canal is to get a proper idea of what part the locks play in the Panama Canal, he must follow attentively while we make an imaginary journey through the canal on a ship that has just come down from New York. Approaching the Atlantic entrance from the north, we pass the end of the great man-made peninsula, jutting out 11,000 feet into the bay known as Toro Point Breakwater. It was built to protect the entrance of the canal, the harbor, and anchorages from the violent storms that sweep down from the north over that region. Omitting our stops for the payment of tolls, the securing of supplies, etc., we steam directly in through a great ditch 500 feet wide and 41 feet deep, which simply permits the ocean to come inland 7 miles to Gatun. When we arrive there we find that our chance to go farther is at an end unless we have some means of getting up into the beautiful lake whose surface is 85 feet above us. Here is where the locks come to our rescue. They will not only give us one lift, but three. When we approach the locks we find a great central pier jutting out into the sea-level channel. If our navigating officers know their duty they will run up alongside of this guide wall and tie up to it. If they do not they will run the ship's nose into a giant chain, with links made of 3-inch iron, that is guaranteed to bring a 1,000-ton ship, going at the rate of 5 knots per hour, to a dead standstill in 70 feet. When we are once safely alongside the guide wall, four quiet, but powerful locomotives, run by electricity, come out and take charge of our ship. Two of them get before it to pull us forward, and two behind it to hold us back. Then the great chain, which effectively would have barred us from going into the locks under our own steam, or from colliding with the lock gates, is let down and we begin to move into the first lock. Starting at the sea-level channel, the first, second, and third gates are opened and our ship towed into the first lock. Then the second and third gates are closed again, and the lock filled with water, by gravity, raising the ship at the rate of about 2 feet a minute, although, if there is a great rush of business, it may be filled at the rate of 3 feet a minute. When the water in this lock reaches the level of the water in the lock above, gates four and five are opened, and we are towed in. Then gate four is closed again, and water is let into this lock until it reaches the level of the third one. Gates six, seven, and eight are next opened, and we are towed into the upper lock. Gates six and seven are now closed, and the water allowed to fill the third lock until we are up to the level of Gatun Lake. Then gates nine and ten are opened, the emergency dam is swung from athwart the channel, if it happens to be in that position, the fender chain like the one encountered when we entered the first lock, and like the ones which protect gates seven and eight, is let down, the towing engines turn us loose, and we resume our journey, with 32 miles of clear sailing, until we reach Pedro Miguel. Here, by a reverse process, we are dropped down 30-1/3 feet. Then we go on to Miraflores, a mile and a half away, where we are lifted down 54-2/3 feet in two more lifts. This brings us back to sea level again, where we meet the waters of the Pacific, and steam out upon it through a channel 500 feet wide and 8 miles long. Having learned something of the part the locks play in getting us across the Isthmus, by helping us up out of one ocean into Gatun Lake and then dropping down into the other ocean, it will be interesting to note something of the mechanism. A very good idea of how a lock looks may be gathered from the accompanying bird's-eye view of the model of Pedro Miguel Lock. [Illustration: FROM A MODEL OF PEDRO MIGUEL LOCK] It will be seen that there are two of them side by side--twin locks, they are called, making them like a double-track railway. The lock on the right is nearly filled for an upward passage. The ship will be seen in it, held in position by the four towing engines, which appear only as tiny specks hitched to hawsers from the stem and stern. Behind the ship are the downstream gates. They were first opened to admit the ship, and then closed to impound the water that flows up through the bottom of the lock. Ahead are the upstream gates, closed also until the water in the lock is brought up to the level of the water in the lake. Then the gates will be opened, the big chain fender will be dropped down, and the ship will be towed out into the lake and turned loose. On the side wall of the right lock there is a big bridge set on a pivot so that it can be swung around across the lock and girders let down from it to serve as a foundation upon which to lay a steel dam if anything happens to the locks or gates. On the other lock the bridge has been swung into position, and the steel girders let down. Great steel sheets will be let down on live roller bearings on these girders, and when all are in place they will form a watertight dam of steel. Between this bridge and the reader is a huge floating tank of steel, which may be used to dam all the water out of the locks when that is desired. Referring to the next figure we see a cross section of the twin locks. The side walls are from 45 to 50 feet thick at the floor. At a point 24-1/3 feet above the floor they begin to narrow by a series of 6-foot steps until they are 8 feet wide at the top. The middle wall is 60 feet wide all the way up, although at a point 42-1/2 feet above the lock floor room is made for a filling of earth and for a three-story tunnel, the top story being used as a passageway for the operators, the second story as a conduit for electric wires, and the lower story as a drainage system. [Illustration: A CROSS-SECTION OF LOCKS, GIVING AN IDEA OF THEIR SIZE] In this figure D and G are the big 18-foot culverts through which water is admitted from the lake to the locks. Each of these three big culverts, which are nearly 7,000 feet long, is large enough to accommodate a modern express train, and is about the size of the Pennsylvania tubes under the Hudson and East Rivers. H represents the culverts extending across the lock from the big ones. Each of them is big enough to accommodate a two-horse wagon, and there are 14 in each lock. Every alternate one leads from the side wall culvert and the others from the center wall culvert. F represents the wells that lead up through the floor into the lock, each larger in diameter than a sugar barrel in girth. There are five wells on each cross culvert, or 70 in the floor of each lock. [Illustration: CONCRETE MIXERS, GATUN] [Illustration: A CENTER WALL CULVERT, GATUN LOCKS] [Illustration: THE MACHINERY FOR MOVING A LOCK GATE] The flow of the water into the locks and out again is controlled by great valves. The ones which control the great wall tunnels or culverts are called Stoney Gate valves, and operate something like giant windows in frames. They are mounted on roller bearings to make them work without friction. The others are ordinary cylindrical valves, but, having to close a culvert large enough to permit a two-horse team to be driven through it, they must be of great size. When a ship is passing from Gatun Lake down to the Atlantic Ocean, the water in the upper lock is brought up to the level of that in the lake, being admitted through the big wall culverts, whence it passes out through the 14 cross culverts and up into the locks through the 70 wells in the floor. Then the ship is towed in, the gates are shut behind it, the valves are closed against the water in the lake, the ones permitting the escape of this water into the lock below are opened, and it continues to flow out of the upper lock into the lower one until the water in the two has the same level. Then the gates between the two locks are opened, the ship is towed into the second one and the operation is repeated for the last lock in the same way. The gates of the locks are an interesting feature. Their total weight is about 58,000 tons. There are 46 of them, each having two leaves. Their weight varies from 300 to 600 tons per leaf, dependent upon the varying height of the different gates. The lowest ones are 47 feet high and the highest ones 82 feet, their height depending upon the place where they are used. Some of these are known as intermediate gates, and are used for short ships, when it is desired to economize on both water and time. They divide each lock chamber into two smaller chambers of 350 and 550 feet, respectively. Perhaps 90 per cent of all the ships that pass Panama will not need to use the full length lock--1,000 feet. Duplicate gates will always be kept on the ground as a precaution against accident. Each leaf is 65 feet wide and 7 feet thick. The heaviest single piece of steel in each one of them is the lower sill, weighing 18 tons. It requires 6,000,000 rivets to put them together. In the lower part of each gate is a huge tank. When it is desired that the gate shall have buoyancy, as when operating it, this tank will be filled with air. When closed it is filled with water. The gates are opened and closed by a huge arm, or strut, one end of which is connected to the gate and the other to a huge wheel in the manner of the connecting rod to the driver of a locomotive. Leakage through the space between the gate and the miter sill on the floor of the lock is prevented by a seal which consists of heavy timbers with flaps of rubber 4 inches wide and half an inch thick. A special sealing device brings the edges of the two leaves of a gate together and holds them firmly while the gates are closed. Remembering that these gates are nothing more than Brobdingnagian double doors which close in the shape of a flattened V, it follows that they must have hinges. And these hinges are worth going miles to see. That part which fastens to the wall of the lock weighs 36,752 pounds in the case of the operating gates, and 38,476 pounds in the protection gates. These latter are placed in pairs with the operating gates at all danger points--so that if one set of gates are rammed down, another pair will still be in position. The part of the hinge attached to the gate was made according to specifications which required that it should stand a strain of 40,000 pounds before stretching at all, and 70,000 pounds before breaking. Put into a huge testing machine, it actually stood a strain of 3,300,000 pounds before breaking--seven times as great as any stress it will ever be called upon to bear. The gates are all painted a lead gray, to match the ships of the American Navy. Those which come into contact with sea water will be treated with a barnacle-proof preparation. Now that we have described the locks, we may go back and see them in course of construction. The first task was getting the lock building plant designed and built. At Gatun the plant consisted of a series of immense cableways, an electric railroad, and enormous concrete mixers. Great towers were erected on either side of the area excavated for the locks, with giant cables connecting them. These towers were 85 feet high, and were mounted on tracks like steam shovels, so that they could be moved forward as the work progressed. The cables connecting them were of 2-1/2-inch lock steel wire covered with interlocking strands. They were guaranteed to carry 6 tons at a trip, 20 trips an hour, and to carry 60,000 loads before giving way. They actually did better than the specifications called for as far as endurance was concerned. The sand for making the concrete for Gatun came from Nombre de Dios (Spanish for Name of God), and the gravel from Porto Bello. The sand and gravel were towed in great barges, first through the old French Canal, and later through the Atlantic entrance of the present canal. Great clamshell buckets on the Lidgerwood cableways would swoop down upon the barges, get 2 cubic yards of material at a mouthful, lift it up to the cable, carry it across to the storage piles and there dump it. In this way more than 2,000,000 wagon loads of sand and gravel were handled. A special equipment was required to haul the sand, gravel, and cement from the storage piles to the concrete mixers. There were two circular railroads of 24-inch gauge, carrying little electric cars that ran without motormen. Each car was stopped, started, or reversed by a switch attached to the car. Their speed never varied more than 10 per cent whether they were going empty or loaded, up hill or down. When a car was going down hill its motor was reversed into a generator so that it helped make electricity to pull some other car up the hill. The cars ran into a little tunnel, where each was given its proper load of one part cement, three parts sand, and six parts gravel--2 cubic yards, in all--and was then hurried on to the big concrete mixers. These were so arranged in a series that it was not necessary to stop them to receive the sand, gravel, and cement, or to dump out the concrete. On the emptying sides of the concrete mixers there were other little electric railway tracks. Here there were little trains of a motor and two cars each, with a motorman. The train, with two big 2-cubic-yard buckets, drew up alongside two concrete mixers. Without stopping their endless revolutions the mixers tilted and poured out their contents into the two buckets, 2 yards in each. Then the little train hurried away, stopping under a great cable. Across from above the lock walls came two empty buckets, carried on pulleys on the cableway. When they reached a point over the train they descended and were set on the cars, behind the full buckets. The full buckets were then attached to the lifting hooks, and were carried up to the cable and then across to the lock walls, where they were dumped and the concrete spread out by a force of men. Meanwhile the train hustled off with its two empty buckets, ready to be loaded again. On the Pacific side the concrete handling plant was somewhat different. Instead of cableways there were great cantilever cranes built of structural steel. Some of these were in the shape of a giant T, while others looked like two T's fastened together. Here the clamshell dippers were run out on the arms of the cranes to the storage piles, where they picked up their loads of material. This was put in hoppers large enough to store material for 10 cubic yards. The sand and stone then passed through measuring hoppers and to the mixers with cement and water added. After it was mixed it was dumped into big buckets on little cars drawn by baby steam locomotives, which looked like overgrown toy engines. These little fellows reminded one of a lot of busy bees as they dashed about here and there with their loads of concrete, choo-chooing as majestically as the great dirt train engines which passed back and forth hard by. The cranes would take their filled buckets and leave empty ones in exchange, and this was kept up day in and day out until the locks were completed. When the plant was removed from Pedro Miguel to Miraflores, a large part of the concrete was handled directly from the mixers to the walls by the cranes without the intermediary locomotive service. The cost of the construction of the locks was estimated in 1908 at upward of $57,000,000. But economy in the handling of the material and efficiency on the part of the lock builders cut the actual cost far below that figure. On the Atlantic side about a dollar was saved on every yard of concrete laid--about $2,000,000. On the Pacific side more than twice as much was saved. Before the locks could be built it became necessary to excavate down to bed rock. This required the removal of nearly 5,000,000 cubic yards of material at Gatun. Then extensive tests were made to make certain that the floor of the locks could be anchored safely to the rock. These tests demonstrated that by using the old steel rails that were left on the Isthmus by the French, the concrete and rock could be tied together so firmly as to defy the ravages of water and time. A huge apron of concrete was built out into Gatun Lake from the upper locks at that place, effectively preventing any water from getting between the rocks and the concrete lying upon them. CHAPTER V THE LOCK MACHINERY One of the problems that had to be solved before the Panama Canal could be presented to the American people as a finished waterway, was that of equipping it with adequate and dependable machinery for its operation. Panama canals are not built every year, so it was not a matter of ordering equipment from stock; everything had to be invented and designed for the particular requirement it was necessary to meet. And the first and foremost requirement was safety. When we look over the canal machinery we see that word "safety" written in every bolt, in every wheel, in every casting, in every machine. We see it in the devices designed for protection and in those designed for operation as well. We see it in the giant chain that will stop a vessel before it can ram a gate; we see it in the great cantilever pivot bridges that support the emergency dams; we see it in the double lock gates at all exposed points; we see it in the electric towing apparatus, in the limit switches that will automatically stop a machine when the operator is not attending to his business, in the friction clutches that will slip before the breaking point is reached. Safety, safety, safety, the word is written everywhere. The first thing a ship encounters when it approaches the locks is the giant chain stretched across its path. That chain is made of links of 3 inches in diameter. When in normal position it is stretched across the locks, and the vessel which does not stop as soon as it should will ram its nose into the chain. There is a hydraulic paying-out arrangement at both ends of the chain, and when the pressure against it reaches a hundred gross tons the chain will begin to pay out and gradually bring the offending vessel to a stop. After a ship strikes the chain its momentum will be gradually reduced, its energy being absorbed by the chain mechanism. While the pressure at which the chain will begin to yield is fixed at 100 gross tons, the pressure required to break it is 262 tons. Thus the actual stress it can bear is two and a half times what it will be called upon to meet. The mechanism by which the paying-out of the chain is accomplished is exceedingly ingenious. The principle is practically the reverse of that of a hydraulic jack. The two ends of the 428-foot chain are attached to big plungers in the two walls of the locks. These plungers fit in large cylinders, which contain broad surfaces of water. They are connected with very small openings, which are kept closed until a pressure of 750 pounds to the square inch is exerted against them. By means of a resistance valve these openings are then made available, the water shooting out as through a nozzle under high pressure. This permits the chain plunger to rise gradually, while keeping the tension at 750 pounds to the inch, and the paying-out of the chain proceeds accordingly. Of course not all ships will strike the chain at the same speed, and in some cases the paying-out process will have to be more rapid than in others. This is provided for by the automatic enlargement of the hole through which the water is discharged, the size of the hole again becoming smaller as the tension of the chain decreases. This chain fender will stop the _Olympic_ with full load, when going a mile and a half an hour, bringing it to a dead standstill within 70 feet, or it will stop an ordinary 10,000-ton ship in the same distance even if it have a speed of 5 miles. The function of the resistance valve is to prevent the chain from beginning to pay out until the stress against it goes up to 100 tons, and to regulate the paying-out so as to keep it constant at that point, so long as there is necessity for paying-out. Any pressure of less than a hundred tons will not put the paying-out mechanism into operation. When a ship is to be put through the locks the chain will be let down into great grooves in the floor of the lock. There is a fixed plunger operating within a cylinder, which, in turn, operates within another cylinder, the resulting movement, by a system of pulleys, being made to pay out or pull in 4 feet of chain for every foot the plunger travels. The chain must be raised or lowered in one minute, and always will have to be lowered to permit the passage of a ship. The fender machines are situated in pits in the lock walls. These pits are likely to get filled with water from drippings, leakages, wave action, and drainage, so they are protected with automatic pumps. Float valves are lifted when the water rises in the pits. This automatically moves the switch controlling an electric motor, which starts a pump to working whenever the water gets within 1 inch of the top of the sump beneath the floor of the pit. Twenty-four of these chain fenders are required for the protection of the locks, and each requires two such tension machines. No ship will be allowed to go through the canal except under the control of a canal pilot. He will certainly bring it to a stop at the approach wall. But if he does not, there is the chain fender. There is not a chance in a thousand for a collision with it, and not a chance in a hundred thousand that the ship will not be stopped when there is such a collision. But if the pilot should fail to stop the ship, and it should collide with the fender chain, and then if the fender chain should fail to stop it, there would be the double gates at the head of the lock. There is not one chance in a hundred that a ship, checked as it inevitably would be by the fender chain, could ram down the first, or safety gate. But if it did, there would still be another set of gates some 70 feet away. The chances here might be one in a hundred of the second set being rammed down. From all this it will be seen that the chances of the second pair of gates being rammed is so remote as to be almost without the realm of possibility. But suppose all these precautions should fail, and suddenly the way should be opened for the water of Gatun Lake to rush through the locks at the destructive speed of 20 miles an hour? Even that day has been provided against by the construction of the big emergency dams. The emergency dams, like the fender chains, are designed only for protection, and have no other use in the operation of the locks. There will be six of these dams, one across each of the head locks at Gatun, Pedro Miguel, and Miraflores. These emergency dams will be mounted on pivots on the side walls of the locks about 200 feet above the upper gates. When not in use they will rest on the side wall and parallel with it. When in use they will be swung across the locks, by electric machinery or by hand, and there rigidly wedged in. It will require two minutes to get them in position by electricity and 30 minutes by hand. There is a motor for driving the wedges which will hold the dam securely in position, and limit switches to prevent the dams being moved too far. When a bridge is put into position across the lock, a series of wicket girders which are attached to the upstream side of the floor of the bridge are let down into the water, the connection between the bridge and one end of each girder being made by an elbow joint. The other end goes down into the water, its motion being controlled by a cable attached some distance from the free end of the girder and paid out or drawn in over an electrically operated drum. This free end passes down until it engages a big iron casting embedded in the concrete of the lock floor. This makes a sort of inclined railway at an angle of about 30 degrees from the perpendicular, over which huge steel plates are let down into the water. There are six of these girders, and they are all made of the finest nickel steel. When they are all in position, a row of six plates are let down, and they make the stream going through the locks several feet shallower. Then another row of plates is let down on these, and the stream becomes that much shallower. Another row of plates is added, and then another, until there is a solid sheet of steel plates resting on the six girders, and they make a complete steel dam which effectively arrests the mad impulse of the water in Gatun Lake to rush down into the sea. The plates are moved up and down by electrical machinery, and are mounted on roller-bearing wheels, so that the tremendous friction caused by their being pressed against the girders by the great force of the water may be overcome. That the emergency dams will be effective is shown by the experience at the "Soo" locks, on the canal connecting Lakes Superior and Huron. There, a vessel operating under its own power, rammed a lock gate. Although the emergency dam had grown so rusty by disuse that it could be operated only by hand, it was swung across the lock and effectively fulfilled its mission of checking the maddened flow of the water. Another protective device for the locks is the big caisson gates that will be floated across the head and tail bays when it is desired to remove all the water from the locks for the purpose of permitting the lower guard gates to be examined, cleaned, painted, or repaired, and for allowing the sills of the emergency dams to be examined in the dry. The caisson gates are 112-1/2 feet long, 36 feet beam, and have a light draft of 32 feet and a heavy draft of 61 feet. When one is floated into position to close the lock, water will be admitted to make it sink to the proper depth. Then its large centrifugal pumps, driven by electric motors, will pump the water out of the lock. When the work on the lock is completed these pumps will pump the water out of the caisson itself until it becomes buoyant enough to resume its light draft, after which it will be floated away. The machinery for opening and closing the lock gates called for unusual care in its designing. The existing types of gate-operating machinery were all studied, and it was found that none of them could be depended on to prove satisfactory, so special machines had to be designed. A great wheel, resembling a drive wheel of a locomotive, except that a little over half of the rim is cog-geared, is mounted in a horizontal position on a big plate, planted firmly in the concrete of the wall and bolted there with huge bolts 11 feet long and 2-1/4 inches in diameter. This plate weighs over 13,000 pounds, and the wheel, cast in two pieces, weighs 34,000 pounds. As the weight of the rim of the wheel on the eight spokes probably would tax their strength too much when the wheel is under stress, this is obviated by four bearing wheels, perpendicular to the big wheel, which support the rim. Between the crank pin and the point of attachment on the gate leaf there is a long arm, or strut, designed to bear an operating strain of nearly a hundred tons. The wheel will be revolved by a motor geared to the cogged part of the rim. An ingenious arrangement of electric switches is that used to protect the gate-moving machines from harm. The big connecting rod between the master wheel and the gate leaf is attached to the gate leaf by a nest of springs capable of sustaining a pressure of 184,000 pounds, in addition to the fixed pressure of 60,000 pounds. Should any obstruction interfere with the closing of the gate and threaten a dangerous pressure on the connecting rod, the springs, as soon as they reach their full compression, establish an electrical contact and thus stop the motor. Likewise, should any obstruction come against the gate as the connecting rod is pulling it open, the springs again permit the establishment of an electrical contact and stop the motor. All of these precautions are entirely independent of and supplemental to the limit switches, which cut off the power from the gate-moving machine should the strain reach the danger line. These big machines move the huge gate leaves without the slightest noise or vibration. Such a machine is required for each of the 92 leaves used in the 46 gates with which the locks are equipped. The operator can open or close one of these big gates in two minutes. [Illustration: ONE OF THE 92 GATE-LEAF MASTER WHEELS] The control of the water in the culverts of the locks is taken care of by an ingeniously designed series of valves. The big wall culverts, 18 feet in diameter, are divided into two sections at the points where the valves are installed, by the construction of a perpendicular pier. This makes two openings 8 by 18 feet. The big gates of steel are placed in frames to close these openings just as a window sash is placed in its frame. They are mounted on roller bearings, so as to overcome the friction caused by the pressure of water against the valve gates. They must be mounted so that there is not more than a fourth of an inch play in any direction. The big wall culvert gates will weigh about 10 tons each, and must be capable of operating under a head of more than 60 feet of water. They will be raised and lowered by electricity. The electric locomotives which will be used to tow ships through the locks are one of the interesting features of the equipment. There will be 40 of them on the 3 sets of locks. The average ship will require four of them, two at the bow and two at the stern, to draw it through the locks. They will run on tracks on the lock walls, and will have two sets of wheels. One set will be cogged, and will be used when the locomotives are engaged in towing. The other set will be pressed into service when they are running light. When a vessel is in one lock waiting for the water to be equalized with that in the next one and the gates opened to permit passage, the forward locomotives will run free up the incline to the lock wall above, paying out hawser as they go. When they get to the next higher level they are ready to exert their maximum pull. Each locomotive consists of three parts: two motors hitched together, and the tandem may be operated from either end. The third part is a big winding drum around which the great hawsers are wound. This towing windlass permits the line to be paid out or pulled in and the distance between the ship and the locomotives varied at will. The locomotive may thus exert its pull or relax it while standing still on the track, a provision especially valuable in bringing ships to rest. In the main, however, the pull of the locomotive is exercised by its running on the semi-suppressed rack track anchored in the coping of the lock walls. Each flight of locks will be provided with two towing tracks, one on the side and one on the center wall. Each wall will be equipped with a return track of ordinary rails, so that when a set of locomotives has finished towing a ship through the locks they can be switched over from these tracks and hustled back for another job. When they reach the inclines from one lock to the next above the rack track will be pressed into service again until they reach the next level stretch. Here again one meets the familiar safeguard against accident. Some engineer of one of these towing locomotives might sometime overload it, so the power of doing so has been taken out of his hands. On the windlass or drum that holds the towing hawser there is a friction coupling. If the engineer should attempt to overload his engine, or if for any other reason there should suddenly come upon the locomotive a greater strain than it could bear, or upon the track, or upon the hawser, the friction clutch would let loose at its appointed tension of 25,000 pounds, and all danger would be averted. When the locomotives are towing a ship from the walls it is natural that there should be a side pull on the hawser. This is overcome by wheels that run against the side of the track and are mounted horizontally. All of the towing tracks extend out on the approach walls of the locks so that the locomotives can get out far enough to take charge of a ship before it gets close enough to do the locks any damage. [Illustration: A _Mauretania_ IN THE LOCKS] From the foregoing it will be seen that a great deal of electric current will be required in the operation of the locks. This will be generated at a big station at Gatun, with a smaller one at Miraflores, and they will be connected. The overflow water will be used for generating the required current, and in addition to the operation of the lock machinery it will operate the spillway gates, furnish the necessary lighting current, and eventually it may furnish the power for an electrified Panama Railroad. In passing a ship through the canal it will be necessary to open and close 23 lock gates, of an aggregate weight of more than 25,000 tons, to lower and raise 12 fender chains, each weighing 24,000 pounds, and to shut and open dozens of great valves, each of which weighs tons. All these operations at each set of locks will be controlled by one man, at a central switchboard. In addition to these operations there is the towing apparatus. The arrangement at Gatun is typical; there 4 fender chains must be operated, 6 pairs of miter gates, and 46 valves. In all not less than 98 motors will be set in motion twice, and sometimes this number may be increased to 143. Some of them are more than half a mile away from the operator, and half of them are nearly a quarter of a mile away. The operator in his control house will be high enough to have an uninterrupted view of the whole flight of locks over which he has command. His control board will consist of a representation of the locks his switches control. On his model he will see the rise and fall of the fender chains as he operates them, the movement of the big lock gates as they swing open or shut, the opening and closing of the valves which regulate the water in the culverts, and the rise and fall of the water in the locks. A system of interlocked levers will prevent him from doing the wrong thing in handling his switches. Before he can open the valves at one end of a lock he must close those at the other end. Before he can open the lock gates, the valves in the culverts must be set so that no harm can result. Before he can start to open a lock gate, he must first have released the miter-forcing machine that latches the gates. Before he can close the gates protected by a fender chain, he must first have thrown the switch to bring the fender chain back to its protecting position, and he can not throw the switch to lower the chain until he first has provided for the opening of the gate it protects. All of this interlocking system makes it next to impossible to err, and taking into consideration the additional safeguard of limit switches, which automatically cut off the power when anything goes wrong, it will be seen that the personal equation is all but removed from the situation. CHAPTER VI CULEBRA CUT Culebra Cut! Here the barrier of the continental divide resisted to the utmost the attacks of the canal army; here disturbed and outraged Nature conspired with gross mountain mass to make the defense stronger and stronger; here was the mountain that must be moved. Here came the French, jauntily confident, to dig a narrow channel that would let their ships go through. The mountain was the victor. And then here came the Americans, confident but not jaunty. They weighed that mass, laid out the lines of a wider ditch, arranged complicated transportation systems to take away the half hundred million cubic yards of earth and rocks that they had measured. Nature came to the aid of the beleaguered mountain. The volcanic rocks were piled helter-skelter and when the ditch deepened the softer strata underneath refused to bear the burden and the slides, slowly and like glaciers, crept out into the ditch, burying shovels and sweeping aside the railway tracks. Even the bottom of the canal bulged up under the added stress of the heavier strata above. Grim, now, but still confident, the attackers fought on. The mountain was defeated. Now stretches a man-made canyon across the backbone of the continent; now lies a channel for ships through the barrier; now is found what Columbus sought in vain--the gate through the west to the east. Men call it Culebra Cut. Nine miles long, its average depth is 120 feet. At places its sides tower nearly 500 feet above its channel bottom, which is nowhere narrower than 300 feet. It is the greatest single trophy of the triumph of man over the terrestrial arrangement of his world. Compared to it, the scooping out of the sand levels of Suez seems but child's play--the tunnels of Hoosac and Simplon but the sport of boys. It is majestic. It is awful. It is the Canal. When estimates for digging the canal were made, it was calculated that 53,000,000 cubic yards of material would have to be removed from the cut, and that under the most favorable conditions it would require eight and a half years to complete the work. But at that time no one had the remotest idea of the actual difficulties that would beset the canal builders; no one dreamed of the avalanches of material that would slide into the cut. One can in no way get a better idea of the meaning of the slides and breaks in Culebra Cut than to refer to the accompanying figure. There it will be seen that whereas it was originally planned that the top width of the cut at one point should be 670 feet, it has grown wider, because of slides and breaks, to as much as 1,800 feet at one place. In all, some 25,000,000 cubic yards of material which should have remained outside the canal prism slipped into it and had to be removed by the steam shovels. [Illustration: THE EFFECT OF SLIDES] No less than 26 slides and breaks were encountered in the construction of Culebra Cut, their total area being 225 acres. The largest covered 75, and another 47 acres. When the slides, which were more like earthen glaciers than avalanches, began to flow into the big ditch, sometimes steam shovels were buried, sometimes railroad tracks were caught beneath the débris, and sometimes even the bottom of the cut itself began to bulge and disarrange the entire transportation system, at the same time interfering with the compressed air and water supplies. But with all these trials and tribulations, the army that was trying to conquer the eternal hills that had refused passage to the ships of the world for so many centuries, kept up its courage and renewed its attack. The result is that ships sail through Culebra and that engineers everywhere have new records of efficiency to inspire them. These efficiency records are told in the cost-keeping reports based upon one of the most careful and thorough cost-accounting systems ever devised. This system was instituted for the purpose of keeping a check upon all expenditures by reducing everything to a unit basis and then comparing the cost of doing the same thing at different places. For instance, if it were found that it cost more to excavate a cubic yard of material at one place than at another, under identical conditions, this fact was brought to the attention of the men responsible and an intimation given that there seemed to be room for taking up a little lost motion. The lost motion usually was recovered or else someone had to be satisfied that conditions were not identical after all. In no other part of the canal work do these cost-keeping reports tell such a graphic story as in Culebra Cut. In spite of the fact that as the cut became deeper it became narrower, and the slides and breaks became more troublesome, to say nothing of the extra effort required to get the excavated material out of the cut, every unit cost was forced down notch by notch and year by year until the bottom in costs was reached only a little before the actual bottom of the cut was exposed to view. For instance, in 1908 it cost 11-1/2 cents a yard to load material with steam shovels, while in 1912 it cost less than 7 cents. In 1908 it cost more than 14 cents a yard for drilling and blasting; in 1912 it cost less than 12 cents. In 1908 it cost $18.54 to haul away a hundred yards of spoil; in 1912 it required only $13.31 to perform the same operation, although the average distance it had to be hauled had increased 50 per cent. In 1908 it cost more than 13 cents a yard to dump the material as compared with less than 5 cents in 1912. The whole operation of excavating and removing the material, including overhead charges and depreciation, fell from $1.03 a cubic yard in 1908 to less than 55 cents a yard in 1912. And that is why 232,000,000 cubic yards of material were removed for less than it was estimated 135,000,000 cubic yards would cost. To remove the 105,000,000 cubic yards of earth from the backbone of the Americas required about 6,000,000 pounds of high-grade dynamite each year to break up the material, so that it might be successfully attacked by the steam shovels. To prepare the holes for placing the explosives required the services of 150 well drills, 230 tripod rock drills, and a large corps of hand drillers. Altogether they drilled nearly a thousand miles of holes annually. During every working day in the year about 600 holes were fired. They had an average depth of about 19 feet. In addition to this a hundred toe holes were fired each day, and as many more "dobe" blasts placed on top of large boulders to break them up into loadable sizes. So carefully was the dynamite handled that during a period of three years, in which time some 19,000,000 pounds were exploded in Culebra Cut, only eight men were killed. [Illustration: STEAM SHOVELS MEETING AT BOTTOM OF CULEBRA CUT L. K. ROURKE] [Illustration: THE MAN-MADE CANYON AT CULEBRA] The transportation of the spoil from Culebra Cut was a tremendous job. A large percentage of it was hauled out in Lidgerwood flat cars. Twenty-one cars made up the average Lidgerwood train. It required about 140 locomotives to take care of the spoil, and the average day saw nearly 3,700 cars loaded and hauled out of the cut. In a single year 1,116,286 carloads of material were hauled out. There were 75 trains in constant operation, for each 2-1/2 miles of track in the Central Division, which was approximately 32 miles long. A huge steam shovel, taking up 5 yards of material at a mouthful, would load one of these trains in less than an hour with some 400 yards of material. Then the powerful locomotive attached to it, assisted by a helper engine, would pull the train out of the cut, and then, unassisted, would haul it to the dumping ground some 12 miles or more away. [Illustration: AVERAGE SHAPE AND DIMENSIONS OF CULEBRA CUT] Arriving near the scene of the dump, another engine, having in front of it a huge horizontal steam windlass mounted on a flat car, was hooked on the rear end of the train. Then the locomotive which had brought the train to the dump was uncoupled and moved away, and in its stead there was attached an empty flat car, on which there was a huge plow. A long wire cable was stretched from the big windlass at the other end of the train and attached to this plow. As the drum of the windlass began to turn it gradually drew the plow forward over the 21 cars, plowing the material off as it went forward. The cars were equipped with a high sideboard on one side and had none at all on the other. A flat surface over which the plow could pass from car to car was made by hinging a heavy piece of sheet steel to the front end of each car and allowing it to cover the break between that car and the next, thus affording a practically continuous car floor over 800 feet long. The operation of unloading 400 yards of material with this plow seldom required more than 10 minutes. After the plow had finished its work it left a long string of spoil on one side of the track which must be cleared away. So another plow, pushed by an engine, attacked the spoil and forced it down the embankment. This process of unloading and spreading the material was kept up until the embankment became wide enough to permit the track to be shifted over. Here another especially designed machine, the track shifter, was brought into play. It was a sort of derrick mounted on a flat car, and with it the track shifters were able to pick up a piece of track and lift it over to the desired position. With this machine a score of men could do the work that without it would have required a gang of 600 men. In addition to the Lidgerwood dirt trains there were a large number of trains made up of steel dump cars which were dumped by compressed air, and still other trains made up of small hand-dumped cars, and each class found its own peculiar uses. As has been said, the problem of digging the big ditch has been one of the transportation of the spoil, and this has involved numerous difficulties. In Culebra Cut no little difficulty was experienced in keeping open enough tracks to afford the necessary room for dirt trains. Slides came down and forced track after track out of alignment, burying some of them beyond the hope of usable recovery; often the very bottom of the cut itself heaved up under the stress of the heavy weight of faulty strata on the sides of the mountain; and sometimes the slides and breaks threatened entirely to shut up one end of the cut. In hauling away the spoil one improvement after another was made in the interest of efficiency. It was found at first that the capacity of a big Lidgerwood flat car was only about 16 cubic yards, and that with a sideboard on only one side of the car, the load did not center well on the car, thus placing an undue strain on the wheels on one side. The transportation department, therefore, extended the bed of the car further out over the wheels on the open side, and this served a triple purpose--it permitted the steam shovels to load the cars so that the load rested in the center, increased the capacity of each car by about 3 yards, and permitted the unloader plow to throw the spoil further from the track, thus adding to the efficiency of the dumping apparatus. Frequent breaks in the trains were caused by worn couplers. These accidents were almost entirely overcome by equipping each train with a sort of "bridle" which prevented the separation of the cars in the event of the parting of a defective coupler. In the operation of the unloader plows it was found that the big cables frequently broke when a plow would strike an obstruction on the car, and this caused no end of annoyance and frequent delays. Then someone thought of putting between the cable and the plow a link whose breaking point was lower than that of the cable. After that when a plow struck an obstruction the cable did not part--the link simply gave way, and another was always at hand. On the big spreaders no less than 51 improvements were made, each the answer of the engineers to some challenge from the stubborn material with which they had to contend. The major portion of the material excavated from the canal had to be hauled out and dumped where it was of no further use. From the Central Division alone, which includes Culebra Cut, upward of a hundred million cubic yards of material was hauled away and dumped as useless. At Tabernilla one dump contained nearly 17,000,000 cubic yards. A great deal of spoil, however, was used to excellent advantage. Wherever there was swampy ground contiguous to the permanent settlements it was covered over with material from the cut and brought up above the water level. Many hundreds of acres were thus converted from malaria-breeding grounds into high and dry lands. During the last stages of the work in Culebra Cut it was found that some of the slides were so bad that they were breaking back of the crest of the hills that border the cut. Therefore it was found to be feasible to attack the problem by sluicing the material down the side of the hills into the valley beyond. To this end a big hydraulic plant which had been used on the Pacific end of the canal was brought up and installed beyond the east bank of the cut. A reservoir of water was impounded and tremendous pumps installed. They pumped a stream of water 40 inches in diameter. This was gradually tapered down to a number of 4-inch nozzles, and out of these spouted streams of water with a pressure of 80 pounds to the square inch. These streams ate away the dirt at a rapid rate. The slides did not hold up the completion of the canal a minute, at least to the point of usability. The day that the lock gates were ready there was water enough in the canal to carry the entire American navy from ocean to ocean. That day the big dredges from the Atlantic and the Pacific were brought into the cut, and with them putting the finishing touches on the slides at the bottom, and the hydraulic excavators attacking them at the top, the problem of the slides was solved. Viewing Culebra Cut in retrospect, it proved an immensely less difficult task than some prophesied, and a much more serious one than others predicted. There were those who opposed the building of the Panama Canal because of the belief that Culebra Cut could not be dug, that Culebra Mountain was an effective barrier to human ambition. Also, there were those who asserted that Gold Hill and Contractor's Hill were in danger of sliding into the big ditch and that they were mountains which neither the faith nor the pocketbooks of the Americans could remove. Others saw the handwriting of Failure on the wall in the heaving up of the bottom of the cut, interpreting this as a movement from the very depths of the earth. Still others saw it in the smoke that issued from fissures in the cut, which spoke to them of volcanoes being unearthed and told them that the Babel of American ambitions must totter to the ground. They did not know that these were only little splotches of decomposing metals suddenly exposed to the air, any more than their fellow pessimists knew that the heaving up of the bottom of the cut was due to the pressure of the earth on the adjacent banks. To-day Culebra Mountain bows its lofty head to the genius of the American engineer and to the courage of the canal army. Through its vitals there runs a great artificial canyon nearly 9 miles long, 300 feet wide at its bottom, in places as much as a half mile wide at its top and nearly 500 feet deep at the deepest point. Out of it there was taken 105,000,000 cubic yards of material, and at places it cost as much as $15,000,000 a mile to make the excavations. Through it now extends a great ribbon of water broad enough to permit the largest vessels afloat to pass one another under their own power, and deep enough to carry a ship with a draft beyond anything in the minds of naval constructors to-day. With towering hills lining it on either side, with banks that are precipitous here and farflung there, with great and deep recesses at one place and another telling of the gigantic breaks and slides with which the men who built it had to contend, going through Culebra Cut gives to the human heart a thrill such as the sight of no other work of the human hand can give. Its magnitude, its awe-inspiring aspect as one navigates the channel between the two great hills which stand like sentinels above it, and the memory of the thousands of tons of dynamite, the hundreds of millions of money and the vast investment of brain and brawn required in its digging, all conspire to make the wonder greater. It is the mightiest deed the hand of man has done. CHAPTER VII ENDS OF THE CANAL While the completed Panama Canal does not wed the two oceans, or permit their waters to mingle in Gatun Lake, it does bring them a little closer together. On the Atlantic side a sea-level channel has been dug from deep water due south to Gatun, a distance of 7 miles. On the Pacific side a similar channel has been dug from deep water in a northwesterly direction to Miraflores, a distance of 8 miles. It follows that 15 of the 50 miles of the canal will be filled with salt water. The remaining 35 miles will be filled with fresh water supplied by the Chagres and the lesser rivers of Panama. The task of digging these sea-level sections was a considerable one and almost every method of ditch digging that human ingenuity has been able to devise was employed. Steam shovels, dipper dredges, ladder dredges, stationary suction dredges, and sea-going suction dredges, all contributed their share toward bringing the waters of the Atlantic to Gatun and those of the Pacific to Miraflores. In addition to these methods, on the Pacific side use was made of the hydraulic process of excavating soft material, washing it loose with powerful streams of water and pumping it out with giant pumps. [Illustration: THE DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF SLIDES IN CULEBRA CUT] [Illustration: W. G. COMBER U. S. LADDER DREDGE "COROZAL" AND ONE OF HER MUD BUCKETS] As one travels along the Pacific end of the canal he is reminded of the words of Isaiah: "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain." Hundreds of acres of low, marshy land have been filled up, either with mud from the suction dredges and the hydraulic excavators, or with spoil from Culebra Cut. Much of this made land will be valuable for tropical agriculture, while other parts will never serve any purpose other than to keep down the marshes. But they afforded a dumping ground for material taken out of the canal prism, and added something to the improvement of health and living conditions on the Isthmus. Probably the most interesting process of excavation in the sea-level channels was that of the sea-going suction dredges. These dredges took out material more cheaply than any other kind of excavating machinery used on the Isthmus. Two of them were put to work in 1908, about the time the operations reached full-blast and have been kept in commission ever since. While it cost as much as $70,000 a year to keep each one in commission, they were able to maintain an annual average of about 5,000,000 cubic yards of material excavated at a cost per yard of 5 cents and even less. With steam shovels it ranged from 10 to 20 times as much per yard. These big dredges were built with great bins in their holds and equipped with powerful 20-inch centrifugal pumps. When at work they steamed up and down the channel, sucking up the mud, and carrying it out to sea. Another interesting dredge used was the big ladder dredge Corozal. It is a great floating dock, as it were, with a huge endless chain carrying 52 immense, 35-cubic-foot buckets. On the center line amidships there is a large opening down to the water. The big elevator framework carrying the endless chain goes down through this and into the water at a considerable angle. The buckets pass around this, and as they round the end of it their great steel lips dig down into the material until filled, then they come up at the rate of three every five seconds and deposit their burden in a huge hopper which conveys it to the barge at the side of the dredge. The dredge is anchored fast at a given place, and keeps on attacking the material beneath it until the desired level is reached. This dredge, with the sea-going suction dredges, will be retained as the permanent dredging fleet. The stationary suction dredges at the two ends of the canal were used to pump up the soft material and to force it out through long pipe lines into the swamps or into the hydraulic cores of the earth dams. [Illustration: THE _Corozal_ AND ITS METHOD OF ATTACK] Several old French ladder dredges were rescued from the jungle and put into commission at the beginning of the work, and they held out faithfully to the end, dividing honors with the newer equipment in hastening the day when the oceans might go inland to Gatun and Miraflores. While they looked like toys beside such giant excavators as the Corozal, they probably showed more efficiency than any other class of excavators of their period of construction. They were attended by large self-propelling scows built by the French. When these were filled they steamed out to sea and dumped their burden and then steamed back again for another load. Some of the dredges were attended by ordinary barges which were towed out to sea by tugs and dumped. Another interesting machine used on the Pacific end of the canal was the Lobnitz rock breaker. This consists of a sort of pile driver mounted on a large barge. Instead of a pile driving weight there is a big battering ram made of round steel, pointed at one end. It is lifted up perhaps 10 feet and allowed to drop suddenly. As some of these rams weigh as much as 25 tons their striking force may be imagined. When the ram struck the rock the top would shake back and forth like a bamboo pole, in spite of the fact that it was made of the best steel and more than 15 inches in diameter. Sooner or later the rams would break off at the water line, this being due to the fact that the constant flexion at that point set the molecules in the steel and took away all its elasticity. It was found desirable to excavate a part of the sea-level channel before the water was let into it. To accomplish this a big dam, or dike, was built across the channel several miles inland, and steam shovels were used behind this dike. As the work neared completion, however, it was found advisable to let the water come further inland, so that the dredges could extend the field of their activities. To do this another dike was thrown across the channel about a mile north of the first one, and water was admitted to the section of the big ditch between these two dikes. The engineers were afraid to cut a small ditch in the top of the first dike, and allow the water to eat the dam away as it flowed in, for fear that it would rush in so rapidly it would destroy the second dike. Therefore they filled the basin between the two dikes by siphon and by pumping, a process which required the drawing in of billions of gallons of water. This was accomplished in due time, however, and then 16 tons of dynamite was placed in the no longer useful dike. An electric spark did the rest. The distinguishing features of the ends of the canal are the big breakwaters at Toro Point, at the Atlantic end, and Naos Island, at the Pacific end. The former extends from the shore out into the sea for a distance of 2 miles and has a large lighthouse at the seaward end. It was built by dumping stone from the shore out into the sea, this process being followed by driving piles into the dumped stone and building a railroad on the crest, over which the stone was hauled for its further extension. The top of the breakwater is covered with huge stones weighing from 8 to 20 tons each, these to make sure that it will stand against the pounding of the waves. Two minor breakwaters were also built at the Atlantic end to protect the terminal basin. The big dike at Naos Island in the Pacific is more than 17,000 feet long and transforms the island into the cape of a small peninsula. There was a threefold purpose in its construction--to cut out the cross currents that brought thousands of yards of sand and silt into the canal channel, to afford a dumping place for a large quantity of the spoil from Culebra Cut, and to make a connection with the mainland for the fortifications on Naos, Flamenco, and Perico Islands. In building it the engineers were under the necessity of first building a trestle on which the spoil trains could be backed and dumped. The piles had to be driven in soft, blue mud, and as the rock was dumped, it sank down and down until, at places, ten times as much stone was required as would have been necessary if the ocean bottom had been firm. In addition to this thousands of trainloads of material were dumped in the landward end of the dike, some 20,000,000 cubic yards of material being thus disposed of. The last part of the canal work to be completed will be the terminal facilities at the ends of the big waterway. At the time this book went to press they were something more than a year from completion, but the indications were that they would be finished within the time limit originally set for the completion of the canal itself. These terminal facilities consist of dry docks, wharfage space, storehouses, and everything else necessary to perform any service that might ordinarily be required for passing ships, whether they be those of commerce or of war. The main coaling station is to be established at the Atlantic end. The storehouses, the laundry, the bakery, and the other equipment of the Isthmian Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad also will be made a part of the permanent terminal plant on that side of the Isthmus. A large dry dock is being built at the Pacific end having the same usable dimensions as the canal locks, capable of accommodating any vessel that can pass through the canal. The principal machine shops will also be erected there, and a coaling plant of half the capacity of the one at the Atlantic end will be provided. A little to the east of the Pacific terminal works will be stationed the capital of the Canal Zone, where the administrative offices, the governor's residence, and two new towns will be built. The administration building, which is to be a three-story structure of concrete, hollow tile, and structural steel, is to occupy an eminence on the side of Ancon Hill, which will afford a splendid view of the Pacific fortifications, the entrance to the canal channel, a part of the port works, and of the canal itself from the great continental divide to the Pacific. There one may sit and see ships coming into the canal, tying up at the docks, sailing up the big ditch, and passing through the locks at Miraflores and Pedro Miguel. Near by will be the permanent home of the marines who will be stationed on the Isthmus, their barracks and grounds occupying the broad plateau on the side of Ancon Hill made by taking out the millions of cubic yards of stone required for the concrete works on the Pacific side of the Isthmus. Two permanent towns will be built at Balboa, one for the Americans and the other for the common laborers. The American town will be built under the capitol hill on a broad plain that was made by pumping hydraulic material into a swamp and by dumping spoil from Culebra Cut. When the terminal plant at Balboa is completed it will represent probably the most extensive and adequate port works in the New World. In addition to the main dry dock it will have a second one which will be smaller, but which will be large enough to accommodate a majority of the ships that will pass through the canal. The existing dry dock at the Atlantic end will be continued in service. It is certain that none of these port works will ever fail by reason of insecure foundations. Wherever unusual loads were to be carried great piers of reinforced concrete were sent down to solid rock, often a distance of 60 feet below the surface. They consisted of a hollow shell of reinforced concrete which was allowed to sink to hardpan of its own accord or under heavy weight. These shells were built in sections 6 feet high. The bottom section was 10 feet in diameter, and the lower end was equipped with a sharp steel shoe. As the section cut down into the earth of its own weight and that above it, laborers on the inside removed the material under the shoe and as they did so it sank further down. The sections above were only 8 feet in diameter, and did not quite fill up the hole made by the bottom of the section, thus overcoming all skin friction, and permitting the full weight of the series of sections to fall on the lower one. A jet of water was forced around the sinking pier all the time it was going down, and this made its progress the more easy. At times the weight of the superimposed sections was sufficient to force the pier down through the soft mud, while at other times the material became so heavy that even a 25-ton weight on top of the pier scarcely moved it. At one place a stratum of material was struck about 25 feet below the surface which yielded sulphuretted hydrogen gas. This affected the laborers' eyes, and some of them had to go to the hospital for treatment. The work of digging out the material was continued until the lower section reached bed rock, where it was anchored. The sections themselves were tied together with heavy iron rods. After they were firmly in place the interior was filled up with concrete, itself reinforced, so that the foundations became, in reality, a series of huge concrete piles, 8 feet in diameter, anchored to bed rock. The coaling plants at the two terminals will be the crowning features of the terminal facilities. With an immense storage capacity, and with every possible facility for the rapid handling of coal, both in shipping and unshipping it, no other canal in the world will be so well equipped. The coal storage basin at the Atlantic end will hold nearly 300,000 tons. This basin will be built of reinforced concrete, and will permit the flooding of the coal pile so that one-half of it will be stored under water for war purposes. It is said that deterioration in coal is not as great in subaqueous storage, and at the same time the pile is less subject to fire. The plant will be able to discharge a thousand tons of coal an hour and to load 2,000 tons an hour. Ships will not go alongside the wharves to be coaled, but will lie out in the ship basin and be coaled from barges with reloader outfits. Special efforts have been made to provide for the quick loading of colliers in case of war. The coal handling plant at the Pacific entrance will have a normal capacity of 135,000 tons and will be able to handle half as much coal in a given time as the one at the Atlantic end. There will be big supply depots where ships can get any kind of stores they need from a few buckets of white lead to an anchor or a hawser; a laundry in which a ship's wash can be accepted at the hour it begins its transit of the canal, for delivery by railroad at the other end before it is ready to resume its ocean journey; an ice plant which will replenish the cold storage compartments of ships lacking such facilities. In short, it is proposed to attempt to do everything that may be done to make more attractive the bid of the canal for its share of business. CHAPTER VIII THE PANAMA RAILROAD When the United States acquired the properties of the new French Canal Company it found itself in the possession of a railroad for which it had allowed the canal company $7,000,000. This road, in the high tide of its history, had proved a bonanza for its stockholders, and during the 43 years between 1855 and 1898 it showed net profits five times as great as the original cost of its construction. When the United States took over the road someone described it as being merely "two streaks of rust and a right of way." While the Panama road as acquired by the United States in its purchase of the assets of the new French Canal Company might have been all that this phrase implies, it was none the less as great a bargain as was ever bought by any Government, and probably the greatest bargain ever sold in the shape of a railroad. It was not the rolling stock that was valuable, nor yet the road itself; the real value was to be found in the possibilities of the concession. Not only was this road destined to render to the United States a service in the building of the Panama Canal, worth to Uncle Sam a great many times more than its cost, but it was also destined to yield a net profit from its commercial operations which in 10 years would amount to double the price paid for it. Since the Americans took it over it has been yielding net returns ranging from a million and a quarter to a million and three-quarters dollars a year. In these 10 years it has brought an aggregate profit of some $15,000,000 into the coffers of the United States. While $7,000,000 may have been a high price, judged from the standpoint of the physical value of the road, it was a very reasonable one, indeed, as compared with the price paid for it by the new French Canal Company. This company, which sold it to the United States for $7,000,000, paid the Panama Railroad Company $18,000,000 for it 23 years before. When the French Canal Company decided to undertake the building of the canal, it found that the Panama Railroad Company held concessions that were absolutely necessary to the construction of the canal. The Colombian Government had granted the company the concession to complete the road in 1849, and had agreed that no other interoceanic communication should be opened without the consent of the railroad. This gave to the railroad company the whip hand in trading with the canal company and it was able to name its own price. When the United States wanted to buy the rights and properties of the new French Canal Company the shoe was on the other foot. There was only one buyer--the United States; and it could choose between the Panama and Nicaragua routes. If the United States did not buy the property its principal value would have been what it was worth as an uncertain prospect that at some future time a second Isthmian canal might be built. That is why the United States was able to buy from the French for $7,000,000 property that they had bought for $18,000,000. After the United States acquired possession of the railroad, one change after another took place--now in the location, now in the rolling stock, now in directorate, and again in location--until almost all that remained of the original road was its name. It is now built almost every foot of the distance on a new location and the permanent Panama Railroad is a thoroughly modern, well-ballasted, heavy-railed, block-signal operated line of railway, built along the east bank of the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Nearly half of the old right of way lies on the bottom of Lake Gatun, while the new line skirts that artificial body of water along its eastern shore, at places crossing its outlying arms over big bridges and heavy trestles. The construction of this new line was attended with much difficulty and probably no other road in the world has such a great percentage of fills and embankments in proportion to its length. One embankment, a mile and a quarter long and 82 feet high, required upward of 2,500,000 yards of material for its construction. The road is built about 10 feet above the water's edge, and more than 12,000,000 cubic yards of material was required to make the fills necessary to carry the road bed at this elevation. When the United States took over the French property it was decided that the canal work and the railroad operations should be maintained as distinct activities. It was agreed that the Canal Commission should have the right to haul its dirt trains over the Panama Railroad, and in compensation therefor the commission undertook to build a new road to take the place of the old line, which was in the way of the completion of the canal. The work of relocating the road was undertaken early in the construction of the canal in order that it might be completed by the time the old road had to be abandoned. It was built at a cost of approximately $9,000,000, or close to $170,000 a mile. It is interesting to note that the cost of this thoroughly modern railroad was only about a million dollars more than the cost of the first Panama road which has been built with rather less than usual attention to grades, and with small rails and light bridges. The relocated Panama Railroad was turned over to the railroad company in 1912. How good a bargain the United States secured when it acquired the Panama Railroad is shown by the fact that during the 10 years of canal work the net earnings of the railroad company have reimbursed the United States for the cost of the old road and the construction of the new one, to say nothing of the invaluable aid rendered in the building of the canal. The relations existing between the Isthmian Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad Company during the years of the construction of the canal were somewhat peculiar. The Panama Railroad Company is as much the property of the United States as the canal itself, yet the books of the two organizations were kept as carefully separate and distinct as though they were under entirely different ownership. The Panama Railroad Company, being a chartered corporation, under the terms of its ownership could engage in commercial business with all of the facility of a private corporation. Money received by the Isthmian Canal Commission from outside sources had to be covered into the treasury and reappropriated for distinct and special purposes. On the other hand, the railroad company could use its money over and over again without turning it back into the treasury. This advantage of operation was a useful one in conducting the road itself, and also in the construction of the canal. There was another reason which led the canal authorities to advocate the maintenance of the two organizations as separate entities. This had to do with the concession rights. Under the terms of the concession of the railroad company the property was to revert to the Republic of Colombia in 1967, or at any earlier date should the company cease to exist as such. While most authorities agree that with the secession of Panama and the setting up of the new Government all of Colombia's rights in the railroad company passed with the territory, and while the treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama expressly provides that the United States shall have "absolute title--free from every present or reversionary interest or claim" in the railroad, the Republic of Colombia contends that it possesses some rights with reference to the railroad and, not desiring to complicate matters, the canal authorities thought it best to live up to the letter of the treaty, in spite of Panama's express grant of title free from reversionary interest or claim. While it was deemed desirable to have the Panama Railroad operated as a separate organization, it was equally important that it should be operated in a way that its interests always would be subordinate to those of the canal. It was decided that the best way to accomplish this was to make the chairman and chief engineer of the Canal Commission the president of the railroad company, and the members of the commission its directors. The stock of the company is held in the name of the Secretary of War, with the exception of a few shares held by the directors to entitle them to membership on the board. There are also a few directors chosen from other parts of the Government service, but their activities are purely perfunctory. In addition to the railroad, the Panama Railroad Company also operates a steamship line between New York and Colon. This line was acquired with other properties of the new French Canal Company as a part of the Panama Railroad's holdings. There were only a few years during the construction period when this steamship line did not show a loss. But the advantages of having a steamship line for carrying the supplies of the canal were so great, because of the special facilities that could be provided, that the loss was more than compensated by them. During the year 1912 the cost of operating this steamship line was $305,000 greater than the revenues derived from its operation. But, at the same time there was a return of net earnings by the Panama Railroad of over $2,000,000, at least a part of which was made possible by the operation of the steamship line. Even after deducting the losses sustained in the operation of the steamship company there was a net profit of more than $1,700,000, which for a railroad of less than 50 miles in length is no small item. As a matter of fact, Government ownership of railways as applied at Panama is remarkably successful from the standpoint of the Government, and partially so to the patrons of the railroad. Probably no railroad in the United States could show net earnings per mile of line anywhere comparable with those of the Panama Railroad. The rates for passengers and baggage across the Isthmus were rather high for first-class passengers, the fare for the 48-mile trip being $2.40, or 5 cents a mile. The second-class rate was only half as much. On the handling of freight the railroad had to divide the through rate with the steamship companies of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but, while the rates were high, judged by American standards, and the percentages of profits very large, the service maintained was so superior to that encountered on the privately owned railroads of the Tropics that no one ever seriously complained of the charges. One of the most important services rendered by the Panama Railroad Company in the construction of the canal was in connection with the commissary. It had more to do with the maintenance of a reasonable standard of living cost on the Isthmus than anything else. When the canal was nearing completion it became advisable to determine what rôle the Panama Railroad should play after the permanent organization went into effect. Should it be continued as a separate entity distinct from the canal but controlled by the canal authorities? Or should it be merged into the Canal Government and operated purely as an auxiliary of the canal with no separate existence? This matter was carefully weighed by the canal authorities and the Government at Washington, and it was finally decided that the best plan would be to operate them as separate entities, but to have all the work done by single organization. Another question that arose was whether the Panama Railroad Steamship Line should be operated as a Government line after the completion of the canal. Recalling the fact that the line never had been a profitable one, and that there was no further reason why it should be continued in operation with an annual deficit, the recommendation was made by the chairman and the chief engineer that the ships should be disposed of and the line discontinued. As the tide of tourist travel set toward Panama, the serious problem of taking care of thousands of visitors confronted the canal authorities. There were times when every available facility for taking care of lodgers was called into requisition, and still hundreds of American tourists had to find quarters in cheap, vermin-infested native hotels at Colon. Believing that the situation demanded a modern hotel at the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, and having in mind the success of the Government in the construction and maintenance of the Tivoli Hotel at the Pacific side, it was decided by the Secretary of War that the Panama Railroad Company should build a new hotel at Colon, to be operated by that company for the Government. The result was the beautiful Washington Hotel, in whose architecture one finds the world's best example of northern standards of hotel construction adapted to tropical needs. Built of concrete and cement block, it is constructed in a modified Spanish Mission style that makes it cool and comfortable at all times. Its public rooms, from the main lobby to the dining-rooms, from the ladies' parlor to the telephone and cable rooms, from the barber shop to the billiard room, are large, airy, and most attractively furnished. Its ball room, opening on three sides to the breezes borne in from the Caribbean is a delight to the disciples of Terpsichore, while its open-air swimming pool, said to be the largest hotel swimming pool in the world, affords ideal facilities for those who otherwise would sigh for the surf. Persons who have visited every leading hotel in the New World, from the Rio Grande southward to the Strait of Magellan, say that it is without a superior in all that region and, perhaps, without an equal except for one in Buenos Aires. Here one may find accommodations to suit his taste and largely to meet the necessities of his pocketbook. The best rooms with bath cost $5 a day for one, or $6 for two. Table d'hote meals are served at $1 each, while those who prefer it may secure club breakfasts and a la carte service. Anyone who has visited the Hotel Washington, situated as it is on Colon Beach, where the breakers sweep in from the Caribbean Sea, feels that Uncle Sam is no less successful as a hotel keeper than as a builder of canals. The Panama Railroad, under the American régime, has always looked well after the comfort of its patrons. The coaches are of the standard American type, and enough of them are run on every train to make it certain that no patron need stand for lack of a seat. The most popular trains carry from 8 to 12 cars. These trains are run on convenient schedules, permitting a person to go and come from any point on the road in any forenoon or afternoon. All coaches are supplied with hygienic drinking cups, and in every way the Panama Railroad shows that Uncle Sam is solicitous for the welfare of his patrons. All the rolling stock on the Isthmus is built on a 5-foot gauge, this having been the gauge of the original Panama Railroad. As the rolling stock of the Canal Commission had to run over the lines of the Panama Railroad, it also was built on the gauge. When this rolling stock is disposed of it will be necessary to readjust the gauge to meet the ordinary American standard which is 2-1/2 inches narrower. It has been estimated that the engine axles can be shortened for $750 per locomotive and those of cars at prices ranging from $27 to $31 per car. The first attempt to build the Panama Railroad was made in 1847, when a French company secured a charter from the Government of Colombia for a building of a road across the Isthmus. This company was unable to finance the project and the concession lapsed. In 1849 William H. Aspinwall, John L. Stevens, and Henry Chauncey, New York capitalists, undertook the construction of the road. The terms of the concession provided that the road would be purchased by the Government at the expiration of 20 years after its completion for $5,000,000. The loss of life in the construction of this road, serious as it was, has been monumentally exaggerated. It is an oft-repeated statement that a man died for every tie laid on the road. This would mean that there were 150,000 deaths in its construction. As a matter of fact, the total number of persons employed during the six years the line was being built did not exceed 6,000. But among these the death rate was very high. Several thousand Chinese were brought over and they died almost like flies. Malaria and yellow fever were the great scourges they had to encounter, although smallpox and other diseases carried away hundreds. The road was completed in January, 1855. Before the last rail was laid more than $2,000,000 had been taken in for hauling passengers as far as the road extended. The way in which the original 50-cent per mile rate across the Isthmus was established is interesting. The chief engineer encountered much trouble from people who wanted to use the road as far inland as it went from Colon, so he suggested that a 50-cent rate be established, thinking to make it prohibitory. But the people who wanted to cross the Isthmus were willing to pay even 50 cents a mile. Hence for years after the completion of the road the passenger rate continued at $25 for the one-way trip across the Isthmus. The railroad proved to be such an unexpectedly good investment that the Republic of Colombia began to establish its claim to acquire ownership of the road at the expiration of the 2-year term, which would take place in 1875. It was necessary therefore, that the railroad company should take steps to save the railroad from a forced sale with $5,000,000 as the consideration. Representatives were dispatched to Bogota with instructions to get an extension of the concession under the most favorable terms possible. As it was realized that the Republic of Colombia held the whip hand in the negotiations, the railroad company understood that if it wished to escape selling its great revenue producing road for $5,000,000 it would have to meet any terms Colombia might dictate. The result of this mission was an agreement by the railroad that in consideration of an extension of the concession for a term of 99 years it would pay to the Colombian Government $1,000,000 spot cash and $250,000 a year during the life of the concession. That annual payment was continued as long as the Isthmus remained a part of the Republic of Colombia. Under the terms of the treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama it was resumed again in 1913, to be paid by the United States to the Republic of Panama throughout all the years that the United States maintains and operates the Panama Canal. CHAPTER IX SANITATION Primarily, the conquest of the Isthmian barrier was the conquest of the mosquito. Not mountains to be leveled, nor wild rivers to be tamed, nor yet titanic machinery to be installed, presented the gravest obstacles to the canal builders. Their most feared enemies were none of these, but the swarms of mosquitoes that bred in myriads in every lake, in every tiny pool, in every clump of weeds on the rain-soaked, steaming, tropical land. For these mosquitoes were the bearers of the dread germs of yellow fever and of malaria; and the conditions that encouraged their multiplication bred also typhoid and all manner of filthy disease. Each mosquito was a potential messenger of death. The buzzing, biting pests had defeated the French in Panama without the French ever having recognized the source of the attack. It was because the Americans, thanks to Great Britain and to Cuba, knew the deadly qualities of the mosquitoes that they were able to plan, under the leadership of Col. W. C. Gorgas, a sanitary campaign of unprecedented success. It achieved two victories. One was that it made of the Canal Zone the most healthful strip of land under tropic skies. The other is the Panama Canal. When one looks about in an effort to place the credit for these great sanitary achievements he must go back to Cuba, where the yellow fever commission, consisting of Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agrimonte, made the remarkable investigations proving that yellow fever is transmissible only through the bite of a mosquito. He must go still further back to Maj. Roland Ross of the British Army, and his epoch-making discovery that malaria is conveyed only by the bite of another kind of mosquito. And, if he is just to all who have contributed to the establishment of the insect-bearing theory of disease, he must not forget Sir Patrick Manson who first proved that any disease could be transmitted by insect bites. It was he who discovered that filariasis is transmissible by this method alone. It was from him that Ross gathered the inspiration that is releasing humanity from one of the most insidious of all the diseases to which mortal flesh is heir. And it was from Ross's malaria discoveries, in turn, that Reed carried forward to successful proof the theory which had persisted in some quarters for generations that yellow fever was transmissible through mosquitoes; a theory already partially proved by Dr. Carlos Finley, of Havana, 20 years earlier. [Illustration: COL. WILLIAM C. GORGAS THE HOSPITAL GROUNDS, ANCON] [Illustration: LIEUT. FREDERIC MEARS THE OLD PANAMA RAILROAD] But all of the surmises and theories came short of the truth until Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agrimonte (Lazear at the cost of his life and Carroll at the cost of a nearly fatal attack of yellow fever) took up the work of proving that there was only one way in which yellow fever could be transmitted; namely, by the bite of the mosquito. Sleeping with patients who had yellow fever, wearing the clothes of those who had died from it, eating from utensils from which yellow fever victims had eaten--in short, putting to the most rigid test every other possible method of infection, they proved by every negative test that yellow fever could not be produced in any way other than by the bite of a mosquito. The next step was to give affirmative proof that yellow fever was caused by the bite of the female "stegomyia"--she of the striped stockings and the shrill song. This meant that someone had to have enough love for humanity to risk his life by inviting one of the worst forms of death to which human flesh is heir. Those doctors knew that they could not as brave men ask others to undergo the risks that they themselves might not accept, so in a little council chamber in Havana the three Americans--Reed, Carroll, and Lazear--entered into a compact that they themselves would permit infected mosquitoes to bite them. Reed was called home, but Carroll and Lazear stood with the keen and cold eyes of scientists and saw the mosquitoes inject the fateful poison into their blood. Later, after Lazear had died and Carroll had stood in the jaws of death, soldiers of the American army in Cuba volunteered in the interest of humanity to undergo these same risks. And it was thus, at this price, that the world came to know how yellow fever is caused, and that the United States was to be able to build the Panama Canal. After the guilt of the female "stegomyia" mosquito was firmly established the next problem was to find a method of combating her work. Dr. Reed and his associates thought that it might be done through a process of immunization, using the mosquito to bite patients with very mild cases, and after the necessary period of incubation, to transmit the disease to those who were to be rendered immune. It was soon found, however, that there was no method of transmitting a mild infection, and the next problem was to combat the work of the mosquito by isolation of yellow fever patients, and by the extermination of the mosquitoes themselves. In Havana at this time there was another army surgeon who was destined to write his name high upon the pages of medical achievement. He was Dr. William C. Gorgas. Under the patronage of Gen. Leonard Wood, himself a physician and alive to the lessons of the yellow fever commission's investigations, Major Gorgas undertook to apply the doctrine of yellow fever prevention promulgated by the commission, and his efforts were attended with brilliant success. The result was that Havana, in particular, and Cuba, in general, were freed from this great terror of the Tropics. When President Roosevelt came to provide for the building of the Panama Canal one of his earlier acts was to appoint Dr. Gorgas the chief sanitary officer of the Canal Zone. At first there was difficulty in establishing practical sanitation in Panama. The chief sanitary officer was then a subordinate of the commission, and, along with all of the other men who were trying to do things on the Isthmus, he found himself hindered by unsatisfactory conditions both as to supplies and as to force; consequently, his work was no more satisfactory to himself than it was to the commission or to the American people. Under these conditions an epidemic of yellow fever broke out in Panama in 1905, and it was not long before the yellow fever mosquito had seemingly established an alibi and had secured a reopening of her case before the jury of public sentiment. People, to emphasize their disbelief in the mosquito theory of the transmission of the disease, tore the screens from their doors and windows, and otherwise proclaimed their contempt for the doctors and their doctrines. This matter went so far that the Isthmian Canal Commission proposed not only a change in method but a change in personnel as well. At this juncture Charles E. Magoon became governor of the Canal Zone, and he declared that Dr. Gorgas should have adequate financial and moral support. He was determined that the panic which the yellow fever outbreak had engendered should be halted--and a panic it was, for men rushed madly to Colon and defied the efforts of the commission, and of the captains and crews of the Panama Railroad steamships, to prevent them from returning to the States without other transportation arrangements than a determination to get aboard and stay there until the Statue of Liberty had been passed in New York Harbor. So great was this panic that Chief Engineer Stevens declared that there were three diseases at Panama: Yellow fever, malaria, and cold feet: and that the greatest of these was cold feet. The newspapers of the United States at that time quoted the poetry of such writers as Gilbert, who said: "Beyond the Chagres River 'Tis said (the story's old) Are paths that lead to mountains Of purest virgin gold; But 'tis my firm conviction What e'er the tales they tell, That beyond the Chagres River All paths lead straight to hell." It did not matter that in four months there were only 47 deaths on the Isthmus from yellow fever as compared with 108 from malaria in the same period--men do not stop to study mortality tables and to compare the relative fatalities of diseases when yellow fever stares them in the face. But after all, the yellow fever panic of 1905 served a good purpose, for if the mosquito thereby secured a reopening of its case, it stirred the United States Government to give to the sanitary officers of the Canal Zone the powers they needed, and the means required to prove finally and forever in the court of last resort, the guilt of the mosquito, and to establish for once and all the method of combating its stealthy work. The whole world recognizes the remarkable results in sanitary work that have been achieved at Panama. While it must be remembered that the population of the Canal Zone is made up largely of able-bodied men, and that, therefore, the death rate naturally would be lower than under like conditions with a normal population of infancy and old age, the fact remains that sanitary science has converted the Zone from a mosquito paradise of swamp and jungle into a region where mosquitoes have all but disappeared, and where men are as free from danger of epidemic diseases as in the United States itself. The sanitary statistics of the Canal Zone, and of the cities of Panama and Colon, were based for several years upon an erroneous assumption of population. The Department of Sanitation estimated the population of the Canal Zone by deducting the recorded emigrants from the recorded immigrants and assumed that the difference represented a permanent addition to the Zone's population. Under this method of estimating population a serious error crept in, since hundreds of people came into Panama from the Panaman outports and were recorded as arrivals, but who, departing in small sailing vessels and launches at night after the port officers had gone home, were not recorded as having departed. In this way the sanitary department estimates of population in the Canal Zone reached a total of 93,000 in 1912. The census taken that year showed only 62,000 population in the Zone. This served to make the death rate given out by the Department of Sanitation 50 per cent lower than was justified by actual population conditions. But one does not need to consider figures to realize what has been accomplished at Panama. Anyone who goes there and sees the remarkable evidence of the success of the efforts to conquer the disease of the tropical jungles, finds a lesson taught that is too impressive to need the confirmation of medical statistics. The United States, after the yellow fever outbreak of 1905, never counted the cost when the health of the canal army was at stake. Not only was Uncle Sam successful in his efforts to make the Canal Zone and the terminal cities of Panama and Colon healthful places of abode, but no worker on the canal was denied the privilege of the best medical care. An average of $2,000,000 a year was expended in the prevention of sickness and the care of those who were sick. At Ancon and at Colon large hospitals were maintained where the white American and the West Indian negro had their respective wards. At Taboga a large sanitarium was maintained to assist the recuperation of those who had recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital. Besides this there were rest camps along the line for those not ill enough to be removed to the hospitals, and dispensaries where those who felt they were not in need of other medical attention could consult with the physicians and get the necessary medicines. All medical services to the employees of the Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad were free, and only nominal charges were made for members of their families. No passenger train crossed the Isthmus of Panama without carrying a hospital car for taking patients to or from the hospitals. No way station was without its waiting shed bearing the inscription: "For Hospital Patients Only." Each community had its dispensary, its doctor, and its sanitary inspector. During the year 1912 there were 48,000 cases of sickness in the Canal Zone, of which 26,000 were white and 22,000 colored. During the same year 633,000 trips to the dispensaries were made by employees and nonemployees, divided almost evenly between white and colored. The average number of employees constantly sick in Ancon Hospital was 712; in Colon Hospital 209; and in Taboga Sanitarium 54. An average of 119 were in the sick camps all the time and 50 in the quarters. The average number of days' treatment per employee in the hospitals was a little over 14; in the sick camps a little under 3; and in quarters 2-1/3. It cost $160,000 a year to feed the patients in the hospitals and $739,000 a year to operate the hospitals. The work of sanitation proper cost some $400,000 a year. This includes many items. During one year about 16,000,000 square yards of brush were cut and burned; a million square yards of swamp were drained; 30,000,000 square yards of grass were cut; 250,000 feet of ditches were dug; and some 2,000,000 linear feet of old ditches were cleaned. During the same year nearly a million garbage cans and over 300,000 refuse cans were emptied. In addition to looking after the health of the Canal Zone itself, it was necessary to care for that of the cities of Panama and Colon. In the city of Panama 11,000 loads of sweepings and 25,000 loads of garbage were removed in one year; 3,000,000 gallons of water were sprinkled on the streets and as much more distributed to the poor of the city. During one year the quarantine service, which keeps a strict lookout for yellow fever, bubonic plague, and other epidemic diseases, inspected over 100,000 passengers coming into the Zone. It required about 150,000 gallons of mosquito oil a year to keep down the mosquitoes. There are 50 known breeds of these insects on the Isthmus and perhaps some 20 species more which have not been identified. Of the 50 or more species of mosquitoes 11 belonged to the malaria-producing family--anopheles. Their cousins of the yellow-fever-producing family--the stegomyias--boast of only two species. What the other 40 or more kinds are doing besides annoying suffering humanity has not been determined. The mosquito is comparatively easy to exterminate. Its life habits are such that a terrific mortality may be produced among them during infancy. The average young mosquito, during its "wriggler" state of development, lives under the water and has to make about 8,000 trips to the surface for air before it can spread its wings and fly. If oil is poured upon the water it can get no air and death by asphyxiation follows. Two classes of larvaecide are used on the waters to exterminate the baby mosquitoes: One is an oil used to make a scum over the surface; the other a carbolic solution which poisons the water. At the head of every little rivulet and tiny, trickling stream one sees a barrel out of which comes an endless drip! drip! drip! These drops of oil or poison are carried down the stream and make inhospitable all of the mosquito nurseries of the marshes through which the waters flow. In addition to these barrels, men go about with tanks on their backs, spraying the marshy ground and the small, isolated pools of water with larvaecides. [Illustration: SANITARY DRINKING CUP] [Illustration: MOSQUITO OIL DRIP BARREL] [Illustration: SPRAYING MOSQUITO OIL] [Illustration: TYPICAL QUARTERS OF THE MARRIED LABORER] [Illustration: A NATIVE HUT] This method of treatment has not exterminated all mosquitoes on the Isthmus, but it has so materially reduced their number that one may stay in the Zone for weeks without seeing a single one. This is a freedom, however, that must be paid for by vigilance of the most painstaking and unremitting sort. The moment the work is relaxed the mosquitoes again spread over the territory. The United States Government will have to continue with the utmost care its work of sanitation and quarantine at Panama. If, after the canal is completed, an epidemic of bubonic plague or yellow fever should break out, it might very seriously interfere with the operation of the canal in several ways. To begin with, it would demoralize the operating force. Further than this, India and China are afraid of yellow fever because in both of these countries the stegomyia mosquito abounds. If the disease should obtain a foothold there it would be difficult to exterminate. Europe, also, might be expected to quarantine against Panama under such conditions. A 10,000-ton freighter carrying cargo through the canal would lose at least a thousand dollars for every day it was detained in quarantine by reason of having visited the canal. A shrewd observer has said that the successful sanitation of the Isthmus of Panama is a triumph at once of medical science and of despotic government. Probably this does not overstate the case. The methods employed at Panama were arbitrary, and had to be. They probably could not be enforced at all in a democratic community in ordinary times. The people would rebel against the severity of the regulations and against the incidental invasion of their privacy. But strike any community, however free, with the fear of a swift and deadly disease and it will submit--as witness the shot-gun quarantines that used to demark the northern limits of the yellow fever zone in our own Southern States, or the despotism that governed New Orleans in the terror of 1905. At Panama this fear is ever present, so there is little danger that a responsible majority there ever would resist the sanitary work on the grounds of outraged democracy. It may be that a popular government would become careless, or inefficient, but it would not renounce the pretension. This has been proved in Cuba. The sanitarians at Panama gave to the workers there a sense of security that contributed no little to the spirit of determination so universally remarked and commended by visitors to the Zone during the era of construction. While there was no immunity from sickness and death, yet there was no panic, no constant dread, such as destroyed the morale of the French force. The Isthmus of Panama still remained hot, its inhabitants still were forced to take the precautions that aliens must take in the Tropics; but they were inspired with a confidence that if these precautions were taken they would not be in any greater danger than if they had remained in their northern homes. Pestilence, the scourge of the on-sweeping epidemic, the plague of swift death that is only a little worse than the panic of fear it inspires--this was the thing that was stamped out. Not since the Science of Healing opened its doors to the Science of Prevention have physicians scored a greater victory in their fight against disease and death than on the Isthmus of Panama. Not only did they help to build the canal; they demonstrated that tropical diseases are capable of human control and thereby opened up a vista of hope undreamed of to all that sweltering and suffering mass of humanity that inhabits the Torrid Zone. CHAPTER X THE MAN AT THE HELM In 1905, William H. Taft, then Secretary of War, made a trip to the Isthmus of Panama to look over the preparations for the construction of the Panama Canal, and at the same time to consider the question of the fortification of the big waterway. On that trip a member of the General Staff of the Army, who at that time was but little known outside of Army circles, went with him. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, bronze-faced, gray-haired man, 47 years old. He came and went unheralded. Few people knew of the engineering record he had made, and no one on the Isthmus dreamed that he was destined to become the commander in chief of the army that would conquer the Isthmian barrier. He returned to the United States and wrote his report--a report which, from the deep mastery of the subject it revealed, attracted the favorable attention of the Secretary of War. Later when the board of consulting engineers came to make its report upon the type of canal which should be built--whether it should be a sea level or a lock canal--the Secretary of War asked this officer to prepare a draft of his report to the President recommending the lock canal. Soon after New Year's Day, 1907, the chief engineer of the canal, John F. Stevens, dissatisfied with the relations that existed between the Government and himself, came to the conclusion that he could not build the canal hampered as he was by red tape at Washington. It then became a question of whether or not the canal should be built by contract or by the Army. President Roosevelt asked for a preliminary report upon this proposition and the unheralded Army engineer who had visited the Canal Zone in 1905, made it. A few days later there was a conference between President Roosevelt, Gen. Alexander MacKenzie, Chief of Engineers of the United States Army, and the Secretary of War. After this conference Maj. George Washington Goethals was summoned to the White House and informed by the President that it had been determined to build the Panama Canal under the auspices of the Army, and that he was appointed chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission. He was requested to keep the fact of his appointment a secret and to prepare immediately to go to Panama. A ship sailed for the Isthmus three days thereafter, and he was ready to sail when the President advised him that he might wait over and arrange affairs in Washington, leaving in time to get to the Isthmus to take charge on the first of April. When the announcement was made to the country that the work of building the canal was to be put in the hands of the Army, the whole country began to inquire: Who is Major Goethals? that inquiry revealed the fact that he was a man who had accomplished much in his 49 years. Born in 1858, of Dutch parents, whose ancestors had settled in New York when it was still New Amsterdam, he was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point where he was graduated in the class of 1880 with such honors that he was entitled to enter the Engineer Corps of the Regular Army. In 1891 he rose to the rank of captain, and in 1898 became lieutenant colonel and chief engineer of the First Volunteer Army Corps in Cuba. On the last day of that year he was honorably discharged from the volunteer service, and, in 1900, became a major in the Engineer Corps of the Regular Army. For a number of years prior to 1898 he had been instructor in civil and military engineering at West Point. He had been in charge of the Mussel Shoals canal construction on the Tennessee River, a work which won praise from engineers both in civil and in military life. It was in a measure his record made on the Tennessee River work that led to his appointment as chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal. When he took charge of the work at Panama he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Arriving there he immediately informed all hands that while the work of building the canal had been placed under Army engineers, no man who was then on the job and faithfully executing his work need fear anything from that administration. From that time down to the last stages of the work that statement held good. Trained at West Point, brought up in the atmosphere of the Army, a lover of its traditions and in full sympathy with its spirit, he laid aside everything that might handicap the success of the undertaking and sought at once to get the full benefit of all that was best in the Army and in civil life as well. He put his uniform in moth balls when he started to the Isthmus, and from that day to this no man has ever seen him on the Canal Zone wearing an Army uniform. When he took charge of the big job, the foundations upon which he was to build the superstructure of his success had been laid by his predecessors, but there were many weak points in these foundations as well as many strong ones. With a spirit of utilizing to the fullest extent every advantage that the administrations of the former chief engineers had left on the Isthmus, he undertook to make only such changes as time demonstrated were necessary to the success of the project. At that time 6,000,000 cubic yards of material had been removed from the big waterway. Confronting him was the task of removing some 215,000,000 yards the while building a great dam containing 21,000,000 cubic yards, constructing a series of gigantic locks containing four and a half million cubic yards of concrete, and providing for the happiness and welfare of the sixty-odd thousand people who constituted the canal army and its camp followers. In the years that followed his appointment he proved himself in every way worthy of his assignment as the managing director of the most stupendous piece of work ever undertaken by man. Furthermore, he established a claim to the title of the "Great Digger." No other man in the history of the world has ever superintended the excavation of an amount of earth half as great as that which has been taken out of the Panama Canal during his administration. Since he went to the canal to "make the dirt fly" the material excavated under his command, together with that placed in the locks and dams, equals the amount necessary to take out to cut a tunnel 13 feet square through the earth at the Equator. No man ever carried to a great position less fuss and feathers than Colonel Goethals took to his work as chairman and chief engineer of the Panama Canal. When, during the construction period, one visited his office at Culebra, on almost any afternoon, he would find there an unpretentious little room in the corner of the administration building, about 18 feet square, containing four windows, overlooking the cut from two sides, its painted walls hung with maps, its floors uncarpeted, and in the center a large double-sided, flat-top desk covered with papers. A swivel chair at the desk and two or three other chairs constituted the furnishings of this room. The visitor walked directly into the office of his private secretary and the chief clerk, and if he had anything worth while about which to see the chairman and chief engineer he was detained only long enough for the man ahead of him to get out. With "no time like the present" as his motto in handling the business of his office, he, the busiest man on the Isthmus, and one of the busiest in the world for that matter, always seemed to have more time than many men of lesser responsibilities and far fewer burdens. He once declared that he had a contempt for the man who always tried to make it appear that he was too busy to see his callers, because his callers were frequently as busy as he himself. The fact is that he is a man with a very unusual gift in the dispatch of work. System has been the key-note of his success. With thousands of details every day to look after, he has always kept his work so well in hand that to the casual observer he seemed to be the most leisurely man on the Isthmus. He maintained a well-established routine all through his career on the canal. His mornings usually were spent going over the work. When the morning trains passed Culebra at 7 o'clock they found him up, breakfasted, and at the station. Although these trains carried parlor cars, one would seldom see the chairman and chief engineer riding in them. Rather, he consistently chose to ride in the ordinary day coaches with his sub-engineers, with the steam-shovel men, and with the rank and file of the Americans who made possible the success of the work at Panama. There were few of these Americans whom he did not know by name, and with whom he did not pass a pleasant word whenever he chanced to meet them. A morning trip over the work with this presiding genius of the big ditch reveals perhaps better than anything else the makeup of the man and the secret of his success. "Meet me on the early train to-morrow morning at Miraflores," said he to one of his visitors in the early summer of 1913, "and we will go over the Pacific end of the work." This meant that both the chief engineer and the visitor had to leave comfortable beds at 5 o'clock in the morning to keep the appointment. At 7 o'clock they met at Miraflores. "We will walk through the tunnel if you don't mind," said he, "as I don't want to hold up a dirt train if it can be avoided." At the other end of the railroad tunnel, the only one on the Isthmus, a railway motor car stood on the siding ready to pick up the distinguished engineer and carry him to the Miraflores Locks. This motor car is something like a limousine on railroad trucks, and was affectionately known by the people on the Isthmus, as "the yellow peril" and "the brain wagon." The first stop was at the concrete work on the spillway dam at Miraflores. "How soon do you expect to have this dam up to its full height?" he asked of the division engineer who joined him there. "Can't you find room to operate another temporary concrete mixer down there?" he queried further. "Is there anything else you need to keep the work moving forward so as to be certain to complete the dam by the time you promised?" Going a little farther he came to a place where one division was doing some work for another division. "Don't you think it would be more satisfactory to keep both parts of that work under one division? Why don't you allow it all to be done by the other people?" Walking across the locks on the temporary bridge the chief engineer and his assistant came to a point where the concrete lamp posts for lighting the locks were being set up. "Don't you think that it would better avoid any settling if you were to place beams of railroad iron across those spaces and rest the posts on them?" he queried. A little farther on he met the engineer in charge of the work of the company erecting the gates. "When do you think you will have the gates in the west chambers completed so that we can put the dredge through?" he inquired of Mr. Wright. "Well, sir," replied Mr. Wright, "if we have good luck I hope to have them done by the first of September; if we have fair luck we ought to have them completed by the middle of September; but at the lowest calculation I can promise them to you by the first of October." "But have you taken into consideration all of the time you are likely to lose as the result of heavy rains?" queried the chief engineer. "I have made full allowance therefor, I think," responded Mr. Wright. Walking on, the watchful eye of the chief engineer fell upon a new baby railway track which was being laid through the eastern lock chambers. "What are you planning to do there?" he asked of the division engineer. "We wanted to get some additional material through the locks and Mr. Wright informed us that if we would furnish the timbers, he would make it so that we could run these little engines through there," responded the engineer. "But did you have a definite understanding with him that this should afford no excuse for any further delay in completing the gates?" queried Colonel Goethals. "We did, sir," responded the division engineer. "All right then, go ahead." At this point the party boarded the motor car again and was taken to the big dike which was to hold the Pacific Ocean from flooding the locks after a dike a mile farther down had been blown out. "How much water do you have in the stretch between the two dikes?" he asked of the division engineer. He next wanted to know how many million cubic feet they were able to pump and siphon in, and how much the Rio Grande was bringing in per day. Then he wanted to know if every possible precaution had been taken to insure the watertightness of the new dike; how many thousand pounds of dynamite had been placed under the one to be blown up; how many holes this dynamite was placed in; and a large number of other bits of information which would tell him whether every safeguard had been thrown around the plan to insure its success. Going up on the other side of the canal the party came to the earth dam joining the west lock walls with the hills, so as to impound 58 feet of water in Miraflores Lake. "How soon do you expect to get that connection made between the lock walls and the dam proper?" he queried of the engineer in immediate charge. "In four weeks, sir." "All right," answered Colonel Goethals, "you can't get that done any too soon to suit me." And so he went over the work around Miraflores from beginning to end, talking now with an Irishman in charge of dumping the material on the inside of the dam, now with a man in charge of some concrete work, and now with the division engineer himself. By 11 o'clock he had inspected every part of this division and was ready to take his car back to Culebra. In four hours he had seen every man responsible for any important work around Miraflores; had offered a suggestion there, a word of encouragement here, and had obtained a bit of information at another place. Each day's morning program was like this one except as to the place he visited and the people with whom he talked. One morning he might be tramping over Cucaracha Slide, studying the prospects of its future. Another morning he might be down at Gatun watching an official test of an emergency dam. On these trips he usually wore either a most unmilitary-looking blue serge or gray cheviot, with a somewhat weather-beaten sailor straw hat, and carried a cheap dollar umbrella. When Colonel Goethals went to the Isthmus he promised that every man with a grievance should have a hearing. Each Sunday morning he had at his office at Culebra what he termed his Sunday "at homes," the best attended functions on the Isthmus, where the blackest Jamaica negro on the job found as much of a welcome as the highest official. These functions were for the purpose of hearing the canal employees who had grievances. Once a visitor was congratulating him upon the smooth manner in which the canal-building machine seemed to be working. "You ought to attend one of my Sunday 'at homes,'" he replied. "You would think that there was no smoothness at all to its running." Here is the wife of one of the engineers: She wants to find out why it is that she cannot get bread from the Ancon Hospital bakery. She informs Colonel Goethals that Joseph B. Bishop, secretary of the commission, gets bread from the hospital bakery and wants to know why she cannot. "I will look into the matter for you," says the chief engineer, and a note of this complaint is made. Later the telephone bell rings and Mr. Bishop is asked if he gets bread at the hospital bakery. He replies in the affirmative, explaining that about three years ago he had breakfasted with Colonel Gorgas who arranged for him to buy his bread there instead of at the commissary, this bread being more to his liking. "Can't any other employee of the Canal Commission get bread there under the same terms?" queries the chief engineer. "I will see, sir," responds the secretary of the commission. "If they can not," answers the chief engineer, "you must have your bread stopped at once." And it was stopped. The next person received is the representative of the Kangaroos, a fraternal order. "The Spanish American War veterans get free transportation on a special train on Memorial Day," he is informed, "and the fraternal orders on the Zone are crowded out." "Let a committee of all the fraternal orders appear next Sunday and talk it over with me and we will see what we can do," responds the chief engineer. Here comes a negro who says that his boss is a tyrant and abuses his men: "I will look into that," responds the presiding genius of the canal, and the Jamaican goes away with an expansive smile on his face. And so it went. Small affairs, big affairs, and indifferent ones were brought to his attention. In perhaps 80 per cent of them he could not do what was requested, but when able he did it so promptly, and in such a positive, straightforward manner, that his "at homes" have been compared, by the French ambassador to the United States, to the court of justice held by Saint Louis beneath the oak at Vincennes. A railroad engineer on one of the dirt trains got drunk and ran over a negro. He was sent to the penitentiary. The railroad men issued an ultimatum saying that if he were not released by a certain hour on a certain day, every dirt train on the canal would stop. A committee conveyed this ultimatum to Colonel Goethals and asked his decision. "You will get it at the penitentiary," he replied. "This man will remain in prison and every man who quits work on that account will be dropped from the rolls." There was no strike of engineers. At another time the waiters at the Tivoli Hotel went on strike. The whole force was promptly discharged, and the official paper of the Canal Commission carried their names with the announcement that thereafter they would not be eligible to employment in any capacity on the Canal Zone. If the chairman and chief engineer of the canal is just and firm in his relations with his men, he is no less generous in giving credit where credit belongs. Upon one occasion he was talking about the success of the canal project with a friend, and declared that the world would never give to John F. Stevens the credit that was due him in the construction of the canal. "You know," said he, "the real problem of building this canal has been that of removing the spoil; that problem was preeminently the problem of a railroad man and to solve it demanded the services of one of the best men in the railroad business. We have extended the facilities laid out by Mr. Stevens, and have modified them as experience and conditions have demanded, but they have been operated from that day to this under the general plan of transportation laid out by Mr. Stevens. I do not think that any Army engineer in the United States could have laid out such excellent transportation facilities." At another time, in discussing this same matter, he declared that it was his firm opinion that the canal could have been built by either of the former chief engineers, John F. Wallace or John F. Stevens, if they had been allowed a free hand. "You see," said he, "they were men who were accustomed to handling big construction jobs. They would outline their project and the cost of executing it to a board of directors who would pass upon it and then leave them absolutely unhampered in the matter of personnel and method, with results as the only criterion of their success. When they came to the Isthmus they found their hands tied by red tape. They had never dealt with a President, a Secretary of War, a Congress, and the public at large. Naturally, they grew restive under the conditions which confronted them and resigned. "The whole difference is largely that of training. The Army officer knows from the time he leaves West Point that he has to work in harmony with his superiors, with the President, the Secretary of War, and Congress. That is why we have been able to stay where men from civil life have thrown up the job." Another remarkable characteristic of the Great Digger is his desire to do his work economically as well as to do it promptly. When he went to the Isthmus there was an insistent demand that the dirt be made to fly. Along with the administration in Washington he realized that the only way to gain the faith and confidence of the people in the work, a faith and confidence essential to its full success, was to measure up to their desire that the dirt begin to fly. It was not a time to consider economies then. But, as soon as those demands had been met and the people had been shown that the Army could make good, a cost-keeping system was introduced. Men doing identical work were pitted against one another; Army engineers were placed in command of one task here and civilian engineers in command of another task there; and thus a healthy rivalry was established. As Colonel Gaillard, member of the commission, and engineer of the Central Division, testified before a congressional committee, his early work in Culebra Cut was to get out as much dirt as possible, while his later work was given over largely to a study and comparison of cost sheets with a view to cutting down the expense of removing a yard of material, with the result that he was able to show a saving of $17,000,000 in a 9-mile section of the Panama Canal as compared with the estimates of 1908. In other words, Colonel Goethals took that golden rule of all great soldiers, "get there first with the most men," and adapted it to read "dig the most dirt with the least money." He had ever in mind three things: Safe construction, rapid progress, and low costs. On these three foundation stones in his mind was reared the structure that stands as the highest example of engineering science, and as the proudest constructive accomplishment of the American Republic. At the northern entrance to the Suez Canal stands a statue of de Lesseps, a beckoning hand inviting the shipping of the world to go through. Perhaps no such statue of Goethals ever will stand at Panama, but there is no need. The canal itself is his monument and its story will ever endure. CHAPTER XI THE ORGANIZATION When the United States finally decided to build the Panama Canal, the next question of gravity which pressed for consideration was the creation of the organization by which it was to be built. Many problems were encountered, and after repeated changes in personnel and rearrangements of duties, the situation finally resolved into an organization headed by one man, clothed with the necessary powers, and held responsible for the consequent results. The completion of the preliminaries for the acquisition of title to the Canal Zone and to the property and rights of the New Panama Canal Company took place when Congress, on April 28, 1904, made an appropriation of $10,000,000, which was to be paid to the Republic of Panama. Six days later the United States formally took possession of the Canal Zone and of the property of the Panama Canal Company, when at 7:30 o'clock in the morning, Lieut. Mark Brooke, of the United States Army, took over the keys and raised the American flag. The following day President Roosevelt announced the appointment of John Findley Wallace, of Massachusetts, as chief engineer of the canal at a salary of $25,000 a year, the appointment to be effective on the 1st day of June. The first ship to arrive at Panama carried Maj. Gen. George W. Davis, who was to govern the Canal Zone; Col. William C. Gorgas, who was to make it sanitary; and George R. Shanton, who was to drive out the criminal element. Governor Davis was a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission, Colonel Gorgas had proved his worth in the sanitation of Cuba, and Shanton had been a "rough rider" with Colonel Roosevelt in the Cuban campaign. When Chief Engineer Wallace arrived on the scene he found there an all but abandoned project. There were hundreds of French houses, but nearly all of them were in the jungle and practically unfit for human habitation. He found millions of dollars' worth of French machinery, but almost none of it in condition to be put into service immediately. He knew in a general way the line of the canal, but surveys were lacking to determine its exact location at every point. With this situation in front of him, he found it necessary to concentrate his efforts upon the problem of getting ready for the work. While he was doing this the people at home began to demand that the dirt fly. Colonel Gorgas also found conditions which challenged his best efforts. Colon was a paradise of disease, Panama was no better. It was only by making both of these cities over again, from a sanitary standpoint, that any hope could be held out for reasonably healthy conditions. During his stay on the Isthmus Mr. Wallace found himself handicapped at every turn by red tape, a new thing in his experience as a construction engineer. He could buy nothing without asking for bids; every idea he sought to put into execution had to be submitted to Washington, and he found himself so harassed and handicapped that he wanted a new plan of organization. Acting in accordance with his recommendations, President Roosevelt decided to accept the resignation of the existing Canal Commission, and to appoint a new one, in which, instead of having independent departments, with the governor independent of the chief engineer, and the chief sanitary officer independent of both the governor and the chief engineer, there should be a more united relation, in which all questions were to be decided by the commission as a whole, the final authority being vested in an executive committee composed of the chairman, the governor of the Canal Zone, and the chief engineer. Under this plan, the second Isthmian Canal Commission was organized. It consisted of Theodore P. Shonts, chairman; Charles E. Magoon, Governor of the Canal Zone; John F. Wallace, chief engineer; Mordecai T. Endicott; Peter C. Hains; Oswald H. Ernst; and Benjamin A. Harrod. Following the suggestion of Chief Engineer Wallace, the control of the Panama Railroad was also vested in the new commission. While these changes were being made Chief Engineer Wallace was in Washington. There was dissatisfaction on the Isthmus with an accompanying spirit of unrest, and, to make matters worse, a yellow-fever epidemic broke out. Only a few days after Mr. Wallace reached the Isthmus, he cabled the Secretary of War that he wished to return to Washington, hinting that he might resign. Secretary Taft cabled to Governor Magoon for an opinion as to the motives which were behind this step on the part of Mr. Wallace, and was advised that it was brought about by the offer of a better salary and the fear of the yellow-fever epidemic. When Mr. Wallace reached New York he had a stormy interview with Secretary Taft, who roundly denounced him for quitting at such a critical time. Mr. Wallace declared his lack of confidence in the ability of Colonel Gorgas to control the yellow-fever epidemic, and asserted that the continual interference of red tape was so distracting to him as to make new employment attractive. President Roosevelt upheld his Secretary of War in his denunciation of Mr. Wallace, and promptly appointed John F. Stevens chief engineer at a salary of $30,000. John F. Stevens arrived on the Isthmus on July 27, 1905. He found the Panama Railroad almost in a state of collapse. He declared that the only claim heard for it was that there had been no collisions for some time. "A collision has its good points as well as its bad ones," he observed, "for it indicates that there is something moving on the railroad." Mr. Stevens immediately set to work to build up the road, and to provide the means for housing and feeding the canal army. But like his predecessor he found Government red tape hampering, and in his first annual report begged for "a thorough business administration unhampered by any tendency to technicalities, into which our public work sometimes drifts." He protested against civil-service requirements on the Isthmus, and against the eight-hour working day; and President Roosevelt met his protests by exempting all employees except clerks from the operations of civil-service rules, and by abrogating the eight-hour day. It was under the régime of Mr. Stevens that the question arose as to whether the canal should be built as a sea-level channel through the Isthmus, or as a lock canal with the water in the middle section 85 feet above the level of the sea. President Roosevelt thereupon appointed a board of consulting engineers, made up of 14 members, to visit the Isthmus and determine what type of canal should be built. Five members of this board of consulting engineers were foreigners appointed by their respective Governments at the request of President Roosevelt. They included the inspector general of Public Works of France, the consulting engineer of the Suez Canal, the chief engineer of the Manchester Canal, the chief engineer of the Kiel Canal, and the chief engineer of the Dutch dike system. Three of the American engineers and all five of the foreign engineers voted in favor of a sea-level canal. Chief Engineer Stevens and all but one member of the Isthmian Canal Commission concurred in the vote of the minority, made up wholly of American engineers in favor of the lock canal. President Roosevelt sustained the minority report, and Congress sustained him in the law of June 29, 1906. In the fall of 1906 Chairman Shonts came out in advocacy of a plan to build the canal by contract. Here arose a difference between Mr. Shonts and Mr. Stevens, and Chairman Shonts shortly thereafter resigned. A few months later Chief Engineer Stevens also resigned. It is said that his resignation was mainly due to his objection to the appointment of Army engineers as members of the Canal Commission, and to a letter he wrote the President in which he scored the limitations of red tape and Government methods generally. When Mr. Stevens quitted the Isthmus he left behind him the nucleus of the general organization for building of the canal. He saw housing conditions brought up to the required standard, established the necessary commissary where canal employees could supply their needs at reasonable prices, and aided Colonel Gorgas in his fight to make the Isthmus healthful. At this juncture the organization destined to build the canal was put into effect, with Colonel George W. Goethals at its head. Colonel Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer, was the only important official of the old régime held over. The other members of the commission were Maj. D. D. Gaillard and Maj. William L. Sibert, of the United States Engineer Corps; Civil Engineer H. H. Rousseau, of the United States Navy; and Messrs. J. C. S. Blackburn and Jackson Smith. [Illustration: MAJ. GEN. GEORGE W. DAVIS REAR ADMIRAL J. G. WALKER THEODORE P. SHONTS JOHN F. WALLACE JOHN F. STEVENS CHARLES E. MAGOON] [Illustration: RICHARD LEE METCALFE EMORY R. JOHNSON MAURICE H. THATCHER JOSEPH BUCKLIN BISHOP H. A. GUDGER JOSEPH C. S. BLACKBURN] Under former commissions the Governor of the Canal Zone had ranked above the chief engineer, and the chairman, the chief engineer, and the governor had had rival powers, which resulted in a great deal of friction. Under the new order the offices of chairman and chief engineer were consolidated, and the governor was reduced to the title of "head of the Department of Civil Administration," reporting to the chairman, as did the chief sanitary officer and all of the division engineers. This commission, in personnel, remained intact during the long period of construction, except for the resignation in 1908 of Jackson Smith, who was succeeded by Lieut. Col. Harry F. Hodges; and for the resignation in 1910 of Mr. Blackburn, who was succeeded by Morris H. Thatcher. Mr. Thatcher, in turn, was succeeded in 1913 by Richard L. Metcalfe as head of the Department of Civil Administration. During the construction period there were several rearrangements of the duties of the Army engineers associated with Colonel Goethals. From June, 1908, Major Gaillard, afterwards promoted to a lieutenant-colonelcy, was in charge of the ditch-digging work between Gatun and Pedro Miguel, which included the entire Gatun Lake and Culebra Cut sections. It is everywhere admitted that so far as difficulties were concerned, he had the hardest job on the Isthmus, next to the chief engineer. Colonel Gaillard entered the United States Military Academy in 1884 and was graduated with honors entitling him to appointment in the Corps of Engineers. Before being selected as a member of the Canal Commission, he had had much experience in important work. For two years he was in charge of all river and harbor improvement in the Lake Superior region. When he first went to the Isthmus he was assigned as the supervising engineer in charge of harbors, the building of breakwaters, etc. Lieut. Col. William L. Sibert, another of the Army engineers who was made a member of the Canal Commission, was graduated from West Point in 1884 and was made a lieutenant of engineers. From 1892 to 1894 he was assistant engineer in charge of the construction of the ship channel connecting the Great Lakes. The four years following he was in charge of the river and harbor work in Arkansas, and following that, spent one year teaching civil engineering in the Engineering School of Application. He then went to the Philippines as chief engineer of the Eighth Army Corps and became chief engineer and general manager of the Manila & Dagupan Railroad. From 1900 to 1907 he was in charge of the Ohio River improvements between Pittsburgh and Louisville. As division engineer of the Atlantic division of the Panama Canal he was in charge of the construction of the Gatun locks, Gatun Dam, and the breakwaters at the Atlantic entrance to the canal. Civil Engineer Harry H. Rousseau, of the United States Navy, was appointed a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission at the same time that Chief Engineer Goethals was selected to head the organization. He had had much experience in engineering work prior to the appointment and was a personal appointee of President Roosevelt, with whom he had come in contact when he was serving in the Bureau of Yards and Docks of the Navy Department when Mr. Roosevelt was assistant secretary of that Department. He entered the employ of the United States through the civil service, having been appointed a civil engineer in the Navy with the rank of lieutenant, after a competitive examination in 1898. For four years he was an engineer of the bureau of which he afterwards became chief, and for four years following, from 1903 to 1907, he was engineer of the improvements of Mare Island Navy Yard, California. The duties of Commissioner Rousseau were changed from time to time, and he was finally given charge of the work of constructing the terminals at the ends of the canal. At the same time he was made assistant to the chief engineer, having charge of all mechanical questions arising on the canal. When Jackson Smith, one of the two civilian members of the Canal Commission, resigned, he was succeeded by an Army officer, Col. Harry F. Hodges, who would have been a member of the commission from the first, upon the request of Colonel Goethals, had not the United States Engineer Corps required his services. Colonel Hodges was graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1881, and immediately entered upon seven years of duty on river and harbor improvements in the United States. This was followed by four years' service as assistant professor of engineering at West Point, and that duty, in turn, by six years of work on rivers and harbors and fortifications. During the Spanish American War he served in Porto Rico, and then returned to river and harbor duty for two years. In 1901-02 he was chief engineer of the Department of Cuba, from which duty he was transferred to the War Department, where he became assistant to the chief of engineers. His experience in river and harbor work, coupled with his success as the designer of the locks of the American Sault Ste. Marie Canal, fitted him for the work at Panama. He became assistant chief engineer and purchasing agent of the canal in 1907, and the following year was chosen a member of the commission to succeed Mr. Smith. The work of designing the locks and the lock machinery fell upon his shoulders. When President Roosevelt wanted a man to handle the delicate problems arising out of the peculiar relations with the Republic of Panama and the United States, he selected Joseph C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky, who had just finished a long term of service in the United States Senate. Senator Blackburn was well equipped for such a position, combining that suavity indicated by the velvet glove with that determination of purpose which lies in the iron hand. The service of Col. William C. Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer on the Isthmus, began earlier than that of any of the higher officials. He went to the Isthmus immediately after it was taken over by the United States. He has been described as a man "with a gentle manner, but with a hard policy toward the mosquito." He was born in Mobile, Ala., in 1854, the son of Gen. Josiah Gorgas, of the Confederate Army. He became a member of the Medical Corps of the United States Army in 1880, and since his work at the head of the Cuban health campaign his name has been a household word in the United States. In establishing the Isthmian Canal Commission, which was destined to make the Panama Canal a reality, President Roosevelt selected Joseph Bucklin Bishop as its secretary. Mr. Bishop was made the editor of the Canal Record, a weekly paper which was the official organ of the Canal Commission. He is a born investigator and when any matter arose concerning the work on the canal, about which the chief engineer desired an impartial report, he usually referred it to Mr. Bishop. When the matter of organizing the work arose it was decided to arouse a spirit of emulation and rivalry, and S. B. Williamson, a civilian engineer, was put in charge of the Pacific end of the canal, with duties similar to those of the Army engineer on the Atlantic side. Mr. Williamson proved to be a master of the art of accomplishing a great deal with a given amount of money, and the cost sheets of the Pacific end will ever stand as a monument to his efficiency. The list of engineers and other officials who contributed to the success of the work at Panama is a long one, but among them may be mentioned: Col. Chester Harding, who was the resident engineer at Gatun; W. G. Comber, who headed the dredging work on the Pacific end of the canal during the early days of the American undertaking, of the entire canal during the final stages; W. G. Rourke, who was resident engineer in Culebra Cut for a number of years; Caleb M. Saville, who worked out the data for the construction of the Gatun Dam; H. O. Cole, who succeeded S. B. Williamson on the Pacific end work; Lieut. Frederick Mears, who relocated the Panama Railroad; John Burke, who had charge of the commissary; Maj. Eugene T. Wilson, the chief subsistence officer; Brig. Gen. C. A. Devol, who was in charge of the quartermaster's department; E. J. Williams, Jr., the disbursing officer; and Col. Tom F. Cook, the picturesque chief of the Division of Posts and Customs. To all these, and to scores of others who are not mentioned here merely because of the limitations of space, the American people owe the great success at Panama. The organization was imbued with a spirit of loyalty to the great task, and having its accomplishment singly in mind there was little room for jealous bickerings and none at all for scandal and corruption. Every man who had a part in it always will be proud of his share, and that pride will be supported and justified by all Americans. CHAPTER XII THE AMERICAN WORKERS The directory, supervisory, and mechanical work in constructing the canal was done by Americans. The engineers, the foremen, the steam shovelers, the operators of spoil trains, the concrete mixers, and, in short, the skilled workers were American citizens; the common and unskilled laborers were West Indians and Europeans. It is to the American workers therefore that the credit is due, for without their direction and aid in every operation the work could not have been done. Never was there a more loyal, a more earnest, a more enthusiastic band of workmen than these same Americans. The steam shoveler felt as much pride, as much responsibility, in the task as did the chief engineer. The difficulties under which they labored, the enervating climate, the absence from home, the lack of diversion and recreation, but served to temper the steel in their make-up. The American spirit was there, dominating every detail of the whole big job. Every man was determined to "make good," not for himself alone, but for the organization of which he was a part, and for his country. In the beginning conditions were bad. There were few conveniences to make life comfortable, and innumerable inconveniences harassing those who went there. The food was bad and the water was not as good as the food. The quarters were old French houses rescued from the jungle and filled with scorpions. The result was that few of those who first went to the Isthmus remained, and those who returned to the United States spread far and wide reports of bad conditions on the Isthmus. With this situation in mind the Canal Commission decided that two things had to be done. Wholesome living conditions had to be created for the people who came to the Isthmus, and a standard of wages had to be set that would prove attractive to good men at home. It was thus that the pay for the Americans on the canal came to be placed at 50 per cent higher than pay for the same character of work in the States. This soon proved a strong incentive to men to leave the States and go to Panama, and as living conditions were improved the number of men willing to accept work on the Isthmus increased. Two classes of Americans turned their faces toward the Tropics as a result of the inducements held out by the Canal Commission. One was made up of those who were willing to go and stay a year or two, accumulating in that time experience and, perhaps, saving some little money; the other was made up of men whose desire was to go to the Isthmus and stay with the job, utilizing the opportunities it afforded for building up a comfortable bank account. [Illustration: BRIG. GEN. CARROLL A. DEVOL AMERICAN LIVING QUARTERS AT CRISTOBAL] [Illustration: HARRY H. ROUSSEAU LOWERING A CAISSON SECTION] As the work moved forward those of weak purpose and indifference to opportunity gradually dropped out. Their places were taken by others, until through a process of years of elimination there were approximately 5,000 Americans at Panama when the canal was finished; an army was made up almost wholly of men with a purpose in life and consequently of men who could be relied upon to do their work to the best of their ability. The result was that the last years of the task of construction saw every man loyal to his work and anxious to see the job move forward. American visitors to the Isthmus had occasion to be proud of their countrymen there. Every tourist from a foreign country has commented upon the distinguished courtesy received at the hands of these men. One of them, perhaps England's most noted travel lecturer, said: "The thing which impressed me more than anything else, outside of the gigantic work and the masterful way in which it is being done, was the exquisite courtesy of every American I met during my stay. I found every one of them not only ready to give such information as he might have but glad to do so. Each man was as proud of the work as if it were his own, and as ready to show his part of it to a stranger as if that stranger were his best friend. It was a delight to me from beginning to end to see the magnificent type of American manhood at work, and the pride taken by every worker in the project." Every other tourist brought away the same impression. A man who went there without any other credentials than a desire to see the work was shown the same courtesy and consideration as one with a pocketful of letters of introduction. The Americans on the Isthmus did not count any hardship too great if it were demanded for the successful prosecution of the work. A case in point is that of J. A. Loulan, the engineer in charge of the rock-crushing plant at Ancon. One morning he was introduced to a visitor from the States who remarked that everything seemed to be running so smoothly that he supposed the work of a supervising engineer was no longer a difficult task. "Well," replied the engineer, "at least it does not pay to worry. Last night at 2 o'clock I was called out of bed by telephone and informed that a Jamaican negro hostler had accidentally knocked the chock from under the wheels of an engine he was firing up, and that it had run down the grade and off the end of the track into about two feet of soft earth. We worked from that time on until breakfast to get the engine back, and were satisfied to know that the accident did not delay the operations at the crusher. Not a man of the force was late getting back to work after four hours of strenuous extra night duty." Speaking of the patience of the men Commissioner H. H. Rousseau said, "The reason for all this is not far to seek; the man who has 'nerves' would never stick it out on a job like this. The climate, the exile from home, and the character of the work all conspire against the man who can not be patient. He soon finds that the Isthmus is no place for him. The result is that a process of elimination has gone on until the men who have 'nerves' have all left and their places filled with those who are stoical enough to take things as they come." The Americans on the Isthmus were early risers. The first train from Colon for Panama leaves about 5 o'clock and the first train from Panama for Colon at 6:50. Almost any morning during the construction period one might walk into the dining room at the Tivoli Hotel and see a number of canal engineers breakfasting there who had left Colon on the early train. When one of them was asked if he did not find it something of a hardship to rise so early, he replied: "Well, you see, from the standpoint of a man just from the States it would seem rather an unheard-of hour for a man to get out and go to work; but we have to meet conditions as we find them down here, and we soon get reconciled to it. There is scarcely a night that I am not called by telephone two or three times, and I have to get up in time to catch the early train several mornings in the week, so I get up at the same hour the other mornings as well. We are well paid, and we owe it to our country to make whatever sacrifices the work demands. And after a month or two we get out of the habit of feeling that it is a sacrifice." It is this spirit of devotion to the work that enabled the canal authorities to press it to a successful completion with such unprecedented rapidity. These men knew full well that their sacrifices in the interest of progress were appreciated. The most rigid spirit of friendly competition was maintained from the beginning. The spirit of rivalry nowhere counted for more than among the steam-shovel men. In 1907 it was decided to publish in the Canal Record the best steam-shovel performances from week to week. This immediately put every steam-shovel gang on its mettle, and soon there was a great race with nearly a hundred entries, a race that continued from that day until the completion of the excavation. The result was that records of steam-shovel performances were made eclipsing everything that had gone before. The average daily excavation per shovel rose from year to year until it was double in the end what it was in the beginning. As heretofore pointed out, the process of elimination that went on continuously during the construction work sent large numbers of American workers back to the States from the Isthmus. During a single year about three-fifths of the Americans threw up their jobs and returned home. The average stay of Americans during the construction period was about a year. Bachelors were much more given to returning to the States than married men. The endless round of working, eating, sleeping, with its small chance of diversion, made the average bachelor glad to get back to the States within two years. On the other hand, the married men found home life just about as pleasant as in the States. They had with them about 2,000 women, and as many children. Many of the latter were born under the American Eagle at Panama. The boys who were born there may, if they choose, become native Panamans. The son of a former President of Panama, in talking with Commissioner Rousseau, advised him to make a Panaman citizen of little Harry Harwood Rousseau, Jr. "You see," said he, and he spoke in all earnestness and seriousness, "he will stand so much better chance of becoming President of the Republic of Panama than of becoming President of the United States." The American children on the Zone, brimming over with life and health, proved conclusively that the Tropics worked no hardship upon them. The Canal Commission, from the beginning to the end, made the welfare of the army of workers one of its first cares. As the days of a completed canal approached, every effort was made to enable the employees who had to be laid off to find employment in the States. Provision was made that they could accumulate their leave of absence in such a way as to entitle them to 84 days of full pay after leaving. This was arranged so as to give them sufficient time to establish connections in the States again, without being forced to do it without pay. Close records also were kept of each employee, and the official immediately over each man was ordered to give him a rating card showing his record on the Canal Zone. No higher credentials could be carried by anyone seeking employment than to have a card from the Canal Commission showing a rating of "Excellent." Owing to the firmness with which the commission ruled, there was little trouble in the way of strikes. In 1910 a lot of boiler makers who were getting 65 cents an hour on the per diem basis, struck for 75 cents an hour. Their demands were not met and some of them threw up their jobs. The commission immediately arranged with its Washington office to fill their places, and they had no chance whatever to get further employment on the Isthmus. The commission was given the power, by President Roosevelt, to order anyone to leave the Isthmus whose presence there was regarded as a detriment to the work. The result was that as soon as any man was found to be fomenting trouble, he was advised that a ship was returning to the United States on a certain date and that it would be expedient for him to take passage thereon. This power of deportation was more autocratic than any like power in the United States, but it proved of immense value in keeping things going satisfactorily at Panama. It was a power whose exercise was called for but few times, since the very fact that the commission had the power was usually a sufficient deterrent. There are two societies on the Isthmus which tell of the effects of homesickness of the Americans in the employ of the Canal Commission--the Incas, and the Society of the Chagres. The Incas are a group of men who meet annually on May 4th for a dinner. The one requirement for membership in this dining club is service on the canal from the beginning of the American occupation. In 1913 about 60 men were left on the Isthmus of all those Americans who were there at the time of the transfer of the canal property to the United States in 1904. The Society of the Chagres was organized in the fall of 1911. It is made up of American white employees who have worked six years continuously on the canal. When President Roosevelt visited the Isthmus in the late fall of 1906 he declared that he intended to provide some memorial or badge which would always distinguish the man who for a certain space of time had done his work well on the Isthmus, just as the button of the Grand Army distinguishes the man who did his work well in the Civil War. Two years later a ton of copper, bronze, and tin was taken from old French locomotives and excavators and shipped to Philadelphia, where it was made into medals by the United States Mint. These medals are about the size of a dollar and each person who has served two years is entitled to one. It is estimated that by the time the last work is done on the canal, about 6,000 of these medals will have been distributed. For each additional two years a man worked, the Canal Commission gave a bar of the same material. The Society of the Chagres, therefore, is made up of men who have served at least six years, and who have won their medals and two service bars. The emblem of the society is a circular button showing on a small, black background six horizontal bars in gold which are surrounded by a narrow gold border. In 1913 only about 400 out of the many thousands of Americans at one time or another employed in the construction of the Panama Canal were entitled to wear the insignia of this society. CHAPTER XIII THE NEGRO WORKERS The West Indian negro contributed about 60 per cent of the brawn required to build the Panama Canal. When the United States undertook the work the West Indian negro had a bad reputation as a workman. It was said that he lacked physical strength; that he had little or no pluck; that he was absolutely unreliable; that he was unusually susceptible to disease; and that in view of these things the canal never could be finished if he were to supply the greater part of the labor. But he lived down this bad reputation in large part, and, although it must be admitted that he is shiftless always, inconstant frequently, and exasperating as a rule, he developed into a good workman. The Government paid the West Indian laborer 90 cents a day, furnished him with free lodgings in quarters, and sold him three square meals a day for 9 cents each, a total of 27 cents a day for board and lodging. On the balance of 63 cents, the West Indian negro who saved was able to go back home and become a sort of Rockefeller among his compatriots. His possible savings, as a matter of fact, were about two and a half times the total wages he received in his native country. But the sanitary quarters, and the necessarily strict discipline maintained therein, did not please him. He yearned for his thatched hut in the "bush," for his family, and the freedom of the tropical world. Thus the homesickness of the well-quartered, well-fed negro became a greater hindrance to the work than the ill-fed condition of the "bush dweller." The result was that the commission reached the conclusion that it could better maintain a suitable force by allowing the negroes to live as they chose. Therefore, permission was given them to live in the "bush," and about nine-tenths of them promptly exchanged the sanitary restrictions of the commission quarters, and the wholesome food of the commission mess kitchen, for the _dolce far niente_ of the "bush." The result of this experiment in larger liberty was in part a success and in part a failure. The list of names on the roll of workers was largely lengthened, but there was no great addition to the force of the men at work on any given day. It was a common saying in the Zone that if the negro were paid twice as much he would work only half as long. Most of them worked about four days a week and enjoyed themselves the other three. It may be that the "bush dweller" was not fed as scientifically as the man in the quarters, but he had his chickens, his yam and bean patch, his family and his fiddle, and he made up in enjoyment what he lost in scientific care. Marriage bonds are loose in the West Indies, and common-law marriages are the rule rather than the exception. But, as one traveled across the Isthmus and saw the hundreds of little thatched huts lining the edge of the jungle, he could see that the families who lived there seemed to be as happy, and the children as numerous, as though both civil and religious marriage ceremonies had bound man and wife together. When the Americans first began work it was an accepted dictum that one Spaniard or one Italian could do as much work as three negroes. The negroes seemed to be weak. It took six of them to carry a railroad tie where two Spaniards might carry it as well. This belief that the Spaniard was more efficient than the negro stirred the West Indians to get down to work, and in a year or two they were almost as efficient while they were working as were the Spaniards, but the Spaniards worked six days a week while the negroes worked only four. Of course there were those who spent practically everything as they made it, and they constituted no small percentage of the total negro force. But, on the other hand, some of the negroes were industrious, constant, and thrifty. They saved all they could, working steadily for a year or two, and then went back to Jamaica or Barbados to invest their money in a bit of land and become freeholders and consequently better citizens. The negro laborers at first were obtained by recruiting agents at work in the various West Indian Islands, principally Jamaica and Barbados. The recruiting service carried about 30,000 to the Isthmus, of whom 20,000 were from Barbados and 6,000 from Jamaica. It was not more than a year or two, however, after the work got under way, until there was little occasion for recruiting. Every ship that went back to Barbados or to Jamaica carried with it some who had made what they considered a sufficient fortune. Every community possessed those who had gone to Panama with only the clothes on their backs, a small tin trunk, a dollar canvas steamer chair and, mayhap, a few chickens; and who had come back with savings enough to set them up for life. This fired dozens from each of those same communities with the desire to go and do likewise. The result was that the canal employment lists were kept full by those who came on their own initiative. The terms of entrance to the Canal Zone were easy, the steerage fares were low, and as a result the excess of arrivals over departures sometimes amounted to 20,000 in a single year. The steamship companies had to keep careful and persistent watch to prevent stowaways. Even at that there were hundreds who sought to reach the Isthmus in this way in spite of the fact that they were usually carried back without being permitted to land at Colon. There was little or no friction between the whites and the blacks on the Canal Zone. This immunity from racial clashes resulted from two causes--one was the incomparable courtesy of the West Indian negro and the other his knowledge that he could expect good treatment only so long as he kept out of trouble. Few of them, indeed, were ever inclined to be offensive. They are usually educated in the three "R's," and are also very polite. Ask one a question and the answer will be: "Oh, yes, Sir," or "Oh, no, Sir," or if he has not understood, "Beg pardon, Sir." He would no more omit the honorific than a Japanese maiden addressing her father would forget to call him "Honorable." The different types of West Indian negroes found on the Canal Zone constituted an endless study in human characteristics. They were all great lovers of travel, and no regular train ever made a trip without from two to half a dozen coaches filled with them. After pay day practically every negro on the Zone was wont to get out and get a glimpse of the country. Without exception they are adepts in carrying things on their heads; consequently, they usually possess an erect carriage and splendid bearing. It is said that the first ambition of a West Indian negro child is to learn to carry things on its head in imitation of its parents. Frequently a negro will be seen with nothing in either hand, but carrying a closed umbrella balanced horizontally on his head. Once in a while one may be seen to get a letter from the post office, place it on top of his head, weight it down with a stone, and march off without any apparent knowledge that he has executed a circus stunt. Some of the negroes who came to work on the canal never saw a wheelbarrow before arriving there. Upon one occasion some French negroes from Martinique were placed on a job of pick and shovel work. Three of them loaded a wheelbarrow with earth, then one of them stooped down, the other two put the wheelbarrow on his head and he walked away with it. But, with all of his inexperience, the Martinique negro proved to be the best West Indian worker on the canal. The Martinique negroes were the most picturesque of all the West Indians on the job. The women wore striking though simple costumes, bandana handkerchiefs around their heads, and bright-colored calico dresses usually caught up on one side or at the back, thus anticipating the Parisian fashion of the slit skirt by many years. A large number of the negroes lived in small tenement houses built by private capital, and oftener than not one room served the entire family. Nearly every one of the American settlements had its West Indian quarter where these buildings and the Chinese stores flourished to the exclusion of everything else. At the Pacific end of the Panama Railroad there was a suburb known as Caledonia, which was given over almost entirely to West Indian families. One could drive through there any day and see half-grown children dressed only in Eden's garb. In other parts of the canal territory one saw very few naked children except in the back streets of Colon. The Government took the best of care of the negroes on the work during the entire construction period. There were hospital facilities at both ends of the canal and sick camps along the line. The commissary protected them against extortion by the native merchants and gave them the same favorable rates enjoyed by the Americans. The color line was kindly but firmly drawn throughout the work, the negroes being designated as silver employees and the Americans as gold employees. The post offices had signs indicating which entrances were for silver employees and which for gold employees. The commissaries had the same provisions, and the railroad company made the general distinction as much as it could by first and second class passenger rates. Very few of the negroes ever made any protest against this. Once in awhile an American negro would go to the post office and be told that he must call at the "silver" window. He would protest for awhile, but finding it useless, would acquiesce. The idea of speaking of "silver and gold employees," rather than black and white employees, was originated by E. J. Williams, Jr., the disbursing officer of the Canal Commission. He first put this designation on the entrances to the pay car and it was immediately adopted as the solution of the troubles growing out of the intermingling of the races. One of the most interesting experiences that could come to any visitor to the Isthmus was a trip across the Zone on the pay car; to see 24 tons of silver and 1,600 pounds of gold paid out for a single month's work; and to watch the 30,000 negroes, the 5,000 Americans, and the 3,000 or 4,000 Europeans on the job file through the pay car and get their money. The negroes were usually a good-natured, grinning lot of men and boys, but they were wont to get impatient, not with the amount of money they drew but with its weight. Under an agreement with the Panama Government the Canal Commission endeavored to keep the Panaman silver money at par. Two dollars Panaman money was worth one dollar American, and the employees were paid in Panaman coin. Thus a negro who earned $22 during the month would get 44 of the "spiggoty" dollars. These "spiggoty" dollars are the same size as our own silver dollars and to carry them around was something of a task. When the negroes were asked what they proposed to do with their money the almost invariable reply was: "Put it to a good use, sir." American money was always at a premium with them and the money-changers in the various towns usually did a land-office business on pay day. Paper money was not used on the pay car at all. In the first place, there was always danger of its blowing away, and in the second place paper money in the hands of negro workmen soon assumed a most unsanitary condition. The negroes were always desirous of getting American paper money because they could send it home more cheaply than gold. Large numbers of West Indian women, the majority of them with their relatives, lived on the Zone during the construction period. They were for the most part industrious and made very good household servants. They were nearly always polite and deferential, some of them even saying, "Please, Ma'am," when saying "Good morning." It was a rare experience to travel on a ship carrying workers to the Canal Zone from the Islands of the West Indies. Ships calling at Kingston, Jamaica, would usually take on a hundred or more passengers. They would be quartered either forward or aft on the main deck. They would carry aboard with them all kinds of small packages. Some would have small boxes of chickens or pigeons, and some little old sawbuck-fashioned folding beds covered with canvas. As soon as inspected by the doctor for trachoma each negro would select the most favorable spot, gather his furniture around him, and settle down in one place, there to remain almost without moving during the whole of the 40-hour trip across the Caribbean. When the water was fine and the sailing smooth the first cabin passengers might conclude that they were carrying a negro camp meeting. On the other hand, if the weather were bad and the sea rough, a sicker lot of people nowhere might be found. One of the favorite negro preventives of seasickness is St. Thomas bay rum applied liberally to the face, although to the on-looker it never seems to prevent or cure a single case. Before landing at Colon every one of these negroes had to be vaccinated. Almost without exception they tried to prevent the virus "taking" by rubbing the scarified spot with lime juice or with some other preparation. Meals on board generally consisted of rice and potatoes, and, perhaps, coffee and bread. One might see a dozen young girls in a group eating with one hand and with the other polishing their complexions with the half of a lime. With all his faults--and they were not few--the West Indian negro laborer probably was the best workman that could have been employed for the job at Panama. He was usually as irresponsible, as carefree, and yet as reliable a workman as our own American cottonfield hand. He made a law-abiding citizen on the Zone, was tractable as a workman, and pretty certain always to make a fair return to the United States on the money it paid him in wages. Under the firm but gentle guidance of the master American hand, he did his work so well that he has forever erased from the record of his kind certain charges of inefficiency and laziness that had long stood as a black mark against him. The Canal Commission so appreciated his good work that it made arrangements to return him to his native country when his services no longer were required, there to take up the life he led before he heard the call of the "spiggoty" dollars that took him across the Caribbean. He will miss the life on the Isthmus. He was worked harder, he was treated better, and he was paid higher wages there than he ever will be again in his life. Perhaps he has saved; if so, he retires to be a nabob. Perhaps he has wasted; if so, he must go back to the hand-to-mouth existence that he knew in the days before. But after all, the experience of the thousands of West Indian negroes employed on the canal will have a stimulating effect on their home countries, and their general level of industrial and social conditions will be raised. At any rate, the American Republic always must stand indebted to these easy-going, care-free black men who supplied the brawn to break the giant back of Culebra. CHAPTER XIV THE COMMISSARY To build the canal required the labor of some fifty thousand men. To induce these men to go to Panama, to stay there, to work there, and to work there efficiently, was no light undertaking. Health was promised them by the most efficient sanitary organization that ever battled with disease. Wealth was promised them, relatively speaking, in the form of wages and salaries much higher than they could obtain at home for the same work. But health and wealth, much desired and much prized as they are, can not of themselves compensate for transplanting a man to an alien shore and an alien atmosphere, especially if that shore be tropic and that atmosphere hot. There must also be comfort. And comfort was promised to the canal diggers by the commissary department. Good food at prices cheaper than one pays in the United States, and quarters of the best--these things the commissary held out as a part of the rewards at Panama. Of course this was not the chief object of the commissary department--it was the incidental factor that in the end almost obscured the main issue. The main business was so well done that everybody took it for granted, just as no one will remark about the sun shining although that is the most important fact we know. The main business of the commissary was to keep the canal diggers fed and housed so that they would have the strength for their tasks. How this was done, how fresh beef and ice cream were made daily staples in tropic Panama, how the canal army was fed, is a big story in itself. The history of the French régime was such as to prejudice the whole world against the canal region and to deter any but the most adventurous spirit from entering there into a gamble with death. The Americans soon found that without extraordinary inducements it would be next to impossible to recruit a force able to build the canal. Therefore it was determined to make the rewards so great that extra dollars to be gained by going to Panama would outweigh the fears of those who had any desire to go. It was decided to pay the employees of the Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad Company wages and salaries approximately one-half higher than those obtaining at home for the same work. Furthermore, it was decided that the Government should furnish free quarters, free medical service, free light, and other items which enter into the expense budget of the average family. It was found advisable to establish Government hotels, messes, and kitchens, where the needs of every employee from the highest officer to the most lowly negro laborer could be met, and to operate them at cost. Still another problem had to be faced; that of providing places where the people employed in building the canal could escape from the high prices fixed by the merchants of Panama and Colon. With this end in view, a great department store, carrying upward of 5,000 different articles, was built at Cristobal. This store established branches in every settlement of canal workers where patrons could go to ship and receive the benefit of prices much lower than those prevailing with regular Panaman merchants. Anyone who will study carefully the annual reports of the operation of the commissary of the Panama Railroad Company, will realize what great profits are made by the various middlemen in the United States who handle food products between the producer and the consumer. In 1912 the commissary had gross sales amounting to $6,702,000, with purchases amounting to $5,325,000. This represents a gross profit of 26 per cent. The cost of transportation from New York and distribution on the Isthmus, amounted to about 24 per cent, leaving a net profit of approximately 2 per cent on the sales of goods. When it is remembered that transportation of commissary products from New York amounted approximately to a quarter of a million dollars a year, and that wagon deliveries on the Isthmus added $50,000 a year to this, it will be seen that the expenses of distribution at Panama were approximately on the same footing with those in the United States. In the case of dressed beef, one finds a most illuminating example of how it is possible to sell the ordinary items of a family budget to the consumer at rates much lower than those obtaining in the United States. According to the most authentic information dressed beef laid down at Panama costs more, quality for quality, than it costs the ordinary retail butcher in the States. At one time in 1912 the commissary was paying $11.94-1/4 a hundred pounds for whole dressed beeves laid down in New York. This was for the best corn-fed western steers, a grade of beef that is found only in the best retail butcher shops of any American city. Yet, with the expense of ocean-refrigerator carriage added, and with other operating costs equal to those of the retail butcher in the States, the commissary found it possible to sell to the consumer, delivered at his kitchen door, porterhouse steaks from this beef at 20 cents, sirloin steaks and roasts at 19 cents, and round steaks at 13 cents a pound. At this same time the average American housewife was paying from 26 to 30 cents for porterhouse steaks, from 22 to 26 cents for sirloin steaks and roasts, and from 17 to 22 cents for round steaks; and in the butcher shops in the United States where grades of meat comparable to those at Panama were handled the figures were usually around the top quotations. One cannot escape asking the question how it is that if the Panama Railroad commissary could pay approximately 12 cents a pound for dressed beef at New York, deliver it in refrigeration at Cristobal, thence to the housewife by train and wagon, and make a gross profit of some 26 per cent by the operation, that the American retail butcher can reasonably claim that at the price he sells his meat he is making little or no net profit. One finds the same scale of prices on other commodities at Panama as meats. Only the very best goods are handled in the commissary. Any reasonable need of any employee could be supplied by the commissary at prices probably lower than a retail merchant in the United States could buy the same commodities. A few instances of how the commissary fared when its supply ran short will serve to illustrate the grasping disposition of the average Panaman merchant. In one case high waters in the Chagres interrupted traffic on the Panama Railroad, and the price of ice in Panama City promptly jumped from 50 cents to $1 a hundred pounds. At another time a ship bringing coffee to the Isthmus ran aground and the commissary had to buy coffee in the Panama market. It had to pay 6 cents a pound more at wholesale for the coffee than it was selling for at retail in Panama the day before the ship went aground. On another occasion a vessel carrying a supply of milk went ashore and the wholesale price of that commodity jumped a hundred per cent overnight. The Panaman merchants made a long and persistent fight to get the privilege of doing the business which is done by the commissary, but the canal officials were too wise to allow the working force to be dependent upon native business men for family budget needs. Although the commissary did an annual business of nearly $7,000,000 a year during the height of the construction period, it received comparatively little actual money for the commodities it sold. A great deal of this business was with the subsistence department of the Canal Commission, furnishing supplies for the hotels, European laborers' messes, and common laborers' kitchens. Practically all of the remainder was with the employees of the commission, and was done through coupon books. When an individual wanted to buy from the commissary he asked that a coupon book be issued him. If it were found that he had sufficient money coming to him for services rendered to cover the cost of the book, it was issued to him and the clerk in the commissary detached coupons to cover the purchases. When the monthly pay roll was made up, the cost of the coupon books was deducted from the amount due the employee for services. Many employees and their families lived too far away from the commissaries to make daily visits, so they simply deposited their coupon books with the main commissary at Cristobal and sent their orders in by mail from day to day. The commissary clerks would fill these written orders, sending the goods out on the first train. In addition to buying and selling products for the benefit of the canal workers, the commissary operated a number of manufacturing establishments. It had a bakery using some 20,000 barrels of flour, baking 6,000,000 loaves of bread and other things in proportion annually; an ice-cream plant freezing 138,000 gallons of ice-cream annually; a laundry washing 4,250,000 pieces a year; a coffee-roasting plant; and a large cold-storage warehouse. About 70,000 people were constantly supplied with commodities from the commissary. In its efforts to meet the needs of the several classes of employees on the Canal Zone the commission established four different kinds of eating places,--a large general hotel, a score of line hotels, Spanish messes, and West Indian laborers' kitchens. At Ancon it built the large Tivoli Hotel costing half a million dollars, for the accommodation of visitors; and of those high-class employees who desired modern hotel facilities. This hotel is the social center of the Canal Zone. Here practically all of the tourists come and stay while on the Isthmus. During the year 1912 this hotel cleared $53,000 in its operations. The cost of the supplies for the meals served, of which there were 161,000, was approximately 51 cents per meal. The cost of services was approximately 19 cents, making a total of 70 cents per meal. The rates were $3 up to $5.50 a day, employees being given special concessions. [Illustration: JOHN BURKE MEAL TIME AT AN I. C. C. KITCHEN] [Illustration: WASHINGTON HOTEL, COLON MAJOR EUGENE T. WILSON THE TIVOLI HOTEL, ANCON] The line hotels were, more properly speaking, merely dining-rooms where the American employees were furnished substantial meals for 30 cents each. Outsiders paid 50 cents each for these meals. They were up to a very high standard. Once the late Senator Thomas H. Carter, of Montana, was a member of a Senate committee visiting the Isthmus and he invited the subsistence officer, Maj. Wilson, to come to Washington and show the manager of the Senate restaurant how to prepare a good meal. A year later, after Senator Albert B. Cummins, of Iowa, had eaten one of the lunches at Gatun, he renewed the invitation of Senator Carter, telling Maj. Wilson he was sure that if he were to come Senators would get better meals for their money. At one of the Congressional hearings on the Isthmus Representative T. W. Sims, of Tennessee, asked that the menu of a meal he had eaten at one of these hotels be inserted in the record. Major Wilson inserted the menu for several days instead. The following is the menu at the Cristobal Hotel for January 20, 1912: Breakfast.--Oranges, sliced bananas, oatmeal, eggs to order, German potatoes, ham or bacon, hot cakes, maple sirup, tea, coffee, cocoa. Lunch.--Vegetable soup, fried pork chops, apple sauce, boiled potatoes, pork and beans, sliced buttered beets, stewed cranberries, creamed parsnips, lemon meringue pie, tea, coffee, cocoa. Dinner.--Consomme vermicelli, beefsteak, natural gravy, lyonnaise potatoes, stewed beans, sliced beets, stewed apples, carrots a la Julienne, hot biscuits, ice-cream, chocolate cake, tea, coffee, cocoa. The line hotels in 1912, which were operated at a loss of $12,000, served over 2,000,000 meals. The cost of the supplies per meal amounted to $0.2504 and the service to $0.0165, making the average meal cost $0.3065, while the employees were charged 30 cents. Approximately 2,000 Americans were continuous patrons of the line hotels. The messes for European laborers were operated in 1912 at a total cost of $405,000. The returns from their operations amounted to $443,000, showing a net profit of $38,000 on 1,108,000 rations. The net profit per day's ration approximated 3-1/2 cents. The supplies entering into the ration cost $0.3106 and the service of preparing it $0.0547. The national diet for Europeans would appear very monotonous to Americans. For the Spaniards who constituted the major portion of the European employees, it was a "rancho," which is a mixture of stewed meat, potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes and garbanzos heavily flavored with Spanish sweet pepper. Their soups were made very stiff, really a meal in themselves, since they were about the consistency of Irish stew mashed up. A day's ration for Spanish laborers ran about as follows: Breakfast.--Roast beef, pork sausage, corned-beef, sardines or bacon, one-half loaf of bread, chocolate and milk. Dinner.--Garbanzos or macaroni, roast beef or hamburger steak, fried potatoes, oranges or bananas, one-half loaf of bread, coffee. Supper.--Rice soup, peas or beans, rancho, one-quarter loaf of bread, tea. The Government charged the European laborers 40 cents a day for their meals. Their mess halls were large, airy, comfortable and conspicuously clean. The European laborers nearly all patronized these mess halls; about 3,200 of them constantly were fed at these places. Wherever there was a West Indian negro settlement along the line of the canal the commission operated a mess kitchen. These kitchens were kept scrupulously clean and the laborers were furnished meals at 9 cents each. Each laborer who patronized the kitchen had his little kit into which the attendants put his meal, and he could carry it anywhere he desired to eat it. In spite of the fact that these meals corresponded almost exactly to the American Regular Army field rations, they were never popular with the West Indian negroes. Although there were some 25,000 of these laborers on the canal in 1912, only a little more than a half million rations were issued to them during the year. Less than 15 per cent of the negro force patronized the commission kitchen. The following is a specimen day's ration in a West Indian kitchen: Breakfast.--Cocoa and milk, porridge, bread, jam. Dinner.--Pea soup, beef, doughboys, rice, bread, bananas. Supper.--Stewed beef, boiled potatoes, stewed navy beans, bread, tea. During the construction period of the canal the average American received approximately $150 a month for his labor. Those who were married and remained in the service a reasonable time were provided, rent free, with family quarters. Their light bills were never rendered, the coal for their kitchen stoves cost them nothing, and the iceman never came around to collect. The bachelors were provided with bachelor quarters with the necessary furniture for making them comfortable. The average married quarters cost from $1,200 to $1,800 each, and the average quarters for a bachelor about $500 to construct. The higher officials had separate houses; lesser officials were furnished with semi-detached houses. The majority of the rank and file of American married employees were housed in roomy, four-flat houses. The verandas were broad and screened in with the best copper netting, and all quarters were provided with necessary furniture at Government expense. The assignment of quarters and furniture called for a great deal of diplomacy on the part of the quartermaster's department, since, if Mrs. Jones happened to visit Mrs. Smith, and found that she had a swell-front dresser in her bedroom, while her own was a straight-front dresser, an irate lady was very shortly calling on the district quartermaster and demanding to know why such discrimination should be practiced. Perhaps she had been on the Canal Zone longer than Mrs. Smith, and felt that if anyone were entitled to the swell-front dresser she was the one. The district quartermaster had to explain with all the patience at his command that it was not a case of discrimination but merely that the commission had bought swell-front dressers at a later date for the same price that it formerly had paid for the straight-front ones, and that consequently the people who furnished houses later got them. On another occasion Mrs. Brown, calling on Mrs. White, found that Mrs. White had an electric light on her side porch. She immediately fared forth to pull the hair of the quartermaster for this discrimination, but was somewhat taken back when that official calmly informed her that the light had been put there for a few days in anticipation of a children's party that was to be given by Mrs. White one night that week. The marvelous success of the commissary, not only in affording its patrons better service at lower prices, but also in making a substantial profit on the undertaking, had been referred to as the most valuable lesson taught by the whole canal digging operation. It has proved the efficiency of government agencies in fields far removed from the ordinary operations of government, and it may be that its experience will be used to advantage in combating the high cost of living in the United States itself. CHAPTER XV LIFE ON THE ZONE Transplant a man or a woman from a home in a temperate climate to an abode in the Tropics, and there is bound to be trouble. Disturbances in the body are expected and, proper precautions being taken, most often are warded off. Disturbances in the mind are not anticipated, preventive measures are seldom taken, and there comes the trouble. That is why the Young Men's Christian Association and the American Federation of Women's Clubs had their part to do in digging the Panama Canal, a part second in importance only to the sanitary work under Colonel Gorgas. It's an odd thing--this transplanting a man from the temperate to the torrid zone. It affects men of different nations in different ways. It is disastrous in inverse ratio to the adaptability of the man transplanted. A German or a Dutchman goes to the Tropics and almost without a struggle yields to the demands of the new climate all his orderly daily habits. Your Dutchman in Java will, except on state occasions, wear the native dress (or undress); eat the native food; live in the native house; and, like as not, take a native woman to wife. One thing only--he will retain his schnapps. The German is only a little less adaptable, clings only a little longer to the routine of the Fatherland, but he, too, keeps his beer. Your Englishman, on the contrary, defies the tropical sun and scorns to make any changes in his daily habit that he had not fixed upon as necessary and proper before he left his right little, tight little, island. He does, it is true, wear a pith helmet. That is due partly, perhaps, to his fear of the sun, but it is much more due to the fact that he associates it with lands where faces are not white; therefore he wears it in Egypt in the winter when it is shivery cold with the same religious devotion that he wears it in India when the mercury is running out of the top of the thermometer. Your Englishman, it is true, wears white duck clothes in the Tropics, but not the fiercest heat that old Sol ever produced could induce him for one moment to exchange his flannel underwear for cotton or to leave off his woolen hose. It is a pretty theory and not without much support, that it is this British defiance of tropical customs that has given him the mastery over Tropic peoples. And wherever goes the Briton there goes also Scotch-and-soda. The Americans steer a middle course. They dress for the heat and make themselves comfortable as possible. They consume even greater quantities of ice than they do at home, and the average American eats every day in summer enough ice to kill a score of Englishmen. At least, that's what the Englishmen would think. But the American in the Tropics tenaciously clings to many of his home habits, despite the changed conditions of his place of sojourn. He must have his bath, even though he talks less about it than the Englishman. He must have his three square meals a day, and breakfast must be a real breakfast. He demands screens to protect him from pestiferous insects, no less for comfort's sake than health's. And then he demands two other things--a soda fountain and a base-ball team. It is true that he often will indulge in a British peg of Scotch-and-soda, or in a German stein of beer, but the native drink that he takes with him to the Tropics, and one that he alone consumes, and the one that he, in season and out of season, demands, is the sweet, innocent, and non-alcoholic product of the soda fountain. How incomprehensible is this to the sons of other nations no American may ever understand. It may seem to be going far field to discuss even in the general way the differing tempers of men of different nations transplanted from a temperate to a torrid clime. But, as a matter of fact, it has a direct bearing on the accomplishment at Panama, of which Americans are so proud. [Illustration: FLOYD C. FREEMAN I. C. C. CLUB HOUSE AT CULEBRA] [Illustration: A. BRUCE MINEAR READING ROOM IN THE I. C. C. CLUB HOUSE, CULEBRA] When the Americans first undertook the task, the denizens of the Isthmus prepared for them only such entertainment as had been acceptable in other days. The only places open to the tired worker in the evening were the saloons, selling bad whiskey and worse beer; or darker hells of sure and quick damnation. There were no theaters that would appeal to the American taste, no sports that the clean American would tolerate. In short, when the American in the early days of the construction was wearied with that weariness that would not respond to resting, there was but one thing left. He got home--sick and drunk. In those early days there were few women. Most of the men who came then were moved rather by a spirit of adventure than by a determination to share in a tremendous job of work, and such men were not married. It was not long until the men at the head discovered that the married men were more content, that they lost less time from the work, and produced more results when on the job than did the bachelors. (This, of course, must not be taken as an indictment against every individual bachelor who worked at Panama, but rather as a characterization based on the average of that class.) Thus in the very order of things it became the policy of the commission to encourage unmarried men at work to marry, and to bring married men from the States rather than bachelors. Inducements were held out, putting a premium on matrimony. The bachelor worker had good quarters, but he perhaps shared but a room in a bungalow, whereas the married man had a four-room house of his own, with a big porch, and free furniture, free light, and the problem of the cost of living solved by the paternal commissary. So matrimony flourished. But when the women came in increasing numbers, and with them many children, another problem arose. Women born in temperate climes suffer more in the Tropics than do men. The dry, dry heat of the dry season is succeeded by the wet, wet heat of the rainy months. There is never any escape from that horrible, hateful, hellish heat. Is it to be baked or steamed? The changing seasons offer no other alternative. And the Fear! Not for a moment may one forget that sickness and death stalk in the jungle; that a glass of water or an unscreened door may be the end of it all. There is no normality, no relaxation, no care free rest for the woman in the Tropics. At Panama her housekeeping duties were lightened by the excellence of the commissary system, so that they were not enough to keep her mind occupied. She became homesick and hysterical. So, then, it being desirable to have married men on the job, it became necessary to do something to keep the women at the minimum stage of unhappiness. The Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, with their gymnasiums, their libraries, their games, their sports, and their clubiness, had been the substitute for home offered to the lonely American man at Panama. The Civic Federation was invited to do what it could for the women. It sent an agent of the American Federation of Women's Clubs to Panama, who organized women's clubs, and these, by putting the women to work, made them, in a measure, forget the Heat and the Fear. Miss Helen Varick Boswell visited the Isthmus in the fall of 1907 and assisted the women in forming their clubs. She found them literally hungry for such activities and they responded with a will to her suggestion. The result was frequent meetings in every town in the Canal Zone and innumerable activities on the part of the women interested in club work. The transformation was most remarkable. Where almost every woman on the Isthmus seemed to be unhappy, now everyone who needed an outlet for her mental and social instincts found it in club work. Where once they quarreled and disputed about their house furnishings, life on the Isthmus, and the general status of things on the Canal Zone, now the women seemed to take a happy and contented view of things, and became as much interested in the work of building the canal as were their husbands, their fathers, and their brothers. Looking back over the task, and realizing how much longer the married men stayed on the job, and how much more essential they were to the completion of the canal than the bachelors, the cares of the canal authorities to keep the women satisfied was a master stroke. When the club movement was launched one of the first steps was to organize classes in Spanish. Women from every part of the Zone attended these Spanish classes and took up the work of learning the language with zeal. Comparatively few of them had any opportunity to learn Spanish, even in its most rudimentary form, from household servants, since the same lethargy that characterized the native men of Panama, and made them totally indifferent to the opportunities for work on the Canal Zone, also characterized the Panaman women, with the results that most of the American households at Panama had English-speaking Jamaican servants instead of Spanish-speaking Panamans. The servant problem was not as serious as it is in the average American city. There was always a full supply of Jamaican negro women ready for engagement as household servants. They were polite and efficient. Almost without exception they had a deeply religious turn of mind, although they might transgress the Mosaic law far enough to substitute plain water for violet water on the boudoir table of their mistresses. Usually they were very neat of person and very careful in the manner of doing their work. The wages they commanded were approximately equal to those asked in the ordinary American city. The greatest social diversion of the Isthmus, of course, was dancing. Every two weeks the Tivoli Club gave a dance at the Tivoli Hotel. Trains to carry visitors were run all the way across the Isthmus and no American ever needed to miss a dance at the Tivoli Hotel because of unsuitable railroad accommodations. Each small town had its own dancing clubs and in those towns where there were Y. M. C. A. buildings, the dances were held in them. The new Hotel Washington proved a very popular rendezvous for the dancers, and in the future the big functions of this kind probably will alternate between the Tivoli at one end of the canal and the Washington at the other. The university men maintained the University Club in the city of Panama, directly on the water front. This club frequently opened its doors to women and its functions were always regarded as events in Isthmian social history. In Colon there was organized several years ago a club known as the Stranger's Club. This club, as did the University Club at Panama, welcomed the American stranger. The Isthmian Canal Commission always looked carefully after the religious activities of the people of the Canal Zone. Its provision of places of worship and facilities for getting to them was strictly nonsectarian, and directed solely to giving every sect and every faith opportunity to worship in its own way. Several chaplains were maintained at Government expense, and railroad and wagonette service for carrying people to their places of worship was maintained throughout the years of the American occupation. The West Indian negroes were provided with churches and with homes for the leaders of their spiritual flocks. Church buildings were erected at every settlement, and in many cases were so constructed that the lower story could be used for a church and the second story for lodge purposes. These buildings were 70 by 36 feet, with lodge rooms 60 by 36 feet. The women on the Canal Zone were interested in religious work from the beginning of their residence there. An Isthmian Sunday School Association maintained church extension work. When the Women's Federation of Clubs finally disbanded, in April, 1913, it presented its library to this association and its pictures to the Ancon Study Club. There was an art society at Ancon, which did much to foster art work on the Zone during the days of the canal construction. The organization of Camp Fire Girls extended its activities to Panama, and many leading women there contributed both means and time to help the girls on the Isthmus. The women of the Zone did not fail to enlist themselves in any movement for good in their communities. A few years since there was a little blind boy on the Isthmus and the Federation of Women's Clubs decided that he ought to have better educational advantages than could be provided at Panama. Therefore, they agreed to finance his going to Boston to enter an institution for the education of the blind. When the Federation disbanded, owing to the gradual departure of members for the States, it did not do so until it had created a committee which was to continue indefinitely in charge of the education of this blind boy. Many secret societies existed on the Isthmus, the oldest one made up of Americans being the Sojourners Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, organized in Colon in 1898. There were Odd Fellows' lodges and lodges of Redmen, Modern Woodmen, Knights of Pythias, Elks, Junior Order of American Mechanics, and representative bodies of many other American secret orders. An Isthmian order is that of the Kangaroos, whose motto is: "He is best who does best." This order was organized in 1907 under the laws of Tennessee, and the mother council was organized at Empire the same year. The object of the Kangaroos is to hold mock sessions of court and to extract from them all of the fun and, at the same time, all of the good that they will yield. The men on the Isthmus, almost completely isolated as they were from American political concerns, never allowed their interest in political affairs at home to become completely atrophied. There was a common saying that the Panamans were the only people on the Isthmus that could vote, but at times the Americans would at least simulate politics at home with the resulting campaigns and elections. During the presidential campaign of 1912 it was decided to hold a mock election in several of the American settlements. The elections were for national offices and for municipal offices as well. There were a number of parties, and in the national elections there were the usual group of insurgents, progressives, reactionaries, and the like. There were nominations for dog catchers and town grouches, while the party platforms abounded in all the political claptrap of the ordinary American document of like nature. Cartoons were circulated showing the Panama Railroad to be a monopolistic corporation; flaring handbills proving that the latest town grouch had not acquitted himself properly in office; statistical tables showing that the dog catcher had allowed more dogs to get away from him than he had caught; and all sorts of other campaign tricks and dodges were brought into play, just as though there were real issues at stake and real men to be elected. At Colon the presidential returns showed 33 votes for Taft, 200 for Wilson and 224 for Roosevelt. There were 204 votes in favor of Woman Suffrage, both state and national, and 75 votes against it. As has been said, when the American first went to Panama the only diversion a man could find was to go to a cheap saloon and meet his friends. It was a condition that was as unsatisfactory to the men themselves as it was to the moral sentiment of those behind the work, and almost as dangerous to the success of the undertaking as would have been an outbreak of some epidemic disease. This led the commission to urge the erection of clubhouses in several of the more populous settlements, to be conducted under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association, but to be operated on a basis that would bring to the people those rational amusements of which they stood so much in need. From time to time clubhouses of this type were established in seven of the American settlements and the work they did in promoting the contentment and happiness of the people can be appreciated only by those who have witnessed the conditions of living in Canal Zone towns where there were no such clubhouses. Almost the first effect of the construction of a clubhouse was a heavy falling off in barroom attendance, and simultaneously a decline in the receipts from the sales of liquor. It is estimated that these receipts fell off 75 per cent within a short time after the clubhouses were opened. The men who had been buying beer at 25 cents a bottle, or whiskey at 15 cents a thimbleful, were now frequenting the clubhouses, playing billiards, rolling tenpins, writing letters, reading their home papers, or engaging in other diversions which served to banish homesickness. When the Y. M. C. A. clubhouses were opened a practical man was put at the head of each. While no one would think of card-playing or dancing at a Y. M. C. A. in the States, both were to be found in the association clubhouses of the Isthmus. Bowling alleys, billiard rooms, gymnasiums, and many other features for entertainment were established in the clubhouses. Bowling teams were organized; billiard and pool contests were started; gymnastic instruction was given; pleasant reading rooms with easy chairs, cool breezes, and good lights were provided; circulating libraries were established; good soda fountains were put in operation where one could get a glass of soda long enough to quench the deepest thirst; and in general the clubhouses were made the most attractive places in town--places where any man, married or single, might spend his leisure moments with profit and with pleasure. Every effort was put forth to capitalize the spirit of rivalry in the interest of the men. The result was that in each clubhouse there were continuous contests of one kind or another, which afforded entertainment for those engaged and held the interest of those who were looking on. Then the champions of each clubhouse, whether individuals or teams, were pitted against the stars of other places, and in this way there was always "something doing" around each clubhouse. In addition to maintaining a supervision over the sports of the Isthmus, the clubhouses provided night schools for those who desired to improve such educational opportunities. These night schools were rather well patronized by the new arrivals on the Isthmus, but there is something in that climate which, after a man has been there for a year, makes him want to rest whenever he is off duty. Going to night school became an intolerable bore by that time, so very few men kept up their attendance after the first year. The study of Spanish was found to be one exception to this rule, for, besides the satisfaction of being able to talk with native Panamans and the Spaniards, there was the hope of financial reward. Any employee who could pass an examination in Spanish stood a better show of getting promotion in the service. Besides, the man who had grit enough to carry through a course of study on the Isthmus, with its enervating climate, was almost certain to climb the ladder of success wherever he went. A review of the work of the seven Y. M. C. A. clubhouses for 1912 gives a good idea of what they did during the entire construction period. It required a force of 42 Americans and 64 West Indians to operate these seven clubhouses. Twelve of the Americans were paid out of the funds of the Canal Commission and 30 out of the funds of the Y. M. C. A. Of the negro employees 43 were paid by the Canal Commission and 21 by the Y. M. C. A. The American force for all seven clubhouses consisted of one superintendent, four secretaries, four assistant secretaries, one clerk, ten night clerks, six bowling alley night attendants, six pool room night attendants, and seven barbers. At the end of that year there were 2,100 members of the Y. M. C. A., no less than 58 per cent of all the American employees living in towns having clubhouses being members of the association. During the year seven companies of players and musicians were engaged to provide amusement a the clubhouses. They gave 85 entertainments which had a total attendance of 21,000. Local talent and moving pictures provided 406 entertainments with a total attendance of 96,000. Amateur oratorio societies, operatic troupes, minstrel troupes, glee clubs, mixed choruses, vaudeville and black-face sketches were organized during the year through the efforts of the members cooperating with the secretaries. These organizations made the whole circuit of the Isthmus. Weekly moving-picture exhibitions were given and a man was employed who gave his entire attention to them. Carefully chosen films were ordered from the United States, special attention being given to educational features. Special tournaments in bowling, billiards, and pool were organized and gold, silver, and bronze medals were awarded the winners. Over a hundred thousand bowling games and nearly 300,000 games of pool and billiards were played during the year. Trained physical directors were employed to direct the gymnastic exercises at the clubhouses and there was an attendance of 15,000 at these classes during the year. A pentathlon meet was held at Empire for the purpose of developing all-around athletes. Religious meetings and song services were held at such times as not to interfere with the organized religious work on the Zone, the average attendance at 214 meetings being 50 and the average attendance at Bible and discussion clubs 52. The average enrollment was 65 in the Spanish class. Forty-two thousand books were withdrawn for home reading during the year. Soft drinks, ice-cream, light lunches, and the like were served on the cool verandas of the clubhouses, the receipts from these sales amounting to approximately $50,000. Nearly 4,000 calls on hospital patients were made by committees for the visitation of the sick. Boys from 10 to 16 years of age were allowed special privileges in the clubhouses, and the secretaries arranged several outings during the year. The total boys' membership was 146. The disbursements from the funds of the Isthmian Canal Commission amounted to $50,000 and those from clubhouse funds amounted to $114,000. The total receipts for the year amounted to $118,000. The affairs of the clubhouses were in the hands of the advisory committee appointed by the chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission. In providing amusements the Canal Commission overlooked no opportunity in the way of furnishing special trains and affording other facilities for encouraging play by the canal workers. Each town had its ball team and its ball park, and there was just as much enthusiasm in watching the standing of the several clubs in the isthmian League as in the States in watching the performances of the several clubs in the American and National leagues. When there was a championship series to be played there was just as much excitement over it as if it were a post-season contest between the Athletics and the Giants. It is probable that better amusements will be provided under the permanent régime than were during the construction period. With ships constantly passing through the canal, many opera companies, especially those from Spain and Italy, will have opportunity to stop for a night or two at Panama, while their ships are coaling or shipping cargo. In Panama City there is a splendid theater built by the Panaman Government largely out of funds derived from payments made by the United States on account of the canal rights. As the major portion of the permanent force will be quartered at Ancon and Balboa, they will be able to drive to the theater or take the street car. A new street-car system has just been established, and those who can not afford the luxury of carriages will find in it opportunities for taking airings as well as going to the theater. This system runs from the permanent settlement at Balboa through the city of Panama and down over the savannahs towards old Panama. It is the first street-car system ever operated on the Isthmus, and will probably prove much more satisfactory than the little, old, dirty coaches which have afforded the only means of transportation on the Zone. The building of a number of roads along the canal to facilitate the movement of military forces has made it possible to get a satisfactory use of automobiles. Agencies already have been opened for a number of the lower-priced cars in anticipation that a large number of the canal employees will buy automobiles in order to get the benefit of these good roads. There are few places where automobiling affords more pleasant diversion than at Panama. After the sun goes down the evenings are just cool enough and the breezes just strong enough to make an automobile ride a delightful experience. There are good opportunities for lovers of hunting and fishing on the Isthmus. There is wild game in plenty--deer abounding in the entire region contiguous to the canal and alligators being found in all of the principal streams. There are both sea and river fishing, and some tapirs and other wild animals still are left to attract the efforts of the modern huntsman. The entertainment headquarters on the Canal Zone under the permanent occupation will be the big clubhouse at Balboa, which is being built at a cost of about $50,000. This clubhouse will not only have all of the features of the clubhouses of the construction period, but will be equipped with a large auditorium, with a complete library and with every facility for amusement and entertainment that experience on the Isthmus has called for. It can not be said that social life on the Isthmus during the period of canal construction was ideal. Its inspiration was to be found in the desire to make the best of a bad situation. Men and women all knew that their stay in Panama was but temporary, none of them looked upon the Canal Zone as home, and all of them counted time in two eras--Before we came to Panama, and When we leave Panama. Of course there was dining and dancing, and the bridge tables were never idle. But every dinner hostess knew that every guest knew exactly what every dish on the table cost, and she knew that guest knew she knew. The family income was fixed and public. All one had to do was to read the official bulletins. The same paternalistic commissary that reduced the cost of living and made housekeeping so easy, also tended with socialistic frankness to bring everybody to a dead level. It was useless to attempt any of the little deceits that make life so interesting at home. Although the American is a home-loving animal, he managed to get on fairly well in the alien atmosphere of the Tropic jungle. He brought with him his home life, his base ball and his soda fountain. And, considering how such things go in the Tropics, he managed to live a clean life while he was doing a clean piece of work. CHAPTER XVI PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS The digging of an Isthmian Canal was a dream in the minds of many men in Europe and America from the day that Columbus found two continents stretched across his pathway in his endeavor to discover a western route to India. On his last voyage, as he beat down the coast of Central America, here naming one cape "Gracias a Dios" and there another "Nombre de Dios," testifying his thanks to God and his reverence for His name, he touched the Isthmus near the present Atlantic terminus of the Panama Canal. He little dreamed that some day ships 500 times as large as his own would pass through the barrier of mountains which Nature interposed between his ambitions and India. The idea of a canal through the American Isthmus was in the mind of Charles V of Spain as early as 1520. In that year he ordered surveys to ascertain the practicability of a canal connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. His son, Philip II did not agree with him about the desirability of a trans-Isthmian waterway, holding that a shipway through the Isthmus would give to other nations easy access to his new possessions, and in time of war might be of greater advantage to his enemies than to himself. He invoked the Bible to put an end to these propositions to dig a canal across the American Isthmus, calling to mind that the Good Book declared that "what God hath joined together let no man put asunder." The policy of Philip was continued for about two centuries, although in the reign of his father many efforts had been made in the direction of a ship waterway across the Isthmus. In fact, ships crossed the Isthmus nearly four centuries before the completion of the canal. About 1521 Gil Gonzales was sent to the New World to seek out a strait through the Isthmus. He sailed up and down the Central American coast, entering this river and that, but failing of course to find a natural waterway. Not to be outdone, he decided to take his two caravels to pieces and to transport them across the Isthmus. He carried them on the backs of Indians and mules from the head of navigation on the Chagres River to the ancient city of Panama. There he rebuilt them and set out to sea, but they were lost in a storm. Still determined to make the most of his opportunities, Gonzales built others to take their places and with these made his way up the Pacific coast through the Gulf of Fonseca to Nicaragua, where he discovered Lake Nicaragua. A few years later another explorer made a trip across Lake Nicaragua and down the San Juan River to the Atlantic. Cortez, the conquistador of Mexico, at one time was ordered to use every resource at his command in a search for the longed-for strait. He did not find it, but he did open up a line of communication across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec, following practically the same line as was afterwards followed by Eads with his proposed ship railway. From those days to the time when the United States decided that the canal should be built at Panama and that it should be made a national undertaking, one route after another was proposed. In 1886, immediately after the French failure, the Senate requested the Secretary of the Navy to furnish all available information pertaining to the subject of a canal across the Isthmus, and Admiral Charles H. Davis reported that 19 canal and 7 railway projects had been proposed, the most northerly across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec and the most southerly across the Isthmus of Panama at the Gulf of Darien, 1,400 miles apart. Eight of these projects were located in Nicaragua. In 1838 the Republic of New Granada, which then had territorial possession of the Isthmus of Panama, granted a concession to a French company to build a canal across the Isthmus. This company claimed to have found a pass through the mountains only 37 feet above sea level. In 1843 the French minister of foreign affairs instructed Napoleon Carella to investigate these claims. That engineer found no such pass and reported the claims to be worthless. He, in turn, advocated a canal along the route followed by the present Panama Canal, with a 3-mile tunnel through Culebra Mountain and with 18 locks on the Atlantic slope and 16 locks on the Pacific slope. He estimated the cost of such a canal at $25,000,000. The first formal surveys of the Panama route were made in 1827 by J. A. Lloyd. He recommended a combination rail and water route, with a canal on the Atlantic side and a railroad on the Pacific side. The first serious proposition to build a Nicaragua Canal was made in 1779 when the King of England ordered an investigation into the feasibility of connecting the Nicaraguan lakes with the sea. A year later Capt. Horatio Nelson, destined to become the hero of Trafalgar, headed an expedition from Jamaica to possess the Nicaraguan lakes, which he considered to be the inland Gibraltar of Spanish America, commanding the only water pass between the oceans. His expedition was successful as far as overcoming Spanish opposition was concerned, but a deadlier enemy than the Don decimated his ranks. Of the 200 who set out with Nelson only 10 survived, and Nelson himself narrowly escaped with his life after a long illness. In 1825 what now constitute the several countries of Central America were embraced in one federation--the Central American Republic. It asked the cooperation of the American people in the construction of a canal through Nicaragua. Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, favored the proposition, and, in 1826, the Federation entered into a contract with Aaron H. Palmer, of New York, for the construction of a canal through Nicaragua capable of accommodating the largest vessels afloat. Palmer was unable to command the necessary capital and the concession lapsed. A few years later an English corporation sent John Bailey to Nicaragua for the purpose of securing a canal concession. He failed to get the concession but was later employed by the Nicaraguan Government, which again had become independent, to determine the most feasible location for a canal across Nicaragua. The United States Government became deeply interested in Isthmian Canal projects during the Forties of the last century. The extension of the national domain to the Pacific coast made the building of an Isthmian Canal a consideration of prime importance to the United States, and made it a dangerous policy to allow any other country to acquire a dominating hand over an Isthmian waterway. The result was that the American Government advised the British Government that it would not tolerate the control of any Isthmian Canal by any foreign power. This later brought about the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which made neutral the proposed Nicaraguan Canal. In 1849 Elijah Hise, representing the United States, negotiated a treaty with Nicaragua, by the terms of which that country gave to the United States, or its citizens, exclusive right to construct and operate roads, railways, canals, or any other medium of transportation across its territory between the two oceans. The consideration exacted by Nicaragua was that the United States should guarantee the independence of that country--a consideration that was then paramount because of the effort being made by Great Britain to gobble up the "Mosquito Coast" as far east as the San Juan River. The United States was not ready to give such a guarantee--although a half century later it did give it to the Republic of Panama--and the Hise treaty failed of ratification in the Senate. A little later Cornelius Vanderbilt became interested in a canal and road across Nicaragua under an exclusive concession running for 85 years. Modifications of this concession permitted the Vanderbilt Company to exercise exclusive navigation rights on the lakes of Nicaragua. As a result the Accessory Transit Company established a transportation line from the Atlantic through the San Juan River and across Lake Nicaragua, thence by stage coach over a 13-mile stretch of road to San Juan del Sur on the Pacific. In 1852 Col. Orville Childs made a report to President Fillmore upon the results of his surveys for a Nicaraguan Canal; and, if the United States, in 1902, had elected to build the Nicaraguan Canal, the route laid out by Childs would have been followed for all but a few miles of the entire distance. In 1858 a French citizen obtained from Nicaragua and Costa Rica a joint concession for a canal, which contained a provision that the French Government should have the right to keep two warships on Lake Nicaragua as long as the canal was in operation. The United States politely informed Nicaragua and Costa Rica that it would not permit any such agreement--that it would be a menace to the United States as long as the agreement was in force. Upon these representations the concession was canceled. In 1876 the first Nicaraguan Canal Commission created by the American Congress made a unanimous report in favor of a canal across Nicaragua, after it had investigated all the proposed routes from eastern Mexico to western South America. It asserted that this route possessed, both for the construction and maintenance of the canal, greater advantages and fewer difficulties from engineering, commercial, and economic points of view than any one of the other routes shown to be practicable by surveys sufficient in detail to enable a judgment to be formed of their respective merits. When the first French Panama Canal Company began its work all other projects fell by the wayside for the time being, just as all other plans for interoceanic canals were abandoned when the United States undertook the construction of the present canal. After that company failed, however, the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua was organized in 1889 by A. G. Menocal, under concessions from the Government of that country and Costa Rica. The Atlantic end of this canal, as proposed by the Maritime Canal Company, was located on the lagoon west of Greytown. The Pacific end was located at Brito, a few miles from San Juan del Sur. This canal company built three-fourths of a mile of canal, constructed a temporary railway and a short telegraph line, but soon thereafter became involved in financial difficulties which led to a suspension of operations. Even to this day the visitor to Nicaragua may see many evidences of the wrecked hopes of that period for whatever town he visits he finds there Americans and Europeans who went to Nicaragua at the time of the opening of the work of building a canal by the Maritime Canal Company. They expected to find a land of opportunity. But, with failure of the canal project, they found themselves in the possession of properties whose value lay only in staying there and operating them. When the first Isthmian Canal Commission, in 1899, undertook to investigate all of the proposed routes across the connecting link between North and South America, it placed on the Nicaraguan route alone 20 working parties, made up of 159 civil engineers, their assistants, and 455 laborers. The entire work of exploring the Nicaraguan route was done with the greatest care. The depth of the canal, as adopted by the commission, was 35 feet and the minimum width 150 feet. The locks were to be 840 feet long and 84 feet wide, and of these there were to be eight on the Pacific and six on the Atlantic side. This canal was to be 184 miles long. At the Atlantic end there was to be a 46-mile sea-level section and at the Pacific end a 12-mile sea-level section, while the water in the middle 126-mile section was to be 145 feet above the water in the two oceans. It was estimated that it would cost $189,000,000 to build the Nicaraguan Canal. Although the distance between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the United States would have been more than 400 miles shorter by the Nicaragua Canal than by the Panama Canal, it would have taken about 24 hours longer to pass through the former than through the latter, so that, as far as length of time from Atlantic to Pacific ports was concerned, the two routes would have been practically on a par. The total amount of material it would have been necessary to excavate at Nicaragua approximates, according to the estimates, 228,000,000 cubic yards. This would have been increased, perhaps, by half, to make a canal large enough to accommodate ships such as will be accommodated by the present Panama Canal. The three great trans-Isthmian projects may be said to have been: The Panama Canal, the Nicaraguan Canal, and the James B. Eads ship railway across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec. The latter proposition seems to be the most remarkable, in some ways, of them all. In 1881, James B. Eads, the great engineer who built the Mississippi River bridge at St. Louis, and whose work in jetty construction at the mouths of the Mississippi proved him to be one of the foremost engineers of his day, secured a charter from the Mexican Government conveying to him authority to utilize the Isthmus of Tehauntepec for the construction of a ship railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. His plan called for a railway 134 miles long, with the highest point over 700 feet above the sea, and designed to carry vessels up to 7,000 tons. He calculated that the entire cost of the railway would not be more than $50,000,000. His plan was to build a railroad with a large number of tracks on which a huge cradle would run. This cradle would be placed under a ship, and the ship braced in the manner of one in dry dock. Heavy coiled springs were to equalize all stresses and to prevent shocks to the vessel. A number of powerful locomotives would be hitched to the cradle and would pull it across the Isthmus. Although the proposition was indorsed by many authorities, it seems to anyone who has crossed the Isthmus of Tehauntepec that it was a most visionary scheme. [Illustration: COL. CHESTER L. HARDING THE GATUN UPPER LOCKS] [Illustration: LIEUT. COL. DAVID D. GAILLARD CULEBRA CUT, SHOWING CUCARACHA SLIDE IN LEFT CENTER] If one can imagine a ship railway across the Allegheny Mountains between Lewiston Junction and Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania Railroad, or between Washington and Goshen, Va., on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, he will have a very good idea of the difficulties which would be encountered in building such a railway. The present Tehauntepec railroad is 188 miles long. When crossing the Cordilleras there are numerous places on this road where the rear car of the train and the engine are traveling in diametrically opposite directions. The road is well-built, and, as one crosses the backbone of the continent, and beholds the engineering difficulties that were encountered in building an ordinary American railroad, he can not help but marvel at the confidence of a man who would endeavor to build across those mountains a shipway large enough and straight enough to carry a 7,000-ton ship. Yet Captain Eads estimated that his shipway could be constructed in four years at one-half the cost of the Nicaraguan Canal; that vessels could be transported by rail much more quickly than by canal; that in case of accident the railway could be repaired more speedily; and that it could be enlarged to carry heavier ships as business demanded. He declared that he did not think it would be as difficult to build a ship railway across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec as to build a harbor at the Atlantic entrance of the Nicaraguan Canal. His confidence in his project was such that he proposed to build a short section of the road to prove its practicability before asking the United States to commit itself to the project. Commodore T. D. Wilson, at that time Chief Constructor of the United States Navy, declared in a letter to Captain Eads that he did not believe the strains upon a ship hauled across the Isthmus, as Eads proposed, would be greater than those to which ocean steamers are constantly exposed. Gen. P. T. G. Beauregard, of Confederate Army fame, declared that a loaded ship would incur less danger in being transported on a smooth and well-built railway than it would encounter in bad weather on the ocean. A prominent English firm offered to undertake the building and completion of the necessary works for placing ships with their cargo on the railway tracks of the trans-Isthmian line, declaring that they had no hesitation in guaranteeing the lifting of a fully loaded ship of 8,000 or 10,000 tons on a railway car to the level of the railroad in 30 minutes, if the distance to be lifted was not over 50 feet. The death of Captain Eads ended this picturesque project. A proposition once was made to build a canal across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec. This would have required 30 locks on each side of the Isthmus of 25 feet each, and these locks alone would have cost, on the basis of the locks at Panama, perhaps as much as the whole Panama Canal. One of the narrowest parts of the Isthmus is that lying between the present Panama Canal route and the South American border. Three routes were proposed in this section, known as the Atrato River route, the Caledonia route, and the San Blas route. It was found that a canal built along any one of these routes would require a tunnel. The estimated cost of building a tunnel 35 feet deep, 100 feet wide at the bottom, and 117 feet on the waterline, with a height of 115 feet from the water surface, the entire tunnel being lined with concrete 5 feet thick, would approximate $22,500,000 a mile. The cost of building a canal along one of these routes would have been greater than that of building either the Nicaragua Canal or the Panama Canal. The question of an Isthmian Canal will probably be forever set at rest at no distant date. In an effort to forestall for all time any competition in the canal business across the American Isthmus, negotiations are now under way whereby the United States seeks to acquire the exclusive rights for a canal through Nicaragua, just as it now possesses exclusive rights for a canal through the Republic of Panama. The conclusion of the work at Panama will end the efforts of four centuries to open up a shipway from the Atlantic to the Pacific across the American Isthmus. CHAPTER XVII THE FRENCH FAILURE One writes of "the French failure" at Panama with a consciousness that no other word but failure will describe the financial and administrative catastrophe that humbled France on the Isthmus, but at the same time with the knowledge that failure is no fit word to apply to the engineering accomplishments of the French era. The French fiasco ruined thousands of thrifty French families who invested their all in the shares of the canal company because they had faith in de Lesseps, faith in France, and faith in the ability of the canal to pay handsome returns whatever might be its cost. The failure itself was due primarily to the fact that de Lesseps was not an engineer, but a promoter. The stock sales, the bond lottery, the pomp and circumstance of high finance, were more to him than exact surveys or frank discussion of actual engineering problems. From the first, de Lesseps ignored the engineers. The Panama proposition was undertaken in spite of their advice, and at every turn he hampered them by impossible demands, and by making grave decisions with a debonair turn of the hand. The next factor in the failure was corruption. Extravagance such as never was known wasted the sous and francs that came from the thrifty homes of that beautiful France. Corruption, graft, waste--there was never such a carnival of bad business. And then the French had to fight the diseases of the tropic jungles without being armed with that knowledge that gave the Americans the victory over yellow fever and malaria. It was hardly to be expected that the French ever would discover the necessity of substituting the Y. M. C. A. and the soda fountain for the dance hall and the vintner's shop, if the canal were to be completed. But the engineers did their work well, as far as they were permitted to go. It may have cost too much--but it was well done. The failure of the French Panama Canal project was due, therefore, to moral as much as to material reasons. Long years after the French had retired defeated from the field, one could behold a thousand mute but eloquent reminders of their failure to duplicate their triumph at Suez. From one side of the Isthmus to the other stretched an almost unbroken train of gloomy specters of the disappointed hopes of the French people. Here a half-mile string of engines and cars; there a long row of steam cranes; at this place a mass of nondescript machinery; and at that place a big dredge left high and dry on the banks of the mighty Chagres at its flood stage, all spoke to the visitor of the French defeat. Exposed to the ravages of 20 tropical summers, decay ran riot, and but for the scenes of life and industry being enacted by the Americans, one might have felt himself stalking amid the tombs of thousands of dead hopes. Almost as much money was raised by the French for their failure as was appropriated by the Americans for their success. From the gilded palace and from the peasant's humble cottage came the stream of gold with which it was hoped to lay low the barrier that divided the Atlantic and the Pacific. At first the French estimated that in seven or eight years they could dig a 29-foot sea-level canal for $114,000,000. After eight years they calculated that it would cost $351,000,000 to make it a 15-foot lock canal and require 20 years to build it. Never was money spent so recklessly. For a time it flowed in faster than it could be paid out--even by the Panama Canal Company. When the company started it asked for $60,000,000. Double that amount was offered. The seeming inexhaustibility of the funds led to unparalleled extravagance; of the some $260,000,000 raised only a little more than a third was spent in actual engineering work. Someone has said that a third of the money was spent on the canal, a third was wasted, and a third was stolen. The director general at the expense of the stockholders built himself a house costing $100,000. His summer home at La Boca cost $150,000. It came to be known as "Dingler's Folly," for Dingler lost his wife and children of yellow fever and never was able to live in his sumptuous summer home. He drew $50,000 a year salary, and $50 a day for each day he traveled a mile over the line in his splendid $42,000 Pullman. The hospitals at Ancon and Colon cost $7,000,000, and the office buildings over $5,000,000. Where a $50,000 building was needed, a $100,000 building was erected, and the canal stockholders were charged $200,000 for it. Supplies were bought almost wholly without reference to actual needs. Ten thousand snow shovels were brought to the Isthmus where no snow ever has fallen. Some 15,000 torchlights were carried there to be used in the great celebration upon the completion of the canal. Steam-boats, dredges, launches, and whatnot were brought to the Isthmus, knocked down, and taken into the interior to await the opening of the waterway. The stationery bill of the canal company with one firm alone amounted to $180,000 a year. When the Americans took possession they found among other things a ton of rusty and useless pen points, not one of which had ever been used. Two years' service entitled employees to five months' leave of absence and traveling expenses both ways. There was no adequate system of accounting and any employee could have his requisition for household articles honored almost as often as he liked. In a multitude of cases this laxity was taken advantage of and quite a business was carried on secretly in buying and selling furniture belonging to the company. One official built a bath house costing $40,000. A son of de Lesseps became a silent partner of nearly every large contractor on the Isthmus, getting a large "rake-off" from every contract let. Near the summit of the Great Divide the Americans who took possession in 1904 found a small iron steamer. It is said to have been the purpose of the canal promoters to put this little steamer on a small pond in Culebra Cut, and by the aid of a skillful photographer to get a picture showing navigation across the Isthmus. This steamer was hauled by the Americans to Panama, where during the years of the American construction work it did service in carrying the sick to the sanitarium at Taboga. The different uses to which this steamer was put during the French and American régimes illustrates the different aims of the Americans and the French in connection with the Panama Canal. There was little concern about the health of the canal workers under the French, in spite of great liberality in the construction of hospitals. The construction work was let out to contractors, who were charged a dollar a day by the French Company for maintaining the sick members of their force in the hospital. Of course, the contractors were not over anxious to put their employees into the hospitals. The result was that the death rate at Panama reached almost unprecedented proportions. [Illustration: THE MAN OF BRAWN] [Illustration: FERDINAND DE LESSEPS PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA AN OLD FRENCH EXCAVATOR NEAR TABERNILLA] This was aided to a very large degree by the manner of living obtaining there at that time. In 1887 Lieutenant Rogers, of the United States Navy, inspected the canal work and reported that the laborers were paid every Saturday, that they spent Sunday in drinking and Monday in recuperating, returning to work on Tuesday. A prominent English writer declared after a visit to Panama that in all the world there was not, perhaps, concentrated in any single spot so much swindling and villainy, so much vile disease, and such a hideous mass of moral and physical abominations. Add to these things the fact that no one then knew of the responsibility of the stegomyia mosquito for the existence of yellow fever, nor that the anopheles mosquito was the disseminator of malaria, and it is little wonder that the French failed. The hospitals, instead of aiding in the elimination of yellow fever, became its greatest allies. The bedposts were set in cups of water, and here the yellow-fever mosquitoes could breed uninterruptedly and carry infection to every patient. Wards were shut up tight at night to keep out the "terrible miasma," and the nurses went to their own quarters. When morning came there were among those thus left alone always some ready for the tomb. The history of the French attempt to construct the Panama Canal begins, in reality, with the Suez Canal. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps, a Frenchman connected with the diplomatic service, saw an opportunity to revive the plans for a Suez Canal that had been urged by Napoleon in 1798. His friend, Said Pasha, had just succeeded to the khediviate of Egypt, and his proposals were warmly received. The building of the canal, which presented no serious engineering problems, was begun in 1859 and completed 10 years later. There was a sordid side to its story, too; but as the losses were borne chiefly by the Egyptians, Europe ignored them and looked only to the great success of the canal itself. As a result, de Lesseps became a national hero in France, and when it became known that he contemplated piercing another isthmus, the whole country rose to his support. In 1875, six years after the Suez Canal had been opened, and as soon as France had recovered her breath from the shock of the war with Prussia, a company was organized by de Lesseps to procure a concession for the building of a Panama Canal. Already the world, as well as France, had come to regard de Lesseps as an engineer, rather than as a promoter of stock companies, and in this lay the germ of the disaster that was to overtake the whole scheme. In 1876, Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse, a lieutenant of engineers in the French Army, was sent to Panama to determine the most feasible route and to conclude negotiations for the construction of a canal there. He made a perfunctory survey, commencing at Panama and extending only two-thirds of the way to the Atlantic coast; nevertheless, he calculated the cost in detail and claimed that his estimates might be depended upon to come within 10 per cent of the actual figures. However weak in engineering he may have been, he was strong in international negotiations, returning to France with a concession which gave him the right to form a company to build the canal, and which gave to that company all the rights it needed, subject only to the prior rights of the Panama Railroad Company under its concession. The concession was to run for 99 years, beginning from the date when the collection of tolls on transit and navigation should begin. The promoters were allowed 2 years to form the company and 12 years to build the canal. The Government of Colombia was entitled to a share in the gross income of the canal after the seventy-fifth year from its opening. Four-fifths of this was to be paid to the National Government and one-fifth to the State of Panama. The canal company was to guarantee that these annual payments should on no account be less than $250,000. When Wyse returned to Paris he got de Lesseps to head the project. The hero of Suez summoned an international commission of individuals and engineers, known as the International Scientific Congress, which met in Paris, May 15, 1879. There were 135 delegates in attendance, most of whom were Frenchmen, although nearly every European nation was represented. The United States had 11 representatives at this congress. After two weeks' conference the decision was reached that a sea-level canal should be constructed from Colon to Panama. Only 42 of the 135 men who met were engineers, and it has been stated that those who knew most about the subject found their opinions least in demand. M. de Lesseps dominated the conference. Several members who were radically opposed to its conclusions, rather than declare their difference from the opinions of a man of such great distinction and high reputation as de Lesseps enjoyed at that time, absented themselves when the final vote was taken. After it was determined to build a sea-level canal, the canal concession owned by Wyse and his associates was transferred to the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique (The Universal Interoceanic Canal Company) of which de Lesseps was given control. The canal company was capitalized at $60,000,000. The preliminary budget of expenses amounted to $9,000,000, of which $2,000,000 went to Wyse and his associates for the concession. The organizers were entitled to certain cash payments and 15 per cent of the net profits. The canal company soon found it necessary to acquire a controlling interest in the Panama Railroad. That corporation insisted on charging regular rates on all canal business. In addition, it possessed such prior rights as made the Wyse concession worthless except there be agreement on all matters between the railroad company and the canal company. The result was that the canal company bought the railroad, and its rights, for the sum of about $18,000,000. The first visit of de Lesseps to the Isthmus was made in the early weeks of 1880. He arrived on the 30th day of December, 1879, and was met by a delegation appointed by the Government, and one nominated by the State Assembly. There was the usual reception, with its attendant champagne and conviviality, and a fine display of fire-works at night. The next day, with a chart before him, de Lesseps promptly decided where the breakwater to protect the mouth of the canal from the "northers" sweeping into Limon Bay should be located. He declared that in the construction of the canal there were only two great difficulties--the Chagres River and Culebra Cut. The first he proposed to overcome by sending its waters to the Pacific Ocean by another route--a project which it has since been estimated would have cost almost as much as building the canal. The second difficulty he thought would disappear with the use of explosives of sufficient force to remove vast quantities of material with each discharge. There was a great hurrah, and an international celebration during de Lesseps' stay. The flags of all nations were prominently displayed, with the single exception of that of the United States. Count de Lesseps was over 70 years old when he first visited the Isthmus, though he was still active and vigorous. Mr. Tracy Robinson described him as "a small man, French in detail, with winning manners and a magnetic presence. He would conclude almost every statement with, 'The Canal will be made,' just as a famous Roman always exclaimed, 'Delende est Carthago.' He was accompanied to the Isthmus by his wife and three of his seven children. Being a fine horseman, he delighted in mounting the wildest steeds that Panama could furnish. Riding over the rough country in which the canal was being located all day long, he would dance all night like a boy and be ready for the next day's work 'as fresh as a daisy.'" On New Year's Day, 1880, de Lesseps formally inaugurated the work of building the canal. A large party of ladies and gentlemen visited the mouth of the Rio Grande where the first shovelful of sod was to be turned. An address was made by Count de Lesseps, and a benediction upon the enterprise was bestowed by the Bishop of Panama. Champagne flowed like water, and it is said that the speechmaking continued so long that the party did not have time to go ashore to turn the sod, so it was brought on board and Miss Fernanda de Lesseps there made the initial stroke in the digging of the big waterway. Some days later the work at Culebra Cut was inaugurated. Tracy Robinson thus described the scene: "The blessing had been pronounced by the Bishop of Panama and the champagne, duly iced, was waiting to quell the swelter of the tropical sun as soon as the explosion went off. There the crowd stood breathless, ears stopped, eyes blinking, half in terror lest this artificial earthquake might involve general destruction. But there was no explosion! It would not go! Then a humorous sense of relief stole upon the crowd. With one accord everybody exclaimed, 'Good Gracious!' and hurried away for fear that after all the dynamite should see fit to explode. That was Fiasco No. 1." After de Lesseps left the Isthmus he toured the United States where he was everywhere welcomed although he did not find a market in this country for his stock. The scientific congress estimated the cost of building the canal, whose construction de Lesseps had inaugurated, at $214,000,000. M. de Lesseps himself later arbitrarily cut this estimate to $131,000,000, and announced that he believed that vessels would be able to go from ocean to ocean after the expenditure of $120,000,000. He declared that if the committee had decided to build a lock canal, he would have put on his hat and gone home, since he believed it would be much more expensive to build a lock canal with twin chambers than to build a sea-level waterway. There were those who declared that six years was the utmost limit that would be required for building the big ditch. Others asserted with confidence that it could be done in four years. During the first three years the company devoted its time to getting ready for the real work. By 1885 the profligate use of the money subscribed by the French people brought the funds of the canal company to a very low ebb. M. de Lesseps asked for permission to establish a lottery, by which he hoped to provide additional funds for carrying on the work. The French Government held up the matter and finally sent an eminent engineer to investigate. This engineer, Armand Rosseau, reported that the completion of a sea-level canal was not possible with the means in sight, and recommended a lock canal, plans for which he submitted. The summit level of this canal was to be 160 feet, reached by a series of seven or eight locks. After this plan was adopted, to which de Lesseps reluctantly consented, lottery bonds of a face value of $160,000,000 were issued which were to bear 4 per cent interest. But the people failed to subscribe. At the outset of the work de Lesseps established a bulletin for the dissemination of information concerning the canal; during the entire period of his connection with the project this bulletin was filled with the most exaggerated reports, and the most reckless mis-statements in favor of a successful prosecution of the work. By 1888 the confidence of the French people in de Lesseps waned. Unable to raise more money, and now popularly dubbed the "Great Undertaker," he found himself in such straits that he saw the French Government take over the wrecked organization by appointing a receiver with the power to dispose of its assets. This proved a terrible blow to the people on the Isthmus. Untold hardships befell the small army of laborers and clerks. The Government of Jamaica repatriated over 6,000 negroes. The Chilean Government granted 40,000 free passages to Chile, open to all classes except negroes and Chinese, and for several months every mail steamer south took away from 600 to 800 stranded people from the canal region. Where good times and the utmost plenty had prevailed for years, the Isthmus was now face to face with a period of want and privation, its glory departed and its hope almost gone. The receiver of the Panama Canal Company assisted in the organization of another company known as the New Panama Canal Company. With a working capital of $13,000,000, it excavated more than 12,000,000 cubic yards of material. In 1890 it found itself in danger of losing everything by reason of the expiration of its concession. The services of Lieutenant Wyse were again brought into play, and he secured a 10-year extension of the concession. In 1893 another concession was granted, with the provision that work should be begun on a permanent basis by October 31, 1894, and that the canal should be completed by October 31, 1904. Toward the end of the nineties, it was manifest that the concession would expire before the work could be finished, so, in April, 1900, another extension was arranged, which stipulated that the canal should be completed by October 31, 1910. The New Panama Canal Company, as a matter of fact, had no other aim in view than to keep the concession alive in the hope that it could be sold to the United States. With all of their profligacy, however, the French left to their American successors a valuable heritage. What they did was done with the utmost thoroughness. The machinery which they bequeathed to the Americans was of immense value. There was enough of this to cover a 500-acre farm 3 feet deep, with enough more to build a 6-foot fence around it all. The French equipment was of the best. Dredges and locomotives that stood in the jungle for 20 years were rebuilt by the Americans at less than 10 per cent of their first cost, and did service during the entire period of construction. Although the New Panama Canal Company at one time asked $150,000,000 for its assets, it finally accepted $40,000,000. An appraisement made by American engineers a few years ago showed that the actual worth of the property acquired, aside from the franchise itself, amounted to about $42,000,000. Count de Lesseps lived to a great age. His last years were saddened and embittered by the volumes of denunciation that were written and spoken against him. Certain it is that no man ever went further than he to maintain confidence in a project that was destined to fail, and yet his partisans declared that his sin was the sin of overenthusiasm and not of dishonest purpose. Under the torrents of abuse that fell upon his head his mind weakened, and, fortunately, in his last days he realized little of the immeasurable injustice his misplaced zeal and overenthusiasm had wrought against the people of France. CHAPTER XVIII CHOOSING THE PANAMA ROUTE Proud as Americans now are of the success of their venture at Panama, in the beginning there was by no means a general agreement that the United States would succeed where France had failed. Indeed, the French disaster had much influence in strengthening the position of those who favored building the American canal through Nicaragua. Prior to the year 1900 little thought was given by the American people to any project for building an Isthmian Canal anywhere else than through Nicaragua. It is true that in 1897 the New Panama Canal Company became active in its efforts to induce the United States to adopt the Panama route, but these activities made little impression upon public sentiment before the outbreak of the Spanish American War. During that war interest in the question of an Isthmian Canal waned in America, and immediately after it the sympathy which France had given to Spain made it advisable for the Canal Company to postpone its propaganda. In his annual message to Congress in December, 1898, President McKinley recommended the building of the Nicaragua Canal. Two days later Senator John T. Morgan, of Alabama, made a vigorous speech in the Senate, in which he charged that the transcontinental railroads of the United States were making efforts to defeat the canal project. This charge was made repeatedly thereafter, and it was asserted that the railroads espoused the cause of the Panama Canal upon the ground of choosing the lesser of two evils, judged from their standpoint. Prior to 1900 both Republican and Democratic parties had repeatedly favored the construction of the Nicaragua Canal in their national platforms, and both branches of Congress had voted for the canal at different times. In the early part of 1899 the Senate passed a bill authorizing the construction of a Nicaraguan Canal. The House refused to act on the bill, and, at the instance of Senator Morgan, the Senate attached a rider to the rivers and harbors bill, appropriating $10,000,000 to begin the building of the canal. This passed the Senate by a vote of 54 to 3. The amendment was defeated in the House and the matter went to conference. If the House conferees stood pat in their opposition to the Senate amendment, the whole rivers and harbors bill would be defeated unless the Senate conferees yielded. The House conferees remained unshaken in their opposition to the Nicaragua Canal provision, and were willing to wreck the whole rivers and harbors bill rather than to authorize the beginning of operations in the construction of the Nicaragua Canal under the plan framed by the Senate. According to Philippe Bunau-Varilla, the real secret of the defeat of the Nicaragua Canal project at this juncture lay in a dispute between the House and Senate as to the manner of building the canal. The Senate wanted to do it by the reorganization of the Maritime Canal Company, with the majority of its board of directors appointed by the President, using that corporation as the agent of the Government for constructing and operating the canal. Representative William P. Hepburn, of Iowa, at that time Chairman of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, contended that such a plan proposed that the United States should masquerade as a corporation, instead of doing the work in its own proper person, as it was in every sense capable of doing. He asked for what purpose the Government should thus convert itself into a corporation, making of itself an artificial person and taking a position of equality with a citizen? He further pointed out that as a corporation the Government might be sued in its own courts, and fined for contempt by its own judicial servants. A compromise was adopted in the form of an appropriation of $1,000,000 to defray the expenses of an investigation into all of the various routes for an Isthmian Canal. This investigation was to have reference particularly to the relative merits of the Nicaragua and Panama routes, together with an estimate of the cost of constructing each. The investigators were to ascertain what rights, privileges, and franchises were held, and what work had been done in the construction of the proposed canals. They were also to ascertain the cost of acquiring the interests of any organizations holding franchises on these routes. The President was directed to employ engineers of the United States Army and engineers from civil life, together with such other persons as were necessary to carry out the purposes of the investigation. A few months later he appointed the first Isthmian Canal Commission, consisting of Rear Admiral John G. Walker, Senator Samuel Pasco, Alfred Noble, George S. Morison, Peter C. Hains, William H. Burr, O. H. Ernst, Louis M. Haupt, and Emory R. Johnson. Thus it came about that the House and Senate, divided only upon the issue of the proper method of building the Nicaragua Canal, reopened the whole question, and gave to the Panama Canal advocates a chance to make a fight in favor of that route. The advocates of the Nicaragua Canal were not satisfied, however, to await the discoveries of the commission Congress had created. On May 2, 1900, before the commission made its report, the House voted 234 to 36 in favor of the Nicaragua route. The bill went to the Senate, where it was favorably reported by the Committee on Interoceanic Canals. Senator Morgan made a formal motion for the immediate consideration of the measure, but it was lost by a vote of 28 to 21. He then had the 2nd day of December following fixed as the date for again taking up the matter. His committee made a report roundly scoring the representatives of the New Panama Canal Company for their activities in favor of the Panama route. In December, 1900, Secretary Hay signed protocols with the ministers of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, by which those Governments undertook to negotiate treaties as soon as the President of the United States should be authorized by Congress to acquire the Nicaragua route. In the following February, Senator Morgan offered an amendment to the sundry civil appropriation bill authorizing the President to go ahead with the construction of the canal. When Theodore Roosevelt became President in September, 1901, he recommended the building of the Nicaragua Canal in his official statement of policy. In the meantime the Isthmian Canal Commission had been repeatedly attempting to get the New Panama Canal Company to state for what sum it would sell its holdings to the United States. The figures finally presented placed a value of $109,000,000 upon the property. After this, the Isthmian Canal Commission unanimously recommended the adoption of the Nicaragua route. Congress again took up the matter, upon a bill introduced by Representative Hepburn, making an appropriation of $180,000,000 for the construction of the canal. This measure was favorably reported by the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and also secured the approval of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals. A few days later a formal convention was signed in Nicaragua by the minister of foreign affairs and the American minister, looking to the construction of the canal through Nicaraguan territory. A week later the Senate ratified the Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain. On January 7 the House of Representatives again took up the matter and, in spite of the fact that the New Panama Canal Company had decided to accept $40,000,000 for its property, this offer was rejected by the House of Representatives, which passed the bill authorizing the construction of the Nicaragua Canal by the overwhelming vote of 309 to 2. After the rejection of the offer of the New Panama Canal Company by the House, President Roosevelt again called the members of the Isthmian Canal Commission together, and asked them to make a supplementary report in view of the offer in question. On a motion of Commissioner Morison the commission decided that, in consideration of the change of conditions brought about by the offer of the company to sell its property for $40,000,000, the Panama route was preferable. It has been stated that Professor Haupt, Senator Pasco, and two other members of the commission were reluctant to abandon the Nicaragua project; that President Roosevelt had made it quite clear to Admiral Walker that he expected the commission to accept the Panama Canal Company's offer; that Commissioners Noble and Pasco had given in, but that Professor Haupt stood out; and that he was induced to sign the report only after Admiral Walker had called him out of the committee room and pleaded with him to do so, stating that the President demanded a unanimous report. Professor Haupt afterwards publicly admitted the truth of this story in a signed article in a magazine. About this time the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals appointed a subcommittee of six members to study and report on the legal questions involved in the transfer of the New Panama Canal Company's title, and a majority reported that the company's title was defective and that it had no power to transfer. It was finally decided that the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals should make no report until all of the members of the Isthmian Canal Commission had appeared before it and testified. This delay permitted negotiations between the United States, the New Panama Canal Company, and the Republic of Colombia looking to a settlement of the question of title. The New Panama Canal Company was now thoroughly in earnest in its desire to dispose of its holdings to the United States, but the Republic of Colombia, desiring to drive a good bargain, held aloof. The hope of the situation as far as the Panama route was concerned, lay in Senator Marcus A. Hanna, of Ohio, who had come to espouse the Panama route. He declared he would not recommend the acceptance of the proposals of the New Panama Canal Company unless a satisfactory treaty could be obtained, and unless the shareholders of the company would ratify the action of the board of directors in making the offer. A meeting of the shareholders was called in February, 1902, at which the Republic of Colombia, holding a million dollars' worth of stock in the company, was represented by a Government delegate. He served formal notice on the company that it was forbidden, on pain of forfeiture of its concession, to sell its rights to the United States before that action was approved by the Colombian Government, there being a clause in the concession providing that in the event of such a sale to any foreign Government all rights, titles, and property should revert to Colombia. When the Colombian Government took up the matter it showed a disposition to grasp the lion's share. Its minister was instructed to exact no less than $20,000,000 from the New Panama Canal Company for Colombia's permission to transfer its concessions. This demand was based on the following reasons: First, because Colombia's consent was essential; second, because Colombia would lose its expectation of acquiring the Panama Railroad at the expiration of its concession--a road that was then valued at $18,000,000; third, because under the proposed contract with the United States, Colombia was to renounce its share in the prospective earnings of the canal, which might amount to a million dollars a year. Another proposition was drawn by the Colombian minister, proposing to lease a zone across the Isthmus of the United States for a period of 200 years at an annual rental of $600,000. At another time the Colombian minister declared that, inasmuch as the New Panama Canal Company had taken advantage of the straitened circumstances of the Colombian Government to obtain a six-year extension of its concession, which was really what the canal company was about to sell for $40,000,000, he thought Colombia ought to require the New Panama Canal Company to pay $3,000,000 of the $40,000,000, for what the company gained by the extension of its concession. On January 30, 1902, Senator John C. Spooner, of Wisconsin, introduced a bill in the Senate, authorizing the President of the United States to build an Isthmian Canal at Panama, if the necessary rights could be obtained. If those rights could not be obtained the President was required to build the canal on the Nicaraguan route. The Spooner bill provided the machinery for the construction of the canal, created the Isthmian Canal Commission, and authorized the expenditures necessary for undertaking the project. Some six weeks later the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals rejected the Spooner bill and presented a favorable report on the Hepburn bill, which authorized the Nicaragua Canal. The final struggle in the Senate lasted from June 4 to June 19, 1902. Senators Morgan and Harris led the fight for the Hepburn bill, while Senators Hanna and Spooner championed the Spooner measure. The fight resulted in the passage of the Spooner bill by a vote of 32 to 24. The disagreeing votes of the two Houses were then sent to conference, and the House finally receded from its position in favor of the Nicaragua route, and the Spooner bill became a law. The situation as it now stood was that the Panama route was chosen on the conditions that the title of the company be proved and that a satisfactory treaty with Colombia be negotiated; with the alternative of the adoption of the Nicaragua route in default of one or the other of these conditions. Whatever may have been his motives--in the light of events which have followed it would seem unjust to question them--Senator Hanna was undoubtedly responsible for the revolution in Congress and in public sentiment which resulted in the selection of the Panama route. M. Bunau-Varilla declares that he met Myron T. Herrick in Paris, converted him, and through him met Senator Hanna, whom he also convinced. In Crowley's "Life and Work of Marcus Alonzo Hanna," it is declared that a series of interviews between M. Bunau-Varilla and Senator Hanna had much to do with Mr. Hanna's decision to make a fight in behalf of Panama. It was claimed by William Nelson Cromwell, in his suit for fees against the New Panama Canal Company, that he was responsible for converting Senator Hanna to the Panama project, and it was asserted, also, that he furnished the data from which Senator Hanna made his speech which converted the Senate, and the House, and the country, and led to the adoption of the Panama route. At this juncture Providence seemed to lend support to the Panama route, for one of the many volcanoes in Nicaragua became active and did considerable damage. Occurrences since then have borne out the wisdom of avoiding the Nicaragua route. A few years ago the city of Cartago, only about a hundred miles distant from the site of the works that would have been installed to control the waters of Lake Nicaragua, was entirely destroyed by an earthquake. With the Spooner bill enacted into law, the next proposition which confronted the United States Government was that of reaching an understanding with Colombia, which would permit the building of the canal at Panama. That country was reminded on every hand and in divers ways that unless an acceptable treaty were forthcoming the President of the United States would be forced to adopt the Nicaragua route. But, notwithstanding these reminders, Colombia still moved slowly in the matter. After being repeatedly urged to come to terms, and after one Colombian minister to the United States had been recalled and another resigned, the Hay-Herran treaty finally was negotiated. Before Colombia reached the stage, however, where it would agree to enter into negotiations with the United States, it had been reminded by its minister in Washington that it was dangerous not to enter into an agreement. He had declared that if Colombia should refuse to hear the American proposal that a new treaty be entered into, the United States would, in retaliation, denounce the treaty of 1846, and thereafter view with complacency any events which might take place in Panama inimical to Colombia's interests. He had reported further that the United States would, at the first interruption of the railroad service, occupy at once Colombia's territory on the Isthmus and embrace whatever tendency there might be toward separation, in the hope of bringing about the independence of Panama. This, he had concluded, would be a catastrophe of far greater consequence to Colombia than any damage the Republic might suffer by the ratification of a treaty with the United States permitting the building of the canal. His views in the matter were strengthened by a suggestion of Senator Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois, that if Colombia should continue to refuse to allow the United States to build the canal, which the United States claimed was its right to do under the treaty of 1846, the American Government might invoke a sort of universal right of eminent domain, take the Isthmian territory, and pay Colombia its value in accordance with an appraisement by experts. About this time President Roosevelt wrote a letter to his friend, Dr. Albert D. Shaw, of the Review of Reviews, in which he said that he had been appealed to for aid and encouragement to a revolution at Panama, but that as much as he would like to see such a revolution, he could not lend any encouragement to it. The Republic of Colombia was repeatedly reminded by Secretary Hay that if it did not act promptly the President would take up negotiations with Nicaragua and proceed to construct the canal there. Under these conditions Colombia finally agreed to negotiate the Hay-Herran treaty, which was afterwards rejected by the Colombian Congress. It has been asserted that President Roosevelt took the view all along that under the treaty of 1846, Colombia had no right to prevent the United States from building the canal, and that, in spite of the provision of the Spooner Act requiring him to proceed with the construction of the Nicaragua Canal in the event of the failure of negotiations at Panama, he was determined to exhaust every possible effort before giving up the Panama route. CHAPTER XIX CONTROVERSY WITH COLOMBIA Seldom in the history of international relations has a controversy afforded more grounds for honest difference of opinion than the issue between the United States and Colombia, growing out of the revolution and formation of the new Republic of Panama. The most careful and unprejudiced study still may leave room for doubt as to the real merits of the case. In 1903, after the United States had decided to build an Isthmian Canal, preferably at Panama, but if that route were not available at Nicaragua, a treaty was entered into at Washington between the Governments of the United States and Colombia. This Hay-Herran treaty, as it was known, in simple terms provided that the United States would pay Colombia $10,000,000 in cash, and $250,000 a year after the completion of the canal, if the Republic of Colombia would agree to permit the New Panama Canal Company to sell its concession and property to the United States. This treaty, according to President Roosevelt, was entered into under negotiations initiated by the Republic of Colombia. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate, and was then sent to Colombia for its ratification. At the time the treaty was pending in the Colombian Congress, the President of the Republic was a man who had been elected Vice President, but who had kidnapped the President with a troop of cavalry and shut him up in an insanitary dungeon where he soon died. The Vice President thus became the head of the Government. Anyone who knows conditions in such countries as Colombia, understands that a President has no use for a Congress except to have it register his own will. The President of Colombia at first advocated the negotiation of the treaty, but he repudiated it after it had been signed, and then declared that if the Colombian minister to Washington were to return to Colombia he would be hanged for signing it. The result of this change of front was that the treaty was rejected by the Colombian Congress. All sorts of stories were put abroad in Colombia to arouse opposition to it. One was that the United States would make $180,000,000 out of the canal deal the minute the treaty was ratified by Colombia. It was claimed by the Colombian Government that the constitutional prohibition of the cession of territory to a foreign state would have to be changed by amending the Constitution before the Congress could legally ratify the treaty. [Illustration: S. B. WILLIAMSON THE LOWER GATES, MIRAFLORES LOCKS] [Illustration: H. O. COLE MIDDLE GATES, MIRAFLORES LOCKS] How little the President of Colombia respected the laws of his country is shown by a dispatch received by the Government at Washington after the secession of Panama, in which it was promised that if the United States would assist Colombia in putting down the Panama revolution, the next Colombian Congress would ratify the rejected treaty. Or, failing that, the President would declare martial law, by virtue of vested constitutional authority when public order is disturbed, and ratify the canal treaty by presidential decree. If the Washington Government did not like such a proposal, the President of Colombia would call an extra session of Congress and immediately ratify the treaty. The real cause of the failure of the Hay-Herran treaty is not difficult to discover. The concession of the New Panama Canal Company under one of its renewals expired October 31, 1893. It was then extended for a year, and, in 1894, was extended again for a period of 10 years. Still another extension was granted, which carried the date of expiration to October 31, 1910. This last extension was granted by the President without the consent of the Colombian Congress. In 1903, when the Hay-Herran treaty was pending, the validity of this last extension was denied, and the assertion made that on October 31, 1901, all of the rights and property of the New Panama Canal Company would revert to the Colombian Government. The United States had agreed to pay to the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 for its concession and property. According to Representative Henry T. Rainey, of Illinois, who for years led the attack in the United States Congress on the acts of President Roosevelt in connection with the Panaman revolution, the purpose of Colombia in defeating the treaty was to wait until the expiration of the concession, when all of the property of the canal company would revert to Colombia, and it could then sell it to the United States and get the $40,000,000, or any other amount it could persuade the United States to pay. Of course, the New Panama Canal Company did not look upon such an arrangement with any degree of complacency. It felt that it was a deliberate scheme upon the part of the Colombian Government to mulct it out of its property and its rights. As a result it was naturally ready to lend aid and encouragement to any movement which would circumvent this purpose of Colombia. It found conditions in Panama just what it might have wished. The people of Panama felt that they had the same sort of grievance against Colombia that the people of the American colonies felt they had against England in 1776. The governors of the province were, with few exceptions, sent there from Bogota, and were entirely out of sympathy with the people of Panama. The taxes collected at Panama were carried to Bogota, as a rule, and the voice that the people of the Isthmus had in the Government of Colombia was negligible. Furthermore, they felt that they were entitled to their sovereignty. After the countries of tropical America had thrown off the yoke of Spain, Panama found itself too small to stand alone, and accepted an invitation from Bogota to put itself under the Government there with the understanding that it was to retain its sovereignty. It soon found that this agreement was not respected at Bogota. Almost immediately there were attempted revolts and, in 1840, the Isthmus again won complete independence. The Confederation of New Granada promised that the people of the Isthmus should have better treatment, and it was set forth in the constitution of New Granada that Panama was a sovereign state, and that it had full right to withdraw and set up an independent government at any time. In 1885 a new constitution was proclaimed by Colombia, which had succeeded New Granada, and this constitution deprived Panama of all its rights as a sovereign state, and made it a province under the control of the Federal Government at Bogota. Upon these grounds Panama claimed that she was a sovereign state temporarily under the duress of a superior government. After the defeat of the Hay-Herran treaty the inhabitants of Panama knew that if the treaty failed and no other steps were taken, the Nicaraguan route would be followed and Panama would become almost a forgotten region instead of a land of great opportunity. The consequence was that the Panamans lent willing ears to the suggestion of the representatives of the New Panama Canal Company that they should undertake a revolution to be financed by the canal company. Two representatives of the New Panama Canal Company working along independent lines were trying to bring about the revolution. One of these was Philippe Bunau-Varilla, formerly chief engineer of the Old Panama Canal Company, but who had become estranged from the New Panama Canal Company. The other was William Nelson Cromwell, for years general counsel of the Panama Railroad Company, and who, in his suit against the New Panama Canal Company for an $800,000 fee, claimed to have engineered and directed the revolution. M. Bunau-Varilla had some stock in the canal company and a great deal of pride in seeing realized the undertaking to which he had committed the best years of his life. Coming to New York on another mission, he met Dr. Amador, who was one of the Panamans desiring the independence of his country. According to the testimony of M. Bunau-Varilla, which is borne out by documentary evidence, he and Dr. Amador worked out the plan for the revolution. He declares that the documents were drawn in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and as far as they were written in Spanish, they were copied letter by letter by an English stenographer who knew no Spanish, in order that there might be no possibility of the secret leaking out. He declares that the whole project of the revolution as it was carried out was conceived by him in cooperation with Dr. Amador, and that William Nelson Cromwell, the other factor in the situation, knew nothing about what was going on. He also asserts that William Nelson Cromwell had promised to introduce Dr. Amador to Secretary of State John Hay, but that later Dr. Herran, the representative of Colombia, found out what was going on and wrote a letter of warning to Mr. Cromwell as to the consequences which would come to the Panama Railroad, of which Mr. Cromwell was the representative, if that organization should give aid or comfort to the projected Panama revolution. Thereupon, according to M. Bunau-Varilla, Mr. Cromwell turned his back upon Dr. Amador, although it has been claimed by some that this was only a ruse on the part of Mr. Cromwell to shield himself and his company from responsibility. About this time M. Bunau-Varilla borrowed $100,000 in France to finance the revolution, pending the recognition of the new Republic by the United States. Other money was forthcoming later. The revolution itself, which took place in November, 1903, was bloodless. The world knows that President Roosevelt forbade the Colombian troops to move across the Isthmus, while at the same time he would not allow the revolutionists to make any move. A similar situation had arisen in a former revolution in 1902. At that time the Colombian troops were disarmed, and three days later insurgent troops were prevented by United States marines from using the railroad and were actually compelled to leave a train which they had seized and entered. The principle was enunciated and maintained that no troops under arms should be transported on the railroad, no matter to which party they belonged. That was because to permit such transportation would be to make the railroad an adjunct to the side using it, and to subject it to attack by the other party. In this way, if the Colombian troops used it, the insurgents would have attacked, and the United States would either have been forced to permit such an attack, which might suspend traffic on the transit, or to prevent it with force, which would make this country an ally of Colombia against the insurgents. On the other hand, if the insurgents were permitted to use the railroad, Colombia would attack it, and in that case the United States would have to help repel the attack and thus would become the ally of the insurgents. It was, therefore, held that the only way to make the road absolutely neutral was to allow neither party to use it. This was the doctrine under which President Roosevelt proceeded in 1903. Of course, the world knows that this was tantamount to preventing Colombia from reconquering the Isthmus, if that were possible. It is claimed by some that if President Roosevelt had allowed the insurgents to use the railroad in 1902, Colombia would have been defeated in that revolution. At the time of the revolution it is said that the Colombian garrison which espoused the cause of the Panamans was bribed to do so; that their commander two days afterwards was paid $12,500 for his services, and that he is to this day drawing a pension of $2,400 a year. It is also charged that some of the troops who could not be bribed were sent into the interior to repel an imaginary invasion from Nicaragua. It is asserted that when the governor of the State of Panama telegraphed the Colombian Government that Nicaragua was invading Panama, the Bogota authorities sent additional troops to the Isthmus to help fight Nicaragua, and that this accounted for the arrival of the gunboats from Cartagena on the eve of the revolution. At the time of the _coup d'etat_, the United States was living under a treaty made with Colombia in 1846, guaranteeing the sovereignty of that country over the Isthmus in return for the recognition of the rights of the United States, under the Monroe doctrine, in connection with the building of a canal. Under this treaty it was mutually agreed that the United States should keep the Isthmian transit free and open at all times. It was contended by President Roosevelt that he was only carrying out this provision when he refused to allow the revolutionists and the Federal troops to fight along the line of the Panama Railroad, although this was almost the only ground on the Isthmus on which military operations could be prosecuted. He admitted the justice of the contention of the Colombian Government that the United States undertook to guarantee the sovereignty of Colombia over the Isthmus so far as any alien power was concerned, but denied that it was ever intended that the United States should be called upon to guarantee it against the people of the Isthmus themselves. Once the revolution was started three courses were left open to the United States: One was to force the Panamans back under Colombian rule; the second was to let the two sides fight to a finish; the third was to recognize the independence of the Republic of Panama and forbid Colombia to land troops on the Isthmus. President Roosevelt took the last course. A breezy Western congressman remarked in defense of that course: "When that jack rabbit jumped I am glad we didn't have a bowlegged man for President!" The result of the revolution, and the recognition of the independence of the Republic of Panama, was that Colombia, which had tried to grasp everything and to get possession of the assets of the New Panama Canal Company, now found itself without anything. Colombia ever since has contended that the United States was under a solemn obligation to protect the Colombian sovereignty over the Isthmus--an obligation that has been assumed in return for valuable considerations--and that it had been despoiled of the Isthmus of Panama under the very treaty that had guaranteed its permanent control of that Isthmus. It further asserted that President Roosevelt had been a party to the revolution for the purpose of circumventing the stand of the Republic of Colombia. It made a long plea against the action of the United States and urged that in the event the two countries could not come to any agreement, the pending questions should be submitted to The Hague for adjudication. Secretary Hay at one time proposed that a popular election should be held on the Isthmus to determine whether the people there preferred allegiance to the Republic of Panama or to the Republic of Colombia, but Colombia would not agree to that. Secretary Hay rejected the plea of Colombia for arbitration, upon the ground that the questions that Colombia proposed to submit affected the honor of the United States and that these matters were not arbitrable. [Illustration: EDWARD J. WILLIAMS THE PAY CAR AT CULEBRA] [Illustration: UNCLE SAM'S LAUNDRY AT CRISTOBAL] After Elihu Root became Secretary of State, he declared that the real gravamen of the Colombian complaint was the espousal of the cause of Panama by the people of the United States. He said that no arbitration could deal with the real rights and wrongs of the parties concerned, unless it were to pass upon the question of whether the cause thus espoused was just--whether the people of Panama were exercising their just rights in maintaining their right of independence of Colombian rule. "We assert and maintain the affirmative upon that question," he declared. "We assert that the ancient State of Panama was independent in its origin, and by nature and history a separate political community; that it was federated with the other States of Colombia upon terms that preserved and continued its sovereignty, and that it never surrendered that sovereignty and was subjugated by force in 1885." Mr. Root further asserted that the United States was not "willing to permit any arbitrator to determine the political policy of the United States in following its sense of right and justice by espousing the cause of the Government of Panama against the Government of Colombia." When Mr. Taft became President it was his desire to adjust our controversy with Colombia. His Secretary of State, Philander C. Knox, just before leaving office, declared that he had spared no efforts in seeking to restore American-Colombian relations to a footing of complete friendly feeling, but that these efforts had been rebuffed by the Colombian Government. He declared that it was undeniable that Colombia had suffered by its failure to reap a share of the benefits of the canal, and that the Government of the United States was entirely willing to take this consideration into account, and endeavor to accommodate the conflicting interests of the three parties by making a just compensation in money. In pursuance of this idea three treaties were negotiated: One between the United States and the Republic of Columbia, one between the United States and the Republic of Panama, and one between the governments of Columbia and Panama, all three being interdependent, to stand or to fall together. These treaties were negotiated at the instance of Columbia and were framed with every desire to accommodate their terms to the just expectations of that country. They were accepted by the Columbian Cabinet but were not acted upon by the Columbian Congress. In the Knox treaty negotiated with Columbia in 1910 that country proposed to agree to a popular election upon the separation of Panama and to abide by the result. The United States offered to sign an additional agreement to pay to Columbia $10,000,000 for a permanent option for the construction of an interoceanic canal through Columbian territory, and for the perpetual lease of the Islands of St. Andrews and Old Providence, if Columbia would ratify the treaties with the United States and Panama. This proposition was refused. It was then proposed that in addition to the $10,000,000 the Unites States would be willing to conclude with Columbia a convention submitting to arbitration the question of the ownership of the reversionary rights in the Panama Railroad--rights which the Columbian Government asserts that it possesses. In addition to this the United States offered its good offices to secure the settlement of the Panama-Columbian boundary dispute. All of these propositions being rejected, the Republic of Colombia was asked if it would be willing to accept $10,000,000 outright, in satisfaction of its claims against the United States. This was also refused. Acting upon his own authority, the American minister then inquired if Colombia would accept $25,000,000, the good offices of the United States in its boundary controversy with Panama, the arbitration of the question of the reversionary rights in the Panama Railroad, and the gift of preferential rights in the use of the canal--all these in satisfaction of its claims. The Colombian Government replied that it would not do this and that it did not care to negotiate any further with the Taft administration, preferring to deal with the incoming Wilson administration. CHAPTER XX RELATIONS WITH PANAMA When the people of the Isthmus of Panama revolted against the Government of Colombia, they fully realized that almost their only hope of maintaining an independent government was to secure the building of the Panama Canal by the United States. Therefore, they were in a mood to ratify a treaty which would meet every condition demanded by the Government of the United States. The treaty, negotiated and ratified in 1904, gave to the United States every right it could have desired or which it could have possessed had it taken over the whole Isthmus itself. It was negotiated by John Hay, Secretary of State, representing the United States, and Philippe Bunau-Varilla, representing the Government of Panama. As the latter was a stockholder in the New French Canal Company, whose assets could be realized upon only through the success of the treaty negotiations, it naturally followed that he would put nothing in the way of the desires of the United States. The treaty gave to the United States most unusual rights. For instance, in no other country on earth does one nation possess ultimate jurisdiction over the capital of another nation; yet this is what the United States possesses at Panama. The first consideration of the treaty was the establishment of the Canal Zone. This gave to the United States a territory 5 miles beyond the center line of the canal on either side, and 3 miles beyond its deep water ends, with the exception of the cities of Colon and Panama, to hold in perpetuity with all rights, powers, and authority that the United States would possess if it were sovereign, and to the entire exclusion of the exercise of any sovereign rights, powers, or authority by the Republic of Panama. Further than this, it gave to the United States the same rights with respect to any land, or land under water, outside of the Canal Zone necessary and convenient for the canal itself, or any auxiliary canals or other works required in its operations. Further yet, the Republic granted in perpetuity a canal monopoly throughout its entire territory, and also monopolies of railroad and other means of communication between the two oceans. Under the terms of the treaty the cities of Panama and Colon are required to comply in perpetuity with all sanitary ordinances, whether curative or preventive, which the United States may promulgate. The Republic of Panama also agrees that if it can not enforce these ordinances, the United States become vested with the power to enforce them. The same is true with reference to the maintenance of order. The Republic of Panama agrees to maintain order, but gives to the United States not only the right to step in with American forces and restore it, but also to determine when such action is necessary. The treaty between the two countries further provides that the United States has the right to acquire by condemnation any property it may need for canal purposes in the cities of Panama and Colon. The Republic of Panama also grants to the United States all rights it has or may acquire to the property of the New Panama Canal Company and of the Panama Railroad, except such lands as lie outside of the Canal Zone and the cities of Panama and Colon, not needed for the purposes of building the canal. The Republic guarantees to the United States every title as absolute and free from any present or reversionary interest or claim. It will be seen from all this that the United States did not overlook any opportunity to make sure that it had all of the powers necessary to build a canal. It is also agreed by the Panama Government that no dues of any kind ever shall be collected by it from vessels passing through or using the canal, or from vessels belonging to the United States Government. All employees of the canal are exempted from taxation, whether living inside or outside the Zone. The Republic grants to the United States the use of all its rivers, streams, lakes, and other bodies of water for purposes of navigation, water supply, and other needs of the canal. It also agrees to sell or lease to the United States any of its lands on either coast for use for naval bases or coaling stations. The Republic of Panama further agrees that the United States shall have the right to import commodities for the use of the Canal Commission and its employees, free of charge, and that it shall have the right to bring laborers of any nationality into the Canal Zone. In return for all of these concessions the United States gives to the Republic of Panama many valuable considerations. Most vital of all, it guarantees the independence of the Republic. This means that the Republic of Panama is today practically the possessor of an army and a navy as large as the United States can put into the field and upon the seas. The only aggressor that Panama need fear is her benefactor. The second consideration involved the payment of $10,000,000 cash to the Republic, and a perpetual annual payment of a quarter of a million dollars beginning with the year 1913. The ten-million-dollar cash payment gave the impoverished new-born government a chance to get on its feet, and from this time forward the Panaman Government can look to the United States for the major portion of its necessary revenues. Under the terms of the treaty the United States undertakes to give free passage to any warships belonging to the Republic of Panama when going through the canal, and also agrees that the canal shall be neutral. It also agrees to provide free transportation over the Panama Railroad for persons in the service of the Government of Panama, and for the munitions of war of the Republic. It also allows the Republic of Panama to transmit over its telegraph and telephone lines its message at rates not higher than those charged United States officials for their private messages. Another stipulation of the treaty provides that it shall not invalidate the titles and rights of private landholders and owners of private property, nor of the right of way over public roads of the Zone unless they conflict with the rights of the United States, when the latter shall be regarded as superior. No part of the work of building or operating the canal, however, at any time may be impeded by any claims, whether public or private. A commission is provided, whose duty it shall be to pass upon the claims of those whose land or properties are taken from them for the purpose of the construction or operation of the canal. In carrying out the terms of the treaty the first step taken by the Americans was to "clean up" the cities of Panama and Colon. Remarkable changes were wrought by the establishment of water and sewerage systems, and by street improvements. For several years preceding the acquisition of the Canal Zone, and the sanitization of the cities of Panama and Colon, the late W. L. Buchanan was the United States minister to Colombia. He was transferred to another South American capital and afterwards came back to the United States by way of Panama. Former Senator J. C. S. Blackburn was then governor of the Canal Zone or, more strictly speaking, the head of the Department of Civil Administration. As he and Minister Buchanan drove through the streets of Panama and surveyed the changes that had taken place, Mr. Buchanan declared to Governor Blackburn that if an angel from heaven had appeared to him and said that such a transformation in the city of Panama could be made in so few years he scarcely could have believed it. When he was there the main streets of the city were nothing but unbroken chains of mud puddles in which, during the wet season, carriages sank almost to the axles. When he returned he found those same streets well paved with vitrified brick, measuring up to the best standards of American street work. Where formerly peddlers hawked water from disease-scattering springs, there were hydrants throughout the town and wholesome water on tap in almost every house. Where there had been absolutely no attempt to solve the problems of sewage disposal, where the masses of people lived amid indescribable filth, absolutely oblivious to its stenches and its dangers, now there was a sewerage system fully up to the best standard of American municipal engineering. When one considers that the Republic of Panama is made up largely of the cities of Panama and Colon, with a large area of almost wholly undeveloped territory, it will be seen that this service was rendered to practically all the people of the Republic. The relations which have existed between the Republic of Panama and the United States have not always proved wholly satisfactory to the Panamans. Like all other tropical Americans, the Panamans profess great admiration for a republican form of government, but the party in power seldom has relished the idea of a full and free accounting of its stewardship at the polls. When the time came for the first national election, the party in power sought to insure its return by the use of tropical-American methods; that is, by a wholesale intimidation of the opposition supporters. When the registration books were opened the administration was unwilling to register the supporters of the opposition. The government forces always were relied upon to back up the registrars. This situation was resented by the opposition and the indications were that the usual civil war, the tropical American substitute for an election, was about to follow. At this juncture Governor Blackburn called the Panaman authorities together and notified them that the United States did not care a continental which side won the election, but that it was very deeply interested in maintaining conditions of peace and amity on the Isthmus--conditions which could not prevail except there be a fair election. He reminded them of the right of the United States to maintain order in their two principal cities, and of the blood and treasure the United States had invested in Panama, all of which would be placed in jeopardy by any civil conflict. He therefore declared it the intention of the United States to see that there was a fair election. Election commissioners were consequently appointed, and they saw to it that the voters were fairly registered, allowed to vote, and to have their votes counted. The result was that for the first time in Central American history there was a fair election and for the first time a real change of administration without a resort to arms. So successful was this plan that in the election of 1912 both sides agreed again to call in the United States to umpire their battle of the ballots, and once again the "outs" won over the "ins." The French Canal Company has some very unpleasant experiences with the Republic of Colombia when it, as a private corporation, undertook to build the canal. It was at the mercy of the Government and the Government seldom showed mercy. For instance, a Colombian owned 30 acres of swamp land which was needed for the construction of the canal. It was worth $10 an acre; he demanded $10,000. The canal company took the matter to the courts of the Republic and instituted condemnation proceedings. Here the owner admitted that the land was not intrinsically worth more than $10 an acre, but claimed that he had as much right to demand $300,000 for the tract as if it were located in the very heart of Paris; that in every case it was what the land could be used for that determined its value. The court shared his view and nothing was left for the canal company to do but to pay the $300,000. Shortly after the Americans took charge, the Central and South American Telegraph Company wanted to land the new "all American" cable on the Canal Zone. They applied to the United States for permission which was granted. The Panamans fought against it under every possible pretext, their desire being to have their consent regarded as essential, so that they could get a good fee for the concession, but the United States notified the Republic of Panama that it had no interest whatever in requiring compensation, and so the cable was laid. While there has been substantial agreement between the two countries, it has been difficult to prevent some conditions which are contrary to American ideas of morality. For instance, while the Canal Commission was strongly opposed to having a lottery on the Canal Zone, one is maintained just across the line in the city of Panama. The Panama lottery and the Bishop of Panama share the same house. One has to pass the lottery to see the bishop and, mayhap, a half dozen old women ticket sellers will try to intercept him before he reaches the church dignitary. This lottery is a veritable gold mine to those who own it. Each ordinary drawing brings in $10,000--$1 for each ticket issued. The grand prize takes $3,000 of this, the next 9 prizes calling for a total of $900, the next 90 for a total of $450 and the remaining prizes for $2,070. Thus, $6,420 in prizes is paid out of the total of $10,000 received. Out of the remainder, 5 per cent goes to the ticket sellers and 5 per cent to the Panaman Government. Once a month the drawing is made for a grand prize of $7,500. Most of the money which the lottery people make is contributed by workers on the canal. Only 64 per cent of the money received from the sale of tickets is won back by the ticket buyer at each drawing. The net profits approximate a hundred thousand dollars a year. On the whole, however, the relations entered into between the two Republics in 1904 have been such as to leave no serious ground for complaint. They have permitted the satisfactory construction of the canal, and they will permit its satisfactory operation. With the United States as the ultimate judge of every question vital to American interests, little is left to be desired. The fact is that the canal has been built with less friction and fewer difficulties with the Republic of Panama than could reasonably have been hoped for at the outset. This has been due principally to the fact that the Americans responsible for the success of the work have approached the Panaman situation with tact where tact was needed and with firmness where firmness was essential. CHAPTER XXI THE CANAL ZONE GOVERNMENT The Canal Zone is a strip of territory ten miles wide, its irregular lines following the course of the canal, which is its axis. Over this zone the United States, under its treaty with Panama, exercises jurisdiction "as if it were sovereign." The American Government was unwilling to undertake the great and expensive work of constructing the canal without having this guaranty to protect it from possible harassment at the hands of the Panaman authorities. One of the first tasks that confronted the United States authorities when they entered upon the work of building the canal was that of providing a civil government for this territory named by law the Canal Zone. Postal facilities had to be provided; a police system had to be established; customs offices were required; fire protection was necessary; a court system was needed; a school system was demanded; and, in short, a sort of territorial government had to be put in operation before the work of building the canal could go forward satisfactorily. This government was established in 1904 under the direction of Major General George W. Davis, the first governor of the Canal Zone. From time to time it was extended and improved. More than half of this was appropriated out of the Treasury of the United States, and the remainder collected in the operations of the government. In addition to directing the government of the Zone, the head of the department of civil administration was the titular representative of the Canal Commission in all matters in which the commission and the Republic of Panama had a mutual interest. However, in practice, the Panaman Government looked directly to the chairman and chief engineer on all important matters. One of the earliest and most important subjects requiring their cooperation was that of sanitation in the cities of Panama and Colon. The United States agreed to advance money for building sewer and water systems, and for street improvements, in the two principal cities of the Republic, on condition that the Republic of Panama and the two cities would reimburse the United States Treasury through the water rents. The street improvements were to be paid for in 10 years, and the sewer and water systems in 50 years; in the meantime the United States was to be allowed 2 per cent interest on the money advanced. This amortization of the Republic's debt for these improvements has been going steadily forward. In laying out the government of the Canal Zone it was thought wise to adhere as closely to Spanish laws and customs as was expedient under the new conditions. In view of this consideration the methods of taxation on the Canal Zone were allowed to remain largely the same as under the old Spanish laws of Colombia. Likewise the Spanish system of judicial procedure was adhered to during the early years of the construction period. It was not, indeed, until 1908 that the right of trial by jury was established in the Canal Zone. At that time former Senator J. C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky, was at the head of the department of civil administration, and he regarded it as repugnant to American ideas of justice to deny to Americans on the Isthmus the right to be tried for felonious offenses by juries of their peers. Upon his representations President Roosevelt issued an executive order extending the right of trial by jury to the Canal Zone, and that order was effective after 1908. With the early opening of the canal it became advisable for Congress to determine the future policy of the United States toward the Canal Zone, and to lay out a system of government there which would meet the needs of the future. It was determined that the Canal Zone should be used for the operation of the canal, rather than for a habitation for such settlers as might choose to go there. Hence the provision was made that the President of the United States should have the right to determine how many settlements there should be on the Canal Zone and how many people should be permitted to live there. It will be the policy of the United States to discourage general settlement and to maintain only such towns as are necessary for the operation of the big waterway, granting only revocable leases to any outsiders when it is deemed advisable to allow them to occupy land within the Zone. There will be only five settlements in the Zone, if present plans are carried out: One at Cristobal, one at Gatun, one at Pedro Miguel, one at Corozal, and the settlement at Ancon and Balboa at the Pacific terminus of the canal. The total number of people who will reside in these settlements will probably not exceed 10,000, a material reduction from the 62,000 living on the Zone in 1912. Those who are still there, but who will not be needed in the permanent organization, will be repatriated at the expense of the United States Government. In 1912 there were approximately 31,000 British subjects on the Zone, practically all of them negroes from the British West Indian islands and British Guiana. The great majority of these will be carried back to their homes, as will all of the 4,300 Spaniards who desire to return. There were nearly 12,000 Americans on the Zone at that time, and perhaps two-thirds of them will leave before 1915. There were nearly 8,000 Panamans on the Zone and most of them will go to the cities of Panama and Colon, or upon the Government lands owned by the Panama Republic outside of the Zone. The work of clearing the Zone of its population was begun early in 1913. A joint land commission was appointed to adjudicate the claims of those Panamans who were living within the Zone on lands that were needed for the operation of the canal. This commission consisted, under the treaty existing between the two countries, of two Americans and two Panamans. In their work they first took up the claims of the poorer classes who had nothing but a thatched hut and a small patch of ground. The commission visited the various parts of the Zone and fixed the value of such holdings. The people were given free transportation over the Panama Railroad, and usually were allowed from $50 to $100 for their homes. They preferred to move in colonies, so the Republic of Panama laid out small towns away from the Canal Zone for them. These natives, usually almost full-blooded Indians, were treated as kindly and as considerately as conditions would allow. They were willing to "fold their tents" like the Arabs, and leave their homes behind as they went out to conquer new ones in the jungles where the needs of a gigantic waterway could not encroach upon them. The claims for lands which have to be taken from individuals by the United States will aggregate a half million dollars. As the Panaman Government allows homesteading on Government lands at a cost of about a dollar an acre, and as there are tens of thousands of acres of better land outside of the Canal Zone than inside, the policy of the United States in freeing this strip from native population will not work any great injury to the people. During the construction period the laws under which the people of the Zone lived were made in three different ways. Of course, Congress as the legislative assembly was always supreme. But under the laws passed by it, the President of the United States was empowered to issue executive orders covering points not touched by congressional legislation, and under his instructions the Secretary of War could promulgate certain orders. In addition to this, the Canal Commission had a right to serve as a sort of local legislature. During the year 1912 sixteen executive orders pertaining to the Canal Zone were signed by the President and the Secretary of War, while five ordinances were promulgated by the Isthmian Canal Commission during the same period. The court system under the construction-period government consisted of district courts, circuit courts, and a supreme court. There were five district judges and three circuit judges; and the circuit judges sitting together constituted the supreme court, from whose decisions there was no appeal. Under the permanent law there will be a magistrate's court in each town, which will have exclusive, original jurisdiction in all civil cases involving not more than $300, and of all criminal cases where the punishment does not exceed a fine of a hundred dollars or 30 days in jail, or both. Its jurisdiction will include all violations of police regulations and ordinances, and all actions involving possession or title to personal property or the forcible entry and detainer of real estate. These magistrates and the constables under them will serve for terms of four years. There will be a district court which will sit at the two terminal towns with the usual court officers. The circuit court of appeals of the fifth circuit of the United States will be the court to which appeals from the district court will be carried. The postal service of the Canal Zone is practically identical with that of the United States. The revenues collected from the sale of stamps and postal cards amounted to $87,550 in 1912. Nearly a quarter of a million money orders were issued during that year, representing a total of approximately $5,000,000. A postal savings bank system is also maintained, a counterpart of the one in the United States. All mail matter sent from the Canal Zone bears Panaman stamps countermarked by the Canal Zone government. When the United States established the postal system at Panama, American postage was used. The Panamans were very much dissatisfied with such a procedure, however, since it deprived them of a large share of their postal revenue. Their postal rates to the United States were those of the universal postal union--5 cents per ounce or fraction thereof on all first-class mail matter. The rate from the Canal Zone Was only 2 cents. The result was that the citizens of Panama and Colon would not patronize their own post offices, but carried their mail across the line to the post offices at Ancon and Cristobal where they could mail their letters at the 2-cent rate. The Panaman Government protested against this, and it was agreed by the Americans that in the future all mail matter should carry Panaman postage stamps. These are furnished to the Canal Zone government at 40 per cent of their face value. In this way the share of the Republic of Panama in the postal receipts of 1912 amounted to nearly $33,000. President Roosevelt selected one of his "rough riders," George R. Shanton, to establish the police force on the Zone. This police force was selected generally from men who had seen service in the United States Army and had made good records there. In 1912 the force consisted of 117 first-class white policemen, 116 colored policemen, 20 corporals, 8 sergeants, 7 lieutenants, and 2 inspectors, besides a chief of police and an assistant chief of police. During that year 7,055 arrests were made, 70 per cent of which resulted in convictions. Police stations were maintained at all settlements along the line. A penitentiary was located at Culebra where approximately 140 convicts were confined. The penitentiary had to be removed owing to slides at Culebra Cut, and the men were put to work on the roads of the Canal Zone. They were kept in well-guarded stockades at night. When Judge Henry A. Gudger was made a member of the judicial system of the Canal Zone he believed that it would be the scene of unusual lawlessness; he thought it would be a dumping ground for lawless people from all parts of the world. He therefore believed in strong repressive measures, and his earlier sentences were made heavy with that end in view. He found later, however, that the opposite was true. Under the system of quartering the canal help there was comparatively little mixing of the races. The negroes lived to themselves, the Spaniards to themselves, and the Americans to themselves; therefore, racial friction was largely overcome. The lawless found the Canal Zone a desirable place to shun. Judge Gudger soon discovered that severe measures were unnecessary, and in recommending pardons frequently stated that he had imposed sentences heavier than necessary to carry out the repressive policies he had in mind. A well-organized, paid fire department was maintained from the beginning and it was supplemented by volunteer companies in many places. In a number of towns fire engines of the latest automobile type were installed. Out of 300 fire alarms in 1912, nearly 200 were for fires in Government property valued at one and three-quarters million dollars, while the total loss was only $5,000. The school system of the Canal Zone was laid out along the same lines that characterized all other activities for the welfare of the people who were engaged in building the canal. It was founded by Charles E. Magoon when he was governor of the Zone, and in 1912 had 75 teachers and officials, with an enrollment of 2,105, of whom nearly 1,200 were white. The standard required of the teachers was maintained at a high point. Of the 48 white teachers employed in 1912, 13 held degrees from colleges and universities, 19 held diplomas from standard normal schools, and 12 others had enjoyed at least two years of normal teaching. The white children on the Zone were given free transportation to and from the schools. Those who had to go on the railroad to reach their schools were given free passes. Those who attended the schools in their own neighborhood were gathered up in wagons and transported to school. The system of roads for the parts of the Canal Zone adjacent to the canal itself was built mainly by convict labor at comparatively little cost. They have been useful to the natives in getting their few products to market, and during the years to come will be available as military roads for use in the defense of the Zone. These roads are built according to the best American standards and are almost the only real roads in the entire Republic. The Panaman Government has extended one road from the Zone line to old Panama, and for a few miles into the interior, but aside from this national road activities have been few indeed. The American road from Panama to the Zone boundary, leading toward old Panama, over the savannahs, is the pleasure highway of the Republic. It is practically the only road in the Republic where one drives for pleasure, and here every automobile in Panama City is pressed into service during the late afternoon and the evening. The elite of the capital city own summer homes along this road. These homes are by no means as elaborate as the summer homes along the Hudson, but the fact that they were seated amidst veritable gardens of flowers gives them an air of beauty and restfulness attractive even to the most blase traveler. The water-supply system of the Canal Zone consists of a number of reservoirs on the watersheds of the Isthmus where no human habitations are allowed, and where trespassing is forbidden. The waters are examined for bacteria and other properties once each month, and a report thereon is made to the proper officials. Twice each month a physical examination of each reservoir, and the land from which it receives its water, is made by inspectors who report all conditions to the sanitary and other authorities. If there is any sign of contamination, steps to overcome the trouble are taken immediately. Where the reservoirs fill up to the spillway the waste water is not allowed to go over the top, but is drawn out from the bottom in order that the under layers of water may be the ones wasted. Water drawn out for domestic purposes is taken from the top wherever possible. The water has a somewhat unpleasant taste to people newly arrived upon the Isthmus, and in some cases serves to disturb the digestive tract, but to the people who become accustomed to it the unpleasant flavor, due to the presence of decayed vegetation, is forgotten, and the workers on the Canal Zone frequently declare they miss the Panama water when they go back to the States. The permanent Government of the Canal Zone will be, in the main, merely a miniature of the government during the construction period. The law providing for the operation of the canal makes this Government entirely subsidiary to the main purpose for which the canal was built. It provides that when war is in prospect the President may appoint a military officer to take charge of the Canal Zone, and to conduct its affairs as they might be conducted were the Zone nothing more than a military reservation. The Government will have its headquarters at the Pacific end of the canal where Balboa, the principal permanent town on the Isthmus, will be located. This little American city will be Government-built and Government-owned, and it will be the smallest of all the world's capitals. [Illustration: SMOKE FROM HEATED ROCKS IN CULEBRA CUT] [Illustration: TOM M. COOKE THE POST OFFICE, ANCON] Under the new Government all old laws, not specifically repealed, or contrary to the new ones, will be continued in force. All executive orders issued by the President, and all orders and ordinances promulgated by the Canal Commission, during the construction period, not inconsistent with the act creating a permanent form of government, are made laws of the Canal Zone to continue as such until specifically repealed by act of Congress. CHAPTER XXII CONGRESS AND THE CANAL While the Congress of the United States ever has been charged with a lack of appreciation of the needs of the executive branch of the Government, spending money foolishly here and being niggardly with its appropriations there, the history of the legislation under which the Panama Canal was undertaken and completed shows that American lawmakers backed up the canal diggers in every necessary way. One may read in all the hearings that were conducted, both on the Isthmus and in Washington, a desire on the part of the congressional committees having to do with the canal matters, to promote the work, and to enable those directly concerned in its execution to carry out their plans without hindrance. It is probable that no project ever carried to completion under the aegis of the United States Government was studied more carefully by the legislators than the Panama Canal. There was a standing invitation from the Isthmian Canal Commission to members of the Senate and House of Representatives to visit the Isthmus, collectively or individually, for the purpose of acquainting themselves with the character of the work and its needs. This invitation was accepted by a large percentage of the members of the House and Senate who served during the construction period. When a member of either branch of Congress visited the Isthmus and saw there the character of the work being done, and the spirit of the men behind it, he never failed to return an enthusiastic supporter of the work, ready by vote and voice to contribute his share to the legislation needed. When the final Isthmian Canal Commission came into power a policy of absolute candor with Congress was adopted. When the annual estimates for appropriations were submitted, they came to Congress with the understanding that they represented exactly what was needed, no more and no less. Instead of recommending from 10 to 25 per cent more than they hoped to get, upon the assumption that Congress would scale down the appropriations--a policy long followed in many of the bureaus of the Government--the canal officials asked Congress to understand from the beginning that the figures they submitted had been pared down to the bone. The result was a happy one. Congress learned to depend upon the figures and to make its appropriations accordingly; consequently, the work was never handicapped by appropriations deficient in one branch and overabundant in another. Congress for several years made its appropriations for building the canal under the assumption that it was to cost about $145,000,000, exclusive of government, sanitation, purchase price, and payments to the Republic of Panama. It was not until 1908 that a straightforward, definite effort was made to fix the ultimate cost. Experience showed clearly that all hands had hopelessly underestimated both the total amount of work to be done and the unit cost of doing it. After a year's experience of carrying forward the work at full swing, the commission decided to face the situation frankly and attempt to ascertain exactly what might be expected. This investigation disclosed the fact that the estimates of the amount of work to be done were a little over 50 per cent short. Under the experience of one year's work it was calculated that the total cost of the canal would be $375,000,000, including sanitation, government, and payments to the New Panama Canal Company and the Republic of Panama, instead of $210,000,000, as these items would have aggregated under the estimates made in 1906. This was about one and a half times as much as the estimated cost of a sea-level canal. But, although Congress had fixed the limit upon the basis of an aggregate cost of $210,000,000, it cheerfully faced the restatement of the anticipated cost, and finally set the limit at $375,000,000. From that day forward the great effort at Panama was to live within this limit, in spite of the extra work required. While Congress might have been willing to increase this limit, in view of the fact that an additional 97,000,000 cubic yards of material had to be removed, it was not asked to do so. The engineers desired above everything else to stay within their own estimates, and they did the extra work with money saved by increasing the efficiency of the force. The first law providing for the government of the Canal Zone was enacted in 1904. It gave to the President and those appointed by him the right to govern the Zone and imposed the duty "of maintaining and protecting its inhabitants in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion." In 1907 an effort was made to reduce wages on the canal. The sundry civil bill of that year carried a provision that wages on the Isthmus for skilled and unskilled labor should not exceed more than 25 per cent the average wage paid in the United States for similar labor. This proposition was urged by Representative James A. Tawney, of Minnesota, then chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the House. When it came to a vote the wages fixed under Chief Engineers Wallace and Stevens were upheld by a vote of 101 to 10. Congress took the ground that the canal could be built only by the most liberal treatment of the people who were building it. At another time a provision was inserted in the appropriation law establishing the 8-hour day law for American workers on the canal. A fight was made by the American Federation of Labor and other organizations to make it apply to the common laborer as well as to the Americans, but this was unsuccessful. The 8-hour provision did not work well, since the foremen and superintendents were permitted to stop work after 8 hours, while the laborers under them had to work an hour longer. This was later rectified by providing that the 8-hour law should not affect foremen and superintendents in charge of alien labor; and thus was overcome the difficulty of having an army of common laborers at work an hour or so each day without superintendence or direction. In 1906 it was provided by a joint resolution of the Senate and House that the purchase of material and equipment for use in the construction of the canal should be restricted to articles of American production and manufacture, except in cases where the President should deem prices extortionate or unreasonable. This provision undoubtedly increased by many millions of dollars the cost of the machinery with which the canal work was executed. While some dredges and other equipment were purchased in Europe, foreign purchases were the exception rather than the rule. When bids were submitted there were times when European prices of dredges were placed at less than $700,000, while American prices for the same dredges would amount to more than $1,000,000. When there were such marked difference in bids the awards were made to the European manufacturers. Although the construction of the canal was authorized by the Spooner Act in 1902, it was not until 1906 that Congress expressed its views in legislation on the question of the type of canal that should be built. It was then that it declared the canal should be of the general lock type proposed by the minority of the board of consulting engineers, which was a complete approval of the plans urged by President Roosevelt. In order to make certain this decision as to the type of canal, a provision was incorporated in the appropriation bill of that year, setting forth that no part of the sums therein appropriated should be used for the construction of a sea-level canal. Congress was always willing to aid the engineers in meeting unforeseen contingencies by giving them unusual liberties in the application of moneys appropriated. It was provided that as much as 10 per cent of any appropriation might be used for any of the other purposes for which money was appropriated, thus allowing the necessary leeway to insure a systematic progress of the work throughout all its features. This provision many times came to the rescue of the chief engineer, when he found that more money was needed at one point and less at another than had been estimated 16 or 18 months before. While President Roosevelt was in the White House Congress gave him abundant authority over all phases of the task at Panama. He was empowered to do almost anything he thought expedient for hastening the work. For instance, in 1907 when he considered building the canal by contract, Congress provided that nothing in the Spooner Act should prevent him from entering into such contract or contracts as he might deem expedient for the construction of the canal. This practically gave him full authority over the limit of cost and the methods of building. He was thus the sole judge of the character of the contracts that he might make. No President in the history of the country ever was vested with fuller jurisdiction and control over a great matter than was President Roosevelt in this case. That he did not enter into such contract was due mainly to the reports made to him by Col. George W. Goethals, who had just been appointed chief engineer. In 1908 the Secretary of War was authorized to purchase for the Panama Railroad Company two steamships of American registry of not less than 9,000 gross tons each, the cost of which should not exceed $1,550,000, for the transportation of supplies, equipment, and material, and of officers and employees of the Canal Commission. These ships, when no longer required for that service were to be transferred to the Secretary of the Navy for use as colliers or other auxiliary naval vessels. These ships carried the bulk of the cement used in building of the great locks, and more than paid for themselves in the saving of transportation charges which would have been levied by private carriers. In the appropriation act of 1909 Congress decided that the carrying of marine or fire insurance was bad policy for the Government, and provided that no such insurance should be carried by the Panama Railroad Company, but that it should be reimbursed for any loss it might sustain from the appropriations made by Congress for the building of the canal. [Illustration: A NEGRO GIRL A MARTINIQUE WOMAN SAN BLAS CHIEF AN INDIAN GIRL] AN ITALIAN A TIMEKEEPER A SPANIARD A NEGRO BOY A FEW OF THE MANY TYPES ON THE ISTHMUS] [Illustration: COL. HARRY F. HODGES TESTING THE EMERGENCY DAM, GATUN LOCKS] There were a number of committees in Congress which dealt with canal legislation. Principal among these were the Committees on Appropriations of the two Houses, the Committee on Interoceanic Canals of the Senate, and the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House. The Appropriations Committees dealt with the question of appropriations. The House Appropriations Committee usually made a trip to the Isthmus before each session of Congress. There it would hold hearings, questioning closely every person connected with the work who had made estimates for its benefit, its members seeing with their own eyes the projects for which each individual appropriation was asked. The practice was, during these visits, to go over a part of the work and then to hold sessions of the committee for the purpose of asking questions about that phase of the undertaking. The testimony was taken down by an official stenographer and printed for the use of every Member of Congress. A few months later the chairman and chief engineer would make a trip to Washington and furnish the committee with such supplementary information as the intervening time might have disclosed. The Senate Committee did not visit the Isthmus as frequently, as it usually found that the hearings held by the House Committee afforded it sufficient information on which to predicate its action. All matters having to do with organization traffic, or general laws for the Canal Zone, were handled by the Committee on Interoceanic Canals of the Senate and the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House. It was the latter committee, under the chairmanship of Representative William C. Adamson, of Georgia, which framed the permanent Canal Law, under which the Isthmian waterway will be governed and operated. The big fight in Congress over the type of canal was waged before the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals. The records of this committee, together with the additional records in the hands of Congress, constitute one of the most extensive accounts of a great work anywhere to be found. The official literature of the Panama Canal is almost as voluminous as the canal is big. Although Congress usually left the details of canal construction to be worked out by the Canal Commission and the President, from start to finish it showed a determination so to deal with the big project that it could look back over the work with the feeling that it had contributed its share to the triumph of the undertaking. CHAPTER XXIII SEA-LEVEL CANAL IMPOSSIBLE No one can dispute the wisdom of the United States in deciding to build a lock canal. To have undertaken a sea-level canal would have involved this Government in difficulties so great that even with all the wealth and determination of America, failure would have ensued. It is, perhaps, putting it too strongly to say that a sea-level canal is a physical impossibility, but it is not too much to say that such a canal would take so much money and so much time to build that the resources and patience of the American people would be exhausted long before it could be made navigable. The advocates of a sea-level canal declared that a channel could be dug through Culebra Mountain with the excavation of 110,000,000 cubic yards. As a matter of fact, Culebra Cut, with its bottom 85 feet above sea level, required the excavation of almost that same amount. Engineers who advocated a sea-level canal declared that the material in Culebra Mountain was stable, and that only moderate slopes would be necessary. As a matter of fact, the material in the mountain proved highly unstable, and, except for a few short sections, slides and breaks were encountered all during the construction period. The result was that practically two Culebra Cuts were dug. The engineers, in beginning the present canal, calculated that 53,000,000 cubic yards would be excavated in Culebra; the amount actually removed was 105,000,000 cubic yards. Upon this basis a sea-level Culebra Cut might have required the excavation of 230,000,000 cubic yards. Calculating an average monthly excavation of a million cubic yards, the task would have required 17 years to complete. In other words, if a sea-level canal had been undertaken and had been physically possible, the celebration of the opening of the waterway would have been set for 1925 instead of 1915. Among all of the members of the majority of the board of consulting engineers who favored a sea-level canal, only one, E. Quellenec, Consulting Engineer of the Suez Canal, showed any appreciation of the difficulties which were to be expected in Culebra Cut. He announced, in voting in favor of a sea-level canal, that he could not do so without first reminding the United States Government of the great difficulties that would lie before it in Culebra Cut. Henry Hunter, Engineer of the Manchester Ship Canal, declared that Culebra Cut presented no serious problems at all; that a sea-level cut could be dug more quickly than the locks of the other type of canal could be built. He further declared that it was as clearly demonstrable as any engineering problem could be, that it would be possible to use 100 steam shovels in Culebra Cut. No one has accused the engineers on the canal of lack of ability in maneuvering shovels, yet at no time were they able to use more than 46. If President Roosevelt had followed the recommendation of the majority of the board of consulting engineers in favor of a sea-level canal, it seems probable that the United States would have followed the French in retiring defeated from the Isthmus, or else would have reconsidered its purpose to build a sea-level canal and have undertaken a lock canal, as the French had done. But, even if it had been possible to build a sea-level canal at Panama, it appears that such a canal would not have been as satisfactory as the present one. While the canal the United States possesses at Panama to-day is a great waterway 300 feet wide at its narrowest part, in which ships can pass at any point, the sea-level canal projected would have been a narrow channel winding in and out among the hills, too narrow for half its length for the largest ships to pass. Currents, caused by the Chagres River, and by the flow of other streams into the canal, would have made navigation somewhat dangerous. The principal ground upon which the majority members of the board of consulting engineers voted in favor of a sea-level canal was that it was less vulnerable. This contention, in the light of what has happened at Panama, seems to carry no great weight. Such a canal would have required a masonry dam 180 feet high across the Chagres at Gamboa, to regulate the flow of that river into the canal. This dam, very narrow and very high, would have been a much fairer mark than the great Gatun Dam for the wielder of high explosives. Furthermore, while earth dams, like that at Gatun, have weathered earthquake shocks of great severity, masonry dams, like that proposed for Gamboa, have been tumbled to the earth by shocks of much less power. The regulating works at Gatun will take care of a volume of water approximately twice as great as the Chagres has ever brought down. On the other hand, the proposed dam at Gamboa would have cared for only one-third as great a discharge as the highest known flow of the Chagres. It was calculated that the lake made by the dam at Gamboa would always be held at low stage between floods, but if two floods came in quick succession this might have been impossible. Such a situation would have made the Chagres River always a menace to the canal, instead of its most essential and beneficent feature. Those who objected to the lock type, on the ground that the locks could be destroyed, seemed to forget that even the sea-level project demanded a set of locks to regulate the tides of the Pacific. While, contrary to the usual idea, there is no difference in the mean level of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the difference in the tides at Panama is about 18 feet. This is due to the shape of the Bay of Panama. As the tide sweeps over the Pacific and into that bay, it meets a funnel-shaped shore line, which gradually contracts as the tide travels landward. The result is that the tide rises higher and higher until it reaches a maximum of 10 feet above average sea level. When it flows out it reaches a point 10 feet below average sea level, thus giving a tidal fluctuation of 20 feet. On the Atlantic side the tidal fluctuation is only 2 feet. Under these conditions the canal could not be operated during many hours of the 24 without the tidal locks, if at all, and it would be almost as great a hindrance to have the tidal locks destroyed as to have the present locks injured. Another perpetual menace in a canal with a bottom width of only 150 feet for half of its distance, would be the danger of a ship sinking and blocking the channel. When the _Cheatham_ sank in the Suez Canal it wholly blocked the waterway for nine days, and partially blocked it for a month. According to the Isthmian Canal Commission, the present canal affords greater safety for ships and less danger of interruption to traffic by reason of its wider and deeper channels; it provides for quicker passage across the Isthmus for large ships and for heavy traffic; it is in much less danger of being damaged, and of delays to ships because of the flood waters of the Chagres; it can be enlarged more easily and much more cheaply than could a sea-level canal. The lock canal has a minimum depth of 41 feet, and less than 5 miles of it has a width as narrow as 300 feet. It can take care of 80,000,000 tons of shipping a year, and, by the expenditure of less than $25,000,000 additional, can increase this capacity by at least a third. It can pass at least 48 ships a day, doing all that a sea-level canal could do, and many things that a sea-level canal could not do. No one denies that if it were possible to have a great Isthmian waterway at sea level as wide as the present lock canal, it would be the ideal interoceanic waterway. But, as such a proposition is out of the question, the American people have at least one thing for which to thank Theodore Roosevelt--that at a critical time in the history of the canal project he allowed himself to be converted from the advocacy of a sea-level canal to the championship of a lock-level canal, in the face of a majority report of one of the strongest boards of engineers ever assembled, and prevented a situation at Panama that would have been humiliating to America, and which probably would have ended for all time the efforts of centuries to let ships through the American Isthmus. CHAPTER XXIV FORTIFICATIONS When Congress decided that the Panama Canal should be regarded as a part of the military defenses of the Nation, it became necessary to fortify it in such a way as to make it practically impregnable to naval attack. It was, therefore, decided that there should be ample coast defenses at the two ends of the canal and that these defenses should be protected from land attack by the quartering of a sufficient number of mobile troops to hold in check any landing parties that might attack the works by an overland route. In carrying out this plan Congress met every demand of the military experts. When the plans for the fortifications were pending before the Appropriations Committee of the House every military authority, from Gen. Leonard Wood and Col. George W. Goethals down, who appeared before the committee was asked if he considered the defenses recommended as sufficient for the purposes intended, and each replied in the affirmative. These defenses consist of large forts at each end of the canal, with field works for some 6,000 mobile troops. The defenses on the Pacific side will be somewhat stronger than those on the Atlantic side, probably for the reason that better naval protection ordinarily could be afforded to the Atlantic than to the Pacific entrance, on account of the proximity of the Atlantic Waters of the canal to American shores. At the forts on the Atlantic side four 12-inch guns, sixteen 12-inch mortars, six 6-inch guns and four 4-7/10-inch howitzers will be mounted. The guns at this end of the canal will be distributed between Toro Point on the west side of the entrance channel and Margarita Island on the east side. There will be two big 14-inch disappearing guns at each of these points. They will be so placed as to sweep the horizon in the seaward direction, and at the same time will be able to concentrate their fire on the enemy as he steams in toward the channel entrance between the great breakwaters which cut off Limon Bay from the ocean. At the Pacific end all of the defenses will be on the east side of the channel. They will consist of one 16-inch gun, six 14-inch guns, six 6-inch guns and eight 4-7/10-inch howitzers. There are three small islands on the east side of the Pacific entrance channel known as Naos, Perico, and Flamenco. They rise precipitously out of the water and offer ideal sites for heavy defense. A huge dump or breakwater has been built from the mainland at Balboa out to Naos Island and this, in turn, has been connected with Perico and Flamenco by large stone causeways. The great dump has made several hundred acres of available land for quartering the eight companies of coast-defense troops which will be stationed at the Pacific end of the canal. These islands are 3 miles from the mainland and their guns will completely bar the way to any hostile ships which might seek to enter the canal. On the other side of the channel, at a distance of about 12 miles, lies the island of Taboga where the Canal Commission maintains the sanitarium for its employees. It had been suggested by some that fortifications should be planted there, but it was declared by the military authorities that the guns of Naos, Perico, and Flamenco would completely command this island and prevent a hostile nation from using it as a base of operations. The range of the guns extends more than a mile beyond Taboga Island. The big 16-inch gun which will be mounted on Perico Island is the largest ever built. It was made at the Watervliet Arsenal. It carries a projectile weighing more than a ton for a distance of 21 miles. At 17 miles it can toss its death-dealing 2,400-pound shell at an enemy as accurately as a base-ball player throws a ball to a team-mate 17 yards away. Its projectiles are filled with powerful explosives, a single one of which in the vitals of any battleship would be enough to place it out of commission. The big guns and the mortars are intended primarily for defending the canal from attack by water. The smaller guns and howitzers would come into play when an enemy approached within a mile and would be used to repel his efforts to effect a landing. Nearly all of these howitzers may be moved from place to place to meet the needs of the field troops in case of land attack. Eight of them will be permanently stationed at Gatun Locks. There will be other field works at Gatun, Miraflores, and Pedro Miguel ready for occupancy at a moment's notice by the field troops stationed on the Isthmus. These howitzers are so located that 12 of them may be concentrated at any given point in case of danger. The big guns of the permanent forts are all mounted on disappearing carriages so that they are exposed to fire only at the moment of discharge. The 12-inch mortars will not only play their part in defending the canal from water attack, but will be able to sweep the country on the Atlantic side as far inland as the Gatun Locks and on the Pacific side as far inland as the locks at Miraflores. They have a range of nearly 4 miles, and when loaded with shrapnel will prove a most effective weapon against field troops operating anywhere within the vicinity of the locks. The land lying contiguous to the sea-level ends of the canal will be platted off into squares exactly as a city is laid out. Should hostile troops come upon this territory the men in the fire-control station would simply ascertain the number of the block or blocks on which they were operating, and the mortars would be so oriented as to throw their big projectiles thousands of yards into the air to fall directly on those blocks. They would, therefore, be practically as useful in land operations as in the water defense. Every feature of the armament defending the entrance of the canal will embody the latest improvements known to military science. The carriages for the big guns have been specially designed, and were put through the most thorough and exacting tests before their adoption. The fire-control stations are said to be the last word in insuring the effective use of the guns. Determining how a big gun shall be aimed so that its projectile will hit a target 10 miles away is not an easy task. Of course, the gun can not be pointed directly at the target, since this would cause the projectile to fall far short of the enemy, and also the effect of the wind and the motion of the enemy would carry it wide of its mark. To guess the range and to secure it by experimentation would be to prevent any effective fire whatever. Therefore, it is necessary first to determine the approximate range, the motion of the enemy and the velocity of the wind. There is an ingenious instrument known as the range finder, by which the approximate distance of the target is determined. This instrument looks something like a cross between an opera glass and a small telescope. The operator puts his eyes to the opera glass part of the range finder and locates the enemy just as one would with an ordinary pair of glasses. When he locates the hostile ship he sees two images of it. There is an adjusting screw which he turns until the two images blend together and become one. The turning of this screw automatically adjusts a scale on the instrument, and when the two images exactly coalesce the distance of the ship is registered on the scale. The operators in the fire-control station make the necessary calculations as to the effect of the wind, the motion of the enemy and other elements entering into marksmanship, and telephone the results below to the men who aim the gun. It takes two men to aim each gun; one takes care of its up-and-down movement, and the other of its right-and-left movement. When the man in the fire-control station telephones that the enemy is so many miles away, the man who has charge of the up-and-down movement of the gun so adjusts his telescopic sight on a registering scale that when it is pointed directly on the enemy the muzzle of the gun will be elevated high enough to carry the projectile that distance. The man who has charge of the right-to-left movement adjusts his sight so that when it is pointed directly at the enemy the muzzle of the gun will be pointed far enough to the right or to the left to land its projectile amidship on the enemy. Each man stands on a platform and operates a little wheel on an endless screw. He turns this wheel backward or forward just enough to keep his sight exactly on the enemy. After the gunners have received their instructions the first shot is fired. This is called a "ranging" shot, and as the best range finder can not register the distance to the exact yard it is necessary for the fire-control station to gauge exactly how far short of, or how far over, the target the projectile has carried. The up-and-down sight is adjusted in accordance therewith and usually the second, or at most the third, shot gets the exact range. This method of locating the enemy will be used on all the fortifications of the canal. It is unanimously agreed by military authorities that no naval force will risk an open attack upon such fortifications, since almost inevitably it would result in the disabling, if not the sinking, of a number of battleships and a great crippling of the enemy's force that he could not afford to risk unless he had first swept the seas of our own naval strength. In order to make certain that no surprise attack could be successful, one of the most complete searchlight equipments to be found in any fortress in the world has been authorized for the canal fortifications. There will be 14 searchlights, with 60-inch reflectors, made so that they will send the brightest of white lights out to sea and over the land as far as the range of the guns may reach. These searchlights cost more than $20,000 each, and it requires a year to construct the big mirror which is placed in each of them. Electric plants at each fortress will generate electricity for the operation of the guns and of the searchlights. In anticipation of sudden need nearly $2,000,000 worth of reserve ammunition will be kept on the Isthmus. There will be 70 rounds for the big 16-inch gun--enough to operate it constantly for two hours, providing for a shot about every two minutes. The big 14-inch guns will carry a shell weighing 1,400 pounds, propelled by a 365-pound charge of smokeless powder which will drive it through the air at an initial speed of nearly half a mile a second--enough momentum to carry it through at least 5 feet of wrought iron. The charge of powder by which these guns will hurl their projectiles on their death-dealing mission, generates a force which would lift the great Masonic Temple of Chicago 2 feet in a single second. Three regiments of infantry, 1 squadron of cavalry, 1 battalion of field artillery, and 12 companies of coast-defense troops will be permanently stationed on the Isthmus. The field troops, consisting of the infantry, cavalry, and field artillery, will be stationed at Miraflores, where permanent quarters will be provided together with the necessary drill grounds. These quarters will cost in the neighborhood of $3,000,000. At this point they can be maneuvered to advantage and moved to any part of the Canal Zone needing defense. It was originally intended to place these troops at Culebra on the east side of the channel, but this would necessitate their going a distance of about 5 miles to get to a point where they could conveniently cross with the artillery to the other side of the canal. Quarters for eight companies of coast-defense troops are being established on the Naos Island dumps. Quarters for two companies of these troops are being provided at Toro Point, and for two other companies at Margarita Island. These will afford sufficient strength at the Atlantic side to man the guns temporarily, in case of hostilities, until any additional troops needed can be brought up. All of the troops, both field and coast defense, will be adequately housed and the permanent structures erected for them will be as substantially built as those of any modern army post in continental United States. There will be drill grounds large enough to maneuver the troops stationed on the Isthmus. Roads affording access to all parts of the Canal Zone have been built. In addition to the provisions for the permanent forces on the Isthmus, additional field works will be provided to accommodate the 20,000 troops which might be brought to the Isthmus in case of war. These field works will take the form of barricaded positions, entrenchments, and other protective breastworks which will enable the troops to undergo a state of siege. It has been estimated by the engineers that behind such works as have been planned one defender can stand off six assailants, so that a body of 20,000 mobile troops under these conditions could hold the Isthmus against a siege of 100,000 for a reasonable time. These field works will be constructed principally around Gatun and Pedro Miguel. The buildings for the permanent force stationed on the Isthmus will be constructed on the unit system so that any necessary expansion can be made. The question of fortifying the canal was one which engaged the serious attention of Congress for a long time. There were two main viewpoints as to what policy should be pursued. One contention was that the canal should be made neutral, open to the ships of all nations, including the United States, on equal terms even in case of war between the United States and any other country. It was contended by those who took this view that to declare it neutral would render it immune from any attack and guarantee its perpetuity as a great commercial undertaking under the control of the United States. They contended, furthermore, that the United States was bound, under the terms of its treaty with Great Britain, to make the canal neutral and that to fortify it would be to violate the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. They asserted that the United States was under solemn obligations to recognize the principle of neutrality as applied at Suez and offered the express terms of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty in proof of their contention. This treaty provided that "the United States adopts, as the basis of the neutralization of such a ship canal, the following rules substantially embodied in the Convention of Constantinople, signed the twenty-eighth of October, 1888, for the free navigation of the Suez Canal; that is to say: "First, the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war, all nations observing these rules on terms of entire equality so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or otherwise. Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable. "Second, the canal shall never be blockaded, nor shall any right of war be exercised, nor any act of hostility be committed within it. The United States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder. "Third, vessels of war of a belligerent shall not revictual nor take any stores in the canal except so far as may be strictly necessary; and the transit of such vessels through the canal shall be effected with the least possible delay in accordance with the regulations in force, and with only such intermissions as may result from the necessities of the service." It will be seen from this that the language of the treaty seems plainly to imply that the United States had no right to fortify the canal. It is interesting to note, however, that when the controversy over the tolls between the United States and England arose, the English Government expressly conceded the right of the United States to fortify the canal and to exercise absolute rights of sovereignty so far as military considerations were concerned. It would constitute an interesting chapter in diplomatic history if someone would tell the real reason why the English Government waived its rights of demanding a neutral canal under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. Those who advocated the fortification of the canal contended that the United States had acquired practical sovereignty over the Canal Zone, and that thereunder it had a perfect right to provide for the defense of the territory. They asserted that the canal was undertaken because of the military necessities of the United States, as demonstrated by the trip of the _Oregon_ from the Pacific to the Atlantic, during the Spanish-American War and that to fail to fortify the canal would be to lose the military advantages which its construction had given to the United States. It was further contended that to allow the canal to be neutral would, in the case of war between the United States and some foreign power, compel the United States to keep its own warships out of the canal its own blood and money had built, or else compel its permanent operating force at Panama to commit a sort of legal treason by putting the enemy's ships through the big waterway on the same terms with American ships. This contention was answered by those who took the opposite view with the statement that all treaties would be suspended in case of war and that neutralization would cease between the United States and its enemies at such a time. The other side replied that if this were true, it would then be too late properly to fortify the Isthmus, and that if the United States expected ever to deny to any country the neutrality provisions of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, the fortifications should by all means be built in advance. The long and earnest debate brought forth from some the prediction that England would not acquiesce in such a construction of the treaty, and from others the statement that under the terms of that instrument other nations had a right to protest against the fortification of the canal. In the face of these arguments, however, Congress determined by a substantial majority to fortify the canal, and the whole world has acquiesced. England not only did not protest, but in its toll controversy notes expressly declared that the United States had the right to fortify the canal. CHAPTER XXV FIXING THE TOLLS Long before the Panama Canal was finished shipping interests in every part of the world began inquiring minutely as to probable rates of toll, stating that it would be necessary for them to have this information before making plans to meet the changed conditions. Some wanted to plan construction of new ships, while others desired principally to readjust their transportation lines in accordance with the new conditions. With this in mind, President Taft in 1912 recommended to Congress the passage of a law fixing the tolls and providing for the permanent operation of the canal. Congress, acting upon this recommendation, passed what is known as the Permanent Canal Law. In this law are stated the terms under which the canal may be used by the shipping world. It authorizes the President to prescribe, and from time to time to change, the tolls that shall be levied by the Government of the United States for the use of the canal. No tolls may be levied on vessels passing through the canal from one United States port to another. Provision was also made that tolls might be based upon gross or net registered tonnage, displacement tonnage, or otherwise, and that they might be lower on vessels in ballast than upon vessels carrying cargo. When based upon net registered tonnage, for ships of commerce, the tolls can not exceed $1.25 per ton, nor be less, other than for vessels of the United States and its citizens, than the estimated proportional cost of the actual maintenance and operation of the canal. The toll for each passenger was fixed at not more than $1.50. Acting under the law authorizing him to fix the rates within the limitations stated by the law itself, President Taft issued a proclamation fixing the toll at $1.20 per net registered ton on all ships of commerce, other than those carrying cargo from one United States port to another. The net registered ton is the unit of measuring a ship's cargo-carrying capacity, used throughout the world in general, and by British shipping in particular. It consists of 100 cubic feet of space, so that when a ship is measured its net registered tonnage is determined by the number of these units of space it contains. A ton of cargo seldom fills a hundred cubic feet of space; frequently it will not fill more than 40 cubic feet. The charge per ton of actual freight under this toll of $1.20 per net registered ton ranges from 44 to 80 cents a long ton upon the freight carried, depending upon the class of cargo. Such a toll adds from 2 to 4 cents per hundredweight to the freight rate between two points through the canal. It might cost 5 cents to take a barrel of flour from Colon to Panama, or vice versa. While ships will be charged tolls on the basis of net registered tonnage, not all ships carry freight upon that basis. In the majority of cases cargo is taken on at "ship's option"--either by weight or space. Forty cubic feet is estimated as the space occupied by an ordinary ton of freight, and ships usually carry cargo at rates based on that amount of space for each ton. The 40 cubic feet method of determining the amount of cargo carried is adopted by maritime interests because a long ton of wheat occupies about that amount of space. From this it will be seen that for the purpose of collecting tolls the United States allows 100 cubic feet of space for a ton, while the ordinary shipping firm allows only 40 feet per ton. Thus it happens that a shipowner charges the shipper for carrying 2-1/2 tons where the United States charges the shipowner for carrying 1 ton. Notwithstanding the fact that the shipowner collects for the carrying of 2-1/2 tons where he pays toll on 1 ton, he still has to pay what seems, in the aggregate, a large sum of money each time his ship passes through the canal. An ordinary 5,000-ton ship will be charged $6,000 for passing from one ocean to the other. A ship like the _Cleveland_, the first around the world tourist steamer advertised to pass through the canal, will have to pay $14,000 for the 12-hour trip from Colon to Panama. A steamship like the _Lusitania_ will have to put up some $30,000 for a single passage. The average ship will pay from $5,000 to $10,000 for its passage. This seems like a high rate, even though it does amount to only 2 or 4 cents per hundredweight of cargo, but when one takes into consideration the time saved in passing through the canal, and the cost of maintaining a ship on the high seas, the rate becomes a reasonable one. The average ship costs about 10 cents per net registered ton per day for keeping it in operation. Thus a 10,000-ton ship will save about a thousand dollars for each day its voyage is shortened. If this voyage be shortened by 20 days, the shipowner makes a net saving of $8,000 when he selects the Panama route over some other route. In fact, he may save even more than this, for the other route might involve the giving of additional space for bunker coal, which otherwise would be used for cargo. Convenient coaling stations mean a minimum of space required for the operation of the ship and a maximum of cargo-carrying capacity. In this way a merchant ship might save several thousand dollars additional by choosing the Panama route over the Strait of Magellan. It is estimated that the tolls it will be necessary to collect to make the canal self-supporting will be $15,500,000 a year, since that amount will be required to meet the expense of operation and return 3 per cent interest on the investment. The $15,500,000 is made up of $3,500,000 for operations, $250,000 for sanitation and government and $11,250,000 for interest on the $375,000,000 the canal cost. This takes no account of approximately $10,000,000 which will be required for the support of the troops on the Isthmus. Should this be considered, the total annual charges to be made would approximate $25,000,000, but this, in the view of those who have considered the matter, is not a proper charge against the cost of operation. [Illustration: THE ANCON BASEBALL PARK] [Illustration: CALEB M. SAVILLE GATUN SPILLWAY FROM ABOVE AND BELOW] It has been stated that a proper system of finances would provide for the repayment of the cost of constructing the canal in a hundred years. This would mean an annual charge of $3,750,000, and would bring the total annual outlay, exclusive of the cost of protection, up to $19,250,000. From this viewpoint the canal will not be self-sustaining until the total traffic approximates 17,000,000 tons a year, which it will reach about 1925. It has been estimated by Prof. Emory R. Johnson, the Government expert on canal traffic, that the total tonnage which will pass through the canal during the first year of its operation will approximate 10,500,000 net registered tons. Since the shipping of the United States is permitted to pass through without paying tolls, the tonnage upon which toll will be collected will yield a gross revenue of approximately $10,000,000. This will afford the United States an income of a little less than 2 per cent on the money invested, after paying the actual cost of operation. On this basis it probably will be four or five years from the opening of the canal before the returns will yield 3 per cent on the investment. The ships of the world use approximately 75,000,000 tons of coal annually. The opening of the Panama Canal will save several million tons a year and the money thus saved will, in part, fall into the coffers of Uncle Sam. A vessel en route from Chile to Europe can save nearly enough in the cost of coal alone to pay the tolls that will be exacted at Panama. When the United States came to frame its system of toll charges and collections, it was found that there was a wide difference of opinion as to the right of the United States Government to exempt coastwise shipping from the payment of tolls. Under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain there was also a wide variance of opinion as to the question of whether the United States, as a matter of national policy, ought to exempt from the payment of tolls, ships trading between its own ports on the two coasts. These questions were argued pro and con, and Congress finally decided by a very close vote that the United States ought to allow ships trading between its own ports to use the canal free of charge. No foreign ships are permitted under any circumstances to engage in such traffic. Those who advocated the exemption of ships trading exclusively between United States ports from the payment of tolls, did so on the ground that it would build up a wealthy American merchant marine which would be invaluable to the United States in time of war, and also that it would tend to reduce freight rates between Atlantic and Pacific points. They argued that every cent added to the cost of transportation through the canal would be reflected in freight rates between the East and the West. Those who opposed the exemption of American coastwise shipping from the payment of tolls, asserted that the coastwise shipowners already had a monopoly on the handling of cargo between American ports, and that no further encouragement was needed. They argued that it would make little or no difference in rates whether tolls were charged or not, and that the only people who would benefit would be the shipowners. They contended that the United States ought to charge everybody alike and use the tolls collected for the purpose of repaying the money it spent in building the canal. Some of them also contended that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty bound the United States to treat all shippers alike, and that the United States could not discriminate in favor of the American coastwise traffic without contravening the treaty with Great Britain. This view, however, did not prevail, and the law, as enacted, exempted coastwise shipping. England immediately protested against this exemption on the ground that it was in contravention of the treaty between the two countries. The story of how the United States came to be bound by a treaty with Great Britain in the building of an Isthmian canal goes back for more than half a century. The year 1850 found the North American continent, north of the Rio Grande, in the possession of the United States, England, and Russia. The United States had only recently finished its continental expansion, and each of the two countries needed a canal to connect their east and west coasts. England had long possessed a west coast in Canada, but the United States had only recently come into possession of a Pacific seaboard. When it came to consider the question of connecting its two coasts the United States found that Great Britain was holding the position of advantage in the Isthmian region. It held the Bahamas, Bermuda, Jamaica, the Barbados, Trinidad, the Windward and Leeward Islands, British Guiana and British Honduras; and held a protectorate over the "Mosquito Coast," now the east coast of Nicaragua. That protectorate covered the eastern terminus of the only ship canal then deemed possible. Under these conditions the United States concluded that it was necessary for the support of the Monroe doctrine that some sort of an understanding should be reached between the two countries. England assented to such an understanding only after Nicaragua and Costa Rica had given to the United States its consent to the building of a canal across its territory. These treaties with Nicaragua and Costa Rica were negotiated but never ratified, and were used as a club to force Great Britain to make a treaty. The result was the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which provided that neither Government should ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over an Isthmian canal, and that neither Government should ever secure for itself any rights or advantages not enjoyed by the other in such a canal. The proposed canal was to be entirely neutral, and the treaty set forth that the two countries agreed jointly to protect the entire Isthmian region from Tehauntepec to South America, and that the canal always should be open to both countries on equal terms. The canal under this treaty was intended to be entirely neutral with reference to defense, with reference to tolls, and with reference to such other nations as might join in maintaining neutrality. When the United States decided to build the Panama Canal, it found the Clayton-Bulwer treaty wholly unsuited to its aims and desires. It therefore asked England to enter into a new convention; the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was the result. This document declared that its purpose was to remove any objections that might arise under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty to the construction of an Isthmian canal under the auspices of the Government of the United States without impairing the general principle of neutralization. Under this treaty the Government of Great Britain made a protest against the decision of the United States to exempt its coastwise traffic from the payment of tolls, claiming such exemption to be a violation of the neutrality agreement. This protest came in the form of two notes to the American Government. The first was written as a warning to Congress that the British Government would regard the exemption of American coastwise traffic from the payment of tolls as a discrimination against British shipping, and a violation of the neutrality agreement between the two countries. It admitted that if the United States were to refund or to remit the tolls charged, it would not be a violation of the letter of the treaty, and acknowledged that if the exemption of coastwise American shipping from toll charges were so regulated as to make it certain that only bona fide coastwise traffic, which is reserved for American vessels, would be benefited by this agreement, then Great Britain could have no objection. But it declared that England did not believe that such regulation was possible. After Congress, with this note in mind, had passed the canal toll law with an exemption to ships carrying goods between the two coasts of the United States, President Taft, in approving the measure, declared that the canal was built wholly at the cost of the United States on territory ceded to it by a nation that had the indisputable right to make the cession, and that, therefore, it was nobody else's business how we managed it. He contended that for many years American law had given to American ships the exclusive right to handle cargo between American ports, and that, therefore, England was not hurt at all when that shipping was exempted from toll charges. England responded, in a second note, that the clear obligation of the United States under the treaty was to keep the canal open to the citizens and subjects of the United States and Great Britain on equal terms, and to allow the ships of all nations to use it on terms of entire equality. It also contended that the United States is embraced in this term of "all nations"; that the British Government would scarcely have entered into the Hay-Pauncefote treaty if it had understood that England was to be denied the equal use of the Panama Canal with America. The three direct objections urged by the British against the American canal law were: That it gives the President the right to discriminate against foreign shipping; that it exempts coastwise traffic from paying tolls; and that it gives the Government-owned vessels of the Republic of Panama the right to use the canal free. The answer of the United States to the first of these objections was that the right of the President to fix tolls in a way that would be discriminatory against British shipping was a question that could be considered only when the President should exercise such action. The British Government expressed the fear that the United States, in remitting tolls on coastwise business, would assess the entire charges of maintenance of the canal upon the vessels of foreign trade and thus cause them to bear an unequal burden. This, the second objection was answered with the statement that, whereas the treaty gives the United States the right to levy charges sufficient to meet the interest of the capital expended and the cost of maintaining and operating the canal, the early years of its operation will be at a loss and, therefore, at a lower rate than Great Britain could ask under the treaty. The third objection was considered insignificant. The British Government, after laying down its objections to the American canal toll law, requested that the matter be submitted to The Hague tribunal for adjudication. The American Government declared that this course would not be just to the United States, since the majority of the court would be composed of men, the interests of whose countries would be identical with those of England in such a controversy. Before leaving office President Taft proposed that the matter should be submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States. The whole question was left in that situation when the change from the Taft to the Wilson administration took place. As to the merits of the controversy, there is no unanimity of opinion on either side of the Atlantic. Some British authorities entirely justify the American position, while some American authorities take the British position. It is probable that the controversy will require years for settlement. Before the canal was open for traffic there was much speculation as to what rate policies the railroads would adopt to meet the situation caused by the competition of the Panama Canal. If the same classes of goods are handled through the canal as across the United States, there will be more than 3,000 different articles on the tariff books of steamship lines using the canal. In his report on the effects of canal tolls on railroad rates, Prof. Emory R. Johnson expressed the opinion that the payment of tolls by ships engaged in coast trade would affect neither the rates of the regular steamship lines nor the charges of the transcontinental railroads. [Illustration: AN ELECTRIC TOWING LOCOMOTIVE IN ACTION] [Illustration: BLOWING UP THE SECOND DIKE SOUTH OF MIRAFLORES LOCKS] A provision of the canal toll law forbids any railroad to be directly or indirectly interested in any ship passing through the canal, carrying freight in competition with that railroad. This provision was inserted to prevent the railroads from controlling the steamship lines using the canal, and through that control fixing rates between the two coasts on such a basis as to prevent effective competition with the railroads themselves. The result was that a number of railroads had to dispose of their steamships engaged in coastwise trade. This provision affects several Canadian railroads, and after it was made the British Government served notice on the United States that it intended to take up this question and consider whether or not the law in this particular does not infringe upon British rights. Nothing seems more certain than that, in the course of years, canal tolls will be materially lowered from the $1.20 fixed by the President. It seems inevitable that the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal will enter into a lively battle for the great volume of trade between eastern Asiatic and Australasian points and western European ports. On this dividing line between the two great interoceanic highways there originates many millions of tons of traffic, and this will be largely clear gain to the canal which gets it. The considerations which will draw this trade one way or the other are the rates of toll, the convenience of coaling stations, the price of coal, and the certainty of the ability to secure proper ship stores. This spirit of competition will probably serve to lower rates more rapidly than they otherwise might be reduced. With some 10,000,000 tons of traffic on the great divide between the two canals, ready to be sent forward by the route which offers the best inducements, it is certain that good business policy will call for some hustling on the part of both canals. As the business of the Panama Canal expands, it can afford to reduce rates. With an ultimate capacity of 80,000,000 tons a year, as the canal stands to-day, the rate of toll could be cut down to 25 cents a ton when that capacity is reached, and still afford the United States an income large enough to take care of the operation and maintenance of the canal, and sanitation and government of the Canal Zone, to meet the interest on the cost of building it, and to amortize the entire debt in a hundred years. It is certain that the United States made a good investment at Panama. Assuming that the coastwise traffic is worth to the Government the amount of the tolls it is exempted from paying, the canal becomes a self-supporting institution from the day of its opening, leaving all the military and trade advantages it affords the United States as clear profit. CHAPTER XXVI THE OPERATING FORCE It will require a force of about 2,700 persons to operate the Panama Canal. The major portion of this force will be engaged on the port works at the two ends of the waterway. With a large mechanical plant at Balboa, with large docks for the transhipment of cargo, and with other facilities required for making the canal the best equipped waterway in the world for handling marine business, more men will be needed for the conduct of the auxiliary works than for actually putting ships through the locks. The force required at the locks will be comparatively small. It will consist of men in general charge of the lock operations, men in charge of the towing operations, men who handle the various mechanism and operate the several types of valves for the regulation of the water in the locks; and the general labor force consisting of a few hundred operatives at each end of the canal. A force will be required to operate the big hydro-electric station at Gatun Spillway, where the electricity for the operation of the locks and for the lighting of the canal will be generated. Another force will be required at the auxiliary power plant at Miraflores which will be operated by steam. Fewer than a thousand men will be required in putting ships through the canal. When the question of placing the canal on a permanent operating basis arose one of the first considerations was the scale of salaries to be fixed. Having in mind the fact that salaries paid during the construction period (which were 50 per cent above the standard in the United States) were based upon conditions existing in the early days of the American occupation, it was decided that this was an unfair basis for the permanent organization. The salaries for the construction period were made high because they had to be. It was more a question of reducing men to risk their lives than of fixing fair rates of compensation. The conclusion reached was that there was no longer any reason why the Government should pay salaries so much higher than obtained in the States, especially in view of the fact that all positions under the permanent organization would carry with them free quarters, free medical attendance, free fuel, free light, free hospital service and the like. It was finally determined that it would be fair to both the employee and the employer to establish as a basis of compensation for services in the permanent organization a scale of salaries not to exceed 25 per cent higher than obtained for similar positions in the United States. This decision was made on the basis that it would be fair to the employee and at the same time would allow the canal to be operated at a cost which would impose no undue burden on shipping. When Congress took up the matter in the enactment of the permanent canal law, it reflected the recommendations of the chairman and chief engineer of the Canal Commission in almost every particular. With reference to the canal employees, that body provided that they should be appointed by the President or by his authorities, and that they should be removable at his pleasure; also, that their compensation should be fixed by him until such time as Congress should regulate it by law. The head of the permanent force on the Canal Zone will be known as the Governor of the Panama Canal. He is to be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a four-year term, or until his successor shall be appointed and qualified. He will receive a salary of $10,000 a year, and will be the personal representative of the President on the Isthmus. Indeed, the permanent organic act provides that the President himself is authorized, after the disbanding of the Isthmian Canal Commission--which is to take place whenever the President thinks the work has approached a sufficient degree of completion to warrant it--to complete, govern, and operate the Panama Canal, and to govern the Canal Zone, if he desires to do it himself; or "cause it to be completed, governed, and operated through a governor of the canal." Of course, the President will prefer to "cause it to be completed, governed, and operated" through such a governor. As a matter of fact, when the question of selecting a governor comes before the President it may be expected that he will choose a man in whom he has every confidence to carry out the organic law on the Canal Zone, and to place the canal in operation. This man will be as much of an autocrat on the Zone under the permanent organization as the chairman and chief engineer was during the construction. When President Roosevelt undertook to carry out the provisions of the Spooner Act, and to have the canal dug by a board of seven commissioners, each independent of the other, he soon found that it would not work. After repeated trials he came to the conclusion that the control of affairs on the Isthmus should be concentrated largely under the chairman and chief engineer. He therefore issued an executive order requiring that all officials on the Isthmus should report to the chairman and chief engineer, giving him practically all control over the entire project. This brought both the Canal Zone Government and the sanitary department under the supervision of the chairman and chief engineer. The result was a coordination of the work and a satisfactory organization for its prosecution. When Congress came to make the permanent canal law it profited by the unsatisfactory results that would have grown out of a rigid adherence to the principles of the Spooner Act, and concentrated all authority under the governor of the Canal Zone. There were those who thought the sanitary department should not be under the control of the governor, and still others who felt that the operation of the canal probably should be under one man and the civil government under another. But these suggestions were not followed, and the act as finally adopted makes the President practically a czar of the Isthmus, and under him the governor need give account to no one but the President. It has been the ambition of the present chief engineer of the canal to see the operating force fully installed and things moving along on a satisfactory working basis before leaving the Isthmus. He thinks arrangements should be made whereby acute changes of policy should be prevented. This he would do by having a principal assistant who would succeed the governor at the end of his four-year term. This would permit a continuous policy and an unbroken line of action which, according to his view, would make for the efficiency of the operating force. In speaking of this phase of the matter, he stated that were a new man chosen at the end of the four-year term of his predecessor--a man who had had no previous experience on the Isthmus--there would always be a tendency to make radical changes. He would have on the governor's staff a doctor from the Army to have charge of the work of sanitation on the Canal Zone, who would report directly to the governor. The quarantine officer, in his opinion, should be under the Public Health Service of the United States. Under the plan as adopted in the permanent canal law, any officer of the Army or of the Navy chosen to fill a position in the canal operating force will be paid the same salary as a civilian, with the exception that he would get only the difference between his regular Army or Navy pay and the salary his position carried. It is estimated that the expense of operating the canal will amount to about $3,500,000 a year. This includes the cost of operating a number of dredges which will have to be maintained in connection with the canal work. The estimate was made upon the amount of business handled at the Sault Ste. Marie Canal which has the largest traffic of any canal in the world. There will be five departments for the operation of the canal outside of the work of maintaining the civil government and sanitation. The operating department will have charge of the operation of docks and wharves at the terminals, pilotage, lockage, and the lighting of the canal. It is estimated that it will cost $400,000 a year to maintain the terminals, $150,000 a year to light the canal, and that it will require 60 pilots, at $1,800 each a year, to take ships through. During the first years of operation it is believed that a single shift can handle all the business that comes, but, as the years go by, it may require two shifts and eventually three to keep the work going. The engineering department will require about 500 men and will have charge of all the construction and repair work pertaining to the canal property, and of all excavation and dredging in the canal. It will cost approximately a million dollars a year to maintain this department, of which three-fourths will be required for the operation of the dredges and other equipment for keeping the canal open. The quartermaster's department will have charge of the construction, repair, and maintenance of all buildings, roads, and municipal improvements in the Zone settlements and of the receipt, care, and issue of all property and material. This department will require nearly a thousand men and the total expense will be in the neighborhood of $600,000. The electrical and mechanical department will have charge of the mechanical and electrical apparatus belonging to the canal, and of the permanent works at its two ends. The accounting department will require some 60 men with annual salaries amounting to approximately a hundred thousand dollars. It is estimated that the cost of materials for the operation of the canal will range around three-fourths of a million dollars a year. The force which will be maintained on the Isthmus, with their families, will make a Canal Zone population of approximately 5,000. These, in addition to the eight or nine thousand troops and marines which will be quartered there, will bring the total population up to about thirteen or fourteen thousand. Of these perhaps three-fourths will be along the southern 10-mile section of the canal. But, in spite of the greater population at the Pacific side, the Atlantic end will probably not lack for attraction. It is likely that Gatun Lake will be stocked with a supply of fresh-water fish, and that shooting preserves will be established adjacent to Gatun, to be conducted in connection with the Washington Hotel at Colon. There is also some talk of constructing golf links adjacent to Gatun, which will be open alike to the employees of the canal and to the guests of the two big Government hotels--the Washington and the Tivoli. While a freight-carrying steamer will make its stay as short as possible, the probabilities are that the passenger-carrying steamer will require at least 48 hours to make its calls at the two terminal cities and pass through the canal. They will probably handle the major portion of the package cargo, leaving the bulk cargo business entirely for freighters. When going through the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific they probably will have cargo bound for a large number of Pacific ports on diverse routes. This would be discharged at Balboa and there be put into other ships to be carried to its destination. During the time the shipping and unshipping of cargo, replenishing stores, taking on coal and like operations are being performed, the traveler will be afforded opportunity to get acquainted with dry land again, and to enjoy for a day or two a respite from his long sea journey. The plan advocated on the Isthmus for perfecting the permanent organization was as follows: The chairman and chief engineer would call upon each of the departments to furnish a list with the ratings of the best men. The man having the best record would be offered a position under the permanent organization similar to the one held by him under the construction organization. If he chose to accept this position under the wage standard laid out he could do so; if he did not, the next man would be given the opportunity, and so on down. In this way it was expected that the entire force would be chosen because of records made in the service. CHAPTER XXVII HANDLING THE TRAFFIC Four or five years before the earliest probable opening date, shipping interests began to arrange their future schedules with respect to the Panama Canal. One can scarcely realize how rapidly the facilities of the canal will be utilized. At the rate of expansion witnessed in the world's marine traffic during the past two or three decades, 17,000,000 tons of shipping will be handled through the canal in 1925, 27,000,000 tons in 1935, and 44,000,000 tons in 1945. The maximum capacity of 80,000,000 tons assumes a passage of 48 vessels a day through the canal, or one for every half hour of the twenty-four. Two vessels a day of 4,000 tons each, at the present charge, will render the canal self-supporting. While the great Isthmian highway will be completed far enough ahead to be ready to handle all traffic that offers long before the official opening date, it will, on the other hand, never reach that stage where dredges will not be needed. There are 22 rivers which wend their way from the watersheds of the canal, and pour their loads of sand and silt into it. Of course, these rivers are small--so small, indeed, that few of them would be dignified by being called rivers in the United States. But when the heavens open and the floods descend, as they do so frequently during the rainy season at Panama, these usually quiet, lazy, little streams become almost as angry as the mighty Chagres itself, and they rush down to the canal heavily freighted with sand and silt. If the water in the great interoceanic channel is to be kept at its appointed depth of 41 feet, dredging perforce must be continued from year to year, summer and winter, spring and fall. And so it is that the dredges will be met by every ship that steers its course from Cristobal to Balboa, or from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Few ships large enough to tax the dimensional capacity of the locks ever will go through the canal. Full 90 per cent of all the ships that sail the seas could go through locks one-half the size of those at Panama. So far as commercial shipping is concerned, a 15,000-ton vessel plying tropical waters is considered large, and a 20,000-ton ship is an exception. According to the best shipping authorities, the day when vessels of more than 25,000 tons will find it profitable to ply on the routes which lead through the Panama Canal is so far in the future that they are not able to discern it. With reference to the Navy, naval experts generally agree that the United States will celebrate many a decade of passing years before a battleship too large to use the present lock chambers is a possibility. When a ship makes its maiden voyage through the canal, the measurements to determine its net register will be taken by the shipping experts in the employ of the United States. When this work is completed the master of the ship will be required to pay the toll before he can take his vessel through the canal. If he should fail to pay the toll the vessel itself would be put on the block and sold at auction, if necessary, to reimburse the United States for its passage. However, it is not to be expected that such contingencies as these will arise. When once a ship has been measured, the formality will not have to be gone through with on future visits. It is not expected that each ship will be actually measured for every dimension as it comes to the canal on its first trip, since its net register tonnage probably will have been determined long before, and the canal officials will only check up the work already done elsewhere to assure its accuracy. Many ships will go to Panama which will not use the canal. For instance, there will be those which will leave European ports, loaded in part with cargo bound to Pacific points and in part with cargo for Atlantic points on the South and Central American coast. Such ships will simply call at Colon, discharge their cargo bound to Pacific points, and take on what additional cargo they can get bound for points for which they are sailing on the Atlantic side. In stopping at Colon they will probably replenish their supplies from the commissary department of the canal. What the freight department is to a railroad the cargo ship will be to the Panama Canal--its greatest revenue producer. Such ships will do comparatively little loading and unloading of cargo at either end of the canal. The tramp steamer will figure largely in the traffic that passes from ocean to ocean at Panama. With no schedule of sailing dates and with no definite routes, the tramps constitute the flying squadron of the shipping world, moving hither and thither seeking cargoes wherever they can find them. A tramp steamer may load at Liverpool for San Francisco, reach that point through the Panama Canal, and, after discharging its cargo, go on up to Seattle and load for China. There it may discharge its cargo again and go thence to India to pick up a load of grain for Liverpool, passing through the Suez Canal. Its master always will turn its prow to the point where profitable cargo awaits it, and this may carry it by Panama once or a dozen times a year. The line steamers will have their regular sailing dates and will pass through the canal at stated intervals. The problem of providing coal for passing ships is one of the most important with which the canal authorities will have to deal. The cheaper that commodity can be sold to the ships, the more attractive the route will be. For instance, a 10,000-ton ship which saves a dollar a ton on a thousand tons of coal, saves the equivalent of the cost of operating the vessel for a period of from 24 to 36 hours, and this, with the rates at Suez and Panama on an equal basis, gives at least one day's advantage to the Panama route in figuring on a voyage. Pocahontas steaming coal costs $2.70 per ton laid down at Newport News. Under the carrying agreements with shipping interests that obtained during the construction period, this coal was carried to Panama for $1.395 a ton. It is estimated that the canal colliers, which have been authorized by Congress, with a capacity of 12,000 tons of coal and with a speed of 14 knots, can deliver to the Isthmus a half million tons of coal a year. The saving which will be effected by having the coal carried by Government colliers is a large one. A merchantman would get $368,000 for delivering 264,000 tons of coal, while the cost of delivery by collier for the same amount would approximate $184,000. The average life of a collier is 20 years. The saving effected in these 20 years by the Government carrying its own coal would be large enough to pay back the million dollars which the collier cost, and to yield an additional profit of $2,630,000 during the life of the vessel. The sale of coal at Suez, where an annual shipping traffic of some 21,000,000 tons is handled, amounts approximately to 1,000,000 tons. Thus, it will require two colliers to handle the coal when the canal opens, and two more 13 years later. Not all the ships which use the canal will coal there. For instance, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which was so forehanded in its effort to get a good share of the trans-Isthmian traffic that it acquired the Pacific Steam Navigation Company long before the canal opened, is building a coaling station at Kingston, Jamaica, where its ships will replenish their bunkers. This coaling station will, of course, always be at the disposition of the British Government in case of war, and of such British merchantmen that choose to pass that way. Some ships will not negotiate the canal under their own power. Many small vessels steer so badly that their masters would be afraid to risk them going through without aid. For instance, the skipper of the Cristobal, one of the 6,000-ton cement-carrying ships bought by the United States a few years ago, declared, in discussing this phase of the matter, that he would be afraid to trust his vessel going through the canal under its own power. To ships not sufficiently responsive to their helms, Government tugs will be furnished. Some skippers prefer to have their vessels towed by one powerful tug, while others prefer several smaller ones. Several tugs are now building for towing purposes, and they will also be used to tow vessels through the locks in the early days of operation, pending the completion of all of the electric towing locomotives. Two floating cranes will be provided in the permanent equipment at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars each. These cranes, with a lifting power of 250 tons, will be suitable for any wrecking operations in the canal and, also, for lifting the gates in case of repairs being required. The canal will probably be the death blow to the sailing ship of international commerce. Not being able to negotiate the canal under their own power, and because of the dead calms which prevail in the Gulf of Panama, sailing ships will be stopped from using the Isthmian waterway. When they attempt to journey around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope in competition with steam vessels which pass through the Panama Canal, the operation will afford such little profit that in the course of a few years they will have to surrender what little share of international commerce they have succeeded in keeping. The Panamans are inclined to think the United States drove a hard bargain when the provision was inserted in the treaty that all supplies for the building and operation of the canal, and for the demands of shipping using it, when imported by the United States, should be free of duty. This practically gives the United States a monopoly of the business of catering to the needs of ships passing Panama. The present duty on imports is 15 per cent, and the local merchant who would sell supplies to the passing ships would be under the necessity of adding 15 per cent to his buying price before he could compete with the United States Government on equal terms. This advantage is made all the more marked by the reasons of the fact that the United States often can make much money out of the operation by selling at actual cost, the profit arising from the extra shipping which is thereby attracted to the canal. The United States will reimburse the owners of any vessels passing through the locks of the canal, under the control of its operatives, for any injury which may result to vessel, cargo, or passengers. Provision is made under the permanent canal law that regulations shall be promulgated by the President which will provide for the prompt adjustment, by agreement, and immediate payment of claims. In case of disagreement, suit may be brought in the district court of the Canal Zone against the governor of the Panama Canal. The law says: "The hearing and disposition of such cases shall be expedited and the judgment shall be immediately paid out of any moneys appropriated or allotted for canal operation." The character of misrepresentations made concerning the canal was illustrated in a story published in the midsummer of 1913. This story originated in London and declared that all of the big shipping interests were afraid of the Panama Canal, and that Lloyds would insure vessels and cargo only at much advanced rates. The article went on to state that the representative of one of the biggest European lines had visited the Isthmus and had returned with the announcement that his company could not afford to trust its vessels in the canal. As a matter of fact, with the United States Government standing responsible for any damage sustained in the canal, no shipping interest could sensibly regard it as extra hazardous to pass through it; rather, it would be less hazardous than to negotiate the tortuous Strait of Magellan, where thousands of wrecks tell of unseen dangers, or to round Cape Horn with its fierce storms and its grave perils. Much has been said about the probability of injury to the canal by persons of evil intent, and the Panama Canal law imposes heavy penalties on anyone attempting to inflict such an injury. The law provides that the governor of the Canal Zone shall make rules and regulations, subject to the approval of the President, touching the right of any person to remain upon or pass over any part of the Canal Zone. "Any person violating these rules or regulations shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction in the district court of the Canal Zone, shall be fined not exceeding $500 or imprisoned not exceeding a year, or both penalties in the discretion of the court. Any person who, by any means or any way, injures or obstructs or attempts to injure or obstruct any part of the Panama Canal, or the locks thereof, or the approaches thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a felony and on conviction shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $10,000 or by imprisonment not to exceed 20 years, or by the infliction of both of these penalties. If the act shall cause the death of any person within a year and a day thereafter, the person so convicted shall be guilty of murder and shall be punished accordingly." As a further precaution, individuals will not be allowed to approach the locks with any sort of packages unless they are properly vouched for. The possibility of serious injury to the locks will be carefully guarded against. They will be lighted at night by electric lamps of large candlepower and the whole lock structure will be kept as light as day throughout the night. Men will be always on sentry duty, and an adequate system of intercommunication will enable the sentries to call out a guard large enough to repulse any attack of any small surprising party. CHAPTER XXVIII THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA The Republic of Panama is one of the smallest countries in the world, its territory being about equal to that of the State of Indiana. It has no national debt, and has $7,000,000 invested in mortgages, on real estate in New York City. When it received $10,000,000 from the United States, in payment for the rights under which the Panama Canal was built, it immediately invested about 75 per cent of it, using the remainder for paying the expenses of the revolution, and for setting the new government on its feet. It now receives $250,000 a year from the United States as rental for the Canal Zone, and this, with the $350,000 received as interest from its real estate mortgages in New York, gives it an annual income of $600,000 outside of money raised by the usual processes of taxation. Under the treaty with the United States, Panama has its independence guaranteed, and recognizes the right of the United States to maintain order within its boundaries. This entirely does away with the necessity of maintaining an army and navy. The result is that with no appropriations required for military purposes, and with a $600,000 income from the Canal Zone, it enjoys one of the lowest tax rates in the world. Although the Republic of Panama has its Declaration of Independence and its Glorious Fourth, the former was written by a foreigner, and the latter occurs in November. There is some dispute as to who wrote the declaration of independence, but the best information points either to Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a Frenchman, or to William Nelson Cromwell, an American. These two gentlemen differ upon this subject, each claiming that he was the Thomas Jefferson of Panama. When the $10,000,000 was paid to Panama by the United States, one of the first things done was to build a university, locally known as the National Institute. Some $800,000 was spent in the construction of the buildings, which are located near the line of the Canal Zone. But it so happens that Panama has few teachers qualified to hold university chairs, and fewer students qualified to pursue university courses; and the result is that the university is more a place of buildings than a seat of learning. No other country in the world calls in another nation to superintend its elections. When the first presidential election was held the United States took the initiative and demanded the right to supervise the balloting. Before the second election was held the President became ambitious to succeed himself, although the constitution provided that he could not do so. He thereupon decided to resign for a period of six months, in favor of one of his partisans, thinking that this would allow him to live up to the letter of the constitution even though he were violating its spirit in becoming a candidate for reelection. This situation was brought to the attention of the United States, and the President was politely but firmly informed that the subterfuge would not be permitted. When the election approached each side thought that the other was trying to win by fraud, and the United States was asked to referee the political battle. The City of Panama is famous for its wickedness. Men who have seen the seamy side of life in all of the big cities of the world declare that Panama is as bad as the worst of them. Until a few years ago bull-fighting was permitted, but the bulls were so poor and the fighters were such butchers that the Government finally outlawed this form of entertainment. Cock-fighting persists, and numerous cock pits are popular resorts every Sunday. Nowhere else can one witness a greater frenzy in betting than at one of these cocking mains. The backers of the rival birds nod their heads and place their bets so rapidly that it is more bewildering to the onlooker than the bidding at an auctioneer's junk sale. The prize ring has succeeded the bull ring in gratifying the Spaniard's thirst for gore, and scarcely a Sunday passes that there is not a prize fight in Panama. Few Americans who attend them come away without a feeling of disgust over the poor fighting, the brutality, and the trickery resorted to. While the Americans have done so much for public cleanliness in Panama and Colon, the masses seem to know little more about sanitary living today than before the Americans came. The stenches which greet the visitor in the native quarters are no less odorous than those encountered in other cities of tropical America. The bathtub is an unknown quantity among the masses. Most of the natives who live in the cities are engaged in some line of small trade. It may be that a shop has only a platter of sweetmeats and a few bottles of soda on ice, and that another has only a bushel of different kinds of tropical fruits, but out of the small sales large families manage in some way to exist. The markets open early in the morning. There is no spirit of rivalry among the market men, and they act usually as if they were conferring a favor upon the buyer. At the markets many Indians are encountered who bring their wares from the interior and offer them for sale. These usually consist of pottery, net bags, charcoal and the like. Life among the Panamans in the jungle is simple indeed. With his machete the householder may provide a thatched roof for his mud-floored hut, and he can raise enough beans, plantains and yams, and burn enough charcoal, and catch enough fish to meet all of his needs. In the kitchen the principal utensils are gourds and cocoanut shells. The most tempting morsel that the Panaman can get is the iguana, a lizard as big as a cat, whose meat is said to taste like spring chicken. It is about the ugliest creature in the animal world, and yet it means more to the native Panaman than does possum meat to the cotton-field darky of the South. The unconscious cruelty of the average native is remarked by almost every visitor. He is usually too lazy to be conscious of cruelty, for that would require exertion. When he catches the iguana, for instance, he takes it alive so that it may be fattened before being killed. Its short legs are twisted and crossed above its back, and the sharp claw of one foot is thrust through the fleshy part of the other, so as to hold them together without other fastening. The tail, being useless for food, is chopped off with the machete, and thus mutilated and unable to move, the lizard is kept captive until fat enough to eat. The fruits of Panama are neither so numerous nor so plentiful as those of Nicaragua or Jamaica. The mamei is a curious pulpy fruit the size of a peach, with a skin like chamois and with a smooth pit the size of a peach-stone. The sapodilla is a plum-colored fruit with seeds in a gelatinous mass. One is usually introduced to the sapodilla with the remark that, although the seeds are eaten, they have never been known to cause appendicitis. Cedar is preferred to mahogany in Panama. The Indians make their cayucas out of mahogany logs, and it is not uncommon to see bridges 40 feet long and 5 feet thick, made of mahogany logs which would be worth several thousands of dollars in an American furniture factory. Panama is famous for its tropical flowers. Many of them are beautiful, but few are sweet smelling. Orchids abound, especially on the Atlantic side, and while the waters of the Chagres were being impounded in Gatun Lake, native boatmen would go out in their cayucas and gather orchids from the trees. One of the most beautiful of the orchids of Panama is the Holy Ghost orchid. It blooms biennially, and when its petals fold back they reveal a likeness to a dove. Some of the American Women on the Canal Zone became enthusiastic collectors of tropical flowers. Among these were Mrs. David Du Bose Gaillard and Mrs. Harry Harwood Rousseau. Both of these ladies spent much time hunting orchids and other flowers for the verandas of their houses and for their gardens. Mrs. Rousseau made trips into several of the other countries of Central America in her quest for new orchids. The collections made by these two ladies represent the finest on the whole Isthmus of Panama. The animal life of the Isthmus is not abundant, although some deer and a few tapirs are to be found. Alligators abound in the Chagres River and other streams of the Zone. Perhaps the most interesting form of animal life to be found on the Isthmus is the leaf-cutting ant. This ant seems to be nature's original fungus grower. As one walks around the American settlements, he frequently comes upon a long path filled with ants, passing back and forth. They resemble a sort of miniature yacht under full sail, except that the sails are green instead of white. Upon closer examination it is found that what seemed to be a sail is a triangular piece of leaf carried on the back of the ant, with its edges to the wind so as to overcome air resistance. The ants do not gather these leaves for food, but they store them in such a way that a fungus grows upon them. They eat the fungus, and when the leaves are no longer useful they are thrown out and new supplies brought in. The native remedies used by the Panamans are many and interesting. For stomach troubles, which are very rare, they eat papaya. The papaya is a sort of fruit which might be a cross between a cantaloupe, a watermelon and a pumpkin, except that it grows on trees. It has the rind of a green pumpkin, the meat of a cantaloupe, and the seeds of a watermelon. It is probably richer in vegetable pepsin than any other plant in existence--a pepsin which neutralizes either alkaline or acid conditions in the stomach. It is said that a tough steak, wrapped in the leaf of the papaya tree overnight, becomes tender as the result of the digestive action of the pepsin in it. The Indians and Panamans who live in the jungle use the wood of the cacique, or "monkey cocoanut," to stop any flow of blood. In their materia medica they have a large number of tropical plants which they use for their ailments. The way in which sanitary instruction may be made efficient is illustrated among some of the people of Panama. Upon one occasion the Canal Record carried a small diagram of how to make a sanitary drinking cup out of a sheet of paper. After that there were many Panamans who, although in a hundred ways indifferent to contagion, would no longer drink from common drinking cups, but would make their own sanitary cups. Even the Jamaican negroes employed around the offices of the commission in many instances would not think of using the common drinking glass at the office water-cooler. Two tribes of Indians on the Isthmus have not mixed with the Caucasians or the negroes. They are the Chucunoques and the San Blas Indians. The latter tribe has never been known to allow a white man to remain in its territory after sundown. Even the higher officials of the Panaman Government are forced to respect this tradition when they treat with the San Blas chiefs. Government land in Panama can be bought at the rate of $49.60 for 247 acres, with reductions for larger areas. The Government invites foreign capital, declaring that the United States stands as a perpetual guarantee against revolutions within and aggressions without. The story of the early days in Panaman history is a strange admixture of romance and cruelty. The Isthmus was discovered in 1500, and first settled by an adventurer who had been the Royal Carver in the king's household at Madrid. Balboa, carrying with him a small force of men and a lot of bloodhounds, one of them a dog of mighty prowess, known as Lioncico, or "Little Lion," which drew a captain's pay because of its fighting qualities, crossed the Isthmus in 1513 and discovered the Pacific Ocean. After him came a new governor of the Isthmus, who put Balboa to death. The Spaniards were unspeakably cruel to the Indians. Even those who received them kindly were tortured and roasted to death, because they did not produce enough gold. One governor rode a mule, which was noted for the frequency of its braying. The Indians were taught that the mule was asking for gold, and in meeting these demands they not only had to give what they possessed, but were forced to rob the graves of their ancestors as well. Upon one occasion the Indians, having captured a number of Spaniards, melted a lot of the yellow metal and poured it down their throats, telling them to drink until their thirst for gold was quenched. After the Spaniards had established themselves upon the Isthmus, the English buccaneers, Drake and Morgan, fell upon their cities and despoiled them. The ruins at Old Panama, which once was a city of 30,000 inhabitants, to-day tell the story of the effective work of Henry Morgan when he raided it and captured its treasure. While the Spanish conquerors, the French filibusters, and the English buccaneers, who took their turns in pillaging Panama, were cruel beyond imagination, they were always famous for their outward evidences of religion and piety. The Spanish were always chanting hymns and honoring the saints; the French would shoot down their own soldiers for irreverent behavior during mass; the English pirate captains never failed to hold divine services on Sunday, and often prohibited profanity and gambling. Where once Spaniards tortured Indians and British buccaneers raided Spaniards, where once revolution after revolution left a poor and desolate country, to-day the gates of Panama are open to the world, and its trade is invited again to pass that way. The people of the Isthmus believe that the glory which departed when Morgan sacked Old Panama, forcing the Pacific trade to seek the Strait of Magellan, will return with the opening of the Panama Canal, and that their capital, whose walls cost so much that the Spanish king thought he could see them from his chamber window in Madrid, will retrieve its ancient glory. CHAPTER XXIX OTHER GREAT CANALS While the Panama Canal seems destined to endure for all time as the greatest artificial shipway in the world, there are other waterways, while small in comparison, that are in themselves wonderful works of engineering. In point of traffic the greatest canal in the world is the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, popularly called the "Soo." In point of economy of distance and world-affecting consequence the Suez Canal ranks with, or next to, Panama. The Suez Canal was built while the Civil War was raging in the United States, and was opened for the passage of vessels on November 17, 1869. It is about twice as long as the Panama Canal, the distance from Port Said, at the Mediterranean terminus, to Suez at the Red Sea end, being approximately 100 miles. When constructed its depth was 26 feet, 3 inches, and its bottom width 72 feet. The maximum vessel draft permitted was 24 feet 7 inches. The canal was in operation for 11 years before vessels of this draft presented themselves for passage. During the first dozen years of its operation various curves were straightened, the turning-out places where vessels passed one another were enlarged, and their number increased to 13. This work of straightening curves and widening the canal has continued from that time until the present, and to-day vessels may pass one another through a large part of its length. The policy increasing the general dimensions of the canal was begun in 1887. By 1890 its depth had been increased to 29-1/2 feet, so that it could accommodate ships having a draft of 26 feet 3 inches. The work of deepening continued, and when the United States began to build the Panama Canal this work was speeded up, so that by 1908 a depth of 32-3/4 feet was attained and vessels of 28 feet draft could be accommodated. In 1909 it was decided that it would be necessary to make the canal still deeper, and a project, which will not be completed until 1915, was then undertaken, calling for a depth of 36 feet 1 inch. By 1898 the width of the canal had been increased from 72 feet to 98-1/2 feet. This is now being still further increased to 134-1/2 feet. Even when this project is completed in 1915, the Panama Canal still can accommodate ships of 5 feet greater draft than the Suez Canal. The maximum draft of ships permitted to use the Suez Canal is demanded in comparatively few instances. A recent report showed that 94 per cent of the ships using the canal had a draft of less than 26-1/4 feet, and that only 1 per cent had a draft of 28 feet. The increase in the depth of the canal, therefore, was made largely in anticipation of future shipping requirements. When the canal was completed it required 49 hours for a ship to pass through it. The growth in its dimensions, together with the increase in the number and size of passing stations, the straightening of curves, and the improvement of facilities, have brought down to 17 hours the average length of time required for the transit. Ships not equipped with electric searchlights are not permitted to pass through at night. The improvements being made on the canal are being paid for mainly from the revenues derived from tolls. The Suez Canal was constructed, and has been enlarged and managed, by a private corporation which has invested from the beginning of the construction up to the present time about $127,000,000 of which approximately two-thirds has been secured from the sale of securities, and one-third from the earnings. The original capital of the Suez Canal Company, issued in 1859, was 400,000 shares of $100 each. These shares partake of the nature of both bonds and stock, for they are entitled to interest of 5 per cent as well as to participation in the company's profits. Provision is made for their redemption, but when redeemed they continue to share in the profits and merely lose the interest-bearing feature. On December 31, 1911, 378,231 of these shares were in circulation. In 1875 the British Government, through Lord Beaconsfield, purchased the 176,602 shares held by the Khedive of Egypt, paying some $20,000,000 for them. The British Government does not own a majority of the shares, and the Suez Canal is controlled and operated by a French company. The annual dividends have increased from 4.7 per cent to 33 per cent. The shares are closely held and trading in them is light. The stock sells at a premium of over 1,000 per cent. When the work of building the canal was undertaken, 100,000 shares were given to the founders. These shares are not stock, but are, rather, certificates of obligation, requiring the company to pay 10 per cent of its profits to the promoters and founders of the original company and their heirs and assigns. The net profits of the canal amount to about $17,000,000 a year. Of this the stockholders get $12,000,000, the Egyptian Government $2,500,000, the founders of the company $1,500,000 and the administrative officers and the employees divide $100,000 among them. The traffic of the Suez Canal during the first two years was relatively small, for the reason that the canal is not a practicable one for sailing vessels, and steam vessels had to be built. These, being much less efficient than freight steamers are to-day, were slow in securing the trade that had been enjoyed by the sailing vessels. The rate of tolls charged by the Suez Canal Company has declined steadily since the canal went into operation. On January 1, 1912, they approximated $1.30 a ton, with a reduction of nearly a third for vessels in ballast. On January 1, 1913, the rate was made approximately $1.20 a ton, the fraction of a cent higher than the rate at Panama. The passenger tolls are $2 for passengers above 12 years and $1 for children from 3 to 12 years of age; children below 3 years are carried free. The highest toll charged on the Suez Canal was in 1874 when it was $2.51 a ton. The Suez Canal has proved highly profitable to its owners. No one believes that the Panama Canal will yield as great a return on the capital invested. The cost of the Panama Canal will be four times the cost of Suez, and it is doubted by traffic authorities whether the Panama Canal will ever handle as much business. The Manchester Ship Canal, which connects Manchester with Liverpool, was constructed only after years of preliminary agitation. There was opposition by the railways, and from the industrial and commercial centers with which Manchester competes. Over 300 petitions were presented to Parliament before its consent was obtained for the construction of the canal. Work was begun in November, 1887, at which time it was estimated that the canal would cost $42,000,000. It was opened for traffic January 1, 1894, after $75,000,000 had been spent in building it. Of this about $60,000,000 went into actual construction work. The Manchester Canal is 35-1/2 miles long. It extends from Eastham, about 6 miles from Liverpool, to Manchester. Its original depth was 26 feet, but this has been increased to 28 feet. Ships with a length of 550 feet, a beam of 61 feet, a height of 70 feet, and a draft of 27 feet can use the canal. There is a difference of 58 feet 6 inches in level between Eastham and Manchester, and this is overcome by five sets of locks. The highest lift is 16 feet. The Manchester Canal Company owns the Bridgewater Canal and makes connections with 13 other barge canals. It handles about 6,000,000 tons of freight a year, of which the bulk is sea-borne. Although it connects with 13 barge canals, the amount of barge traffic handled is less to-day than it was a decade ago. From the beginning the Manchester Canal has had to compete with the railroads, and they cut their rates to such a basis that they get the business and force the canal company to operate as a losing venture to its stockholders. In spite of the competition of the railroads, the canal has managed to increase its business at about the same rate that traffic through the Suez Canal has increased, and a little more rapidly than it has been estimated that traffic through the Panama Canal will grow. The shareholders have not yet received any dividends, but it seems probable that in the course of a few years all of the securities will earn an annual income. Many shareholders have been more than compensated for their subscriptions by the collateral benefits they have received from the canal. The Government of Germany constructed a canal connecting its Baltic and North Sea ports, and named it the Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal. The natural route from the Baltic to the North Sea around Denmark is circuitous, dangerous because of storms, and is guarded by foreign powers. The canal was begun in 1887 and completed in 1895, and was constructed primarily for military and naval purposes, although it has proved to be of great value to the commerce of Germany. It connects Brunsbuttel Harbor on the Elbe with Holtenau on Kiel Bay. It passes through low lands and lakes and along river valleys. It is 61 miles long and, as it was first constructed, had a width of 72 feet and a depth of 29-1/2 feet. The total cost of the canal was approximately $37,000,000. It was in operation only 12 years until it was found necessary to enlarge it. The reconstruction of the canal was authorized by the German Government in 1907, and the work, which is expected to be completed in 1914, was started in 1909. When this work is completed the canal will be 144 feet wide and 36 feet deep. At 10 places it will be widened so as to permit ships to pass. New twin locks, built for the regulation of the tides--for the canal itself is at sea level--will be 82 feet longer and 37 feet wider than the Panama locks. The maximum depth of these locks will be 45 feet, although at low tide they will be a little less than 40 feet. During a recent year commercial vessels with an aggregate net register of over 7,000,000 tons used the Kiel Canal. The increase of business during the first decade of the present century amounted to 70 per cent, or a little more than the estimated increase for each decade at Panama. The net receipts from the operation of the canal are not sufficient to pay interest on the investment. No effort is made to levy tolls that will provide for interest charges, or for the amortization of the principal. The canal does not connect regions of enormous traffic, nor does it greatly shorten ocean routes. The longest route is cut down only 429 miles. The German Empire was so well pleased with the success of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal that the enlargement it is now making represents an expenditure one and a half times the original cost. The Amsterdam Canal was built to connect Amsterdam with the sea. Formerly, ocean-going vessels were small and the Zuider Zee River was then a stream of considerable depth. Gradually, however, the Zuider Zee became shallower and the size of ocean vessels larger, so that the commercial supremacy of Amsterdam was threatened by the competition of Rotterdam and Antwerp and north German ports. In 1818 a corporation constructed what was known as the "North Holland Canal," which was large enough to accommodate ships employed in the East India trade. It had a minimum depth of 20 feet and a minimum width of 100 feet. This canal, however, had numerous curves and it was constructed by a roundabout route of 52 miles from Amsterdam northward to the North Sea, while Amsterdam is less than 17 miles from the sea by direct route. In 1863 a concession for the construction of the North Sea Canal was granted and two years later active work began. It was finished in 1876. There were no serious engineering difficulties to be met, there being no rivers to be crossed, no towns to block the way, and only three bridges to be built. The work consisted mainly of building embankments, draining and reclaiming land, and dredging the channel. The canal was not completed according to the original plan. Extensive enlargements and improvements were decided on, and a larger additional lock was undertaken in 1889 and completed in 1896. At that time it was the largest canal lock in the world. Plans are now being considered for building another new lock, which will be larger than those at Panama. The bottom width of the canal is now 164 feet. It can accommodate vessels 721 feet long, with a 79-foot beam and of 30 feet draft. The construction of the canal cost $16,000,000. Improvements have brought the total amount up to about $24,000,000. Since 1893 all toll charges have been eliminated, and the canal has been operated at the expense of the State. The annual average cost of operation and maintenance is about $200,000. This canal bears about the same relation to the city of Amsterdam that the Delaware River Channel bears to the city of Philadelphia, or the improvements on the lower Mississippi to the city of New Orleans. The Cronstadt and St. Petersburg Canal is 16 miles long and gives St. Petersburg an outlet to the Gulf of Finland. It was built at a total cost of about $10,000,000. It has a minimum width of 220 feet and a navigable depth of about 20-1/2 feet. It was built primarily as a military undertaking, but has proved of great service to Russian commerce. Another important European canal is that extending from the Gulf of Corinth to the Gulf of Aegina in southern Greece. Its length is about 4 miles, a part of which was cut through soft granite rock and the remainder through soil. It has no locks. The bottom width is 72 feet and the depth 26-1/4 feet. The average tolls are 18 cents per ton and 20 cents for passengers. No other canal in the world can rival the one at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., which connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron, in the enormous volume of its shipping. There are really two canals--one owned by the Canadian Government, and one by the United States Government. The canal belonging to the United States was begun in 1853 by the State of Michigan, and opened in 1855. It had a length of about a mile and was provided with twin locks 350 feet long, allowing the passage of vessels drawing 12 feet of water. The United States Government, by consent of the State of Michigan, began in 1870 to enlarge the canal, and, by 1881, had increased its length to 1.6 miles, its width to an average of 160 feet and its depth to 16 feet. A lock 515 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 17 feet deep was located south of the locks which were built by the State. In 1882 the United States Government took over the entire control of the canal. Five years later the locks that had been built by the State were torn down, and a new one 800 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 22 feet deep was put into commission in 1896. The Canadian Canal, 1-1/8 miles long, 150 feet wide, and 22 feet deep, was built on the north side of the river during the years 1888 to 1895. Its locks are 900 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 22 feet deep. The traffic through the Sault Ste. Marie Canals averages around 60,000,000 tons a year. This is as much as the Panama Canal can expect to get 40 years after its opening. The tonnage of the American Soo Canal passed the million mark in 1873, reached the 20,000,000 mark in 1899, and amounted to 46,000,000 net tons in 1909. It now ranges around 50,000,000 tons. It will be seen from this that the American Canal, built on the south side of St. Mary's River, gets about ten times as much traffic as the Canadian Canal, built on the north side of the river. This gives the American Soo Canal more than twice as much traffic as the Suez Canal, and about four times as much as the Panama Canal expects to begin with. A canal which was built primarily for drainage purposes, but which seems destined to fill an important place as a traffic-carrying waterway, is the Chicago Drainage Canal connecting Lake Michigan at Chicago with the Illinois River at Lockport--a distance of 34 miles. It was built for the purpose of reversing the movement of water in the Chicago River and preventing the pollution of Lake Michigan. The sewage of the city now goes to the faraway Mississippi instead of the Lakes. The minimum depth of the canal is 22 feet, and its bottom width 160 feet. To complete the project the excavation of nearly 44,000,000 yards of material was required--enough, if deposited in Lake Michigan in 40 feet of water, to form an island a mile square with a surface 12 feet above the water. The city of Chicago and the State of Illinois have agreed to turn this canal over to the United States Government, if it will deepen the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to 14 feet between Lockport and St. Louis. This would give a complete water connection from upper Mississippi River points to Lake Michigan, and open up a highway to the Gulf of Mexico. The estimated cost of this project is $25,000,000. The completion of the Panama Canal will probably result in an unprecedented activity in the development of inland waterways in the United States. The new markets which it will open up to American products and the old markets it will stimulate and extend, will demand large additional facilities for getting the products of the American farm and factory to the seaboard. Already preparations for capitalizing the commercial opportunities which the opening of the canal will afford, are being made in various parts of the country. The Erie Canal, connecting Buffalo and Albany and giving the Great Lakes a water outlet at New York, is being widened and deepened at an expense of $101,000,000. The propaganda of the American Rivers and Harbors Congress, looking to the appropriation of $500,000,000 to be spent in a systematic program of inland waterway development, is meeting with encouragement in every part of the country, and it is the expectation of those who believe that the Government should commit itself to such a program, that within 25 years the stimulus to waterway development given by the opening of the Panama Canal, will give to the United States one of the finest systems of inland waterways in the world. CHAPTER XXX A NEW COMMERCIAL MAP The most rapid change in the commercial map of the world wrought in centuries will be witnessed during the years following the completion of the Panama Canal. Cities that heretofore have been mere way stations on the international routes of trade will grow into rich centers where the new roads of the commercial world will cross. On the other hand, cities which in the past have gloried in a trade supremacy of international recognition will see themselves displaced and their prestige lost. The readjustment will not be the matter of a day or a year; even a generation may pass before it is completed; but the ultimate changes will certainly be greater and more world-encompassing than anyone now can forecast. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks was directly responsible for the discovery of the New World. It cut off the cities of the Mediterranean from communication with India, and sent Columbus westward in quest of another passage, which could not be obstructed by the Mussulman tyrants of the East. At last the Panama Canal is to afford that passage, and to bring the whole earth into smaller compass. Of course, the United States will be the first to realize the great benefits of the canal. It will double the efficiency of the American Navy by permitting it to concentrate its forces on either ocean in shorter time, by weeks, than can be done by any other nation; consequently, it will add to American military prestige throughout the world. The benefits immediately accruing to the people of the United States will be as great in a commercial way as in military advantage. As the capture of Constantinople caused the up-building of many notable regions through the transformation of international trade routes, so will the completion of the Panama Canal open up new markets and new opportunities to the Mississippi Valley, the world's greatest granary. Its grain and meat products, loading by way of Gulf ports, can go to the ends of the earth with but little outlay for expensive rail transportation. It is even probable that the great awakening incident to the opening of the canal, may hasten the day when the Lakes-to-the-Gulf waterway will be an accomplished fact and when ships may load in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Paul, and Minneapolis and sail directly to the ports of the world, thus beginning an era of commercial development surpassing even the wonderful growth of the half century just closed. Pittsburgh may then be able to send its tremendous output of manufactures to all parts of the world without transhipment; Kansas City will feel the stimulus of the new waterway; and the Pacific coast, long cut off from the eastern section of the United States by high mountain barriers that have been only partially overcome by railroads, will find its great resources within marketable distance of the Eastern States. Canada, too, will feel the stimulus of the canal. No longer will its great crops have to find their slow outlet over railroads that must cross the backbone of a continent, but, pursuing the avenues of least resistance, they may move to all parts of the world by way of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. South America will greatly benefit by the completion of the canal. Already its west coast countries and cities are getting ready for the boom of business that is to follow. Brought thousands of miles nearer to all western trade centers--so close that their raw products and American manufactured products can be exchanged to advantage--there will be a growth of trade whose prospect already has awakened the lethargic South American to the possibilities ahead. These possibilities well may be considered by the business men of the United States. To-day North America buys a large percentage of the products of South America; but, when the South Americans have money to spare, they spend only $1 out of $8 in North America--the other $7 goes to Europe. The American exporter will find himself quickened by the history-making change the canal will produce and, if he goes at it in earnest, he will be in a position to reverse the present situation and get $7 of South American trade where Europe gets only $1. Australia and New Zealand will experience, perhaps, a greater change in the trade routes than any other countries outside of the Americas. The Australian commerce now is largely carried by way of Suez. The opening of the Panama Canal will place New Zealand 1,200 miles nearer to London than it is by way of Suez, and the eastern ports of Australia will be as near to England by way of Panama as by Suez. All Australasian ports will be brought several thousand miles closer to the Atlantic ports of the United States than they are to-day. No one who has heard an Australasian complain of the long delays and the excessive freight rates that intervene between him and his American shoes, can doubt that the closer proximity of American markets will be welcomed in that faraway land under the southern cross. Sydney will be 4,000 miles nearer to New York through the Panama Canal, and 5,500 miles nearer to New Orleans and Galveston. The transcontinental tonnage now handled by the railroads, which ultimately will go by the canal, aggregates 3,000,000 tons a year. The seaboard sections of the United States, of course, will benefit more largely than interior points, for the reason that interior points will have to take a combined rail-and-water route. This will involve railroad transportation and transhipment of cargo, also rehandling charges. After the canal is opened it is probable that the railroads will prefer to supply the intermountain States directly from eastern sources, instead of maintaining the existing policy of giving low rates to Pacific coast cities, so as to give them dominance over the shipping business of the intermountain region. The total coast-to-coast traffic of the railroads is said to approximate one-fifth of the entire traffic carried across the Rocky Mountains. Only one-third of the through traffic of the transcontinental lines from the East to the West originates east of a line drawn through Buffalo and Pittsburgh. It is this third of the westward business that will be affected mainly by the operation of the canal. [Illustration: INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING ROUTES] The principal effect the Panama Canal will have in the readjustment of the trade map of the world is not, perhaps, as much in changing existing routes as in creating new avenues of business. In every region where there is promise of unusual benefit by reason of the opening of the Panama Canal, an effort is being made to capitalize the advantages to be derived therefrom. The west coast of South America feels the stimulus of suddenly being brought thousands of miles closer to the best markets of the world, and anyone who travels down the coast from Panama may see at every port signs of a determination to reap full advantage of the new opportunities. Even Guayaquil, a city that for years has been a hissing and a byword to the masters of all ships plying up and down the west coast because of its absolute indifference to all requirements of sanitation, has prepared for a campaign of cleaning-up, in order that it may become a port of call for all the ships passing that way. Heretofore, masters of ships, in order to comply with quarantine regulations elsewhere, have given it a wide berth whenever possible. Chile, Peru, and Ecuador--all three have caught the spirit of the new era which a completed canal proclaims, and are striving to set their houses in order for the quickened times they see ahead. With the Central American Republics it is the same. Handicapped as they are by revolutions that sap their life-blood, or dominated by rulers who have no other object in governing the people than to exploit them, these countries still hope for much from the canal, and new activities are beginning to spring up in every one of them. It is not improbable that the canal will play an important part in transforming the economic situation of the world during the generations immediately ahead of us. One needs only to study the distribution of humanity over the countries of the earth to find how unevenly the population is scattered, and to learn what great tides of immigration will have to flow westward to establish the equilibrium of population, which some day is bound to come. When Asia has a population of 50 per square mile and Europe a population of 100 a square mile, while North America has 15 and South America has 7, it is apparent that the future holds great changes in store. The potential development of the two Americas challenges the imagination. South America, with its virgin soil all but untouched, can support a population half as dense as that of Europe. This means that it can make room for 300,000,000 immigrants. Likewise, it is fair to assume that North America, with its up-to-date methods of agriculture, industry, and commerce, can support a population as dense as that of Asia with its primitive methods of manufacture and agriculture. This means that North America has room to accommodate 300,000,000 souls. In other words, room still remains for 600,000,000 persons on the continents which the Panama Canal divides. When the day comes, as it seems certain that it will, that the Americas reach their full growth, even the Panama Canal, larger by far than any other artificial waterway in the world, will be much too small to accommodate the traffic which naturally would pass its way. The foreign trade of the United States with its 90,000,000 of population, aggregates 60,000,000 tons a year. Assuming that foreign trade would grow in the same proportion as population, it will be seen that the foreign trade of the two Americas at a time when the population of South America becomes half as dense as that of Europe, and that of North America half as dense as that of Asia, will approximate 500,000,000 tons. Assuming further that only one-fifth of this would pass through the canal, the American commerce alone would exceed its capacity, leaving all the trade between the Orient and eastern Europe to be taken care of by future enlargements. More immediate, however, will be the realization of the prophecy of William H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, that the Pacific is destined to become the chief theater of the world's events. As the population of the earth stands to-day, more than half of all the people who inhabit the globe dwell on lands which drain into this greatest of oceans. Yet, in spite of that fact, the trade that sweeps over the Pacific is but small in comparison with that which traverses the Atlantic. Where a thousand funnels darken the trade routes of the Atlantic, a few hundred are seen on the Pacific. But in Japan one may find an example of the possibilities of the Pacific in the years to come. When China, with its 400,000,000 people, awakens as Japan has awakened, and builds up an international trade in proportion to that of Japan, it will send a commerce across the seas unprecedented in volume. When it buys and sells as Japan buys and sells, the waters of the Orient will vie with those of the Occident in the size of their fleets of commerce. The opening of the Panama Canal promises to be one of the factors in hastening the day when the Orient will become as progressive as the Occident, and when sleeping nations will arise from their lethargy and contribute uncounted millions of tons of traffic to the Pacific Ocean, making it a chief theater of commerce as well as of world events. In our own country the course of empire has been sweeping toward the Pacific. Where once the center of most things lay east of the Mississippi River, now we find its agriculture, its mining industries, and its commercial activities gradually moving westward. The center of cotton production, once in those States celebrated in the melodies of the Southern plantation, has moved westward and to-day in Texas, Oklahoma, and even Southern California, cotton is grown in a way which shows that King Cotton has caught the spirit of the age and is extending his territories westward toward the Pacific. And all of this means a growing business and an expanding traffic through the Panama Canal. On the Atlantic side there are signs without number that many nations will be up and doing in the reformation of the commercial map of the world. The islands of the Caribbean form a screen around the Atlantic end of the canal, and the majority of them are British possessions. Many of their cities will be situated upon the new international trade routes that will be called into being by the opening of the Panama Canal. At Kingston, Jamaica, great improvements are projected, coaling stations are planned, and other steps are being taken which will enable the British Government to reap what advantage it can from the construction of the canal. With its splendid diversity of climate, brought about by the wide range of elevated land, the fruits of the temperate zones may be grown, as well as those of the Tropics, and, as John Foster Fraser expresses it, Jamaica may become the orchard of Great Britain. Denmark is planning extensive shipping facilities in its beautiful harbor of Charlotte Amalia on the Island of St. Thomas. This island, which commands one of the principal passages from the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea, might to-day be a possession of the United States had this Government been willing to buy it when Denmark was anxious to sell. It was here that the bold pirates of the _Spanish Main_ hid their crews in the all but landlocked harbor, and waited for the shipping which passed through Mona passage. Here Bluebeard's castle still stands a mute reminder of the romantic days when buccaneers dominated the _Spanish Main_. The north coast of South America also expects to figure largely in the new commercial map. The northern cities of Venezuela are on the route from eastern South America through the canal, and on one of the natural routes from Pacific ports to Europe. Nowhere else in the world will one find a more delightful climate or a more picturesque city or scenery than in northern Venezuela. Caracas, the capital, is but two hours' ride from the port of La Guaira, and less than a day's journey from Puerto Cabello, and, while the commerce which may be developed in Venezuela will, for the most part, find its outlet to the sea through the Orinoco River, La Guaira and Puerto Cabello will always prove attractive ports of call for passenger-carrying ships. The changes in the commercial situation of Asia and the Americas, brought about by the opening of the canal, will be many. There will be a sudden readjustment of existing trade routes and this will be followed by a long era of development of new conditions, which will be so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, and yet so immense as to excite the wonder of humanity when it stops to reckon its full effect and meaning. CHAPTER XXXI AMERICAN TRADE OPPORTUNITIES The great development of the southern part of the New World, extending from the Rio Grande to the Strait of Magellan, certain to take place as a result of the opening of the Panama Canal, spells opportunity for American commercial expansion. This vast territory, covering an area nearly three times as great as that of the United States, has a population of only 50,000,000. Its resources have been merely scratched on the surface. Its potentialities, acre for acre, are as great as those of the United States. Porto Rico will serve for a criterion by which to measure the future possibilities of this Empire of the South. In Porto Rico one may see the benefits of the institution of a really good government, and the success which attends a proper effort to develop natural resources in tropical America. If American opportunities in all Latin America may be measured by American successes in that island, then, indeed, the future is rich with promise. During a single decade the external commerce of this little gem of the West Indies was more than quadrupled. It now amounts to some $80,000,000 a year, and only about 12 other countries in the world buy more goods from the American manufacturer. The expansion of internal business has kept pace with the growth of external commerce. In seven years taxable values increased from less than $90,000,000 to more than $160,000,000. In a single year the amount of life insurance written in the island nearly doubled, and fire insurance increased nearly half. The exportation of sugar increased fivefold in 10 years, and the exportation of cigars 14 times. The population of the island has increased by half under the beneficient policies of the United States, going up from 800,000 in 1898 to 1,200,000 in 1912. During a single year Porto Rico buys about $35,000,000 worth of goods from the United States, and ships practically the same amount to this country. Should all Latin America prove as good a customer in proportion to area as Porto Rico, our trade with Latin America alone would be many fold greater than the entire foreign trade of the United States to-day. Should all Latin America, even with its present population, buy as liberally from the United States as Porto Rico does, we would sell annually to it nearly $2,000,000,000 worth of products. The most necessary step in developing the potentialities of Latin America is to provide good and stable government. Commercial statistics show how prosperity flourishes where good government reigns, and of how poverty dwells where misgovernment exists. One may go to Porto Rico, to Jamaica, to Curacao, or to St. Thomas, and in each of these countries may behold the wholesome rule of northern Europeans and their descendants. The people have at least those substantial rights which are necessary to the peace, happiness, and well-being of humanity; and equally without exception trade statistics show a greater foreign trade, in proportion to area and population, than is enjoyed in any country where misrule prevails. Porto Rico could be buried in a single lake of Nicaragua; it is only one-fifty-seventh as large as Central America; and yet Porto Rico has a foreign trade greater than all the territory from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Isthmus of Panama. How to improve governmental conditions in those countries where misrule prevails is a most serious problem. Had it not been for the Monroe doctrine it is safe to say that not one of the Republics of tropical America would be in existence today. Instead, their territory would be colonial possessions of the several powerful nations, and their people would be living under the comparatively wholesome rule of those nations. As it is, in a majority of the Republics south of the Rio Grande there is a state of affairs which makes against the development of resources and the best interests of the people. The whole theory under which these countries are governed is that primitive one: "Let him take who has the power, and let him keep who can." The result is that they are Republics only in name, and that the only way to change administrations is to have a revolution. Revolutions mean poverty; poverty means undeveloped resources, and so in some of these countries conditions were as bad in 1913, after nearly a century of so-called republican rule, as they were when the yoke of Spain was thrown off in 1821. How to bring about those conditions of peace and amity essential to national growth and development in these countries is the problem that has vexed more than one administration in Washington. Some have answered that the best way to do it is to abrogate the Monroe doctrine and to let every Latin American tub stand on its own bottom, a proposal that might benefit these countries vastly, but which contains many possibilities of evil to the United States. Others have suggested that our experiment in Porto Rico offers the solution of the problem, at least so far as tropical North America is concerned. They assert that the end would justify the means, and that the planning of the same character of government in this territory that exists in Porto Rico today, would be the greatest godsend that the masses of the people of these countries could have. Still others have advocated a "hands-off" policy so far as the rule of these countries is concerned, allowing them to fight whenever, and in whatever way, they wish, but at the same time adhering rigidly to the Monroe doctrine against European interference. Whatever the ultimate conclusion, it seems useless to hope for prosperity and expansion in countries whose industries constantly suffer from the galling blight of ever-recurring revolution. The great problem that lies before the American people, if the Latin America of the future is to become like the Anglo-Saxon America of today, is that of devising a policy which will insure conditions of peace and good will in the several sword-ruled countries south of the Rio Grande. As matters stand today in the majority of the countries of Latin America, although their Governments owe their very existence to the United States, there is a feeling of antipathy against Americans, which places the American exporter on an unequal footing with his European rival. There is a prejudice against Americans, partly the result of a widespread feeling that the United States is the great land-grabber of the Western world, but mostly the result of the attitude of a large number of Americans who go into these regions. For instance, for years one could not go about the streets of Mexico City without hearing some American berating the "blankety blank greasers," and asserting that the United States could take 5,000 men and capture Mexico City in a two-month campaign. It happens that the Mexican is a proud individual and naturally he bitterly resents such asseverations. The same is true elsewhere, and by personal contact prejudice rather than a feeling of friendship has been aroused. The European usually goes into these countries because there are few opportunities at home. He is usually representative of the best citizenship of his homeland, and quite as much the gentleman in Latin America as at home. While there are a great many splendid types of American citizenship scattered throughout Latin America, a greater number of people have gone there because they could not get along in the United States, and their hostile attitude toward the natives excites by far more prejudice than the better class of Americans can counteract by sympathy and good feeling. Americans who visit these countries expressing contempt for everything they see, and everything the people do, are the greatest hindrances to the realization of the commercial opportunities which the United States possesses in Latin America. If the manufacturers of the United States are to realize to the full the benefits which may be derived from the opening of the Panama Canal they will have to reform their methods of dealing with the Latin Americans. It is just as effective to send to buyers at home catalogs written in Greek or Sanscrit as to send to the majority of Latin Americans catalogs printed in English. In traveling through these countries, endeavoring to ascertain wherein Americans have failed in their efforts to get a proper share of their foreign trade, one hears on every hand the complaint that the American manufacturer seldom meets the conditions upon which their trade may be based. No satisfactory credits are given, and no effort is made to manufacture machinery fitted to their peculiar needs. Agricultural machinery, for instance, which may serve admirably in the United States, is wholly out of place in many of these countries; and yet the Latin American customer must either buy the surplus of these machines or go elsewhere for machinery built to answer his requirements. The European traveling salesman in these countries carries a line of goods immediately answerable to local requirements. Furthermore, the European exporter understands that the system of credits in Latin America is not the same as prevails in Europe and the United States, and he complies with their requirements. Of course, his prices are placed high enough so that he is nothing out of pocket for the seeming concessions he had made. The result is that in traveling in these countries, one meets three or four foreign "drummers" where he meets one American traveling man, in spite of their nearness to the United States. It will take years, even with the Panama Canal in operation, to overcome the disadvantage which bad business policy has placed upon the American manufacturers. If the opening of the Panama Canal spells new American commercial opportunities, it also develops a new field of international politics in which the United States must make itself the dominant factor, and in which it will have a transcendental interest. It will unquestionably give to the Monroe doctrine a new importance and render its maintenance a more urgent necessity than ever. Prior to this time the breaking down of the Monroe doctrine would have been greatly detrimental to the interests of the United States, but from this time forth the domination of the Caribbean by some other strong nation would likely prove most disastrous to American welfare. It might even lead to the loss of the canal itself, and we then would witness that great waterway transformed from a military asset of immeasureable benefit into a base of operations against us. Probably the chief danger to which the Monroe doctrine is exposed is from those countries whose rulers profit most by its enforcement. While the United States can control its own affairs in such a way as not to bring into question this doctrine, it is not so certain that the rulers of some of the Latin American nations will always do as well. In fact, some of the countries have conducted their affairs in such a way as might have involved the United States in a war with a foreign power. The knowledge that a small tropical American republic might act so as to force the United States into a critical situation has resulted in a desire on the part of the responsible authorities at Washington to exercise over the Republics of the Caribbean such a guiding control as would serve to prevent them, through any ill-considered or irresponsible act, from exposing the United States to dangerous controversies with foreign nations. For instance, here is a country which owes a large debt to British bondholders. It defaults on the interest for a period of years. Efforts to collect are futile. Finally it is decided by the President that he needs additional funds. He reaches an agreement with the representatives of the bondholders, by which they agree to refund the debt and to lend him an additional half a million dollars, upon the condition that he hypothecate the Government's export tax upon coffee to secure the amortization of the refunded debt. He does so. Matters move along quietly for a little while, but soon he needs additional funds. He negotiates with New York bankers, getting from them the funds he needs, and hypothecates with them the same coffee tax that he had hitherto hypothecated with the British bondholders. Of course, the British bondholders protest at this impairment of their securities. He laughs at their protest. England sends a warship to his ports. He appeals loudly to the United States for the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine; but the United States does not hear him, so he decides to treat the British bondholders fairly. If he had not done so, and England had been seeking to break down the Monroe doctrine, an ideal opportunity would have been afforded. It is to prevent such situations as these that many Americans hope that the Government may devise some plan that will at once protect the United States from such menaces, and at the same time allow the people of these countries to work out their own destiny in their own way. The situation in tropical America today, with a few exceptions, seems to be that the republics have the form of liberty without its substance, and the shadow of civilization without its realities. Some of them have had over fifty revolutions in as many years. Some of them have been in the grip of tyrants who were as heartless in exploiting their people as was Nero in ruling Rome. The masses have received nothing from the Government except oppression, and they live in that hopeless, heartless ignorance so well described by a Spanish writer, picturing conditions in Porto Rico before the American occupation. We know that this picture was a true one. It was drawn in 1897 and won the prize awarded by the Spanish Government at the centennial celebration of the retirement of the English from this island. After dilating upon the splendors and magnificence of Porto Rico, this artist of the pen said of the masses: "Only the laborer, the son of our fields, one of the most unfortunate beings in the world, with the pallid face, the bare foot, the fleshless body, the ragged clothing, and the feverish glance, strolls indifferently with the darkness of ignorance in his eyes. In the market he finds for food only the rotten salt fish or meat, cod fish covered with gangrenish splotches, and Indian rice; he that harvests the best coffee in the world, who aids in gathering into the granary the sweetest grain in nature, and drives to pasture the beautiful young meat animals, can not carry to his lips a single slice of meat because the municipal exactions place it beyond his means, almost doubling the price of infected cod fish; coffee becomes to him an article of luxury because of its high price, and he can use only sugar laden with molasses and impurities." That picture applies to more than 90 per cent of the people in tropical America to-day. It explains why these countries, which might be made to flow with the milk and honey of a wondrous plenty, are poverty-stricken and unable to work out a satisfactory destiny for themselves. It shows why Cuba, Porto Rico, and Jamaica to-day are rich in internal trade, and prosperous in foreign commerce, while other countries are eking out a bare and scanty existence. American commercial opportunities around the Mediterranean of the West, in particular, and in Latin America, in general, will reach their full when government there becomes government for the welfare of the people rather than for the aggrandizement of the ruling class. CHAPTER XXXII THE PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSITION When, on February 20, 1915, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition opens its gates to the world, in celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal, it expects to offer to the nations of the earth a spectacle the like of which has never been equaled in the history of expositions. It is estimated that $50,000,000 will be spent in thus celebrating the great triumph of American genius at Panama. And those who know the spirit of the people of California, who are immediately responsible to the United States and to the world for the success of the undertaking, understand that nothing will be overlooked that might please the eye, stir the fancy, or arouse the patriotism of those who journey to the Golden Gate to behold the wonders of this great show. The spirit that was San Francisco's following the terrible calamity of April 18, 1906, when the city was shaken to its foundations by a great earthquake, and when uncontrollable fire completed the ruin and devastation which the earthquake had begun, has been the spirit that has planned and is carrying to a successful culmination the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The San Francisco earthquake came as the most terrific blow that ever descended upon an American city. It left the metropolis of the Pacific a mass of ruins and ashes. In five years a newer and a prouder San Francisco arose from the ashes of the old, and greeted the world as the highest example of municipal greatness to which a community can rise at times when nothing is left to man but hope, and that hope is half despair. The fire destroyed 8,000 houses, leaving such a hopeless mass of débris that $20,000,000 had to be raised to reclaim the bare earth itself. In five years 31,000 finer and better houses had taken their places. Assessed values before the fire were $30,000,000 less than five years after. Bank clearings increased by a third and savings-bank deposits were greater after only five years than they were before the terrible catastrophe. It may be imagined what wonders this spirit of the Golden West will accomplish when applied to the creation of an exposition. It is easy to forecast that, beautiful as have been the expositions of the past, and magnificent as has been the scale upon which they were planned, fresh palms will be awarded to San Francisco and the great fair it will offer to the World in 1915. The city of the Golden Gate was planning a great celebration nearly two years before the calamity which overtook it in 1906. The first suggestion for holding a world's fair at San Francisco was made on June 12, 1904, when Mr. R. B. Hale wrote a letter to the San Francisco Merchants' Association advising its members that it would be wise to take steps toward securing for that city a great celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, in 1913. The matter was agitated for a year and a half and, a little more than three months prior to the earthquake, Representative Julius Kahn introduced in the National House of Representatives a bill providing for the celebration of the discovery of the Pacific, in 1913. Then followed the great catastrophe, and for the eight months next ensuing the problems of planning a new and greater San Francisco demanded all the attention of the people of that city. In December, 1906, however, the Pacific Ocean Exposition Company was incorporated with a capital stock of $5,000,000. By 1910 New Orleans had loomed up as an aspirant for the honor of holding the great international celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal, and San Francisco understood that time for action was at hand, and, moreover, that money raised at home for the exposition would be the most eloquent advocate before Congress. Realizing this, a great mass meeting was called and in two hours subscriptions amounting to $4,089,000 were raised, headed by 40 subscriptions of $25,000 each. In the fall of that year San Francisco was afforded an opportunity of attesting the universality of its interest in the success of the exposition. A proposition to vote $5,000,000 worth of bonds for the exposition was referred to the people. It carried by a vote of 42,040 to 2,122. The State of California also gave its citizens an opportunity to show their feeling, and by a vote of 174,000 to 50,000 made available bonds for $5,000,000 for the purposes of the exposition. The result has been that from first to last, within the confines of California's borders, a sum approximating $20,000,000 has been raised for exposition purposes. To this, $30,000,000 will be added by outside governments and by exhibitors and concessionaires. The fight which led to the choosing of San Francisco as the city for holding the Panama celebration is, for the most part, familiar history. The law under which this choice was made was signed by President Taft on February 15, 1911. The presidential signature was the signal for the beginning of operations looking to the completion of all of the exposition buildings a full six months ahead of the opening date. The details of the site were worked out promptly. The site selected includes the western half of Golden Gate Park; Lincoln Park, which is situated on a high bluff overlooking the approach from the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate; and Harbor View, which is an extensive tract of level land, stretching along the shore of San Francisco Bay and back to the hills and the principal residential portion of the city. Each element in this extensive site possesses its own peculiar charm; Golden Gate Park with its great variety of flowers and semitropical plants and trees; Lincoln Park with its outlook on the broad Pacific and along the rugged coastline to the north; and Harbor View with the Golden Gate to the left, a chain of climbing hills across the harbor in front, and the long sweep of bay and islands to the right. What nature has not done for the site of the exposition will be done by the art of the landscape gardener. An ocean boulevard, to be made one of the most beautiful drives in the world, will become one of the permanent memorials of the exposition. A great esplanade, planted with cypress and eucalypti and liberally provided with seats, will extend along the water's edge for about half the entire length of the exposition grounds, affording ample opportunity for the thousands of visitors to watch the great water events which will constitute one of the features of the exposition. On the south side of this esplanade the principal exposition buildings, consisting of eight great palaces, will be located. A great wall, 60 feet high, will be built along the northern and western waterfronts for the purpose of breaking the winds which sweep down the harbor, and will be continued around the other two sides of the exposition grounds proper so as to constitute a walled inclosure which, in appearance, will remind one of the old walled towns of southern France and Spain. The two principal gateways to the exposition grounds will open into great interior courts, around which the buildings will be ranged. It will be possible for the visitor to go from one building to another and complete the entire circuit of eight main exhibition palaces without once stepping from under cover. The three largest courts are named: The Court of the Sun and Stars, the Court of Abundance, and the Court of the Four Seasons. The Court of Abundance represents the Orient, and the Court of the Four Seasons, the Occident; the Court of the Sun and Stars, uniting the other two, will typify the linking of the Orient and the Occident through the completion of the Panama Canal. There will also be two lesser courts, known as the Court of Flowers and the Court of Palms. Outside of the walled city there will be five other important exhibition palaces. The Panama-Pacific Exposition will be different from any that has gone before. Where others have been built on broad, level plains, this one will be located in one of nature's most beautiful natural amphitheaters, with the residential portions of San Francisco and the towns of the surrounding country looking down upon it. The architecture will be of such a nature that will make the "Fair City" indeed a fair city to behold. If Chicago had its "White City," the San Francisco fair will be all aglow with rich color. It will be made to harmonize with the "vibrant tints of the native wild flowers, the soft browns of the surrounding hills, the gold of the orangeries, the blue of the sea." The artist in charge of this phase of the work declares that, "as the musician builds his symphony around a motif or chord," so it became his duty to "strike a chord of color and build his symphony upon it." The one thing upon which he insisted was that there should be no white, and the pillars, statues, fountains, masts, walls, and flagpoles that are to contrast with the tinted decorations are to be of ivory yellow. Even the dyeing of the bunting for flags and draperies is under the personal supervision of the artist in charge of the color scheme of the exposition. The roofs of the buildings will be harmoniously colored and the city will be a great party-colored area of red tiles, golden domes, and copper-green minarets. "Imagine," said Jules Guerin, the artist, "a gigantic Persian rug of soft melting tones with brilliant splotches here and there, spread down for a mile or more, and you may get some idea of what the Panama-Pacific Exposition will look like when viewed from a distance." The lighting of the exposition will be by indirect illumination, affording practically the same intensity of light by night as by day. Lights will be hidden behind the colonnades, above the cornices, and behind masts on the roofs. Sculpture will stand out without shadow at night as by day. Great searchlights, many of them concentrated upon jets of steam, and playing in varying color, will add to the beauty of the scene. Even the fogs of the harbor will be made to contribute to the night effect of the exposition, and auroras will spread like draped lilies in the sky over the exhibition. The sculpture will be unique in the history of exposition-giving. That phase of the work is under the control of Karl Bitter. In front of the main entrance, at the tower gate, there will be an allegory of the Panama Canal called "Energy; the lord of the Isthmian way." It will be represented by an enormous horse standing on a heavy pedestal, the horse carrying a man with extended arms pushing the waters apart. In the Court of the Sun and Stars two great sculptural fountains, typical of the rising and setting of the sun, will carry out the idea of "the world united and the land divided." In every part of the exposition scheme the sculpture will tell the story of the unification of the nations of the East and the West through the construction of the Panama Canal. Nothing seems to have been overlooked in the plans that have been made to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal at San Francisco. There will be a working model of the Panama Canal, with a capacity of handling 2,000 people every 20 minutes. A reproduction of the Grand Canyon of Arizona will be another feature. The liberality of the prizes offered is indicated by the fact that premiums in the live-stock exhibits alone aggregate $175,000. One of the greatest events of the exposition will be the rendezvous of representative ships from the fleets of all the nations of the earth in Hampton Roads in January and February, 1915. Their commanders will visit Washington and be received by the President. He will return with them to Hampton Roads and there review what promises to be the greatest international naval display in history. After this a long procession of fighting craft, perhaps accompanied by an equally long procession of tourist steamers, private yachts, and ships of commerce, will steam out of the Virginia Capes and turn their prows down the Spanish Main to Colon. Here the canal authorities will formally welcome the shipping world and pass its representatives through to the Pacific, whence they will sail to San Francisco, there to participate in the great celebration during the months which will follow. It may be that this great procession will be headed by the U. S. S. _Oregon_, whose trip around South America in 1898 proclaimed in tones that were heard in every hamlet in the United States the necessity of building the great waterway. In addition to the great exposition at San Francisco, another will throw open its gates during 1915--the Panama-California Exposition at San Diego. This exposition will be held at a total outlay of, perhaps, $20,000,000. Nearly $6,000,000 is being spent on a magnificent sea wall. The San Diego and Arizona Railway is being built on a new and lower grade for nearly 220 miles. About $5,000,000 will be spent in making the exposition proper in Balboa Park. Over 11 miles of docks and a thousand acres of reclaimed land for warehouses and factory sites will be ready when the exposition opens on January 1, 1915. The fair will have 30 acres of Spanish gardens. A great Indian congress and exhibit will be held, representing every tribe of North and South America. This exposition will in nowise interfere with the big show at San Francisco, but will be supplemental to it. When the Suez Canal was finished, its opening was celebrated by the most magnificent fete of modern times, the profligate Khedive Ismail Pasha apparently endeavoring to outdo the traditions of his Mussulman predecessors, Haroun al Raschid and Akbar. The fete lasted for four weeks, Cairo was decorated and illuminated as no city, of either Occident or Orient, ever had been before. The expense of the month's carnival was more than $21,000,000. An opera house was built especially for the occasion, and Verdi, the famous Italian composer, was employed to write a special opera for the occasion. That the opera was "Aida," and that it marked the high tide of Verdi's genius, was perhaps more than might have been expected of a work of art produced at the command of an extravagant prince's gold. The canal itself was opened on November 16, 1869, a procession of forty-eight ships, men of war, royal yachts and merchantmen, making the transit of the Isthmus in three days' time. In the first ship was Eugenie, Empress of the French. In another was the Emperor of Austria, and in still another the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VII. A more imposing gathering of imperial and royal personages never before had been witnessed, and all of them were the Christian guests of the Moslem Ismail. When the procession of royal vessels had passed through, the captains and the kings went to Cairo for the fete. The canal was open for traffic. It was significant that the first vessel to pass through in the course of ordinary business, paying its tolls, flew the British ensign. The building of the canal had wrecked Egypt, financially and politically; was destined to end forever the hope of Asiatic empire for France; and was to make certain England's dominion over India, a thing de Lesseps and Napoleon III had intended it to destroy. The celebration of the completion of the Suez Canal was the wildest orgy of modern times, the last attempt to Orientalize a commercial undertaking of the Age of Steam and Steel. The celebration at San Francisco will be more magnificent in its way, and will cost more money. But the millions will not be thrown away for the mere delectation of the senses of two score princes--they will be expended for the entertainment and the education of millions of people, the humblest of whom will have his full share in the celebration. From the spruce woods of Maine, from the orange groves of Florida, from the wide fields of the Mississippi Valley, from the broad plains of the Colorado, from the blue ridges of the Alleghenies and the snow peaks of the Rockies, Americans will go to the Golden Gate to commemorate in their American way the closer union of their States, the consummation of the journeys of Columbus: The Land Divided--the World United. THE END [Illustration: A MAP SHOWING THE ISTHMUS WITH THE COMPLETED CANAL] INDEX Accessory Transit Company, 199 Accidents, 72 Amador, Dr., 238, 239 Accounting department, 315 American Federation of Labor, 271 American clings to home habits, 177 American Federation of Women's Clubs, 176, 180 American mind wanted canal, 11 American Rivers and Harbors Congress, 346 Amsterdam Canal, 341-342 Amundsen, 4 Amusements, 178, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192 Ancon Hill, 89 Ancon Study Club, 183 Animal life, 331 Ants, 331 Appropriations for canal, 269 Aspinwall, William H., 102 Babel of American ambitions, 80 Bailey, John, 197 Balboa, 6, 7, 89, 90, 333 Barnacles, 40 Beef, Price of, 166, 167 Beauregard, P. T. G., 204 Bitter, Karl, 374 Blackburn, Joseph C. S., 138, 142, 250, 252, 258 Board of consulting engineers, 32 Boswell, Helen Varick, 180 Bridles, 77 British bondholders, 365 Brooke, Mark, 133 Bryce, James, 20, 23 Buccaneers, English, 334 Bull-fighting, 328 Bunau-Varilla, Philippe, 222, 230, 237, 238, 246, 327 Burke, John, 143 "Bush dwellers," 155 Cables, 78 Caisson gates, 62, 63 Caledonia, 159 Camp Fire Girls, 183 Cantilever pivot bridges, 57 Canada, Western, 20 Canal not constructed to make money, 10 Canal Zone, 6, 7, 247, 326 Canal Zone government, 256-267, 271, 312 Canals, 335-346 Canals, Isthmian, 194-205 Cargo ship, 319 Central and South American Telegraph Company, 253 Chagres River, 2, 5, 27, 32, 33, 36, 37, 40, 82, 110, 214, 280, 330 Chagres Valley, 33, 36 Chain for stopping vessels, 58, 59, 60 Channel, Sea-level, 46 Charles V, 194 Chauncey, Henry, 103 Cheops, Pyramid of, 24 Chicago Drainage Canal, 345 Childs, Orville, 199 Choice of route, 221-232 Chucunoques, 332 Civil administration, 138 Civil-service requirements, 136 Claims, Adjustment of, 323 Claims for lands, 260 Clay, Henry, 197 Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 15, 17, 198, 302, 303 Cleveland (Ship), 297 Clutches, Friction, 57 Clubhouses, 186 Coaling, 320 Coaling plants, 91, 92 Cock-fighting, 328 Cole, H. O., 143 Collisions, 60 Colombia, 227, 228, 231, 233-245 Colon Beach, 101 Columbus, Christopher, 3, 194, 347 Comber, W. G., 143 Commercial map, 347-357 Commissary, 164-175 Commissary department, 30 Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique, 213, 214 Concession, Extension of, 104 Concession to the French, 196 Concrete mixers, 54 Congress and the canal, 268-276 Conquerers, Spanish, 334 Constantinople, Capture of, 347, 348 Constantinople, Convention of, 292 Contra Costa Water Company, 43 Contract system, 13 Contractor's Hill, 79 Controversy with Colombia, 233-245 Cook, Thomas F., 144 Corozal (Dredge), 84 Corruption, 14 Corruption in building French canal, 9, 207 Cortez, Hernando, 195 Cost of canal, 5 Cost of French canal, 208 Cotton production, Center of, 355 Coupon books, 169 Court system, 261 Courtesy of West Indian Negro, 157 Courtesy of workmen, 147 Cranes, Floating, 322 Cristobal, 6, 7 Cromwell, William Nelson, 280, 287, 327 Cronstadt and St. Petersburg Canal, 343 Cruelty of natives, 329 Cruelty of Spaniards, 333 Culebra Cut, 5, 13, 21, 26, 34, 35, 40, 70-81, 214, 216, 277, 278 Culebra Mountain, 4, 20, 79, 80, 196, 277 Cullom, Shelby M., 282 Culverts, 50 Dams, Emergency, 60, 61 Davis, Charles H., 196 Davis, George W., 134, 256 Death rate, 303 Debts of American Republics, 365 Department store, 166 Deportation of laborers, 152 Devol, C. A., 143 Dikes, 126 Dikes of Holland, 44 "Dingler's folly," 208 Diplomatic entanglements, 17 Dredges, Ladder, 84 Dredges, Suction, 83 Duty on imports, 325 Dynamite, 28, 74 Eads, James B., 202, 203 Eastern Roman Empire, 3 Eating places, 170 Economy in handling material, 55 Efficiency records, 72, 73 Eight-hour working day, 137, 271 Elections in Panama, 251, 327 Electric current, 67 Electrical department, 315 Endicott, Mordecai T., 135 "Energy; the lord of the Isthmian way," 394 Engineering department, 314 Engineering difficulties, 29 Engineering project of all history, 23 Englishman defies Tropics, 177 Equipment for hauling material, 53 Erie Canal, 346 Expense of operating canal, 313 Extravagance in building French canal, 207 Ernst, Oswald H., 135 Filibusters, French, 334 Finley, Carlos, 11, 106 Fire department, 264 Fishing, 192 Flamenco Island, 88 Flowers, 330 Foreign trade of U. S., 353 Fortifications, 18, 283-294 Foundations, 90 Fraser, John Foster, 355 French began work in 1880, 5 French canal, 53 French failure, 206-220 French Panama Canal Company, 200 French spent $300,000,000, 8 French Canal Company, 9, 93, 252 Fruits, 330 Gaillard, D. D., 138, 139 Gamboa, 40 Gatun Dam, 13, 21, 23, 25, 26, 32-34, 36, 41-43, 56, 279 Gatun Lake, 36, 37, 38, 45, 47, 50, 56, 60, 62, 82, 95, 315, 330 Goethal, George Washington, 13, 18, 33, 43, 119-132, 273 Gold Hill, 79 Golf links, 315 Good Hope, Cape of, 19 Gorgas, William C., 105, 108, 134, 138, 142 Government ownership of railways, 99 Graft, 14 "Great undertaker," 218 Guayaquil, 19 Gudger, H. A., 263 Guerin, Jules, 374 Gulf States, 20 Hains, Peter C., 135 Handling the traffic, 317-325 Hanna, Marcus A., 227, 230 Harding, Chester, 143 Harrod, Benjamin A., 135 Hay, John, 246 Hay-Herran treaty, 16, 231, 232, 233, 235 Hay-Pauncefote treaty, 17, 225, 300, 301, 303, 304 Health of canal workers, 210 Heat of the Tropics, 179 Hepburn, William P., 223 High cost of living, 175 Hise, Elijah, 198 Hodges, Harry F., 139, 141 Honolulu, 19 Hoosac Tunnel, 71 Hospitals, 112, 208, 209 Hotels, 100, 101, 171 Hunter, Henry, 278 Hunting, 191, 192 Hydraulic excavation, 79 Hydraulic Fill, 35 Ice plant, 92 Ice, Price of, 168 Iguana, 329 Immigration, 157 Incas Society, 152 Injury to the canal, 324 International commerce, 3 Isthmian Canal Commission, 12, 88, 96, 97, 109, 119, 201, 224, 225, 229, 268, 269, 311 Johnson, Emory H., 18, 299, 306 Kahn, Julius, 370 Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal, 340-341 Kid Canal, 340-341 Knox, Philander C., 43, 243 Labor in passing ships through, 68, 69 Laborers, 307 Land, Prices of, 333 Laws of Canal Zone, 268, 267 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 8, 132, 211-219 Lidgerwood cableways, 53 Lidgerwood dirt car, 25 Lidgerwood dirt trains, 76 Lidgerwood flat cars, 74, 77 Life on the zone, 176-193 Lighting of locks, 325 Liquor question, 186 Lloyd, J. A., 196 Lloyds, 324 Lock canal, 13, 18, 137, 216, 217, 281 Lock machinery, 57-67 Locks, 19, 26, 46, 48-55, 58, 62, 318 Locomotives, Electric, 65-67 Lottery, 217, 254 Loulan, J. A., 148 Lusitania, 297 Machinery, Dependable, 57 Machinery, Abandoned, 207 Machinery, Value of, 219 MacKenzie, Alexander, 119 Magellan, 4 Magellan, Straits of, 19 Magoon, Charles E., 109, 135, 136, 264 "Making the dirt fly," 27 Malaria, 9, 11, 106, 207, 211 Man-made peninsula, 45 Manchester ship canal, 20, 30, 339 Manila, 19 Manson, Sir Patrick, 11, 106 Manufacturers of U. S., 363 Margarita Island, 284 Maritime Canal Company, 200, 223 Markets, 329 Marriage, 155 Married men more content, 179 Materia medica of Panamans, 381 Matrimony, Premium on, 179 Mears, Frederick, 143 Melbourne, 19 Menocal, A. G., 200 Metcalf, Richard L., 189 Miraflores, 26, 27, 40, 47, 55, 61, 67, 82, 89, 126 Mississippi Valley, 20 Mistakes in building, 12 Mahogany, 330 Money for building always ready, 11 Monroe doctrine, 7, 15, 360, 361 Morgan, Henry, 334 Morgan, John T., 221 Mosquito Coast, 198 Mosquitoes, 9, 11, 12, 105-107, 114, 115 Naos Island, 87, 284 National geographic society, 23 National Institute, 327 Naval display, 375 Navy, Efficiency of, 348 Negroes, 154-163 Nelson, Horatio, 197 New Caledonia, 7 New Granada, 237 New Panama Canal Company, 133, 219, 221, 224-228, 233, 235-237, 242, 270 Nicaraguan Canal, 15, 16, 198, 199, 201, 222, 230, 231 Nicaraguan Canal Commission, 199 Nombre de Dios, 7, 53 North Sea Canal, 342-343 Olympic, 59 Operating force, 309-312 Orchids, 330 Oregon (U. S. Ship), 10 Organization, 133-144 Organization of government on Canal Zone, 313 Pacific Ocean Exposition Company, 370 Pacific Steamer Navigation Company, 321 Palmer, Aaron H., 197 Pan American Conference, 7 Panama, 230, 237, 238, 240, 241, 243, 246-255 Panama, Bay of, 280 Panama-California Exposition, 376 Panama Canal Company, 133, 218 Panama City, 12, 43 Panama-Pacific Exposition, 368-378 Panama (Republic), 6, 15, 326-334 Panama Railroad, 7, 34, 68, 88, 93, 104, 136, 214, 228, 245 Panama Railroad Steamship Line, 100 Pay-day, 160, 161 Pay of Americans, 178 Paying off canal army, 30 Pedro Miguel, 25, 27, 47, 48, 55, 61, 89 Pennsylvania tubes, 50 Perico Island, 88, 285 Pilots, Canal, 60 Police force, 262, 263 Population of the zone, 315 Porto Rico, 358-360 Position of canal, 5 Postal service, 261 Prize fighting, 328 Purchase of material, 272 Quartermaster's department, 174, 314 Quellenec, F., 278 Railroads opposed to canal, 222 Rates, Passenger, 103 Rates, Railroad, 99 Rating of employees, 151 Reed, Walter, 106 Reimbursement to owners of vessels for accidents, 323 Rental for Canal Zone, 326 Religious activities, 183 Roads, 191, 264, 265 Robinson, Tracy, 215, 216 Root, Elihu, 242 Ross, Roland, 11, 106 Rosseau, Armand, 217 Rourke, W. G., 143 Rousseau, Harry H., 138, 139, 148 Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, 321 Safety appliances, 57 Safety for ships, 281 Sailing ships, Death blow to, 322 Salaries, 310 San Blas Indians, 332 San Diego and Arizona Railway, 376 San Francisco earthquake, 368-369 Sanitary department, 30 Sanitation, 105-117, 328, 332, 352 Sault Ste. Marie canal, 314, 335, 343-344 Saville, Caleb M., 41, 143 School system, 264 Schools, Night, 187 Sea-level canal, 13, 18, 137, 272, 279-282 Secret societies, 184 Servants, 181, 182 Shanton, George R., 262 Shaw, Albert D., 232 Ship railway, 202, 203, 204 Shipping routes, International, 351 Shonts, Theodore P., 135, 137 Shovels, Steam, 83, 150 Sibert, William L., 138, 139 Simplon Tunnel, 71 Site of exposition, 371 Slides, 77, 78 Smith, Jackson, 138, 139 Social diversion, 182 Society of the Chagres, 152, 153 Soda fountain, 178 "Soo" locks, 62 Spanish American war veterans, 128 Spanish language, Study of, 181, 188 Spanish Main, 356 Spillway, 26, 37, 38, 39 Spooner, John C., 229 Steamship lines, 98 Stegomyia, 11, 107, 115, 211 Stevens, John F., 27, 102, 119, 129, 130, 136, 138 Stoney Gate valves, 50 Strangers' Club, 182 Street-car system, 191 Strikes, 129 Suez Canal, 21, 29, 335-339, 376, 377 Suez Canal rules, 292 Supplies for building canal free of duty, 323 Switches, Limit, 57 Tabernilla, 78 Taboga Island, 285 Taboga Sanitarium, 113 Taft, Wm. Howard, 33, 118 Tehuantepec, Isthmus of, 202, 204 Tehuantepec railroad, 203 Tierra del Fuego, 4 Thatcher, Maurice H., 139 Tivoli Hotel, 100, 170 Titanic marine stairway, 45 Tolls, 18, 295-308, 319 Toro Point, 46, 87, 284 Towing, 322 Track shifter, 76 Trade opportunities, 358-367 Traffic, 18, 19 Tramp steamer, 320 Transcontinental tonnage, 350 Transportation of material excavated, 75 Traveling salesmen, 363-364 Treaties with Colombia and Panama, 244 Tropics, Diseases of, 9 Type of canal, 275 University Club, 182 Vaccination of negroes, 162 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 199 Voting, 184, 185 Wages, 146, 165 Wallace, John Findley, 130, 133, 135 Washington Hotel, 101 Washington monument, 23, 25, 26 Water, Control of, 65 Water supply, 265, 266 Watertight material, 41 Wickedness of the City of Panama, 328 Williams, E. J., 143, 160 Williamson, S. B., 143 Wilson, Eugene T., 143 Wilson, T. D., 204 Wire screens, 12 Women's clubs, 180, 181 Women's Federation of Clubs, 183 Wood, Leonard, 108 Workmen, 145-153 Wyse, Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte, 212, 218 Yellow fever, 9, 11, 12, 105, 109, 110, 112, 211 Yellow fever commission, 106 Young Men's Christian Association, 178, 180, 207 The American Government The Book That Shows Uncle Sam at Work By Frederic J. Haskin This is the only book that tells accurately and without partisan bias just what the working machinery of the great American Government accomplishes for its people. It has been endorsed by scores of public officials, has been placed in hundreds of libraries, studied in thousands of schools and read by hundreds of thousands of Americans. It is the book Woodrow Wilson read on the night of his election to the Presidency. It will hold your interest whether you are nine or ninety, a man or woman, boy or girl. _Illustrated._ Published by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY Philadelphia * * * * * The Immigrant An Asset and a Liability By Frederic J. Haskin The author has succeeded to a remarkable degree in investing the subject of Immigration with intense interest. The story of the greatest human migration of all the ages is told in vivid, incisive and picturesque style. The three centuries of this great world movement are spread out before the reader like a panoramic parade of all nations. Accurate historical statement, philosophic presentation of the underlying principles and a judicial consideration of the ultimate influence on our country characterize this latest and in many respects most satisfactory and complete handbook. _Illustrated._ Published by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York * * * * * _The Haskin Letter_ The daily letter by Frederic J. Haskin has more readers than any other newspaper feature in the United States. Its great popularity is due to its accurate presentation of worth-while information. * * * * * The New Freedom By WOODROW WILSON Certain it is that the more pertinent phase: of present day conditions have never been more simply and more luminously set forth. The large, free lines in which the story is told, the easy style of extemporaneous talk, the homely illustrations, remove every impediment from the reader's mind and give to each sentence the tang of life. Every phrase is fresh as a May morning, and every thought is quick with life. _Fifth Large Printing_ DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. Garden City New York * * * * * Transcriber's note: Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error. Facing page 10: The photo of George Goethals includes a signature. The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations. 
23435	----	(This file was produced from images produced by Core Historical Literature in Agriculture (CHLA), Cornell University) Transcriber's Note: The spelling in this text has been preserved as in the original. Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. You can find a list of the corrections made at the end of this e-text. * * * * * FARM DRAINAGE. THE PRINCIPLES, PROCESSES, AND EFFECTS OF DRAINING LAND WITH STONES, WOOD, PLOWS, AND OPEN DITCHES, AND ESPECIALLY WITH TILES; INCLUDING TABLES OF RAIN-FALL, EVAPORATION, FILTRATION, EXCAVATION, CAPACITY OF PIPES; COST AND NUMBER TO THE ACRE, OF TILES, &C., &C., AND MORE THAN 100 ILLUSTRATIONS. BY HENRY F. FRENCH. "READ, not to contradict and to confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider."--BACON. "The first Farmer was the first man, and all nobility rests on the possession and use of land."--EMERSON. NEW YORK: C. M. SAXTON, BARKER & CO., AGRICULTURAL BOOK PUBLISHERS, No. 25 PARK ROW 1860. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, BY HENRY F. FRENCH, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Southern District of New York. TO The Honorable Simon Brown, of MASSACHUSETTS, A LOVER OF AGRICULTURE, AND A PROGRESSIVE FARMER, WHOSE WORDS AND WORKS ARE SO WELL DEVOTED TO IMPROVE THE CONDITION OF THOSE WHO CULTIVATE THE EARTH, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED, AS A TESTIMONIAL OF RESPECT AND PERSONAL ESTEEM, BY HIS FRIEND AND BROTHER, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. The Agriculture of America has seemed to me to demand some light upon the subject of Drainage; some work, which, with an exposition of the various theories, should give the simplest details of the practice, of draining land. This treatise is an attempt to answer that demand, and to give to the farmers of our country, at the same time, enough of scientific principles to satisfy intelligent inquiry, and plain and full directions for executing work in the field, according to the best known rules. It has been my endeavor to show what lands in America require drainage, and how to drain them best, at least expense; to explain how the theories and the practice of the Old World require modification for the cheaper lands, the dearer labor, and the various climate of the New; and, finally, to suggest how, through improved implements and processes, the inventive genius of our country may make the brain assist and relieve the labor of the hand. With some hope that my humble labors, in a field so broad, may not have entirely failed of their object, this work is offered to the attention of American farmers. H. F. F. THE PINES, EXETER, N. H., March, 1859. LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. PAGE. Elkington's Mode 32, 33 Ditch and Bore-hole 35 Keythorpe System 42 Theory of Springs 80-84 Plug Drainage 106, 107 Mole Plow 108 Wedge Drains 111 Shoulder Drains 111 Larch Tube 112 Pole Drain 113 Peat Tiles and Tool 113 Stone Drains 115-117 Draining Bricks 121 Round Pipes 122 Horse-shoe Tile 124 Sole-Tile 125 Pipes and Collar 126 Flat-bottomed Pipe-Tile 129 Drains across Slope 150 Draining Irregular Strata 162 Relief Drains 162 Small Outlet 178 Large Outlet 179, 180 Outlet, with Flap 181 Well, with Silt Basin 186 Peep-hole 188 Spring in Drained Field 189 Main of Two Tiles 194 Main of Several Tiles 194 Plan of Drained Field 195 Junction of Drains 196 Branch Pipe 197 Daines' Tile Machine 209 Pratt's Tile Machine 210 Tiles, laid well and ill 229 Square and Plumb-Level 229 Spirit Level 230 Staff and Target 231 Span, or A Level 232 Grading Trenches by Lines 233 Challoner's Level 235 Drain Spades 235 Spade with Spur 236 Common Shovel and Spade 236 Long-handled Round Shovel 237 Shovel Scoop 237 Irish Spade 238 Birmingham Spades 240 Narrow Spades 242 English Bottoming Tools 243 Drawing and Pushing Scoops 244 Pipe-Layer 244 Pipe-Laying 245 Pick-axes 245 Drain Gauge 246 Elkington's Auger 246 Fowler's Drain Plow 247 Pratt's Ditcher 249 Paul's Ditcher 250 Germination 277, 278 Land before Drainage and After 286 Heat in Wet Land 288 Cracking of Clays 325 Drainage of Cellar 355 Drainage of Barn Cellar 359 Plan of Rand's Drainage 372 " H. F. French's Drainage 376 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Why this Treatise does not contain all Knowledge.--Attention of Scientific Men attracted to Drainage.--Lieutenant Maury's Suggestions.--Ralph Waldo Emerson's Views.--Opinions of J. H. Klippart, Esq.; of Professor Mapes; B. P. Johnson, Esq.; Governor Wright, Mr. Custis, &c.--Prejudice against what is English.--Acknowledgements to our Friends at Home and Abroad.--The Wants of our Farmers. CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF THE ART OF DRAINING. Draining as old as the Deluge.--Roman Authors.--Walter Bligh in 1650.--No thorough drainage till Smith, of Deanston.--No mention of Tiles in the "Compleat Body of Husbandry," 1758.--Tiles found 100 years old.--Elkington's System.--Johnstone's Puns and Peripatetics.--Draining Springs.--Bletonism, or the Faculty of Perceiving Subterranean Water.--Deanston System.--Views of Mr. Parkes.--Keythorpe System.--Wharncliffe System.--Introduction of Tiles into America.--John Johnston, and Mr. Delafield, of New York. CHAPTER III. RAIN, EVAPORATION AND FILTRATION. Fertilizing Substances in Rain Water.--Amount of Rain Fall in United States; in England.--Tables of Rain Fall.--Number of Rainy Days, and Quantity of Rain each Month.--Snow, how Computed as Water.--Proportion of Rain Evaporated.--What Quantity of Water Dry Soil will Hold.--Dew Point.--How Evaporation Cools Bodies.--Artificial Heat Underground.--Tables of Filtration and Evaporation. CHAPTER IV. DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS--WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE. What is High Land?--Accidents to Crops from Water.--Do Lands need Drainage in America?--Springs.--Theory of Moisture, with Illustrations.--Water of Pressure.--Legal Rights as to Draining our Neighbor's Wells and Land.--What Lands require Drainage?--Horace Greeley's Opinion.--Drainage more Necessary in America than in England; Indications of too much Moisture.--Will Drainage Pay? CHAPTER V. VARIOUS METHODS OF DRAINAGE. Open Ditches.--Slope of Banks.--Brush Drains.--Ridge and Furrow.--Plug-Draining.--Mole-Draining.--Mole-Plow.--Wedge and Shoulder Drains.--Larch Tubes.--Drains of Fence Rails, and Poles.--Peat Tiles.--Stone Drains Injured by Moles.--Downing's Giraffes.--Illustrations of Various Kinds of Stone Drains. CHAPTER VI. DRAINAGE WITH TILES. What are Drain-Tiles?--Forms of Tiles.--Pipes.--Horse-shoe Tiles.--Sole-Tiles.--Form of Water-Passage.--Collars and their Use.--Size of Pipes.--Velocity.--Friction.--Discharge of Water through Pipes.--Tables of Capacity.--How Water enters Tiles.--Deep Drains run soonest and longest.--Pressure of Water on Pipes.--Durability of Tile Drains.--Drain-Bricks 100 years old. CHAPTER VII. DIRECTION, DISTANCE AND DEPTH OF DRAINS. DIRECTION OF DRAINS.--Whence comes the Water?--Inclination of Strata.--Drains across the Slope let Water out as well as Receive it.--Defence against Water from Higher Land.--Open Ditches.--Headers.--Silt-basins. DISTANCE OF DRAINS.--Depends on Soil, Depth, Climate, Prices, System.--Conclusions as to Distance. DEPTH OF DRAINS.--Greatly Increases Cost.--Shallow Drains first tried in England.--10,000 Miles of Shallow Drains laid in Scotland by way of Education.--Drains must be below Subsoil plow, and Frost.--Effect of Frost on Tiles and Aqueducts. CHAPTER VIII. ARRANGEMENT OF DRAINS. Necessity of System.--What Fall is Necessary.--American Examples.--Outlets.--Wells and Relief-Pipes.--Peep-holes.--How to secure Outlets.--Gate to Exclude Back-Water.--Gratings and Screens to keep out Frogs, Snakes, Moles, &c.--Mains, Submains, and Minors, how placed.--Capacity of Pipes.--Mains of Two Tiles.--Junction of Drains.--Effect of Curves and Angles on Currents.--Branch Pipes.--Draining into Wells or Swallow Holes.--Letter from Mr. Denton. CHAPTER IX. THE COST OF TILES--TILE MACHINES. Prices far too high; Albany prices.--Length of Tiles.--Cost in Suffolk Co., England.--Waller's Machine.--Williams' Machine.--Cost of Tiles compared with Bricks.--Mr. Denton's Estimate of Cost.--Other Estimates.--Two-inch Tiles can be Made as Cheaply as Bricks.--Process of Rolling Tiles.--Tile Machines.--Descriptions of Daines'.--Pratt & Bro.'s. CHAPTER X. THE COST OF DRAINAGE. Draining no more expensive than Fencing.--Engineering.--Guessing not accurate enough.--Slight Fall sufficient.--Instances.--Two Inches to One-Thousand Feet.--Cost of Excavation and Filling.--Narrow Tools required.--Tables of Cubic contents of Drains.--Cost of Drains on our own Farm.--Cost of Tiles.--Weight and Freight of Tiles.--Cost of Outlets.--Cost of Collars.--Smaller Tiles used with Collars.--Number of Tiles to the Acre, with Tables.--Length of Tiles varies.--Number of Rods to the Acre at different Distances.--Final Estimate of Cost.--Comparative Cost of Tile-Drains and Stone-Drains. CHAPTER XI. DRAINING IMPLEMENTS. Unreasonable Expectations about Draining Tools.--Levelling Instruments.--Guessing not Accurate.--Level by a Square.--Spirit Level.--Span, or A Level.--Grading by Lines.--Boning-rod.--Challoner's Drain Level.--Spades and Shovels.--Long-handled Shovel.--Irish Spade, description and cut.--Bottoming Tools.--Narrow Spades.--English Bottoming Tools.--Pipe-layer.--Pipe-laying Illustrated.--Pick-axes.--Drain Gauge.--Drain Plows, and Ditch-Diggers.--Fowler's Drain Plow.--Pratt's Ditch-Digger.--McEwan's Drain Plow.--Routt's Drain Plow. CHAPTER XII. PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR OPENING DRAINS AND LAYING TILES. Begin at the Outlet.--Use of Plows.--Leveling the Bottom.--Where to begin to lay Pipes.--Mode of Procedure.--Covering Pipes.--Securing Joints.--Filling.--Securing Outlets.--Plans. CHAPTER XIII. EFFECTS OF DRAINAGE UPON THE CONDITION OF THE SOIL. Drainage deepens the Soil, and gives the roots a larger pasture.--Cobbett's Lucerne 30 feet deep.--Mechi's Parsnips 13 feet long!--Drainage promotes Pulverization.--Prevents Surface-Washing.--Lengthens the Season.--Prevents Freezing out.--Dispenses with Open Ditches.--Saves 25 per cent. of Labor.--Promotes absorption of Fertilizing Substances from the Air.--Supplies Air to the Roots.--Drains run before Rain; so do some Springs.--Drainage warms the Soil.--Corn sprouts at 55°; Rye on Ice.--Cold from Evaporation.--Heat will not pass downward in Water.--Count Rumford's Experiments with Hot Water on Ice.--Aeration of Soil by Drains. CHAPTER XIV. DRAINAGE ADAPTS THE SOIL TO GERMINATION AND VEGETATION. Process of Germination.--Two Classes of Pores in Soils, illustrated by cuts.--Too much Water excludes Air, reduces Temperature.--How much Air the Soil Contains.--Drainage Improves the Quality of Crops.--Drainage prevents Drought.--Drained Soils hold most Water.--Allow Roots to go Deep.--Various Facts. CHAPTER XV. TEMPERATURE AS AFFECTED BY DRAINAGE. Drainage Warms the Soil in Spring.--Heat cannot go down in Wet Land.--Drainage causes greater Deposit of Dew in Summer.--Dew warms Plants in Night, Cools them in the Morning Sun.--Drainage varies Temperature by Lessening Evaporation.--What is Evaporation.--How it produces Cold.--Drained Land Freezes Deepest, but Thaws Soonest, and the Reasons. CHAPTER XVI. POWER OF SOILS TO ABSORB AND RETAIN MOISTURE. Why does not Drainage make the Land too Dry?--Adhesive Attraction.--The Finest Soils exert most Attraction.--How much Water different Soils hold by Attraction.--Capillary Attraction, illustrated.--Power to Imbibe Moisture from the Air.--Weight Absorbed by 1,000 lbs. in 12 Hours.--Dew, Cause of.--Dew Point.--Cause of Frost.--Why Covering Plants Protects from Frost.--Dew Imparts Warmth.--Idea that the Moon Promotes Putrefaction.--Quantity of Dew. CHAPTER XVII. INJURY OF LAND BY DRAINAGE. Most Land cannot be Over-drained.--Nature a Deep drainer.--Over-draining of Peaty Soils.--Lincolnshire Fens. Visit to them in 1857.--56 Bushels of Wheat to the Acre.--Wet Meadows Subside by Drainage.--Conclusions. CHAPTER XVIII. OBSTRUCTION OF DRAINS. Tiles will fill up, unless well laid.--Obstruction by Sand or Silt.--Obstructions at the Outlet from Frogs, Moles, Action of Frost, and Cattle.--Obstruction by Roots.--Willow, Ash, &c., Trees capricious.--Roots enter Perennial Streams.--Obstruction by Mangold Wurtzel.--Obstruction by Per-Oxide of Iron.--How Prevented.--Obstructions by the Joints Filling.--No Danger with Two-Inch Pipes.--Water through the Pores.--Collars.--How to Detect Obstructions. CHAPTER XIX. DRAINAGE OF STIFF CLAYS. Clay not impervious, or it could not be wet and dried.--Puddling, what is.--Water will stand over Drains on Puddled Soil.--Cracking of Clays by Drying.--Drained Clays improve by time.--Passage of Water through Clay makes it permeable.--Experiment by Mr. Pettibone, of Vermont.--Pressure of Water in Saturated Soil. CHAPTER XX. EFFECTS OF DRAINAGE ON STREAMS AND RIVERS. Drainage Hastens the Supply to the Streams, and thus creates Freshets.--Effect of Drainage on Meadows below; on Water Privileges.--Conflict of Manufacturing and Agricultural Interests.--English Opinions and Facts.--Uses of Drainage Water.--Irrigation.--Drainage Water for Stock.--How used by Mr. Mechi. CHAPTER XXI. LEGISLATION--DRAINAGE COMPANIES. England protects her Farmers.--Meadows ruined by Corporation dams.--Old Mills often Nuisances.--Factory Reservoirs.--Flowage extends above level of Dam.--Rye and Derwent Drainage.--Give Steam for Water-Power.--Right to Drain through land of others.--Right to natural flow of Water.--Laws of Mass.--Right to Flow; why not to Drain?--Land-drainage Companies in England.--Lincolnshire Fens.--Government Loans for Drainage. CHAPTER XXII. DRAINAGE OF CELLARS. Wet Cellars Unhealthful.--Importance of Cellars in New England.--A Glance at the Garret, by way of Contrast.--Necessity of Drains.--Sketch of an Inundated Cellar.--Tiles best for Drains.--Best Plan of Cellar Drain; Illustration.--Cementing will not do.--Drainage of Barn Cellars.--Uses of them.--Actual Drainage of a very Bad Cellar described.--Drains Outside and Inside; Illustration. CHAPTER XXIII. DRAINAGE OF SWAMPS. Vast Extent of Swamp Lands in the United States.--Their Soil.--Sources of their Moisture.--How to Drain them.--The Soil Subsides by Draining.--Catch-water Drains.--Springs.--Mr. Ruffin's Drainage in Virginia.--Is there Danger of Over-draining? CHAPTER XXIV. AMERICAN EXPERIMENTS IN DRAINAGE--DRAINAGE IN IRELAND. Statement of B. F. Nourse, of Maine.--Statement of Shedd and Edson, of Mass.--Statement of H. F. French, of New Hampshire.--Letter of Wm. Boyle, Albert Model Farm, Glasnevin, Ireland. INDEX. FARM DRAINAGE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Why this Treatise does not contain all Knowledge.--Attention of Scientific Men attracted to Drainage.--Lieutenant Maury's Suggestions.--Ralph Waldo Emerson's Views.--Opinions of J. H. Klippart, Esq.; of Professor Mapes; B. P. Johnston, Esq.; Governor Wright, Mr. Custis, &c.--Prejudice against what is English.--Acknowledgements to our Friends at Home and Abroad.--The Wants of our Farmers. A Book upon Farm Drainage! What can a person find on such a subject to write a book about? A friend suggests, that in order to treat any one subject fully, it is necessary to know everything and speak of everything, because all knowledge is in some measure connected. With an earnest endeavor to clip the wings of imagination, and to keep not only on the earth, but to burrow, like a mole or a sub-soiler, _in_ it, with a painful apprehension lest some technical term in Chemistry or Philosophy should falsely indicate that we make pretensions to the character of a scientific farmer, or some old phrase of law-Latin should betray that we know something besides agriculture, and so, are not worthy of the confidence of practical men, we have, nevertheless, by some means, got together more than a bookfull of matter upon our subject. Our publisher says our book must be so large, and no larger--and we all know that an author is but as a grasshopper in the hands of his publisher, and ought to be very thankful to be allowed to publish his book at all. So we have only to say, that if there is any chapter in this book not sufficiently elaborate, or any subject akin to that of drainage, that ought to have been embraced in our plan and is not, it is because we have not space for further expansion. The reader has our heartfelt sympathy, if it should happen that the very topic which most interests him, is entirely omitted, or imperfectly treated; and we can only advise him to write a book himself, by way of showing proper resentment, and put into it everything that everybody desires most to know. A book that shall contain all that we do _not_ know on the subject of drainage, would be a valuable acquisition to agricultural literature, and we bespeak an early copy of it when published. IRRIGATION is a subject closely connected with drainage, and, although it would require a volume of equal size with this to lay it properly before the American public, who know so little of water-meadows and liquid-manuring, and even of the artificial application of water to land in any way, we feel called upon for an apology for its omission. Lieutenant Maury, whose name does honor to his nation over all the civilized world, and on whom the blessings of every navigator upon the great waters, are constantly showered, in a letter which we had the honor recently to receive from him, thus speaks of this subject: "I was writing to a friend some months ago upon the subject of drainage in this country, and I am pleased to infer from your letter, that our opinions are somewhat similar. The climate of England is much more moist than this, though the amount of rain in many parts of this country, is much greater than the amount of rain there. It drizzles there more than it does here. Owing to the high dew point in England, but a small portion only--that is, comparatively small--of the rain that falls can be evaporated again; consequently, it remains in the soil until it is drained off. Here, on the other hand, the clouds pour it down, and the sun sucks it up right away, so that the perfection of drainage for this country would be the very reverse, almost, of the drainage in England. If, instead of leading the water off into the water-veins and streams of the country, as is there done, we could collect it in pools on the farm, so as to be used in time of drought for irrigation, then your system of drainage would be worth untold wealth. Of course, in low grounds, and all places where the atmosphere does not afford sufficient drainage by evaporation, the English plan will do very well, and much good may be done by a treatise which shall enable owners to reclaim or improve such places." Indeed, the importance of this subject of drainage, seems all at once to have found universal acknowledgement throughout our country, not only from agriculturists, but from philosophers and men of general science. Emerson, whose eagle glance, piercing beyond the sight of other men, recognizes in so-called accidental heroes the "Representative men" of the ages, and in what to others seem but caprices and conventionalisms, the "Traits" of a nation, yet never overlooks the practical and every-day wants of man, in a recent address at Concord, Mass., the place of his residence, thus characteristically alludes to our subject: "Concord is one of the oldest towns in the country--far on now in its third century. The Select-men have once in five years perambulated its bounds, and yet, in this year, a very large quantity of land has been discovered and added to the agricultural land, and without a murmur of complaint from any neighbor. By drainage, we have gone to the subsoil, and we have a Concord under Concord, a Middlesex under Middlesex, and a basement-story of Massachusetts more valuable than all the superstructure. Tiles are political economists. They are so many Young-Americans announcing a better era, and a day of fat things." John H. Klippart, Esq., the learned Secretary of the Ohio Board of Agriculture, expresses his opinion upon the importance of our subject in his own State, in this emphatic language: "The agriculture of Ohio can make no farther marked progress until a good system of under-drainage has been adopted." A writer in the _Country Gentleman_, from Ashtabula County, Ohio, says:--"One of two things must be done by us here. Clay predominates in our soil, and we must under-drain our land, or sell and move west." Professor Mapes, of New York, under date of January 17, 1859, says of under-draining: "I do not believe that farming can be pursued with full profit without it. It would seem to be no longer a question. The experience of England, in the absence of all other proof, would be sufficient to show that capital may be invested more safely in under-draining, than in any other way; for, after the expenditure of many millions by English farmers in this way, it has been clearly proved that their increased profit, arising from this cause alone, is sufficient to pay the total expense in full, with interest, within twenty years, thus leaving their farms increased permanently to the amount of the total cost, while the income is augmented in a still greater ratio. It is quite doubtful whether England could at this time sustain her increased population, if it were not for her system of thorough-drainage. In my own practice, the result has been such as to convince me of its advantages, and I should be unwilling to enter into any new cultivation without thorough drainage." B. P. Johnson, Secretary of the New York Board of Agriculture, in answer to some inquiries upon the subject of drainage with tiles, writes us, under date of December, 1858, as follows: "I have given much time and attention to the subject of drainage, having deemed it all-important to the improvement of the farms of our State. I am well satisfied, from a careful examination in England, as well as from my observation in this country, that tiles are far preferable to any other material that I know of for drains, and this is the opinion of all those who have engaged extensively in the work in this State, so far as I have information. It is gratifying to be assured, that during the year past, there has been probably more land-draining than during any previous year, showing the deep interest which is taken in this all-important work, so indispensable to the success of the farmer." It is ascertained, by inquiry at the Land Office, that more than 52,000,000 acres of swamp and overflowed lands have been selected under the Acts of March 2d, 1849, and September 28th, 1850, from the dates of those grants to September, 1856; and it is estimated that, when the grants shall have been entirely adjusted, they will amount to 60,000,000 acres. Grants of these lands have been made by Congress, from the public domain, gratuitously, to the States in which they lie, upon the idea that they were not only worthless to the Government, but dangerous to the health of the neighboring inhabitants, with the hope that the State governments might take measures to reclaim them for cultivation, or, at least, render them harmless, by the removal of their surplus water. Governor Wright, of Indiana, in a public address, estimated the marshy lands of that State at 3,000,000 acres. "These lands," he says, "were generally avoided by early settlers, as being comparatively worthless; but, when drained, they become eminently fertile." He further says: "I know a farm of 160 acres, which was sold five years ago for $500, that by an expenditure of less than $200, in draining and ditching, has been so improved, that the owner has refused for it an offer of $3,000." At the meeting of the United States Agricultural Society, at Washington, in January, 1857, Mr. G. W. P. Custis spoke in connection with the great importance of this subject, of the vast quantity of soil--the richest conceivable--now lying waste, to the extent of 100,000 acres, along the banks of the Lower Potomac, and which he denominates by the old Virginia title of _pocoson_. The fertility of this reclaimable swamp he reports to be astonishing; and he has corroborated the opinion by experiments which confounded every beholder. "These lands on our time-honored river," he says, "if brought into use, would supply provisions at half the present cost, and would in other respects prove of the greatest advantage." The drainage of highways and walks, was noted as a topic kindred to our subject, although belonging more properly perhaps, to the drainage of towns and to landscape-gardening, than to farm drainage. This, too, was found to be beyond the scope of our proposed treatise, and has been left to some abler hand. So, too, the whole subject of reclaiming lands from the sea, and from rivers, by embankment, and the drainage of lakes and ponds, which at a future day must attract great attention in this country, has proved quite too extensive to be treated here. The day will soon come, when on our Atlantic coast, the ocean waves will be stayed, and all along our great rivers, the Spring floods, and the Summer freshets, will be held within artificial barriers, and the enclosed lands be kept dry by engines propelled by steam, or some more efficient or economical agent. The half million acres of fen-land in Lincolnshire, producing the heaviest wheat crops in England; and Harlaem Lake, in Holland, with its 40,000 acres of fertile land, far below the tides, and once covered with many feet of water, are examples of what science and well-directed labor may accomplish. But this department of drainage demands the skill of scientific engineers, and the employment of combined capital and effort, beyond the means of American farmers; and had we ability to treat it properly, would afford matter rather of pleasing speculation, than of practical utility to agricultural readers. With a reckless expenditure of paper and ink, we had already prepared chapters upon several topics, which, though not essential to farm-drainage, were as near to our subject as the minister usually is limited in preaching, or the lawyer in argument; but conformity to the Procrustean bed, in whose sheets we had in advance stipulated to _sleep_, cost us the amputation of a few of our least important heads. "Don't be too English," suggests a very wise and politic friend. We are fully aware of the prejudice which still exists in many minds in our country, against what is peculiarly English. Because, forsooth, our good Mother England, towards a century ago, like most fond mothers, thought her transatlantic daughter quite too young and inexperienced to set up an establishment and manage it for herself, and drove her into wasteful experiments of wholesale tea-making in Boston harbor, by way of illustrating her capacity of entertaining company from beyond seas; and because, near half a century ago, we had some sharp words, spoken not through the mouths of prophets and sages, but through the mouths of great guns, touching the right of our venerated parent to examine the internal economy of our merchant-ships on the sea--because of reminiscences like these, we are to forswear all that is English! And so we may claim no kindred in literature with Shakspeare and Milton, in jurisprudence, with Bacon and Mansfield, in statesmanship, with Pitt and Fox! Whence came the spirit of independence, the fearless love of liberty of which we boast, but from our English blood? Whence came our love of territorial extension, our national ambition, exhibited under the affectionate name of annexation? Does not this velvet paw with which we softly play with our neighbors' heads, conceal some long, crooked talons, which tell of the ancestral blood of the British Lion? The legislature of a New England State, not many years ago, appointed a committee to revise its statutes. This committee had a pious horror of all dead languages, and a patriotic fear of paying too high a compliment to England, and so reported that all proceedings in courts of law should be in the American language! An inquiry by a waggish member, whether the committee intended to allow proceedings to be in any one of the three hundred Indian dialects, restored to the English language its appropriate name. Though from some of our national traits, we might possibly be supposed to have sprung from the sowing of the dragon's teeth by Cadmus, yet the uniform record of all American families which goes back to the "three brothers who came over from England," contradicts this theory, and connects us by blood and lineage with that country. Indeed, we can hardly consent to sell our birthright for so poor a mess of pottage as this petty jealousy offers. A teachable spirit in matters of which we are ignorant, is usually as profitable and respectable as abundant self-conceit, and rendering to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, quite as honest as to pocket the coin as our own, notwithstanding the "image and superscription." We make frequent reference to English writers and to English opinions upon our subject, because drainage is understood and practiced better in England than anywhere else in the world, and because by personal inspection of drainage-works there, and personal acquaintance and correspondence with some of the most successful drainers in that country, we feel some confidence of ability to apply English principles to American soil and climate. To J. Bailey Denton, Engineer of the General Land Drainage Company, and one of the most distinguished practical and scientific drainers in England, we wish publicly to acknowledge our obligations for personal favors shown us in the preparation of our work. We claim no great praise of originality in what is here offered to the public. Wherever we have found a person of whom we could learn anything, in this or other countries, we have endeavored to profit by his teachings, and whenever the language of another, in book or journal, has been found to express forcibly an idea which we deemed worthy of adoption, we have given full credit for both thought and words. Our friends, Messrs. Shedd and Edson, of Boston, whose experience as draining engineers entitles them to a high rank among American authorities, have been in constant communication with us, throughout our labors. The chapter upon Evaporation, Rain fall, &c., which we deem of great value as a contribution to science in general, will be seen to be in part credited to them, as are also the tables showing the discharge of water through pipes of various capacity. Drainage is a new subject in America, not well understood, and we have no man, it is believed, peculiarly fitted to teach its theory and practice; yet the farmers everywhere are awake to its importance, and are eagerly seeking for information on the subject. Many are already engaged in the endeavor to drain their lands, conscious of their want of the requisite knowledge to effect their object in a profitable manner, while others are going resolutely forward, in violation of all correct principles, wasting their labor, unconscious even of their ignorance. In New England, we have determined to dry the springy hill sides, and so lengthen our seasons for labor; we have found, too, in the valleys and swamps, the soil which has been washed from our mountains, and intend to avail ourselves of its fertility in the best manner practicable. On the prairies of the great West, large tracts are found just a little too wet for the best crops of corn and wheat, and the inquiry is anxiously made, how can we be rid of this surplus water. There is no treatise, English or American, which meets the wants of our people. In England, it is true, land drainage is already reduced to a science; but their system has grown up by degrees, the first principles being now too familiar to be at all discussed, and the points now in controversy there, quite beyond the comprehension of beginners. America wants a treatise which shall be elementary, as well as thorough--that shall teach the alphabet, as well as the transcendentalism, of draining land--that shall tell the man who never saw a drain-tile what thorough drainage is, and shall also suggest to those who have studied the subject in English books only, the differences in climate and soil, in the prices of labor and of products, which must modify our operations. With some practical experience on his own land, with careful observation in Europe and in America of the details of drainage operations, with a somewhat critical examination of published books and papers on all topics connected with the general subject, the author has endeavored to turn the leisure hours of a laborious professional life to some account for the farmer. Although, as the lawyers say, the "presumptions" are, perhaps, strongly against the idea, yet a professional man _may_ understand practical farming. The profession of the law has made some valuable contributions to agricultural literature. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, author of the "Boke of Husbandrie," published in 1523, was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and, as he says, an "_experyenced farmer_ of more than 40 years." The author of that charming little book, "Talpa," it is said, is also a lawyer, and there is such wisdom in the idea, so well expressed by Emerson as a fact, that we commend it by way of consolation to men of all the learned professions: "All of us keep the farm in reserve, as an asylum where to hide our poverty and our solitude, if we do not succeed in society." Besides the prejudice against what is foreign, we meet everywhere the prejudice against what is new, though far less in this country than in England. "No longer ago than 1835," says the _Quarterly Review_, "Sir Robert Peel presented a Farmers' Club, at Tamworth, with two iron plows of the best construction. On his next visit, the old plows, with the wooden mould-boards, were again at work. 'Sir,' said a member of the club, 'we tried the iron, and we be all of one mind, that they make the weeds grow!'" American farmers have no such ignorant prejudice as this. They err rather by having too much faith in themselves, than by having too little in the idea of progress, and will be more likely to "go ahead" in the wrong direction, than to remain quiet in their old position. CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF THE ART OF DRAINING. Draining as Old as the Deluge.--Roman Authors.--Walter Bligh in 1650.--No thorough drainage till Smith of Deanston.--No mention of tiles in the "Compleat Body of Husbandry," 1758.--Tiles found 100 years old.--Elkington's System.--Johnstone's Puns and Peripatetics.--Draining Springs.--Bletonism, or the Faculty of Perceiving Subterranean Water.--Deanston System.--Views of Mr. Parkes.--Keythorpe System.--Wharncliffe System.--Introduction of tiles into America.--John Johnston, and Mr. Delafield, of New York. The art of removing superfluous water from land, must be as ancient as the art of cultivation; and from the time when Noah and his family anxiously watched the subsiding of the waters into their appropriate channels, to the present, men must have felt the ill effects of too much water, and adopted means more or less effective, to remove it. The Roman writers upon agriculture, Cato, Columella, and Pliny, all mention draining, and some of them give minute directions for forming drains with stones, branches of trees, and straw. Palladius, in his _De Aquæ Ductibus_, mentions earthen-ware tubes, used however for aqueducts, rather for conveying water from place to place, than for draining lands for agriculture. Nothing, however, like the systematic drainage of the present day, seems to have been conceived of in England, until about 1650, when Captain Walter Bligh published a work, which is interesting, as embodying and boldly advocating the theory of deep-drainage as applied by him to water-meadows and swamps, and as applicable to the drainage of all other moist lands. We give from the 7th volume of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, in the language of that eminent advocate of deep-drainage, Josiah Parkes, an account of this rare book, and of the principles which it advocates, as a fitting introduction to the more modern and more perfect system of thorough drainage: "The author of this work was a Captain Walter Bligh, signing himself, 'A Lover of Ingenuity.' It is quaintly entitled, 'The English Improver Improved; or, the Survey of Husbandry Surveyed;' with several prefaces, but specially addressed to 'The Right Honorable the Lord General Cromwell, and the Right Honorable the Lord President, and the rest of the Honorable Society of the Council of State.' In his instructions for forming the flooding and draining trenches of water-meadows, the author says of the latter:--'And for thy drayning-trench, it must be made so deep, that it goe to the bottom of the cold spewing moyst water, that feeds the flagg and the rush; for the widenesse of it, use thine own liberty, but be sure to make it so wide as thou mayest goe to the bottom of it, which must be so low as any moysture lyeth, which moysture usually lyeth under the over and second swarth of the earth, in some gravel or sand, or else, where some greater stones are mixt with clay, under which thou must goe half one spade's graft deep at least. Yea, suppose this corruption that feeds and nourisheth the rush or flagg, should lie a yard or four-foot deepe; to the bottom of it thou must goe, if ever thou wilt drayn it to purpose, or make the utmost advantage of either floating or drayning, without which the water cannot have its kindly operation; for though the water fatten naturally, yet still this coldnesse and moysture lies gnawing within, and not being taken clean away, it eates out what the water fattens; and so the goodnesse of the water is, as it were, riddled, screened, and strained out into the land, leaving the richnesse and the leanesse sliding away from it.' In another place, he replies to the objectors of floating, that it will breed the rush, the flagg, and mare-blab; 'only make thy drayning-trenches deep enough, and not too far off thy floating course, and I'le warrant it they drayn away that under-moysture, fylth, and venom as aforesaid, that maintains them; and then believe me, or deny Scripture, which I hope thou doust not, as Bildad said unto Job, "Can the rush grow without mire, or the flagg without water?" Job viii. 12. That interrogation plainly showes that the rush cannot grow, the water being taken from the root; for it is not the moystnesse upon the surface of the land, for then every shower should increase the rush, but it is that which lieth at the root, which, drayned away at the bottom, leaves it naked and barren of relief.' "The author frequently returns to this charge, explaining over and over again the necessity of removing what we call bottom-water, and which he well designates as 'filth and venom.' "In the course of my operations as a drainer, I have met with, or heard of, so many instances of swamp-drainage, executed precisely according to the plans of this author, and sometimes in a superior manner--the conduits being formed of walling stone, at a period long antecedent to the memory of the living--that I am disposed to consider the practice of deep drainage to have originated with Captain Bligh, and to have been preserved by imitators in various parts of the country; since a book, which passed through three editions in the time of the Commonwealth, must necessarily have had an extensive circulation, and enjoyed a high renown. Several complimentary autograph verses, written by some imitators and admirers of the ingenious Bligh, are bound up with the volume. I find also, not unfrequently, very ancient deep drains in arable fields, and some of them still in good condition; and in a case or two, I have met with several ancient drains six feet deep, placed parallel with each other, but at so great a distance asunder, as not to have commanded a perfect drainage of the intermediate space. The author from whom I have so largely quoted, is the earliest known to me, who has had the sagacity to distinguish between the transient effect of rain, and the constant action of stagnant bottom-water in maintaining land in a wet condition." Dr. Shier, editor of "Davy's Agricultural Chemistry," says, "The history of drainage in Britain may be briefly told. Till the time of Smith, of Deanston, draining was generally regarded as the means of freeing the land from springs, oozes, and under-water, and it was applied only to lands palpably wet, and producing rushes and other aquatic plants." He then proceeds to give the principles of Elkington, Smith, Parkes, and other modern writers, of which we shall speak more at large. The work published in England, not far from Captain Bligh's time, under the title "A Complete Body of Husbandry," undertakes to give directions for all sorts of farming processes. A Second Edition, in four octavo volumes, of which we have a copy, was published in 1758. It professes to treat of "Draining in General," and then of the draining of boggy land and of fens, but gives no intimation that any other lands require drainage. Directions are given for filling drains with "rough stones," to be covered with refuse wood, and over that, some of the earth that was thrown out in digging. "By this means," says the writer, "a passage will be left free for all the water the springs yield, and there will be none of these great openings upon the surface." He thus describes a method practiced in Oxfordshire of draining with bushes: "Let the trenches be cut deeper than otherwise, suppose three foot deep, and two foot over. As soon as they are made, let the bottoms of them be covered with fresh-cut blackthorn bushes. Upon these, throw in a quantity of large refuse stones; over these let there be another covering of straw, and upon this, some of the earth, so as to make the surface level with the rest. These trenches will always keep open." No mention whatever is made in this elaborate treatise of tiles of any kind, which affords very strong evidence that they were not in use for drainage at that time. In a note, however, to Stephen's "Draining and Irrigation," we find the following statement and opinion: "In draining the park at Grimsthorpe, Lincolnshire, about three years ago, some drains, made with tiles, were found eight feet below the surface of the ground. The tiles were similar to what are now used, and in as good a state of preservation as when first laid, although they must have remained there above one hundred years." ELKINGTON'S SYSTEM OF DRAINAGE. It appears, that, in 1795, the British Parliament, at the request of the Board of Agriculture, voted to Joseph Elkington a reward of £1000, for his valuable discoveries in the drainage of land. Joseph Elkington was a Warwickshire farmer, and Mr. Gisborne says he was a man of considerable genius, but he had the misfortune to be illiterate. His discovery had created such a sensation in the agricultural world, that it was thought important to record its details; and, as Elkington's health was extremely precarious, the Board resolved to send Mr. John Johnstone to visit, in company with him, his principal works of drainage, and to transmit to posterity the benefits of his knowledge. Accordingly, Mr. John Johnstone, having carefully studied Elkington's system, under its author, in the peripatetic method, undertook, like Plato, to record the sayings of his master in science, and produced a work, entitled, "An Account of the Most Approved Mode of Draining Land, According to the System Practised by Mr. Joseph Elkington." It was published at Edinburgh, in 1797. Mr. Gisborne says, that Elkington found in Johnstone "a very inefficient exponent of his opinions, and of the principles on which he conducted his works." "Every one," says he, "who reads the work, which is popularly called 'Elkington on Draining,' should be aware, that it is not Joseph who thinks and speaks therein, but John, who tells his readers what, according to his ideas, Joseph would have thought and spoken." Again-- "Johnstone, measured by general capacity, is a very shallow drainer! He delights in exceptional cases, of which he may have met with some, but of which, we suspect the great majority to be products of his own ingenuity, and to be put forward, with a view to display the ability with which he could encounter them." Johnstone's report seems to have undergone several revisions, and to have been enlarged and reproduced in other forms than the original, for we find, that, in 1838, it was published in the United States, at Petersburg, Virginia, as a supplement to the _Farmer's Register_, by Edmund Ruffin, Esq., editor, a reprint "from the third British Edition, revised and enlarged," under the following title: "A Systematic Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Draining Land, &c., according to the most approved methods, and adapted to the various situations and soils of England and Scotland; also on sea, river, and lake embankments, formation of ponds and artificial pieces of water, with an appendix, containing hints and directions for the culture and improvement of bog, morass, moor, and other unproductive ground, after being drained; the whole illustrated by plans and sections applicable to the various situations and forms of construction. Inscribed to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, by John Johnstone, Land Surveyor." Mr. Ruffin certainly deserves great credit for his enterprise in republishing in America, at so early a day, a work of which an English copy could not be purchased for less than six dollars, as well as for his zealous labors ever since in the cause of agriculture. There is, in this work of Johnstone, a quaintness which he, probably, did not learn from Elkington, and which illustrates the character of his mind as one not peculiarly adapted to a plain and practical history of another man's system and labors. For instance, in speaking of the arrangement of his subject into parts, he says, in a note, "The subject being closely connected with _cutting_, _section_ is held as a better _division_ than chapter!" Again, he speaks of embanking, and says he has some experience on that head. Then he adds the following note, lest a possible pun should be lost: "An embankment is often termed a 'head,' as it makes head, or resistance, against the encroachment of high tide or river floods." There is some danger that a mind which scents a whimsical analogy of meaning like this, may entirely lose the main track of pursuit; but Johnstone's special mission was to ascertain Elkington's method, and his account of it is, therefore, the best authority we have on the subject. He gives the following statement of Elkington's discovery: "In the year 1763, Elkington was left by his father in the possession of a farm called Prince-Thorp, in the parish of Stretton-upon-Dunsmore, and county of Warwick. The soil of this farm was so poor, and, in many places, so extremely wet, that it was the cause of rotting several hundreds of his sheep, which first induced him, if possible, to drain it. This he begun to do, in 1764, in a field of wet clay soil, rendered almost a swamp, or _shaking_ bog, by the springs which issued from an adjoining bank of gravel and sand, and overflowed the surface of the ground below. To drain this field, which was of considerable extent, he cut a trench about four or five feet deep, a little below the upper side of the bog, where the wetness began to make its appearance; and, after proceeding with it in this direction and at this depth, he found it did not reach the _principal body of subjacent water_ from which the evil arose. On perceiving this, he was at a loss how to proceed, when one of his servants came to the field with an _iron crow_, or bar, for the purpose of making holes for fixing sheep hurdles in an adjoining part of the farm, as represented on the plan. Having a suspicion that his drain was not deep enough, and desirous to know what strata lay under it, he took the iron bar, and having forced it down about four feet below the bottom of the trench, on pulling it out, to his astonishment, a great quantity of water burst up through the hole he had thus made, and ran along the drain. This led him to the knowledge, that wetness may be often produced by water confined farther below the surface of the ground than it was possible for the usual depth of drains to reach, and that an _auger_ would be a useful instrument to apply in such cases. Thus, chance was the parent of this discovery, as she often is of other useful arts; and fortunate it is for society, when such accidents happen to those who have sense and judgment to avail themselves of hints thus fortuitously given. In this manner he soon accomplished the drainage of his whole farm, and rendered it so perfectly dry and sound, that none of his flock was ever after affected with disease. "By the success of this experiment, Mr. Elkington's fame, as a drainer, was quickly and widely extended; and, after having successfully drained several farms in his neighborhood, he was, at last, very generally employed for that purpose in various parts of the kingdom, till about thirty years ago, when the country had the melancholy cause to regret his loss. From his long practice and experience, he became so successful in the works he undertook, and so skillful in judging of the internal strata of the earth and the nature of springs, that, with remarkable precision, he could ascertain where to find water, and trace the course of springs that made no appearance on the surface of the ground. During his practice of more than thirty years, he drained in various parts of England, particularly in the midland counties, many thousand acres of land, which, from being originally of little or no value, soon became as useful as any in the kingdom, by producing the most valuable kinds of grain and feeding the best and healthiest species of stock. "Many have erroneously entertained an idea that Elkington's skill lay solely in applying the auger for the _tapping of springs_, without attaching any merit to his method of conducting the drains. The accidental circumstance above stated gave him the first notion of using an auger, and directed his attention to the profession and practice of draining, in the course of which he made various useful discoveries, as will be afterwards explained. With regard to the use of the auger, though there is every reason to believe that he was led to employ that instrument from the circumstance already stated, and did not derive it from any other source of intelligence, yet there is no doubt that others might have hit upon the same idea without being indebted for it to him. It has happened, that, in attempts to discover mines by boring, springs have been tapped, and ground thereby drained, either by letting the water down, or by giving it vent to the surface; and that the auger has been likewise used in bringing up water in wells, to save the expense of deeper digging; but that it had been _used in draining land, before Mr. Elkington made that discovery, no one has ventured to assert_." Begging pardon of the shade of John Johnstone for the liberty, we will copy from Mr. Gisborne, as being more clearly expressed, a summary explanation of Elkington's system, as Mr. Gisborne has deduced it from Johnstone's report, with two simple and excellent plans: "A slight modification of Johnstone's best and simplest plan, with a few sentences of explanation, will sufficiently elucidate Elkington's mystery, and will comprehend the case of all simple superficial springs. Perhaps in Agricultural Britain, no formation is more common than moderate elevations of pervious material, such as chalk, gravel, and imperfect stone or rock of various kinds, resting upon more horizontal beds of clay, or other material less pervious than themselves, and at their inferior edge overlapped by it. For this overlap geological reasons are given, into which we cannot now enter. In order to make our explanation simple, we use the words, gravel and clay, as generic for pervious and impervious material. [Illustration: Fig. 1.] "Our drawing is an attempt to combine plan and section, which will probably be sufficiently illustrative. From A to T is the overlap, which is, in fact, a dam holding up the water in the gravel. In this dam there is a weak place at S, through which water issues permanently (a superficial spring), and runs over the surface from S to O. This issue has a tendency to lower the water in the gravel to the line M _m_. But when continued rains overpower this issue, the water in the gravel rises to the line A _a_, and meeting with no impediment at the point A, it flows over the surface between A and S. In addition to these more decided outlets, the water is probably constantly squeezing, in a slow way, through the whole dam. Elkington undertakes to drain the surface from A to O. He cuts a drain from O to B, and then he puts down a bore-hole, an Artesian well, from B to Z. His hole enters the tail of the gravel; the water contained therein rises up it: and the tendency of this new outlet is to lower the water to the line B _b_. If so lowered that it can no longer overflow at A or at S, and the surface from A to O is drained, so far as the springs are concerned, though our section can only represent one spring, and one summit-overflow, it is manifest that, however long the horizontal line of junction between the gravel and clay may be, however numerous the weak places (springs) in the overlap, or dam, and the summit-overflows, they will all be stopped, provided they lie at a higher level than the line B _b_. If Elkington had driven his drain forward from B to _n_, he would, at least, equally have attained his object; but the bore-hole was less expensive. He escapes the deepest and most costly portion of his drain. At _x_, he might have bored to the centre of the earth without ever realizing the water in this gravel. His whole success, therefore, depended upon his sagacity in hitting the point Z. Another simple and very common case, first successfully treated by Elkington, is illustrated by our second drawing. [Illustration: Fig. 2.] "Between gravel hills lies a dish-shaped bed of clay, the gravel being continuous under the dish. Springs overflow at A and B, and wet the surface from A to O, and from B to O. O D is a drain four or five feet deep, and having an adequate outlet; D Z a bore-hole. The water in the gravel rises from Z to D, and is lowered to the level D _m_ and D _n_. Of course it ceases to flow over at A and B. If Elkington's heart had failed him when he reached X, he would have done no good. All his success depends on his reaching Z, however deep it may lie. Elkington was a discoverer. We do not at all believe that his discoveries hinged on the accident that the shepherd walked across the field with a crow-bar in his hand. When he forced down that crow-bar, he had more in his head than was ever dreamed of in Johnstone's philosophy. Such accidents do not happen to ordinary men. Elkington's subsequent use of his discovery, in which no one has yet excelled him, warrants our supposition that the discovery was not accidental. He was not one of those prophets who are without honor in their own country: he created an immense sensation, and received a parliamentary grant of one thousand pounds. One writer compares his auger to Moses' rod, and Arthur Young speculates, whether though worthy to be rewarded by millers on one side of the hill for increasing their stream, he was not liable to an action by those on the other for diminishing theirs." Johnstone sums up this system as follows: "Draining according to Elkington's principles depends chiefly upon three things: "1. Upon discovering the main spring, or source of the evil. "2. Upon taking the subterraneous bearings: and, "3dly. By making use of the auger to reach and _tap_ the springs, when the depth of the drain is not sufficient for that purpose. "The first thing, therefore, to be observed is, by examining the adjoining high grounds, to discover what strata they are composed of; and then to ascertain, as nearly as possible, the inclination of these strata, and their connection with the ground to be drained, and thereby to judge at what place the level of the spring comes nearest to where the water can be cut off, and most readily discharged. The surest way of ascertaining the lay, or inclination, of the different strata, is, by examining the bed of the nearest streams, and the edges of the banks that are cut through by the water; and any pits, wells, or quarries that may be in the neighborhood. After the _main spring_ has been thus discovered, the next thing is, to ascertain a line on the same level, to one or both sides of it, in which the drain may be conducted, which is one of the most important parts of the operation, and one on which the art of draining in a scientific manner essentially depends. "Lastly, the use of the auger, which, in many cases, is the _sine qua non_ of the business, is to reach and tap the spring when the depth of the drain does not reach it: where the level of the outlet will not admit of its being cut to a greater depth; and where the expense of such cutting would be great, and the execution of it difficult. "According to these principles, this system of draining has been attended with extraordinary consequences, not only in laying the land dry in the vicinity of the drain, but also springs, wells, and wet ground, at a considerable distance, with which there was no apparent connection." DRAINAGE OF SPRINGS. Wherever, from any cause, water bursts out from a hill's side, or from below, in a well defined spring, in any considerable quantity, the Elkington method of cutting a deep drain directly into the seat of the evil, and so lowering the water that it may be carried away below the surface, is obviously the true and common-sense remedy. There may be cases where, in addition to the drain, it may be expedient to bore with an auger in the course of the drain. This, however, would be useful only where, from the peculiar formation, water is pent up upon a retentive subsoil in the manner already indicated. Elkington's method of draining by boring is illustrated in the following cut. In studying the history of Elkington's discovery, and especially of his own application of it, it would seem that he must have possessed some peculiar faculty of ascertaining the subterranean currents of water, not possessed or even claimed by modern engineers. Indeed, Mr. Denton, who may rightly claim as much skill as a draining engineer, perhaps, as any man in England, expressly says, "It does not appear that any person now will undertake to do what Elkington did sixty years back." [Illustration: Fig. 3.] In the Patent Office Report for 1851, at page 14, may be found an article entitled, "Well-digging," in which it is gravely contended, and not without a fair show of evidence, that certain persons possess the power of indicating, by means of a sort of divining rod of hazel or willow, subterraneous currents or springs of water. This power has been called Bletonism, which is defined by Webster to be, "the faculty of perceiving and indicating subterraneous springs and currents by sensation--so called from one Bleton, of France, who possessed this faculty." Under the authority of Webster, and of Mr. Ewbank, the Commissioner of Patents, in whose report the article in question was published by the Government of the United States, it will not be considered, perhaps, as putting faith in "water-witchery," to suggest that, possibly, Elkington did really possess a faculty, not common to all mankind, of detecting running water or springs, even far below the surface. We have the high authority of Tam o' Shanter for the opinion, that witches cannot cross a stream of water; for, when pursued by the "hellish legion" from Kirk-Alloway, he put his "gude mare Meg" to do her "speedy utmost" for the bridge of Doon, knowing that, "A running stream they darena cross." If witches are thus affected by flowing water, there is no reason to doubt that others, of peculiar organization, may possess some sensitiveness at its presence. It would not, probably, be useful to pursue more into detail the method of Mr. Elkington. The general principles upon which he wrought have been sufficiently explained. The miracles performed under his system seem to have ceased with his life, and, until we receive some new revelation as to the mode of finding the springs hidden in the earth, we must be content with the moderate results of a careful application of ordinary science, and not be discouraged in our attempts to leave the earth the better for our having lived on it, if we do not, like Elkington, succeed in draining, by a single ditch and a few auger holes, sixty statute acres of land. THE DEANSTON SYSTEM; OR, FREQUENT DRAINAGE. James Smith, Esq., of Deanston, Sterlingshire, in Scotland, next after Elkington, in point of time, is the prominent leader of drainage operations in Great Britain. His peculiar views came into general notice about 1832, and, in 1844, we find published a seventh edition of his "Remarks on Thorough Draining." Smith was a man of education, and seems to be, in fact, the first advocate of any system worthy the name of thorough drainage. Instead of the few very deep drains, cut with reference to particular springs or sources of wetness, adopted by Elkington, Smith advocated and practiced a systematic operation over the whole field, at regular distances and shallow depths. Smith states, that in Scotland, much more injury arises from the retention of rain water, than from springs; while Elkington's attention seems to have been especially directed to springs, as the source of the evil. The characteristic views of Smith, of Deanston, as stated by Mr. Denton, were: "1st. _Frequent_ drains at intervals of from ten to twenty-four feet. "2nd. _Shallow_ depth--not exceeding thirty inches--designed for the single purpose of freeing that depth of soil from stagnant and injurious water. "3rd. '_Parallel drains at regular distances_ carried throughout the whole field, without reference to the wet and dry appearance of portions of the field,' in order 'to provide frequent opportunities for the water, _rising from_ below and falling on the surface, to pass freely and completely off. "4th. _Direction of the minor drains_ 'down the steep,' and that of the mains along the bottom of the chief hollow; tributary mains being provided for the lesser hollows. "The reason assigned for the minor drains following the line of steepest descent, was, that 'the stratification generally lies in sheets at an angle to the surface.' "5th. _As to material_--Stones preferred to tiles and pipes." Mr. Smith somewhat modified his views during the last years of his life, especially as to the depth of drains, and, instead of shallow drains, recommended a depth of three feet, and even more in some cases; but continued, to the time of his death, which occurred about 1854, to oppose any increased intervals between the drains, and the extreme depth of four feet and more advocated by others. The peculiar points insisted on by Smith were, that drains should be near and parallel. His own words are: "The drains should be parallel with each other and at regular distances, and should be carried throughout the whole field, without regard to the wet and dry appearance of portions of the field--the principle of this system being the providing of frequent opportunities for the water rising from below, or falling on the surface, to pass freely and completely off." Mr. Smith called it the "frequent drain system," and Mr. Denton says, that, "for distinction sake, I have ventured to christen this ready-made practice, the _gridiron system_," a name, by the way, which will, probably, seem to most readers more distinctive than respectful. Whatever may be the improvements on the Deanston method of draining, the name of Mr. Smith deserves, and, indeed, has already obtained, a high place among the improvers of agriculture. VIEWS OF MR. PARKES. About the year 1846, when the first Act of the British Parliament authorizing "the advance of public money to promote the improvement of land by works of drainage" was passed, a careful investigation of the whole subject was made by a Committee of the House of Lords, and it was found that the best recorded opinions, if we except the peculiar views of Elkington, were represented by, if not merged into, those of Smith, of Deanston, which have already been stated, or those of Josiah Parkes. Mr. Parkes is the author of "Essays on the Philosophy and Art of Land Drainage," and of many valuable papers on the same subject, published in the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, of which he was consulting engineer. He is spoken of by Mr. Denton as "one whose philosophical publications on the same subject gave a scientific bearing to it, quite irreconcilable with the more mechanical rules laid down by Mr. Smith." The characteristic views of Mr. Parkes, as set forth at that time, as compared with those of Mr. Smith, are-- "1st. _Less frequent drains_, at intervals varying from twenty-one to fifty feet, _with preference for wide intervals_. "2nd. _Deeper drains at a minimum depth of four feet_, designed with the two-fold object of not only freeing the active soil from stagnant and injurious water, but of converting the water falling on the surface into an agent for fertilizing; no drainage being deemed efficient that did not both remove the water failing on the surface, and 'keep down the subterranean water at a depth exceeding the power of capillary attraction to elevate it to near the surface.' "3rd. _Parallel arrangement of drains_, as advocated by Smith, of Deanston. "4th. _The advantage of increased depth_, as compensating for increased width between the drains. "5th. _Pipes of an inch bore, the 'best known conduit'_ for the parallel drains. (See Evidence before Lords' Committee on Entailed Estates, 1845, Q. 67.) "6th. _The cost of draining uniform clays should not exceed £3 per acre._" The most material differences between the views of these two leaders of what have been deemed rival systems of drainage, will be seen to be the following. Smith advocates drains of two to three feet in depth, at from ten to twenty-four feet distances; while Parkes contends for a depth of not less than four feet, with a width between of from twenty-one to fifty feet, the depth in some measure compensating for the increased distance. Mr. Parkes advocated the use of pipes of _one_ inch bore, which Mr. Smith contemptuously denominated "pencil-cases," and which subsequent experience has shown to be quite too small for prudent use. The estimate of Mr. Parkes, based, in part, upon his wide distances and small pipes, that drainage might be effected generally in England at a cost of about fifteen dollars per acre, was soon found to be far below the average expense, which is now estimated at nearly double that sum. The Enclosure Commissioners, after the most careful inquiry, adopted fully the views of Mr. Parkes as to the _depth_ of drains. Mr. Parkes himself, saw occasion to modify his ideas, as to the cost of drainage, upon further investigation of the subject, and fixed his estimates as ranging from $15 to $30 per acre, according to soil and other local circumstances. It has been well said by a recent English writer, of Mr. Parkes: "That gentleman's services in the cause of drainage, have been inestimable, and his high reputation will not be affected by any remarks which experience may suggest with reference to details, so long as the philosophical principles he first advanced in support of deep drainage are acknowledged by thinking men. Mr. Parkes' practice in 1854, will be found to differ very considerably from his anticipations of 1845, but the influence of his earlier writings and sayings continues to this day." THE KEYTHORPE SYSTEM. Lord Berners having adopted a method of drainage on his estate at _Keythorpe_, differing somewhat from any of the regular and more uniform modes which have been considered, a sharp controversy as to its merits has arisen, and still continues in England, which, like most controversies, may be of more advantage to others than to the parties immediately concerned. The theory of the Keythorpe system seems to have been invented by Mr. Joshua Trimmer, a distinguished geologist of England, who, about 1854, produced a paper, which was published in the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, on the "Keythorpe System." He states that his own theory was based entirely on his knowledge of the geological structure of the earth, which will be presently given in his own language, and that he afterwards ascertained that Lord Berners, who had no special theory to vindicate, had, by the "tentative process," or in plain English, by trying experiments, hit upon substantially the same system, and found it to work admirably. Most people in the United States have no idea of what it is to be patronized by a lord. In England, it is thought by many to be the thing needful to the chance, even, of success of any new theory, and accordingly, Mr. Trimmer, without hesitation, availed himself of the privilege of being patronized by Lord Berners; and the latter, before he was aware of how much the agricultural world was indebted to him for his valuable discoveries, suddenly found himself at the head of the "Keythorpe System of Drainage." His lordship was probably as much surprised to ascertain that he had been working out a new system, as some man of whom we have heard, was, to learn that he had been speaking _prose_ all his life! At the call of the public, however, his lordship at once gave to the world the facts in his possession, making no claim to any great discovery, and leaving Mr. Trimmer to defend the new system as best he might. The latter, in one of his pamphlets published in defence of the Keythorpe system, states its claims as follows: "The peculiarities of the Keythorpe system of draining consist in this--that the parallel drains are not equidistant, and that they cross the line of the greatest descent. The usual depth is three and a half feet, but some are as deep as five and six feet. The depth and width of interval are determined by digging trial-holes, in order to ascertain not only the depth at which the bottom water is reached, but the height to which the water rises in the holes, and the distance at which a drain will lay the hole dry. In sinking these holes, clay-banks are found with hollows or furrows between them, which are filled with a more porous soil, as represented in the annexed sectional diagram. [Illustration: Fig. 4. _a_ _a_ Trial-holes. _b_ Clay-banks of lias or of boulder-clay. _c_ A more porous warp-drift filling furrows between the clay-banks.] "The next object is to connect these furrows by drains laid across them. The result is, that as the furrows and ridges here run along the fall of the ground, which I have observed to be the case generally elsewhere, the sub-mains follow the fall, and the parallel drains cross it obliquely. "The intervals between the parallel drains are irregular, varying, in the same field, from 14 to 21, 31, and 59 feet. The distances are determined by opening the diagonal drains at the greatest distance from the trial-holes at which experience has taught the practicability of its draining the hole. If it does not succeed in accomplishing the object, another drain is opened in the interval. It has been found, in many cases, that a drain crossing the clay-banks and furrows takes the water from holes lying lower down the hill; that is to say, it intercepts the water flowing to them through these subterranean channels. The parallel drains, however, are not invariably laid across the fall. The exceptions are on ground where the fall is very slight, in which case they are laid along the line of greatest descent. On such grounds there are few or no clay-banks and furrows." It would seem highly probable that the mode of drainage adopted at Keythorpe, is indebted for its success at that place, to a geological formation not often met with. At a public discussion in England, Mr. T. Scott, a gentleman of large experience in draining, stated that "he never, in his practice, had met with such a geological formation as was said to exist at Keythorpe, except in such large areas as to admit of their being drained in the usual _gridiron_ or parallel fashion." It is claimed for this system by its advocates, that it is far cheaper than any other, because drains are only laid in the places where, by careful examination beforehand, by opening pits, they are found to be necessary; and that is a great saving of expense, when compared with the system of laying the drains at equal distances and depths over the field. Against what is urged as the Keythorpe system, several allegations are brought. In the first place, that it is in fact _no system_. Mr. Denton, having carefully examined the Keythorpe estate, and the published statements of its owner, asserts, that the drains there laid have _no uniformity of depth_--part of the tiles being laid but eighteen inches deep, and others four feet and more, in the same field. Secondly, that there is _no uniformity as to direction_--part of the drains being laid across the fall, and part with the fall, in the same fields--with no obvious reason for the difference of direction. Thirdly, that there is _no uniformity as to materials_--a part of the drains being wood, and a part tiles, in the same field. Finally, it is contended that there is no saving of expense in the Keythorpe draining, over the ordinary mode, when all points are considered, because the pretended saving is made by the use of wood, where true economy would require tiles, and shallow drains are used where deeper ones would in the end be cheaper. In speaking of this controversy, it is due to Lord Berners to say, that he expressly disclaims any invention or novelty in his operations at Keythorpe. On the whole, although a work at the present day which should pass over, without consideration, the claims of the Keythorpe system, would be quite incomplete in its history of the subject, yet the facts elicited with regard to it are perhaps chiefly valuable, as tending to show the danger of basing a general principle upon an isolated case. The discussion of the claims of that system--if such it may be called--may be valuable in America, where novelty is sure to attract, by showing that one more form of error has already been tried and "found wanting;" and so save us the trouble of proving its inutility by experiment. THE WHARNCLIFFE SYSTEM. Lord Wharncliffe, with a view to effect adequate drainage at less expense than is usual in thorough drainage, has adopted upon his estate a sort of compromise system, which he has brought to the notice of the public in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. Upon Fontenelle's idea, that "mankind only settle into the right course after passing through and exhausting all the varieties of error," it is well to advise our readers of this particular form of error also--to show that it has already been tried--so that no patent of invention can be claimed upon it by those perverse persons who are not satisfied without constant change, and who seem to imagine that the ten commandments might be improved by a new edition. Lord Wharncliffe states his principles as follows, and calls his method the combined system of deep and shallow drainage: "In order to secure the full effect of thorough drainage in clays, it is necessary that there should be not only well-laid conduits for the water which reaches them, but also subsidiary passages opened through the substance of the close subsoil, by means of atmospheric heat, and the contraction which ensues from it. The cracks and fissures which result from this action, are reckoned upon as a certain and essential part of the process. "To give efficiency, therefore, to a system of deep drains beneath a stiff clay, these natural channels are required. To produce them, there must be a continued action of heat and evaporation. If we draw off effectually and constantly the bottom water from beneath the clay and from its substance, as far as it admits of percolation, and by some other means provide a vent for the upper water, which needs no more than this facility to run freely, there seems good reason to suppose that the object may be completely attained, and that we shall remove the moisture from both portions as effectually as its quantity and the substance will permit. Acting upon this view, then, after due consideration, I determined to combine with the fundamental four-feet drains a system of auxiliary ones of much less depth, which should do their work above, and contribute their share to the wholesome discharge, while the under-current from their more subterranean neighbors should be steadily performing their more difficult duty. "I accomplished this, by placing my four-feet drains at a distance of from eighteen to twenty yards apart, and then leading others into them, sunk only to about two feet beneath the surface (which appeared, upon consideration, to be sufficiently below any conceivable depth of cultivation), and laying these at a distance from each other of eight yards. These latter are laid at an acute angle with the main-drains, and at their mouths are either gradually sloped downwards to the lower level, or have a few loose stones placed in the same intervals between the two, sufficient to ensure the perpendicular descent of the upper stream through that space, which can never exceed, or, indeed, strictly equal, the additional two feet." There are two reasons why this mode of drainage cannot be adopted in the northern part of the United States. First: The two-foot drains would be liable to be frozen up solid, every winter. Secondly: The subsoil plow, now coming into use among our best cultivators, runs to so great a depth as to be likely to entirely destroy two-foot drains at the first operation, even if it were not intended to run the sub-soiler to a greater general depth than eighteen inches. Any one who has had experience in holding a subsoil-plow, must know that it is an implement somewhat unmanageable, and liable to plunge deep into soft spots like the covering over drains; so that no skill or care could render its use safe over two-foot drains. The history of drainage in America, is soon given. It begins here, as it must begin everywhere, when practiced as a general system, with the introduction of tiles. In 1835, Mr. John Johnston, of Seneca County, New York, a Scotchman by birth, imported from Scotland patterns of drain-tiles, and caused them to be made by hand-labor, and set the example of their use on his own farm. The effects of Mr. Johnston's operations were so striking, that in 1848, John Delafield, Esq., for a long time President of the Seneca County Agricultural Society, imported from England one of Scragg's Patent Tile machines. From that time, tile-draining in that county, and in the neighboring counties, has been diligently and profitably pursued. Several interesting statements of successful experiments by Mr. Johnston, Mr. Delafield, Mr. Theron G. Yeomans of Wayne County, and others, have been published, from time to time, in the "New York Transactions." Indeed, most of our information of experimental draining in this country, has come from that quarter. Mr. Johnston, for more than twenty years, has made himself useful to the country, and at the same time gained a wide reputation for himself, by occasional publications on the subject of drainage. In addition to this, his practical knowledge of agriculture, and especially of the subject of drainage, has gained for him a competence for his declining years. In this we rejoice; and trust that in these, his latter years, he may be made ever to feel, that even they among us of the friends of agriculture who have not known him personally, are not unmindful of their obligations to him as the leader of a most beneficent enterprise. Tile-works have since been established at various places in New York, at several places in Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, and many other States. The first drain-tiles used in New-Hampshire, were brought from Albany, in 1854, by Mr. William Conner, and used on his farm in Exeter, that year; and the following year, the writer brought some from Albany, and laid them on his farm, in the same town. In 1857, tile-works were put in operation at Exeter; and some 40,000 tiles were made that year. The horse-shoe tiles, we understand, have been generally used in New York. At Albany, and in Massachusetts, the sole-tile has been of late years preferred. We cannot learn that cylindrical pipes have ever been manufactured in this country until the Summer of 1858 when the engineers of the New York Central Park procured them to be made, and laid them, with collars, in their drainage-works there. This is believed to be the first practical introduction into this country of round pipes and collars, which are regarded in England as the most perfect means of drainage. Experiments all over the country, in reclaiming bog-meadows, and in draining wet lands with drains of stone and wood, have been attempted, with various success. Those attempts we regard as merely efforts in the right direction, and rather as evidence of a general conviction of the want, by the American farmer, of a cheap and efficient mode of drainage, than as an introduction of a system of thorough drainage; for--as we think will appear in the course of this work--no system of drainage can be made sufficiently cheap and efficient for general adoption, with other materials than drain-tiles. CHAPTER III. RAIN, EVAPORATION, AND FILTRATION. Fertilizing Substances in Rain Water.--Amount of Rain Fall in United States--in England.--Tables of Rain Fall.--Number of Rainy Days, and Quantity of Rain each Month.--Snow, how Computed as Water.--Proportion of Rain Evaporated.--What Quantity of Water Dry Soil will Hold.--Dew Point.--How Evaporation Cools Bodies.--Artificial Heat Underground.--Tables of Filtration and Evaporation. Although we usually regard drainage as a means of rendering land sufficiently dry for cultivation, that is by no means a comprehensive view of the objects of the operation. Rain is the principal source of moisture, and a surplus of moisture is the evil against which we contend in draining. But rain is also a principal source of fertility, not only because it affords the necessary moisture to dissolve the elements of fertility already in the soil, but also because it contains in itself, or brings with it from the atmosphere, valuable fertilizing substances. In a learned article by Mr. Caird, in the Cyclopedia of Agriculture, on the Rotation of Crops, he says: "The surprising effects of a fallow, even when unaided by any manure, has received some explanation by the recent discovery of Mr. Barral, that rain-water contains within itself, and conveys into the soil, fertilizing substances of the utmost importance, equivalent, in a fall of rain of 24 inches per annum, to the quantity of ammonia contained in 2 cwt. of Peruvian guano, with 150 lbs. of nitrogeneous matter besides, all suited to the nutrition of our crops." About 42 inches of rain may be taken as a fair general average of the rain-fall in the United States. If this supplies as much ammonia to the soil as 3 cwt. of Peruvian guano to the acre, which is considered a liberal manuring, and which is valuable principally for its ammonia, we at once see the importance of retaining the rain-water long enough upon our fields, at least, to rob it of its treasures. But rain-water has a farther value than has yet been suggested: "Rain-water always contains in solution, air, carbonic acid, and ammonia. The two first ingredients are among the most powerful disintegrators of a soil. The oxygen of the air, and the carbonic acid being both in a highly condensed form, by being dissolved, possess very powerful affinities for the ingredients of the soil. The oxygen attacks and oxydizes the iron; the carbonic acid seizing the lime and potash and other alkaline ingredients of the soil, produces a further disintegration, and renders available the locked-up ingredients of this magazine of nutriment. Before these can be used by plants, they must be rendered soluble; and this is only affected by the free and renewed access of rain and air. The ready passage of both of these, therefore, enables the soil to yield up its concealed nutriment." We see, then, that the rains of heaven bring us not only water, but food for our plants, and that, while we would remove by proper drainage the surplus moisture, we should take care to first conduct it through the soil far enough to fulfill its mission of fertility. We cannot suppose that all rain-water brings to our fields precisely the same proportion of the elements of fertility, because the foreign properties with which it is charged, must continually vary with the condition of the atmosphere through which it falls, whether it be the thick and murky cloud which overhangs the coal-burning city, or the transparent ether of the mountain tops. We may see, too, by the tables, that the quantity of rain that falls, varies much, not only with the varying seasons of the year, and with the different seasons of different years, but with the distance from the equator, the diversity of mountain and river, and lake and wood, and especially with locality as to the ocean. Yet the average results of nature's operations through a series of years, are startlingly constant and uniform, and we may deduce from tables of rain-falls, as from bills of mortality and tables of longevity, conclusions almost as reliable as from mathematical premises. The quantity of rain is generally increased by the locality of mountain ranges. "Thus, at the Edinburgh Water Company's works, on the Pentland Hills, there fell in 1849, nearly twice as much rain as at Edinburgh, although the distance between the two places is only seven miles." Although a much greater quantity of rain falls in mountainous districts (within certain limits of elevation) than in the plains, yet a greater quantity of rain falls at the surface of the ground than at an elevation of a few hundred feet. Thus, from experiments which were carefully made at York, it was ascertained that there fell eight and a half inches more rain at the surface of the ground, in the course of twelve months, than at the top of the Minster, which is 212 feet high. Similar results have been obtained in many other places. Some observations upon this point may also be found in the Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1855, at p. 210, given by Professor C. W. Morris, of New York. Again, the evaporation from the surface of water being much greater than from the land, clouds that are wafted by the winds from the sea to the land, condense their vapor upon the colder hills and mountain sides, and yield rain, so that high lands near the sea or other large bodies of water, from which the winds generally blow, have a greater proportion of rainy days and a greater fall of rain than lands more remote from water. The annual rain-fall in the lake districts in Cumberland County, in England, sometimes amounts to more than 150 inches. With a desire to contribute as much as possible to the stock of accurate knowledge on this subject, we availed ourselves of the kindly offered services of our friends, Shedd and Edson, in preparing a carefully considered article upon a part of our general subject, which has much engaged their attention. Neither the article itself, nor the observations of Dr. Hobbs, which form a part of its basis, has ever before been published, and we believe our pages cannot be better occupied than by giving them in the language of our friends: "All vegetables, in the various stages of growth, require warmth, air, and moisture, to support life and health. Below the surface of the ground there is a body of stagnant water, sometimes at a great depth, but in retentive soils usually within a foot or two of the surface. This stagnant water not only excludes the air, but renders the soil much colder, and, being in itself of no benefit, without warmth and air, its removal to a greater depth is very desirable. A knowledge of the depth to which this water-table should be removed, and of the means of removing it, constitutes the science of draining, and in its discussion, a knowledge of the rain-fall, humidity of the atmosphere, and amount of evaporation, is very important. The amount of rain-fall, as shown by the hyetal, or rain-chart, of North America, by Lorin Blodget, is thirty inches vertical depth in the basin of the great lakes; thirty-two inches on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain; thirty-six inches in the valley of the Hudson, on the head waters of the Ohio, through the middle portions of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and western portion of North Carolina; forty inches in the extreme eastern and the northern portion of Maine, northern portions of New Hampshire and Vermont, south-eastern counties of Massachusetts, Central New York, north-east portion of Pennsylvania, south-east portion of New Jersey and Delaware; also, on a narrow belt running down from the western portion of Maryland, through Virginia and North Carolina, to the north-western portion of South Carolina; thence, up through the western portion of Virginia, north-east portion of Ohio, Northern Indiana and Illinois, to Prairie du Chien; forty-two inches on the east coast of Maine, Eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and middle portion of Maryland; thence, on a narrow belt to South Carolina; thence, up through Eastern Tennessee, through Central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to Iowa; thence, down through Western Missouri and Texas to the Gulf of Mexico; forty-five inches from Concord, New Hampshire, through Worcester, Mass., Western Connecticut, and the City of New York, to the Susquehanna River, just north of Maryland; also, at Richmond, Va., Raleigh, N. C., Augusta, Geo., Knoxville, Tenn., Indianopolis, Ind., Springfield, Ill., St. Louis, Mo.; thence, through Western Arkansas, across Red River to the Gulf of Mexico. From the belt just described, the rain-fall increases inland and southward, until at Mobile, Ala., the rain-fall is sixty-three inches. The same amount also falls in the extreme southern portion of Florida. In England, the average rain-fall in the eastern portion is represented at twenty inches; in the middle portion, twenty-two inches; in the southern and western, thirty inches; in the extreme south-western, forty-five inches; and in Wales, fifty inches. In the eastern portion of Ireland, it is twenty-five inches; and in the western, forty inches. Observations at London for forty years, by Dalton, gave average fall of 20.69 inches. Observations at New Bedford, Mass., for forty-three years, by S. Rodman, gave average fall of 41.03 inches--about double the amount in London. The mean quantity for each month, at both places, is as follows: _New Bedford._ _London._ January 3.36 1.46 February 3.32 1.25 March 3.44 1.17 April 3.60 1.28 May 3.63 1.64 June 2.71 1.74 July 2.86 2.45 August 3.61 1.81 September 3.33 1.84 October 3.46 2.09 November 3.97 2.22 December 3.74 1.74 ----- ---- Spring 10.67 4.09 Summer 9.18 6.00 Autumn 10.76 6.15 Winter 10.42 4.45 ----- ----- Year 41.03 20.69 Another very striking difference between the two countries is shown by a comparison of the quantity of water falling in single days. The following table, given in the Radcliffe Observatory Reports, Oxford, England, 15th volume, shows the proportion of very light rains there. The observation was in the year 1854. Rain fell on 156 days: 73 days gave less than .05 inch. 30 " between that and .10 " 27 " between .10 " .20 " 9 " " .20 " .30 " 9 " " .30 " .40 " 4 " " .40 " .50 " 1 gave .60 " 2 " .80 " 1 " 1.00 " Nearly half the number gave less fall than five-hundredths of an inch, and more than four-fifths the number gave less than one-fifth of an inch, and none gave over an inch. There is more rain in the United States, by a large measure, than there; but the amount falls in less time, and the average of saturation is certainly much less here. From manuscript records, furnished us by Dr. Hobbs, of Waltham, Mass., we find, that the quantity falling in the year 1854, was equal to the average quantity for thirty years, and that rain fell on fifty-four days, in the proportion as follows: Number of rainy days, 54; total rain-fall, 41.29. 0 days gave less than .05 inch. 2 " between that and .10 " 8 " between .10 " .20 " 7 " " .20 " .30 " 5 " " .30 " .40 " 4 " " .40 " .50 " 2 " " .50 " .60 " 4 " " .60 " .70 " 4 " " .70 " .80 " 3 " " .80 " .90 " 0 " " .90 " 1.00 " 0 " " 1.00 " 1.10 " 2 " " 1.10 " 1.20 " 1 " " 1.20 " 1.30 " 1 " " 1.30 " 1.40 " 3 " " 1.40 " 1.50 " 2 " " 1.50 " 1.60 " 1 " " 1.60 " 1.70 " 2 " " 1.80 " 1.90 " 1 " " 2.30 " 2.40 " 1 " " 2.50 " 2.60 " 1 " " 3.20 " 3.30 " No rain-fall gave less than five-hundredths of an inch; and more than one-fourth the number of days gave more than one inch. In 1850, four years earlier, the rain-fall for the year, in Waltham, was 62.13 inches, the greatest recorded by observations kept since 1824. It fell as shown in the table: Number of rainy days, 58; total rain-fall, 62.13. 3 days gave between .05 and .10 inches. 4 " .10 " .20 " 6 " .20 " .30 " 3 " .30 " .40 " 5 " .40 " .50 " 3 " .50 " .60 " 3 " .60 " .70 " 3 " .70 " .80 " 2 " .80 " .90 " 1 " .90 " 1.00 " 3 " 1.00 " 1.10 " 7 " 1.20 " 1.30 " 2 " 1.80 " 1.90 " 2 " 1.90 " 2.00 " 3 " 2.00 " 2.10 " 2 " 2.10 " 2.20 " 1 " 2.30 " 2.40 " 1 " 2.50 " 2.60 " 1 " 2.60 " 2.70 " 1 " 2.80 " 2.90 " 1 " 3.60 " 3.70 " 1 " 4.50 " 4.60 " Sept. 7th and 8th, in 24 hours, 6.88 inches of rain fell, the greatest quantity recorded in one day. In 1846--still earlier by four years--the rain-fall in Waltham was 26.90 inches--the least recorded by the same observations. It fell, as shown in the table: Number of rainy days, 49; total rain-fall, 26.90. 3 days gave between .05 and .10 inches. 7 " .10 " .20 " 10 " .20 " .30 " 6 " .30 " .40 " 4 " .40 " .50 " 3 " .50 " .60 " 2 " .70 " .80 " 3 " .80 " .90 " 1 " .90 " 1.00 " 3 " 1.00 " 1.10 " 2 " 1.10 " 1.20 " 1 " 1.20 " 1.30 " 2 " 1.40 " 1.50 " 1 " 1.50 " 1.60 " 1 " 2.40 " 2.50 " The rain-fall in 1852 was very near the average for thirty years; and the quantity falling in single storms, on sixty-three different occasions, as registered by Dr. Hobbs, was as follows: Number of storms, 63; total rain-fall, 42.24. 7 storms gave less than .10 inches. 11 " between .10 and .20 " 9 " " .20 " .30 " 5 " " .30 " .40 " 6 " " .40 " .50 " 5 " " .50 " .60 " 1 " " .60 " .70 " 1 " " .70 " .80 " 3 " " .80 " .90 " 1 " " .90 " 1.00 " 5 " " 1.00 " 1.10 " 1 " " 1.10 " 1.20 " 1 " " 1.20 " 1.30 " 1 " " 1.40 " 1.50 " 3 " " 1.60 " 1.70 " 1 " in 5 days 3.16 " 1 " " 4 " 4.38 " 1 " " 6 " 5.35 " These tables are sufficient to show that provision must be made to carry off much greater quantities of water from lands in this country than in England. We add a table of the greatest fall of rain in any one day, for each month, and for the year, from April, 1824, to 1st January, 1859. It also was abstracted from the manuscript of observations by Dr. Hobbs, and will be, we think, quite useful: ========================================================================== YEARS |March |June |September |December | | | | | |Greatest | |February |May | |August |November | Fall | | | | | | | | | | in the |January | |April | |July| | |October | | Year -----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-------- 1824| | | |0.76|0.67|0.53|0.44|1.90|2.54|0.81|0.76|1.80| 2.54 1825|2.16| |2.61|0.27|1.23|1.37|0.91|2.51|0.89|1.32|0.71|2.40| 2.61 1826|1.80|0.56|1.67|0.89|0.39|1.78|0.87|1.80|1.57|1.37|1.22|1.41| 1.87 1827| | |3.81|1.55|2.42|0.66|1.36|3.16|4.93|2.22|3.85|1.39| 4.93 1828|0.60|1.48|1.82|2.06|2.01|1.44|1.52|0.14|1.82|1.52|1.90|0.29| 2.06 1829|3.86|1.98|4.12|2.35|1.15|0.97|1.92|0.97|1.39|1.00|1.25|1.58| 4.12 1830|1.31| |1.17|2.68|2.28|0.78|1.84|2.45|2.40|1.20|2.64|2.44| 2.68 1831|0.64|1.48|2.32|2.12|1.79|1.87|2.27|1.00|1.00|2.82|1.24|0.15| 2.82 1832|2.68|1.59|2.00|4.48|2.52|1.24| |2.13|0.80|1.50|2.60|1.34| 4.48 1833|0.83| | |2.57|0.98|2.03|1.42|0.64|2.75|2.32|3.12|1.27| 3.12 1834| |0.64|1.31|0.94|2.35|1.87|2.12|0.73|1.25|1.89|2.42|0.92| 2.42 1835|1.44|0.88|2.48|2.48|1.18|1.52|4.72|1.32|1.57|3.28|0.74|2.32| 4.72 1836|2.72|3.04|2.26|1.86|1.29|2.24|1.04|0.72|0.36|2.04|1.50|1.68| 3.04 1837|3.62|1.50|1.14|1.68|1.46|1.30|0.72|0.78|0.66|1.46|0.81|1.68| 3.62 1838|1.64|0.75|0.76|1.32|1.40|1.67|0.82|1.40|3.84|1.10|2.46|1.00| 3.84 1839|0.70|0.80|0.58|4.06|2.98|0.94|1.08|3.54|0.70|1.60|0.80|1.92| 4.06 1840|1.68|2.20|1.54|2.12|1.16|1.08|1.40|2.72|1.28|1.04|3.72|1.12| 3.72 1841|1.44|1.12|1.32|1.64|0.90|0.75|0.64|2.82|2.78|2.66|1.05|1.70| 2.82 1842|0.54|1.22|1.16|0.64|0.47|2.10|0.68|1.44|0.96|0.34|1.10|2.02| 2.10 1843|1.60|1.64|2.50|1.34|0.34|1.04|1.98|2.58|0.52|1.94|1.28| | 2.58 1844|4.14| |2.06|0.24|0.58|0.78|0.86|1.34|1.76|2.30|1.86|1.28| 4.14 1845|2.42|1.70|1.14|0.70|1.02|1.03|1.20|1.66|0.88|1.16|3.32|1.46| 3.32 1846|1.54| |2.46|1.16|1.18|0.82|1.46|0.49|0.56|0.55|0.54|1.02| 2.46 1847|1.18|2.74|1.66|1.12|0.84|1.28|0.56|1.86|2.16|0.64|2.74|3.02| 3.02 1848|1.44|1.56|2.68|0.68|2.28|1.00|0.72|1.24|1.48|2.96|0.88|1.00| 2.96 1849|1.36|0.40|2.30|0.92|1.28|0.72|1.52|2.08|1.12|2.60|2.48|1.76| 2.60 1850|2.56|1.92|1.84|2.68|2.80|1.20|1.20|3.68|6.88|1.04|2.16|1.92| 6.88 1851|0.80|1.84|0.56|3.60|1.92|1.12|0.96|0.32|1.15|1.47|2.25|0.89| 3.60 1852|1.06|0.88|1.15|4.38|1.47|1.69|0.66|4.16|1.19|1.61|1.59|0.89| 4.38 1853|0.92|1.33|1.03|1.12|2.39|0.42|1.03|2.36|2.14|1.95|1.67|1.35| 2.39 1854|0.83|1.60|1.25|1.88|2.57|1.50|1.58|0.48|2.33|1.82|3.25|1.43| 3.25 1855|3.37|3.08|0.80|1.33|0.39|1.23|1.93|0.75|0.70|1.77|2.22|1.24| 3.37 1856| |1.30|0.63|1.97|2.93|0.66|1.30|4.23|2.42|0.87|0.88|1.20| 4.23 1857|1.50|0.54|1.55|3.68|1.28|0.96|2.43|2.00|0.87|3.54|0.67|1.28| 3.68 1858|1.12|1.18|0.35|1.28|1.00|3.86|1.35|2.21|1.64|1.22|1.36|1.40| 3.86 ========================================================================== The following table shows the record of rain-fall, as kept for one year; it was selected as a representative year, the total quantity falling being equal to the average. For the year 1840: Number of rainy days, 50; total rain-fall, 42.00. ====================================================================== DAYS | |March |June |September |December | | | | | | |February |May | |August |November | | | | | | | | | |January 1840 |April | |July| | |October | -----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+--------- 1 | | | |0.55|0.14| | |2.72| |0.64| | 2 | | | | | | | |0.08| |0.05| | 3 | | |0.32| | | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | |1.08|0.10| | | | | 5 | | | | |1.16| | | |0.63| | | 6 | | | | | | | |0.50| | | | 7 | | | | | | | | | | | | 8 | | | | | |0.20| | | | | | 9 | | | | | | |0.25| | | |3.72| 10 | |2.20| | | | | | |1.28| | | 11 | | | | | | | |0.10| | | | 12 | | | |2.12| | | | | | |0.54| 13 | | | | | |0.14| | | | | |1.12 14 | |0.58| | | | | |0.70| | | | 15 | | | | | | | | | | |0.36| 16 | | | | | | | | | | | | 17 | | | | | | | | | | | | 18 | | | | | | | | | | | | 19 | | | | | |0.82|0.24| |0.68| | |1.04 20 | | |1.54| | | | | | |0.44| | 21 | | | | |0.98| | | | |1.04| | 22 | | | |0.52| | | | | | |2.20| 23 |1.68| | | | | | |0.96| | |0.18| 24 | | | | | | |1.40| | | | | 25 | | | | | | | |0.16| | |0.35| 26 | | | |0.18| | | | | | | | 27 | | | | | |0.17| | |0.30| | | 28 | | | | | | | | | | | | 29 | | | |1.80| | |0.10| | |1.40| | 30 | | |1.42| | | | | | |0.08| |1.04 31 | | | | | | | | | | | | -----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+--------- Total|1.68|2.78|3.28|5.17|2.28|2.41|2.09|5.22|2.89|3.65|7.35|3.20 ====================================================================== The average quantity of rain which has fallen in Waltham, during the important months of vegetation, from 1824 to 1858 inclusive--a period of thirty-five years--is for-- _April._ _May._ _June._ _July._ _Aug._ _Sept._ 3.96 3.71 3.18 3.38 4.50 3.52 Average for the six months, 22.25. It will be noticed, that the average for the month of August is about 33 per cent. larger than for June and July. The quantity of rain falling in each month, as registered at the Cambridge Observatory, is as follows: MEAN OF OBSERVATIONS FOR TWELVE YEARS. _Jan._ _Feb._ _Mar._ _Apr._ _May._ _June._ 2.39 3.19 3.47 3.64 3.74 3.13 _July._ _Aug._ _Sept._ _Oct._ _Nov._ _Dec._ 2.57 5.47 4.27 3.73 4.57 4.31 _Spring._ _Summer._ _Autumn._ _Winter._ 10.85 11.17 12.57 9.89 Average quantity per year, 44.48. The quantity falling from January to July, is much less than falls from July to January. The great quantity of snow which falls in New England during the Winter months, and is carried off mainly in the Spring, usually floods the low lands, and should be taken into account in establishing the size of pipe to be used in a system of drainage. The following observations of the average depth of snow, have been made at the places cited, and are copied, by Blodget, from various published notices: Oxford Co., Me. 12 years 90 inches per year. Dover, N. H. 10 " 68.6 " " Montreal 10 " 67 " " Burlington, Vt. 10 " 85 " " Worcester, Mass. 12 " 55 " " Amherst, " 7 " 54 " " Hartford, Conn. 24 " 43 " " Lambertville, N. J. 8 " 25.5 " " Cincinnati 16 " 19 " " Burlington, Iowa 4 " 15.5 " " Beloit, Wisconsin 3 " 25 " " One-tenth the depth of snow is taken as its equivalent in water, for general purposes, though it gives too small a quantity of water in southern latitudes, and in extreme latitudes too great a quantity. The rule of reduction of snow to water, in cold climates, is one inch of water to twelve of snow. The proportion of the annual downfall of rain which is collectable into reservoirs--or, in other words, the per-centage of the rain-fall which drains off--is well shown in a table used by Ellwood Morris, Esq., C. E., in an article on "The Proposed Improvement of the Ohio River" (Jour. Frank. Inst., Jan., 1858), in which we find, that, in eighteen series of observations in Great Britain, the ratio, or per cent. of the rain-fall which drains off is 65-1/2, or nearly two-thirds the rain-fall. Seven series of observations in America are cited as follows: ========================================================================== |Name |Annual |Drainage|Ratio, or | |of |rain-fall,|flowing |per ct. of | No.|Drainage Area. |in inches.|away, in|the rain | Authorities. | | |inches. |which | | | | |drains off.| ---+---------------+----------+--------+-----------+---------------------- 1 |Schuylkill | | | | | Navigation | | | | | Reservoirs | 36 | 18 | 50 | Morris and Smith. 2 |Eaton Brook | 34 | 23 | 66 | } 3 |Madison Brook | 35 | 18 | 50 | }McAlpine. 4 |Patroon's Brook| 46 | 25 | 55 | } 5 | " " | 42 | 18 | 42 | } 6 |Long Pond | 40 | 18 | 44 | Boston Water Com'rs. 7 |West Fork | | | | | Reservoir | 36 | 14 | 40 | W. Milnor Roberts. ---+---------------+----------+--------+-----------+---------------------- | Totals | 269 | 134 | 347 | | Averages | 38 | 19 | 50 | ========================================================================== These examples show an average rain-fall of thirty-eight vertical inches, and an annual amount, collectable in reservoirs, of nineteen inches, or fifty per cent. The per-centage of water of drainage from land under-drained with tile, would be greater than that which is collectable in reservoirs from ordinary gathering-grounds. If a soil were perfectly saturated with water, that is, held as much water in suspension as possible to hold without draining off, and drains were laid at a proper depth from the surface, and in sufficient number to take off all surplus water, then the entire rain-fall upon the surface would be water of drainage--presuming, of course, the land to be level, and the air at saturation, so as to prevent evaporation. The water coming upon the surface, would force out an equal quantity of water at the bottom, through the drains--the time occupied by the process, varying according to the porous or retentive nature of the soil; but in ordinary circumstances, it would be, perhaps, about forty-eight hours. Drains usually run much longer than this after a heavy rain, and, in fact, many run constantly through the year, but they are supplied from lands at a higher level, either near by or at a distance. If, on the other hand, the soil were perfectly dry, holding no water in suspension, then there would be no water of drainage until the soil had become saturated. Evaporation is constantly carrying off great quantities of water during the warm months, so that under-drained soil is seldom in the condition of saturation, and, on account of the supply by capillary attraction and by dew, is never thoroughly dry; but the same soil will, at different times, be at various points between saturation and dryness, and the water of drainage will be consequently a greater or less per centage of the rain-fall. An experiment made by the writer, to ascertain what quantity of water a dry soil would hold in suspension, resulted as follows: A soil was selected of about average porosity, so that the result might be, as nearly as possible, a mean for the various kinds of soil, and dried by several days' baking. The quantity of soil then being carefully measured, a measured quantity of water was supplied slowly, until it began to escape at the bottom. The quantity draining away was measured and deducted from the total quantity supplied. It was thus ascertained that one cubic foot of earth held 0.4826+ cubic feet of water, which is a little more than three and one-half gallons. A dry soil, four feet deep, would hold a body of water equal to a rain-fall of 23.17 inches, vertical depth, which is more than would fall in six months. The quantity which is not drained away is used for vegetation or evaporated; and the fact, that the water of drainage is so much greater in proportion to the rain-fall in England than in this country, is owing to the humidity of that climate, in which the evaporation is only about half what it is in this country. The evaporation from a reservoir surface at Baltimore, during the Summer months, was assumed by Colonel Abert to be to the quantity of rain as two to one. Dr. Holyoke assigns the annual quantity evaporated at Salem, Mass., at fifty-six inches; and Colonel Abert quotes several authorities at Cambridge, Mass., stating the quantity at fifty-six inches. These facts are given by Mr. Blodget, and also the table below. QUANTITY OF WATER EVAPORATED, IN INCHES, VERTICAL DEPTH. | Whitehaven, | | | England, | Ogdensburg, | Syracuse, | mean of | N. Y., | N. Y., | 6 years | 1 yr. | 1 year --------+-------------+-------------+------------ _Jan._ | 0.88 | 1.65 | 0.67 _Feb._ | 1.04 | 0.82 | 1.48 _Mar._ | 1.77 | 2.07 | 2.24 _Apr._ | 2.54 | 1.63 | 3.42 _May._ | 4.15 | 7.10 | 7.31 _June._ | 4.54 | 6.74 | 7.60 _July._ | 4.20 | 7.79 | 9.08 _Aug._ | 3.40 | 5.41 | 6.85 _Sept._ | 3.12 | 7.40 | 5.33 _Oct._ | 1.93 | 3.95 | 3.02 _Nov._ | 1.32 | 3.66 | 1.33 _Dec._ | 1.09 | 1.15 | 1.86 --------+-------------+-------------+------------ _Year._ | 30.03 | 49.37 | 50.20 The quantity for Whitehaven, England, is reported by J. F. Miller. It was very carefully observed, from 1843 to 1848--the evaporation being from a copper vessel, protected from rain. The district is one of the wettest of England--the mean quantity of rain, for the same time, having been 45.25 inches. This shows a great difference in the capacity of the air to absorb moisture in England and the United States; and as evaporation is a cooling process, there is greater necessity for under-draining in this country than in England, supposing circumstances in other respects to be similar. Evaporation takes place at any point of temperature from 32°, or lower, to 212°--at which water boils. It is increased by heat, but is not caused solely by it--for a north-west wind in New-England evaporates water, and dries the earth more rapidly than the heat alone of a Summer's day; and when, under ordinary circumstances, evaporation from a water-surface is slow, it becomes quite active when brought in close proximity to sulphuric acid, or other vapor-absorbing bodies. The cold which follows evaporation is caused by a loss of the heat which is required for evaporation, and which passes off with the vapor, as a solution, in the atmosphere; and as heat leaves the body to aid evaporation, it is evident that that body cannot be cooled by the process, below the dew-point at which evaporation ceases. The popular notion that a body may be cooled almost to the freezing-point, in a hot Summer day, by the action of heat alone, is, then, erroneous. But still, the amount of heat which is used up in evaporating stagnant water from undrained land, that might otherwise go towards warming the land and the roots of crops, is a very serious loss. The difference in the temperature of a body, resulting from evaporation, may reach 25° in the desert interior of the American continent; but, in the Eastern States, it is not often more than 15°. The temperature of evaporation is the reading of a wet-bulb-thermometer (the bulb being covered with moistened gauze) exposed to the natural evaporation; and the difference between that reading and the reading of a dry-thermometer, is the expression of the cold resulting from evaporation. When the air is nearly saturated, the temperature of the air rarely goes above 74°; but, if so, the moisture in the air prevents the passing away of insensible perspiration, and the joint action of heat and humidity exhausts the vital powers, causing sun-stroke, as it is called. At New York city, August 12th to 14th, 1853, the wet-thermometer stood at 80° to 84°; the air, at 90° to 94°. The mortality, from this joint effect, was very great--over two hundred persons losing their lives in the two days, in that city. From very careful observations, made by Lorin Blodget, in 1853, at Washington, it was found that the difference between the wet and dry thermometer was 18-1/2° at 4 P. M., June 30th, and 16° at 2 P. M. on July 1st--the temperature of the air being 98° on the first day, and 95° on the second; but such excesses are unusual. The following table has been compiled from Mr. Blodget's notice of the peculiarities of the Summer of 1853: The dates are such as were selected to illustrate the extreme temperatures of the month, and the degrees represent the differences between the wet and dry thermometer. The observations were made at 3 P. M.: _Locality._ _Dates._ _Differences._ JUNE, 1853. Burlington, Vt. 14th to 30th ranged from 8° to 17° Montreal 14th to 30th " 6 to 17 Poultney, Iowa 10th to 30th " 9 to 16 Washington 20th to 30th " 8.5 to 16 Baltimore 13th to 30th " 7.4 to 20.2 Savannah 13th to 30th " 5.2 to 17.3 Austin, Texas 10th to 30th " 4 to 24 Clarkesville, Tenn. 4th to 30th " 10.3 to 20.5 AUGUST. Bloomfield, N. J. 9th to 14th " 5 to 15 Austin, Texas 6th to 12th " 0 to 19 Philadelphia 10th to 15th " 8 to 14 Jacksonville, Fla. 10th to 15th " 6 to 8 Observations by Lieut. Gillis, at Washington, give mean differences between wet and dry thermometers, from March, 1841, to June, 1842, as follows: Observations at 3 P. M.: _Jan._ _Feb._ _Mar._ _Apr._ _May._ _June._ 3°.08 4°.40 6°.47 5°.37 7°.05 8°.03 _July._ _Aug._ _Sept._ _Oct._ _Nov._ _Dec._ 8°.89 5°.29 5°.63 4°.61 4°.77 2°.03 A mean of observations for twenty-five years at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, England, gives a difference between the wet and dry thermometer equal to about two-thirds the difference, as observed by Lieutenant Gillis, at Washington. On the 12th day of August, 1853, in Austin, Texas, the air was perfectly saturated at a temperature of 76°, which was the dew-point, or point of the thermometer at which dew began to form. The dew-point varies according to the temperature and the humidity of the atmosphere; it is usually a few degrees lower than the temperature of evaporation--never higher. From observations made at Girard College, by Prof. A. D. Bache, in the years 1840 to 1845, we find, that for April, 1844, the dew-point ranged from 4° to 16° lower than the temperature of the air; in May, from 4° to 14° lower; in June, from 6° to 20° lower; in July, from 4° to 17°; in August, from 6° to 15° lower; and in September, from 6° to 21° lower. The dew-point is, then, during the important months of vegetation, within about 20° of the temperature of the air. The temperature of the dew-point, as observed by Prof. Bache, was highest in August, 1843, being 66°, and lowest in January, 1844, being 18°; in July, 1844, it was 64°, and in February, 1845, it was 25°. Its hourly changes during each day are quite marked, and follow, with some degree of regularity, the changes in the temperature of the air; their greatest departure from each other being at the hottest hour of the day, which is two or three hours after noon, and the least at the coldest hour which is four or five hours after midnight. The average temperature of the dew-point in April, May, and June, 1844, was, at midnight, 50-1/2°, air, 57°; five hours after midnight, dew-point, 49°, air 54°; three hours after noon, dew-point, 54°, air, 63-1/2°. The average temperature for July, August and September, was, at midnight, dew-point, 58-1/2°, air, 65°; five hours after midnight, dew-point, 58°, air, 62°; three hours after noon, dew-point, 60-1/2°, air, 78°. The average temperature for the year was, at midnight, dew-point, 42°, air, 48°; five hours after midnight, dew-point, 41°, air, 46°; three hours after noon, dew-point, 44-1/2°, air, 59°. The relative humidity of the atmosphere, or the amount of vapor held in suspension in the air, in proportion to the amount which it might hold, was, in the year 1858, as given in the journal of the Franklin Institute, for _Philadelphia._ _Somerset Co._ April 49 per cent. -- 2 P. M. May 59 " 72 " June 55 " 63 " July 50 " 61 " August 55 " 58 " September 50 " 57 " The saturation often falls to 30 per cent., but with great variability. Evaporation goes on most rapidly when the per centage of saturation is lowest; and, as before observed, the cause of the excess of evaporation in this country over that of England is the excessive humidity of that climate and the dryness of this. It has also been said that there is greater need for drainage in the United States on this account; and, as the warmth induced by draining is somewhat, in its effect, a merchantable product, it may be well to consider it for a moment in that light. First: The drained land comes into condition for working, a week or ten days earlier in the Spring than other lands. Secondly: The growth of the crops is quickened all through the Summer by an increase of several degrees in the temperature of the soil. Thirdly: The injurious effects of frost are kept off several days later in the Fall. Of the value of these conditions, the farmer, who has lost his crops for lack of a few more warm days, may make his own estimates. In Roxbury, Mr. I. P. Rand heats up a portion of his land, for the purpose of raising early plants for the market, by means of hot water carried by iron pipes under the surface of the ground. In this manner he heats an area equal to 100 feet by 12 feet, by burning about one ton of coal a month. The increase of temperature which, in this case, is caused by that amount of coal, can, in the absence of direct measurement, only be estimated; but it, probably, will average about 30°, day and night, throughout the month. In an acre the area is 36.4 times as great as that heated by one ton of coal; the cost being in direct proportion to the area, 36.4 tons of coal would be required to heat an acre; which, at $6 per ton, would cost $217.40. To heat an acre through 10°, would cost, then, $72.47. It may be of interest to consider how much coal would be required to evaporate from an undrained field that amount of water which might be carried off by under-drains, but which, without them, is evaporated from the surface. It may be taken as an approximate estimate, that the evaporation from the surface of an undrained retentive field, is equal to two inches vertical depth of water for each of the months of May, June, July, and August; which is equal to fifty-four thousand three hundred and five gallons, or eight hundred and sixty-two hogsheads per acre for each month. If this quantity of water were evaporated by means of a coal fire, about 22-2/3 tons of coal would be consumed, which, at $6 a ton, would cost $136. The cost of evaporating the amount of water which would pass off in one day from an acre would be about $4.53. It is probable that about half as much water would be evaporated from thorough-drained land, though, by some experiments, the proportion has been made greater--in which case the loss of heat resulting from an excess of moisture evaporated from undrained retentive land, over that which would be evaporated from drained land, would be equal to that gained by 11-1/3 tons of coal, which would cost $68; and this for each acre, in each of the three months. At whatever temperature a liquid vaporizes, it absorbs the same total quantity of heat. The latent heat of watery vapor at 212° is 972°; that is, when water at 212° is converted into vapor at the same temperature, the amount of heat expended in the process is 972°. This heat becomes latent, or insensible to the thermometer. The heat rendered latent by converting ice into water is about 140°. There are 7.4805 gallons in a cubic foot of water which weighs 62.38 lbs." We have seen that a sea of water, more than three feet deep over the whole face of the land, falls annually from the clouds, equal to 4,000 tons in weight to every acre. We would use enough of this water to dissolve the elements of fertility in the soil, and fit them for the food of plants. We would retain it all in our fields, long enough to take from it its stores of fertilizing substances, brought from reeking marshes and steaming cities on cloud-wings to our farms. We would, after taking enough of its moisture to cool the parched earth, and to fit the soil for germination and vegetable growth, discharge the surplus, which must otherwise stagnate in the subsoil, by rapid drainage into the natural streams and rivers. Evaporation proceeds more rapidly from a surface of water, than from a surface of land, unless it be a saturated surface. It proceeds more rapidly in the sun than in the shade, and it proceeds again more rapidly in warm than in cold weather. It varies much with the culture of the field, whether in grass, or tillage, or fallow, and with its condition, as to being dry or wet, and with its formation, whether level or hilly. Yet, with all these variations, very great reliance may be placed upon the ascertained results of the observations already at our command. We have seen that evaporation from a water surface is, in general, greater than from land, and here we may observe one of those grand compensating designs of Providence which exist through all nature. If the same quantity of water fell upon the sea and the land, and the evaporation were the same from both, then all the rivers running into the sea would soon convey to it all the water, and the sea would be full. But though nearly as much water falls on the sea as on the land, yet evaporation is much greater from the water than from land. About three feet of rain falls upon the _water_, while the evaporation from a water surface far exceeds that amount. In the neighborhood of Boston, evaporation from water surface is said to be 56 inches in the year, and in the State of New York, about 50 inches; while, in England, it is put by Mr. Dalton at 44.43 inches, and, by others, much lower. Again, about three feet of water annually falls upon the _land_, while the evaporation from the land is but little more than 20 inches. If this water fell upon a flat surface of soil, with an impervious subsoil of rock or clay, we should have some sixteen inches of water in the course of the year more than evaporates from the land. If a given field be dish-shaped, so as to retain it all, it must become a pond, and so remain, except in Summer, when greater evaporation from a water surface may reduce it to a swamp or marsh. With 16 or 18 inches more water falling annually on all our cultivated fields than goes off by evaporation, is it not wise to inquire by what process of Nature or art this vast surplus shall escape? Experiments have been made with a view to determine the proportion of evaporation and filtration, upon well-drained land, in different months. From an able article in the N. Y. Agricultural Society for 1854, by George Geddes, we copy the following statement of valuable observations upon these points. It will be observed that, in the different observations collected in this chapter, results are somewhat various. They have been brought together for comparison, and will be found sufficiently uniform for all practical purposes in the matter of drainage. "The experiments upon evaporation and drainage, made on Mr. Dalton's plan, were in vessels three feet deep, filled with soil just in the condition to secure perfect freedom from excess of water, and the drainage was determined by the amount of water that passed out of the tube at the bottom. These experiments have been most perfectly made in England by Mr. John Dickinson. The following table exhibits the mean of eight years: ====================================================================== YEAR.| October to March. || April to September.|| Total each year. -----|--------------------||--------------------||-------------------- |Rain.|Filtra-| [%] ||Rain.|Filtra-| [%] ||Rain.|Filtra-| [%] | | tion. | || | tion. | || | tion. | -----|--------------------||--------------------||-------------------- 1836 |18.80| 15.55 | 82.7 ||12.20| 2.10 | 17.3 ||31.00| 17.65 | 56.9 1837 |11.30| 6.85 | 60.6 || 9.80| 0.10 | 1.0 ||21.10| 6.95 | 32.9 1838 |12.32| 8.45 | 68.8 ||10.81| 0.12 | 1.2 ||23.13| 8.57 | 37.0 1839 |13.87| 12.31 | 88.2 ||17.41| 2.60 | 15.0 ||31.28| 14.91 | 47.6 1840 |11.76| 8.19 | 69.6 || 9.68| 0.00 | 0.0 ||21.44| 8.19 | 38.2 1841 |16.84| 14.19 | 84.2 ||15.26| 0.00 | 0.0 ||32.10| 14.19 | 44.2 1842 |14.28| 10.46 | 73.2 ||12.15| 1.30 | 10.7 ||26.43| 11.76 | 44.4 1843 |12.43| 7.11 | 57.2 ||14.04| 0.99 | 7.1 ||26.47| 8.10 | 36.0 -----|--------------------||--------------------||-------------------- Mean |13.95| 10.39 | 74.5 ||12.67| 0.90 | 7.1 ||26.61| 11.29 | 42.4 ====================================================================== Legend: [%] = Per cent filtered. "A soil that holds no water for the use of plants below six inches, will suffer from drouth in ten days in June, July, or August. If the soil is in suitable condition to hold water to the depth of three feet, it would supply sufficient moisture for the whole months of June, July, and August. "M. de la Hire has shown that, at Paris, a vessel, sixteen inches deep, filled with sand and loam, discharged water through the pipe at the bottom until the 'herbs' were somewhat grown, when the discharge ceased, and the rains were insufficient, and it was necessary to water them. The fall of water at Paris is stated, in this account, at twenty inches in the year, which is less than the average, and the experiment must have been made in a very dry season; but the important point proved by it is, that the plants, when grown up, draw largely from the ground, and thereby much increase the evaporation from a given surface of earth. The result of the experiment is entirely in accordance with what would have been expected by a person conversant with the laws of vegetation. "The mean of each month for the eight years is: ============================================== | | |Per cent MONTHS. | Rain. |Filtration.| | | |filtered. -------------+---------+-----------+---------- |_Inches._| _Inches._ | | | | January | 1.84 | 1.30 | 70.7 February | 1.79 | 1.54 | 78.4 March | 1.61 | 1.08 | 66.6 April | 1.45 | 0.30 | 21.0 May | 1.85 | 0.11 | 5.8 June | 2.21 | 0.04 | 1.7 July | 2.28 | 0.04 | 1.8 August | 2.42 | 0.03 | 1.4 September | 2.64 | 0.37 | 13.9 October | 2.82 | 1.40 | 49.5 November | 3.83 | 3.26 | 84.9 December | 1.64 | 1.80 | 110.0 ============================================== "The filtration from April to September is very small--practically nothing; but during those months we have 12.67 inches of rain--that is, we have two inches a month for evaporation besides the quantity in the earth on the first day of April. From October to March we have 10.39 inches filtered out of 13.95 inches, the whole fall. 'Of this Winter portion of 10.39, we must allow at least six inches for floods running away at the time of the rain, and then we have only 4.39 inches left for the supply of rivers and wells.' (Breadmore, p. 34.) "It is calculated in England that the ordinary Summer run of streams does not exceed ten cubic feet per minute per square mile, and that the average for the whole year, due to springs and ordinary rains, is twenty feet per minute per square mile, exclusive of floods--and assuming no very wet or high mountain districts (Breadmore, p. 34)--which is equal to about four inches over the whole surface. If we add to this the six inches that are supposed to run off in freshets, we have ten inches discharged in the course of the year by the streams. The whole filtration was 11.29 inches--10.39 in the Winter, and .90 in the Summer. The remainder, 1.29 inches, is supposed to be consumed by wells and excessive evaporation from marshes and pools, from which the discharge is obstructed, by animals, and in various other ways. These calculations were made from experiments running through eight years, in which the average fall of water was only 26.61 inches per annum. When the results derived from them are applied to our average fall of 35.28 inches, we have for the water that constitutes the Summer flow of our streams 13.25 cubic feet per minute per mile of the country drained, and for the average annual flow, exclusive of freshets, 26.50 cubic feet per mile per minute. That is to say, of the 35.28 inches of water that fall in the course of the year, 5.30 run away in the streams as the average annual flow, 7.95 run away in the freshets, and 20.47 evaporate from the earth's surface, leaving 1.56 for consumption in various ways. In the whole year the drainage is nearly equal to one cubic foot per second per square mile (.976), no allowance being made for the 1.56 inches which is lost as before stated. These calculations are based upon English experiments. Mr. McAlpine, late State engineer and surveyor, in making his calculations for supplying the city of Albany with water (page 22 of his Report to the Water Commissioners), takes 45 per cent of the fall as available for the use of the city. Mr. Henry Tracy, in his Report to the Canal Board of 1849 (page 17), gives the results of the investigations in the valleys of Madison Brook, in Madison County, and of Long Pond, near Boston, Mass., as follows: ========================================================================== | Name | Fall of rain | Water ran off | Evaporation | Ratio YEAR. | of | and snow | in | from surface | of | valley. | in valley. | inches. | of ground. | drainage. ----------------+--------------+---------------+--------------+----------- 1835 | Madison | | | | | Brook | 35.26 | 15.83 | 19.43 | 0.449 ------+---------+--------------+---------------+--------------+----------- 1837 | Long | | | | | Pond | 26.65 | 11.70 | 14.95 | 0.439 ------+---------+--------------+---------------+--------------+----------- 1838 | Do | 38.11 | 16.62 | 21.49 | 0.436 ------+---------+--------------+---------------+--------------+----------- Mean | | | | | 0.441 ========================================================================== "Madison Brook drains 6,000 acres, and Long Pond 11,400 acres. Mr. Tracy makes the following comment on this table: 'It appears that the evaporation from the surface of the ground in the valley of Long Pond was about 44 per cent more in 1838 than it was in 1837, while the ratio of the drainage differed less than one per cent the same years.' "Dr. Hale states the evaporation from water-surface at Boston to be 56 inches in a year. (Senate Doc., No. 70, for 1853.) "The following table contains the results arrived at by Mr. Coffin, at Ogdensburgh, and Mr. Conkey, at Syracuse, in regard to the evaporation from water-surface: ============================================================= | COFFIN, at Ogdensburgh,|| CONKEY, at Syracuse, | in 1838. || in 1852. MONTHS. +--------+---------------++--------+-------------- | Rain. | Evaporation. || Rain. | Evaporation. -----------+--------+---------------++--------+-------------- January | 2.36 | 1.652 || 3.673 | 0.665 February | 0.97 | 0.817 || 1.307 | 1.489 March | 1.18 | 2.067 || 3.234 | 2.239 April | 0.40 | 1.625 || 3.524 | 3.421 May | 4.81 | 7.100 || 4.491 | 7.309 June | 3.57 | 6.745 || 3.773 | 7.600 July | 1.88 | 7.788 || 2.887 | 9.079 August | 2.55 | 5.415 || 2.724 | 6.854 September | 1.01 | 7.400 || 2.774 | 5.334 October | 2.73 | 3.948 || 4.620 | 3.022 November | 2.07 | 3.659 || 4.354 | 1.325 December | 1.08 | 1.146 || 4.112 | 1.863 -----------+--------+---------------++--------+-------------- TOTAL | 24.61 | 49.362 || 41.473 | 50.200 ============================================================= "The annual fall of water in England, is stated, by Mr. Dalton, to be 32 inches. In this State, it is 35.28 inches. The evaporation from water-surface in England, is put, by Mr. Dalton, at 44.43 inches. The fall is less, and the evaporation is less, in England than here; and the fall, in each case, bears the same proportion to the evaporation, very nearly; and it appears that the experiments made on the two sides of the ocean, result in giving very nearly the same per centage of drainage. In England, it is 42.4 per cent.; in this State, it is 44.1. In England, the experiments were made on a limited scale compared with ours; but the results agree so well, that great confidence may safely be placed in them." In reviewing the whole subject of rain, and of evaporation and filtration, we seem to have evidence to justify the opinion, that with considerable more rain in this country than in England, and with a greater evaporation, because of a clearer sky and greater heat, we have a larger quantity of surplus water to be disposed of by drainage. The occasion for thorough-drainage, however, is greater in the Northern part of the United States than in England, upon land of the same character; because, as we have already seen, rain falls far more regularly there than here, and never in such quantities in a single day; and because there the land is open to be worked by the plough nearly every day in the year, while here for several months our fields are locked up in frost, and our labor for the Spring crowded into a few days. There, the water which falls in Winter passes into the soil, and is drained off as it falls; while here, the snow accumulates to a great depth, and in thawing floods the land at once. Both here and in England, much of the land requires no under-draining, as it has already a subsoil porous enough to allow free passage for all the surplus water; and it is no small part of the utility of understanding the principles of drainage, that it will enable farmers to discriminate--at a time when draining is somewhat of a fashionable operation with amateurs--between land that does and land that does _not_ require so expensive an operation. CHAPTER IV. DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS--WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE. What is High Land?--Accidents to Crops from Water.--Do Lands need Drainage in America?--Springs.--Theory of Moisture, with Illustrations.--Water of Pressure.--Legal Rights as to Draining our Neighbor's Wells and Land.--What Lands require Drainage?--Horace Greeley's Opinion.--Drainage more Necessary in America than in England; Indications of too much Moisture.--Will Drainage Pay? By "high land," is meant land, the surface of which is not overflowed, as distinguished from swamps, marshes, and the like low lands. How great a proportion of such lands would be benefitted by draining, it is impossible to estimate. The Committee on Draining, in their Report to the State Agricultural Society of New York, in 1848, assert that, "There is not one farm out of every seventy-five in this State, but needs draining--yes, much draining--to bring it into high cultivation. Nay, we may venture to say, that every wheat-field would produce a larger and finer crop if properly drained." The committee further say: "It will be conceded, that no farmer ever raised a good crop of grain on wet ground, or on a field where pools of water become masses of ice in the Winter. In such cases, the grain plants are generally frozen out and perish; or, if any survive, they never arrive at maturity, nor produce a well-developed seed. In fact, every observing farmer knows that stagnant water, whether on the surface of his soil, or within reach of the roots of his plants, always does them injury." The late Mr. Delafield, one of the most distinguished agriculturists of New York, said in a public address: "We all well know that wheat and other grains, as well as grasses, are never fully developed, and never produce good seed, when the roots are soaked in moisture. No man ever raised good wheat from a wet or moist subsoil. Now, the farms of this country, though at times during the Summer they appear dry, and crack open on the surface, are not, in fact, dry farms, for reasons already named. On the contrary, for nine months out of twelve, they are moist or wet; and we need no better evidence of the fact, than the annual freezing out of the plants, and consequent poverty of many crops." If we listen to the answers of farmers, when asked as to the success of their labors, we shall be surprised, perhaps, to observe how much of their want of success is attributed to _accidents_, and how uniformly these accidents result from causes which thorough draining would remove. The wheat-crop of one would have been abundant, had it not been badly frozen out in the Fall; while another has lost nearly the whole of his, by a season too wet for his land. A farmer at the West has planted his corn early, and late rains have rotted the seed in the ground; while one at the East has been compelled, by the same rains, to wait so long before planting, that the season has been too short. Another has worked his _clayey_ farm so wet, because he had not time to wait for it to dry, that it could not be properly tilled. And so their crops have wholly or partially failed, and all because of too much cold water in the soil. It would seem, by the remarks of those who till the earth, as if there were never a season just right--as if Providence had bidden us labor for bread, and yet sent down the rains of heaven so plentifully as always to blight our harvests. It is rare that we do not have a most remarkable season, with respect to moisture, especially. Our potatoes are rotted by the Summer showers, or cut off by a Summer drought; and when, as in the season of 1856, in New England, they are neither seriously diseased nor dried up, we find at harvest-time that the promise has belied the fulfillment; that, after all the fine show above ground, the season has been too wet, and the crop is light. We frequently hear complaint that the season was too _cold_ for Indian corn, and that the ears did not fill; or that a sharp drought, following a wet Spring, has cut short the crop. We hear no man say, that he lacked skill to cultivate his crop. Seldom does a farmer attribute his failure to the poverty of his soil. He has planted and cultivated in such a way, that, in a _favorable season_, he would have reaped a fair reward for his toil; but the season has been too wet or too dry; and, with full faith that farming will pay in the long run, he resolves to plant the same land in the same manner, hoping in future for better luck. _Too much cold water_ is at the bottom of most of these complaints of unpropitious seasons, as well as of most of our soils; and it is in our power to remove the cause of these complaints and of our want of success. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves." We must underdrain all the land we cultivate, that Nature has not already underdrained, and we shall cease complaints of the seasons. The advice of Cromwell to his soldiers: "Trust God, and keep your powder dry," affords a good lesson of faith and works to the farmer. We shall seldom have a season, upon properly drained land, that is too wet, or too cold, or even too dry; for thorough draining is almost as sure a remedy for a drought, as for a flood. _Do lands need under draining in America?_ It is a common error to suppose that, because the sun shines more brightly upon this country than upon England, and because almost every Summer brings such a drought here as is unknown there, her system of thorough drainage can have no place in agriculture on this side of the Atlantic. It is true that we have a clearer sky and a drier climate than are experienced in England; but it is also true that, although we have a far less number of showers and of rainy days, we have a greater quantity of rain in the year. The necessity of drainage, however, does not depend so much upon the quantity of water which falls or flows upon land, nor upon the power of the sun to carry it off by evaporation, as upon _the character of the subsoil_. The vast quantity of water which Nature pours upon every acre of soil annually, were it all to be removed by evaporation alone, would render the whole country barren; but Nature herself has kindly done the work of draining upon a large proportion of our land, so that only a healthful proportion of the water which falls on the earth, passes off at the surface by the influence of the sun. If the subsoil is of sand or gravel, or of other porous earth, that portion of the water not evaporated, passes off below by natural drainage. If the subsoil be of clay, rock, or other impervious substances, the downward course of the water is checked, and it remains stagnant, or bursts out upon the surface in the form of springs. As the primary object of drainage is to remove surplus water, it may be well to consider with some care THE SOURCES OF MOISTURE. _Springs._--These are, as has been suggested, merely the water of rain and snow, impeded in its downward percolation, and collected and poured forth in a perennial flow at a lower level. The water which falls in the form of rain and snow upon the soil of the whole territory of the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, each year, is sufficient to cover it to the depth of more than 3 feet. It comes upon the earth, not daily in gentle dews to water the plants, but at long, unequal intervals, often in storms, tempests, and showers, pouring out, sometimes, in a single day, more than usually falls in a whole month. What becomes of all this moisture, is an inquiry especially interesting to the agriculturist, upon whose fruitful fields this flood of water annually descends, and whose labor in seed-time would be destroyed by a single Summer shower, were not Nature more thoughtful than he, of his welfare. Of the water which thus falls upon cultivated fields, a part runs away into the streams, either upon the surface, or by percolation through the soil; a part is taken up into the air by evaporation, while a very small proportion enters into the constitution of vegetation. The proportion which passes off by percolation varies according to the nature of the soil in the locality where it falls. Usually, we find the crust of the earth in our cultivated fields, in strata, or layers: first, a surface-soil of a few inches of a loamy nature, in which clay or sand predominates; and then, it may be, a layer of sand or gravel, freely admitting the passage of water; and, perhaps, next, and within two or three feet of the surface, a stratum of clay, or of sand or gravel cemented with some oxyd of iron, through which water passes very slowly, or not at all. These strata are sometimes regular, extending at an equal depth over large tracts, and having a uniform dip, or inclination. Oftener, however, in hilly regions especially, they are quite irregular--the impervious stratum frequently having depressions of greater or less extent, and holding water, like a bowl. Not unfrequently, as we cut a ditch upon a declivity, we find that the dip of the strata below has no correspondence with the visible surface of the field, but that the different strata lie nearly level, or are much broken, while the surface has a regular inclination. Underlying all soils, at greater or less depth, is found some bed of rock, or clay, impervious to water, usually at but few feet below the surface--the descending water meeting with obstacles to its regular descent. The tendency of the rain-water which falls upon the earth, is to sink directly downward by gravitation. Turned aside, however, by the many obstacles referred to, it often passes obliquely, or almost horizontally, through the soil. The drop which falls upon the hill-top sinks, perhaps, a few inches, meets with a bed of clay, glides along upon it for many days, and is at last borne out to be drunk up by the sun on some far-off slope; another, falling upon the sand-plain, sinks at once to the "water-line," or line of level water, which rests on clay beneath, and, slowly creeping along, helps to form a swamp or bog in the valley. Sometimes, the rain which falls upon the high land is collected together by fissures in the rocks, or by seams or ruptures in the impervious strata below the surface, and finds vent in a gushing spring on the hill-side. We feel confident that no better illustration of the theory of springs, as connected with our subject, can be found, than that of Mr. Girdwood, in the Cyclopedia of Agriculture--a work from which we quote the more liberally, because it is very expensive and rare in America: "When rain falls on a tract of country, part of it flows over the surface, and makes its escape by the numerous natural and artificial courses which may exist, while another portion is absorbed by the soil and the porous strata which lie under it. "Let the following diagram represent such a tract of country, and let the dark portions represent clay or other impervious strata, while the lighter portions represent layers of gravel, sand, or chalk, permitting a free passage to water. [Illustration: Fig. 5.] "When rain falls in such a district, after sinking through the surface-layer (represented in the diagram by a narrow band), it reaches the stratified layers beneath. Through these it still further sinks, if they are porous, until it reaches some impervious stratum, which arrests its directly-downward course, and compels it to find its way along its upper surface. Thus, the rain which falls on the space represented between B and D, is compelled, by the impervious strata, to flow towards C. Here it is at once absorbed, but is again immediately arrested by the impervious layer E; it is, therefore, compelled to pass through the porous stratum C, along the surface of E to A, where it pours forth in a fountain, or forms a morass or swamp, proportionate in size or extent to the tract of country between B and D, or the quantity of rain which falls upon it. In such a case as is here represented, it will be obvious that the spring may often be at a great distance from the district from which it derives its supplies; and this accounts for the fact, that drainage-works on a large scale sometimes materially lessen the supply of water at places remote from the scene of operations. "In the instance given above, the water forming the spring is represented as gaining access to the porous stratum, at a point where it crops out from beneath an impervious one, and as passing along to its point of discharge at a considerable depth, and under several layers of various characters. Sometimes, in an undulating country, large tracts may rest immediately upon some highly-porous stratum--as from B to C, in the following diagram--rendering the necessity for draining less apparent; while the country from A to B, and from C to D, may be full of springs and marshes--arising, partly, from the rain itself, which falls in these latter districts, being unable to find a way of escape, and partly from the natural drainage of the more porous soils adjoining being discharged upon it. [Illustration: Fig. 6.] "Again: the rocks lying under the surface are sometimes so full of fissures, that, although they themselves are impervious to water, yet, so completely do these fissures carry off rain, that, in some parts of the county of Durham, they render the sinking of wells useless, and make it necessary for the farmers to drive their cattle many miles for water. It sometimes happens that these fissures, or cracks, penetrate to enormous depths, and are of great width, and filled with sand or clay. These are termed _faults_ by miners; and some, which we lately examined, at distances of from three to four hundred yards from the surface, were from five to fifteen yards in width. These faults, when of clay, are generally the cause of springs appearing at the surface: they arrest the progress of the water in some of the porous strata, and compel it to find an exit, by passing to the surface between the clay and the faces of the ruptured strata. When the fault is of sand or gravel, the opposite effect takes place, if it communicates with any porous stratum; and water, which may have been flowing over the surface, on reaching it, is at once absorbed. In the following diagram, let us suppose that B represents such a clay-fault as has been described, and that A represents a sandy one, and that C and D represent porous strata charged with water. On the water reaching the fault at B, it will be compelled to find its way to the surface--there forming a spring, and rendering the retentive soil, from B to A, wet; but, as soon as it reaches the sandy-fault at A, it is immediately absorbed, and again reaches the porous strata, along which it had traveled before being forced to the surface at B. It will be observed, that the strata at the points of dislocation are not represented as in a line with the portions from which they have been dissevered. This is termed the upthrow of the fault, as at B; and the downthrow, as at A. For the sake of the illustration, the displacement is here shown as very slight; but, in some cases, these elevations and depressions of the strata extend to many hundreds of feet--as, for instance, at the mines of the British Iron Company, at Cefn-Mawre, in North Wales, where the downthrow of the fault is 360 feet. [Illustration: Fig. 7.] "Sometimes the strata are disposed in the form of a basin. In this case, the water percolating through the more elevated ground--near what may be called the rim--collects in the lower parts of the strata towards the centre, there forcing its way to the surface, if the upper impervious beds be thin; or, if otherwise, remaining a concealed reservoir, ready to yield its supplies to the shaft or boring-rod of the well-sinker, and sometimes forming a living fountain capable of rising many feet above the surface. It is in this way that what are called Artesian wells are formed. The following diagram represents such a disposition of the strata as has just been referred to. The rain which falls on the tracts of country at A and B, gradually percolates towards the centre of the basin, where it may be made to give rise to an Artesian well, as at C, by boring through the superincumbent mass of clay; or it may force itself to the surface through the thinner part of the layer of clay, as at D--there forming a spring, or swamp. [Illustration: Fig. 8.] "Again: the higher parts of hilly ground are sometimes composed of very porous and absorbent strata, while the lower portions are more impervious--the soil and subsoil being of a very stiff and retentive description. In this case, the water collected by the porous layers is prevented from finding a ready exit, when it reaches the impervious layers, by the stiff surface-soil. The water is by this means dammed up in some measure, and acquires a considerable degree of pressure; and, forcing itself to the day at various places, it forms those extensive "weeping"-banks which have such an injurious effect upon many of our mountain-pastures. This was the form of spring, or swamp, to the removal of which Elkington principally turned his attention; and the following diagram, taken from a description of his system of draining, will explain the stratification and springs referred to, more clearly. [Illustration: Fig. 9.] "In some districts, where clay forms the staple of the soil, a bed of sand or gravel, completely saturated with water, occurs at the depth of a few feet from the surface, following all the undulations of the country, and maintaining its position, in relation to the surface, over considerable tracts, here and there pouring forth its waters in a spring, or denoting its proximity, by the subaquatic nature of the herbage. Such a configuration is represented in the following diagram, where A represents the surface-soil; B, the impervious subsoil of clay; C, the bed of sandy-clay or gravel; and D, the lower bed of clay, resting upon the rocky strata beneath. [Illustration: Fig. 10.] "Springs sometimes communicate with lakes or pools, at higher levels. In such cases, the quantity of water discharged is generally so great, as to form at once a brook or stream of some magnitude. These, therefore, hardly come under the ordinary cognizance of the land-drainer, and are, therefore, here merely referred to." THE WATER OF PRESSURE. Water that issues from the land, either constantly, periodically, or even intermittently, may, perhaps, be properly termed a _spring_. But there is often much water in the soil which did not fall in rain upon that particular field, and which does not issue from it in any defined stream, but which is slowly passing through it by percolation from a higher source, to ooze out into some stream, or to pass off by evaporation; or, perhaps, farther on, to fall into crevices in the soil, and eventually form springs. As we find it in our field, it is neither rain-water, which has there fallen, nor spring-water, in any sense. It has been appropriately termed the _water of pressure_, to distinguish it from both rain and spring-water; and the recognition of this term will certainly be found convenient to all who are engaged in the discussion of drainage. The distinction is important in a legal point of view, as relating to the right of the land-owner to divert the sources of supply to mill-streams, or to adjacent lower lands. It often happens that an owner of land on a slope may desire to drain his field, while the adjacent owner below, may not only refuse to join in the drainage, but may believe that he derives an advantage from the surface-washing or the percolation from his higher neighbor. He may believe that, by deep drainage above, his land will be dried up and rendered worthless; or, he may desire to collect the water which thus percolates, into his land, and use it for irrigation, or for a water-ram, or for the supply of his barn-yard. May the upper owner legally proceed with the drainage of his own land, if he thus interfere with the interests of the man below? Again: wherever drains have been opened, we already hear complaints of their effects upon wells. In our good town of Exeter, there seems to be a general impression on one street, that the drainage of a swamp, formerly owned by the author, has drawn down the wells on that street, situated many rods distant from the drains. Those wells are upon a sandy plain, with underlying clay, and the drains are cut down upon the clay, and into it, and may possibly draw off the water a foot or two lower through the whole village--if we can regard the water line running through it as the surface of a pond, and the swamp as a dam across its outlet. The rights of land-owners, as to running water over their premises, have been fruitful of litigation, but are now well defined. In general, in the language of Judge Story, "Every proprietor upon each bank of a river, is entitled to the land covered with water in front of his bank to the middle thread of the stream, &c. In virtue of this ownership, he has a right to the use of the water flowing over it in its natural current, without diminution or obstruction. The consequence of this principle is, that no proprietor has a right to use the water to the prejudice of another. It is wholly immaterial whether the party be a proprietor above or below, in the course of the river, the right being common to all the proprietors _on_ the river. No one has a right to diminish the quantity which will, according to the natural current, flow to the proprietor below, or to throw it back upon a proprietor above." Chief Justice Richardson, of New Hampshire, thus briefly states the same position: "In general, every man has a right to the use of the water flowing in a stream through his land, and if any one divert the water from its natural channel, or throw it back, so as to deprive him of the use of it, the law will give him redress. But one man may acquire, by grant, a right to throw the water back upon the land of another, and long usage may be evidence of such a grant. It is, however, well settled that a man acquires no such right by merely being the first to make use of the water." We are not aware that it has ever been held by any court of law, or even asserted, that a land-owner may not intercept the percolating water in his soil for any purpose and at his pleasure; nor have we in mind any case in which the draining out of water from a well, by drainage for agricultural purposes, has subjected the owner of the land to compensation. It is believed that a land-owner has the right to follow the rules of good husbandry in the drainage of his land, so far as the water of pressure is concerned, without responsibility for remote consequences to adjacent owners, to the owners of distant wells or springs that may be affected, or to mill-owners. In considering the effect of drainage on streams and rivers, it appears that the results of such operations, so far as they can be appreciated, are, to lessen the value of water powers, by increasing the flow of water in times of freshets, and lessening it in times of drought. It is supposed in this country, that clearing the land of timber has sensibly affected the value of "mill privileges," by increasing evaporation, and diminishing the streams. No mill-owner has been hardy enough to contend that a land-owner may not legally cut down his own timber, whatever the effect on the streams. So, we trust, no court will ever be found, which will restrict the land-owner in the highest culture of his soil, because his drainage may affect the capacity of a mill-stream to turn the water-wheels. To return from our digression. It is necessary, in order to a correct apprehension of the work which our drains have to perform, to form a correct opinion as to how much of the surplus moisture in our field is due to each of the three causes to which we have referred--to wit, rain-water, which falls upon it; springs, which burst up from below; and water of pressure, stagnant in, or slowly percolating through it. The rain-tables will give us information as to the first; but as to the others, we must form our opinion from the structure of the earth around us, and observation upon the field itself, by its natural phenomena and by opening test-holes and experimental ditches. Having gained accurate knowledge of the sources of moisture, we may then be able to form a correct opinion whether our land requires drainage, and of the aid which Nature requires to carry off the surplus water. WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE? The more one studies the subject of drainage, the less inclined will he be to deal in general statements. "Do you think it is profitable to underdrain land?" is a question a thousand times asked, and yet is a question that admits of no direct general answer. Is it profitable to fence land? is it profitable to plow land? are questions of much the same character. The answers to them all depend upon circumstances. There is land that may be profitably drained, and fenced, and plowed, and there is a great deal that had better be let alone. Whether draining is profitable or not, depends on the value and character of the land in question, as well as on its condition as to water. Where good land is worth one hundred dollars an acre, it might be profitably drained; when, if the same land were worth but the Government price of $1.25 an acre, it might be better to make a new purchase in the neighborhood, than to expend ten times its value on a tract that cannot be worth the cost of the operation. Drainage is an expensive operation, requiring much labor and capital, and not to be thought of in a pioneer settlement by individual emigrants. It comes after clearing, after the building of log-houses and mills, and schoolhouses, and churches, and roads, when capital and labor are abundant, and when the good lands, nature-drained, have been all taken up. And, again, whether drainage is profitable, depends not only on the value, but on the character of the soil as to productiveness when drained. There is much land that would be improved by drainage, that cannot be profitably drained. It would improve almost any land in New England to apply to it a hundred loads of stable manure to the acre; but whether such application would be profitable, must depend upon the returns to be derived from it. Horace Greeley, who has his perceptions of common affairs, and especially of all that relates to progress, wide awake, said, in an address at Peekskill, N. Y.: "My deliberate judgment is, that all lands which are worth plowing, which is not the case with all lands that are plowed, would _be improved_ by draining; but I know that our farmers are neither able nor ready to drain to that extent, nor do I insist that it would pay while land is so cheap, and labor and tile so dear as at present. Ultimately, I believe, we shall tile-drain nearly all our level, or moderately sloping lands, that are worth cultivation." Whether land would be _improved_ by drainage, is one question, and whether the operation will _pay_, is quite another. The question whether it will pay, depends on the value of the land before drainage, the cost of the operation, and the value of the land when completed. And the cost of the operation includes always, not only the money and labor expended in it, but also the loss to other land of the owner, by diverting from it the capital which would otherwise be applied to it. Where labor and capital are limited so closely as they are in all our new States, it is a question not only how can they be profitably applied, but how can they be _most_ profitably applied. A proprietor, who has money to loan at six per cent. interest, may well invest it in draining his land; when a working man, who is paying twelve per cent. interest for all the capital he employs, might ruin himself by making the same improvement. DO ALL LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE? Our opinion is, that a great deal of land does not in any sense require drainage, and we should differ with Mr. Greeley, in the opinion that _all_ lands worth ploughing, would be improved by drainage. Nature has herself thoroughly drained a large proportion of the soil. There is a great deal of finely-cultivated land in England, renting at from five to ten dollars per acre, that is thought there to require no drainage. In a published table of estimates by Mr. Denton, made in 1855, it is supposed that Great Britain, including England, Scotland, and Wales, contain 43,958,000 acres of land, cultivated and capable of cultivation; of which he sets down as "wet land," or land requiring drainage, 22,890,004 acres, or about one half the whole quantity. His estimate is, that only about 1,365,000 acres had then been permanently drained, and that it would cost about 107 millions of pounds to complete the operation, estimating the cost at about twenty shillings, or five dollars per acre. These estimates are valuable in various views of our subject. They answer with some definiteness the question so often asked, whether all lands require drainage, and they tend to correct the impression, which is prevalent in this country, that there is something in the climate of Great Britain that makes drainage there essential to good cultivation on any land. The fact is not so. There, as in America, it depends upon the condition and character of the soil, more than upon the quantity of rain, or any condition of climate, whether drainage is required or not. Generally, it will be found on investigation, that so far as climate, including of course the quantity and regularity of the rain-fall, is concerned, drainage is more necessary in America than in Great Britain--the quantity of rain being in general greater in America, and far less regular in its fall. This subject, however, will receive a more careful consideration in another place. If in America, as in Great Britain, one half the cultivable land require drainage, or even if but a tenth of that half require it, the subject is of vast importance, and it is no less important for us to apprehend clearly what part of our land does _not_ require this expenditure, than to learn how to treat properly that which does require it. To resume the inquiry, what lands require drainage? it may be answered-- ALL LANDS OVERFLOWED IN SUMMER REQUIRE DRAINAGE. Lands overflowed by the regular tides of the ocean require drainage, whether they lie upon the sea-shore, or upon rivers or bays. But this drainage involves embankments, and a peculiar mode of procedure, of which it is not now proposed to treat. Again, all lands overflowed by Summer freshets, as upon rivers and smaller streams, require drainage. These, too, usually require embankments, and excavations of channels or outlets, not within the usual scope of what is termed thorough drainage. For a further answer to the question--what lands require drainage? the reader is referred to the chapters which treat of the effect of drainage upon the soil. SWAMPS AND BOGS REQUIRE DRAINAGE. No argument is necessary to convince rational men that the very extensive tracts of land, which are usually known as swamps and bogs, must, in some way, be relieved of their surplus water, before they can be rendered fit for cultivation. The treatment of this class of wet lands is so different from that applied to what we term upland, that it will be found more convenient to pass the subject by with this allusion, at present, and consider it more systematically under a separate head. ALL HIGH LANDS THAT CONTAIN TOO MUCH WATER AT ANY SEASON, REQUIRE DRAINAGE. Draining has been defined, "The art of rendering land not only so free of moisture as that no superfluous water shall remain in it, but that no water shall remain in it so long as to injure, or even retard the healthy growth of plants required for the use of man and beast." Some plants grow in water. Some even spring from the bottom of ponds, and have no other life than such a position affords. But most plants, useful to man, are drowned by being overflowed even for a short time, and are injured by any stagnant water about their roots. Why this is so, it is not easy to explain. Most of our knowledge on these points, is derived from observation. We know that fishes live in water, and if we would propagate them, we prepare ponds and streams for the purpose. Our domestic animals live on land, and we do not put them into fish-ponds to pasture. There are useful plants which thrive best in water. Such is the cranberry, notwithstanding all that has been said of its cultivation on upland. And there are domestic fowls, such as ducks and geese, that require pools of water; but we do not hence infer that our hens and chickens would be better for daily immersion. All lands, then, require drainage, that contain too much water, at any season _for the intended crops_. This will be found to be an important element in our rule. Land may require drainage for Indian corn, that may not require it for grass. Most of the cultivated grasses are improved in quality, and not lessened in quantity, by the removal of stagnant water in Summer; but there are reasons for drainage for hoed crops, which do not apply to our mowing fields. In New England, we have for a few weeks a perfect race with Nature, to get our seeds into the ground before it is too late. Drained land may be plowed and planted several weeks earlier than land undrained, and this additional time for preparation is of great value to the farmer. Much of this same land would be, by the first of June, by the time the ordinary planting season is past, sufficiently drained by Nature, and a grass crop upon it would be, perhaps, not at all benefitted by thorough-drainage; so that it is often an important consideration with reference to this operation, whether a given portion of our farm may not be most profitably kept in permanent grass, and maintained in fertility by top-dressing, or by occasional plowing and reseeding in Autumn. It is certainly convenient to have all our fields adapted to our usual rotation, and it is for each man to balance for himself this convenience against the cost of drainage in each particular case. What particular crops are most injured by stagnant water in the soil, or by the too tardy percolation of rain-water, may be determined by observation. How stagnant water injures plants, is not, as has been suggested, easily understood in all its relations. It doubtless retards the decomposition of the substances which supply their nutriment, and it reduces the temperature of the soil. It has been suggested, that it prevents or checks perspiration and introsusception, and it excludes the air which is essential to the vegetation of most plants. Whatever the theory, the fact is acknowledged, that stagnant water _in_ as well as _on_ the soil, impedes the growth of all our valuable crops, and that drainage soon cures the evil, by removing the effect with its cause. And the remedy seems to be almost instantaneous; for, on most upland, it is found that by the removal of stagnant water, the soil is in a single season rendered fit for the growth of cultivated crops. In low meadows, composed of peat and swamp mud, in many cases, exposure to the air for a year or two after drainage, is often found to enhance the fertility of the soil, which contains, frequently, acids which need correction. INDICATIONS OF TOO MUCH MOISTURE. It has already been suggested, that motives of convenience may induce us to drain our lands--that we may have a longer season in which to work them; and that there may be cases where the crop would flourish if planted at precisely the right time, where yet we cannot well, without drainage, seasonably prepare for the crop. Generally, however, lands too wet seasonably to plant, will give indications, throughout the season, of hidden water producing its ill effects. If the land be in grass, we find that aquatic plants, like rushes or water grasses, spring up with the seeds we have sown, and, in a few years, have possession of the field, and we are soon compelled to plow up the sod, and lay it again to grass. If it be in wheat or other grain, we see the field spotted and uneven; here a portion on some slight elevation, tall and dark colored, and healthy; and there a little depression, sparsely covered with a low and sickly growth. An American traveling in England in the growing season, will always be struck with the perfect _evenness_ of the fields of grain upon the well-drained soil. Journeying through a considerable portion of England and Wales with intelligent English farmers, we were struck with their nice perception on this point. The slightest variation in the color of the wheat in the same or different fields, attracted their instant attention. "That field is not well-drained; the corn is too light-colored." "There is cold water at the bottom there; the corn cannot grow;" were the constant criticisms, as we passed across the country. Inequalities that, in our more careless cultivation, we should pass by without observation, were at once explained by reference to the condition of the land, as to water. The drill-sowing of wheat, and the careful weeding it with the horse-hoe and by hand, are additional reasons why the English fields should present a uniform appearance, and why any inequalities should be fairly referable to the condition of the soil. Upon a crop of Indian corn, the cold water lurking below soon places its unmistakable mark. The blade comes up yellow and feeble. It takes courage in a few days of bright sunshine in June, and tries to look hopeful, but a shower or an east wind again checks it. It had already more trouble than it could bear, and turns pale again. Tropical July and August induce it to throw up a feeble stalk, and to attempt to spindle and silk, like other corn. It goes through all the forms of vegetation, and yields at last a single nubbin for the pig. Indian corn must have land that is dry in Summer, or it cannot repay the labor of cultivation. Careful attention to the subject will soon teach any farmer what parts of his land are injured by too much water; and having determined that, the next question should be, whether the improvement of it by drainage will justify the cost of the operation. WILL IT PAY? Drainage is a permanent investment. It is not an operation like the application of manure, which we should expect to see returned in the form of salable crops in one or two years, or ten at most, nor like the labor applied in cultivating an annual crop. The question is not whether drainage will pay in one or two years, but will it pay in the long run? Will it, when completed, return to the farmer a fair rate of interest for the money expended? Will it be more profitable, on the whole, than an investment in bank or railway shares, or the purchase of Western lands? Or, to put the question in the form in which an English land-owner would put it, will the rent of the land improved by drainage, be permanently increased enough to pay a fair interest on the cost of the improvement? Let us bring out this idea clearly to the American farmer by a familiar illustration. Your field is worth to you now one hundred dollars an acre. It pays you, in a series of years, through a rotation of planting, sowing, and grass, a nett profit of six dollars an acre, above all expenses of cultivation and care. Suppose, now, it will cost one-third of a hundred dollars an acre to drain it, and you expend on each three acres one hundred dollars, what must the increase of your crops be, to make this a fair investment? Had you expended the hundred dollars in _labor_, to produce a crop of cabbages, you ought to get your money all back, with a fair profit, the first year. Had you expended it in guano or other special manures, whose beneficial properties are exhausted in some two or three years, your expenditure should be returned within that period. But the improvement by drainage is permanent; it is done for all time to come. If, therefore, your drained land shall pay you a fair rate of interest on the cost of drainage, it is a good investment. Six per cent. is the most common rate of interest, and if, therefore, each three acres of your drained land shall pay you an increased annual income of six dollars, your money is fairly invested. This is at the rate of two dollars an acre. How much increase of crop will pay this two dollars? In the common rotation of Indian corn, potatoes, oats, wheat, or barley, and grass, two or three bushels of corn, five or six bushels of potatoes, as many bushels of oats, a bushel or two of wheat, two or three bushels of barley, will pay the two dollars. Who, that has been kept back in his Spring's work by the wetness of his land, or has been compelled to re-plant because his seed has rotted in the ground, or has experienced any of the troubles incident to cold wet seasons, will not admit at once, that any land which Nature has not herself thoroughly drained, will, in this view, pay for such improvement? But far more than this is claimed for drainage. In England, where such operations have been reduced to a system, careful estimates have been made, not only of the cost of drainage, but of the increase of crops by reason of the operation. In answer to questions proposed by a Board of Commissioners, in 1848, to persons of the highest reputation for knowledge on this point, the increase of crops by drainage was variously stated, but in no case at less than a paying rate. One gentleman says: "A sixth of increase in produce of grain crops may be taken as the very lowest estimate, and, in actual result, it is seldom less than one-fourth. In very many cases, after some following cultivation, the produce is doubled, whilst the expense of working the land is much lessened." Another says: "In many instances, a return of fully 25 per cent. on the expenditure is realized, and in some even more." A third remarks, "My experience and observation have chiefly been in heavy clay soils, where the result of drainage is eminently beneficial, and where I should estimate the increased crop at six to ten bushels (wheat) per statute acre." These are estimates made upon lands that had already been under cultivation. In addition to such lands as are merely rendered less productive by surplus water, we have, even on our hard New England farms--on side hills, where springs burst out, or at the foot of declivities, where the land is flat, or in runs, which receive the natural drainage of higher lands--many places which are absolutely unfit for cultivation, and worse than useless, because they separate those parts of the farm which can be cultivated. If, of these wet portions, we make by draining, good, warm, arable land, it is not a mere question of per centage or profit; it is simply the question whether the land, when drained, is worth more than the cost of drainage. If it be, how much more satisfactory, and how much more profitable it is, to expend money in thus reclaiming the waste places of our farms, and so uniting the detached fields into a compact, systematic whole, than to follow the natural bent of American minds, and "annex" our neighbor's fields by purchasing. Any number of instances could be given of the increased value of lands in England by drainage, but they are of little practical value. The facts, that the Government has made large loans in aid of the process, that private drainage companies are executing extensive works all over the kingdom, and that large land-holders are draining at their own cost, are conclusive evidence to any rational mind, that drainage in Great Britain, at least, well repays the cost of the operation. In another chapter may be found accurate statements of American farmers of their drainage operations, in different States, from which the reader will be able to form a correct opinion, whether draining in this country is likely to prove a profitable operation. CHAPTER V. VARIOUS METHODS OF DRAINAGE. Open Ditches.--Slope of Banks.--Brush Drains.--Ridge and Furrow.--Plug-Draining.--Mole-Draining.--Mole-Plow.--Wedge and Shoulder Drains.--Larch Tubes.--Drains of Fence Rails, and Poles.--Peat Tiles.--Stone Drains Injured by Moles.--Downing's Giraffes.--Illustrations of Various Kinds of Stone Drains. OPEN DITCHES. The most obvious mode of getting rid of surface-water is, to cut a ditch on the surface to a lower place, and let it run. So, if the only object were to drain a piece of land merely for a temporary purpose--as, where land is too wet to ditch properly in the first instance, and it is necessary to draw off part of the surplus water before systematic operations are commenced--an open ditch is, perhaps, the cheapest method to be adopted. Again: where land to be drained is part of a large sloping tract, and water runs down, at certain seasons, in large quantities upon the surface, an open catch-water-ditch may be absolutely necessary. This condition of circumstances is very common in mountainous districts, where the rain which falls on the hills flows down, either on the visible surface or on the rock-formation under the soil, and breaks out at the foot, causing swamps, often high up on the hill-sides. Often, too, in clay districts, where sand or loam two or three feet deep rests on tough clay, we see broad sloping tracts, which form our best grass-fields. If we are attempting to drain the lower part of such a slope, we shall find that the water from the upper part flows down in large quantities upon us, and an open ditch may be most economical as a header, to cut off the down-flowing water; though, in most cases, a covered drain may be as efficient. At the outlets, too, of our tile or stone drains, when we come down nearly to the level of the stream which receives our drainage-water, we find it convenient, often, and indeed necessary, to use open ditches--perhaps only a foot or two deep--to carry off the water discharged. These ditches are of great importance, and should be finished with care, because, if they become obstructed, they cause back-water in the drains, and may ruin the whole work. Open drains are thus essential auxiliaries to the best plans of thorough drainage; and, whatever opinion may be entertained of their economy, many farmers are so situated that they feel obliged to resort to them for the present, or abandon all idea of draining their wet lands. We will, therefore, give some hints as to the best manner of constructing open drains; and then suggest, in the form of objections to them, such considerations as shall lead the proprietor who adopts this mode to consider carefully his plan of operations in the outset, with a view to obviate, as much as possible, the manifest embarrassments occasioned by them. As to the location of drains in swamps and peculiarly wet places, directions may be found in another chapter. We here propose only to treat of the mode of forming open drains, after their location is fixed. The worst of all drains is an open ditch, of equal width from top to bottom. It cannot stand a single season, in any climate or soil, without being seriously impaired by the frosts or the heavy rains. All open drains should be sloping; and it is ascertained, by experiment, what is the best, or, as it is sometimes expressed, the natural slope, on different kinds of soil. If earth be tipped from a cart down a bank, and be left exposed to the action of the weather, it will rest, and finally remain, at a regular angle or inclination, varying from 21° to 55° with the horizon, according to the nature of the soil. The natural slope of common earth is found to be about 33° 42'; and this is the inclination usually adopted by railroad engineers for their embankments. If the banks of the open ditch are thus sloped, they will have the least possible tendency to wash away, or break down by frost. Again: where open ditches are adopted in mowing fields, they may, if not very deep, be sloped still lower than the natural slope, and seeded down to the bottom; so that no land will be lost, and so that teams may pass across them. This amounts, in fact, to the old ridge and furrow system, which was almost universal in England before tiles were used, and is sometimes seen practiced in this country. The land, by that system, is back-furrowed in narrow lands, till it is laid up into beds, sloping from the tops, or backs, to the furrows which constitute the drains. This mode of culture is very ancient, and is probably referred to in the language of the Psalmist, in the Scriptures: "Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly, thou settlest the furrows thereof, thou makest it soft with showers." The objections to open ditches, as compared with under-drains, may be briefly stated thus: 1. _They are expensive._ The excavation of a sloping drain is much greater than that of an upright drain. An open drain must have a width of one or two feet at the bottom, to receive the earth that always must, to some extent, wash into it. An open drain requires to be cleaned out once a year, to keep it in good order. There is a large quantity of earth from an open drain to be disposed of, either by spreading or hauling away. Thus, a drain of this kind is costly at the outset, and requires constant labor and care to preserve it in working condition. 2. _They are not permanent._ A properly laid underdrain will last half a century or more, but an open drain, especially if deep, has a constant tendency to fill up. Besides, the action of frost and water and vegetation has a continual operation to obstruct open ditches. Rushes and water-grasses spring up luxuriantly in the wet and slimy bottom, and often, in a single season, retard the flow of water, so that it will stand many inches deep where the fall is slight. The slightest accident, as the treading of cattle, the track of a loaded cart, the burrowing of animals, dams up the water and lessens the effect of the drain. Hence, we so often see meadows which have been drained in this way going back, in a few years, into wild grass and rushes. 3. _They obstruct good husbandry._ In the chapter upon the effects of drainage on the condition of the soil, we suggest, in detail, the hindrances which open ditches present to the convenient cultivation of the land, and, especially, how they obstruct the farmer in his plowing, his mowing, his raking, and the general laying out of his land for convenient culture. 4. _They occupy too much land._ If a ditch have an upright bank, it is so soft that cattle will not step within several feet of it in plowing, and thus a strip is lost for culture, or must be broken up by hand. If, indeed, we can get the plow near it, there being no land to rest against, the last furrow cannot be turned from the ditch, and if it be turned into it, must be thrown out by hand. If the banks be sloped to the bottom, and the land be thus laid into beds or ridges, the appearance of the field may, indeed, be improved, but there is still a loss of soil; for the soil is all removed from the furrow, which will always produce rushes and water-grass, and carried to the ridge, where it doubles the depth of the natural soil. Thus, instead of a field of uniform condition, as to moisture and temperature and fertility, we have strips of wet, cold, and poor soil, alternating with dry, warm, and rich soil, establishing a sort of gridiron system, neither beautiful, convenient, nor profitable. 5. _The manure washes off and is lost._ The three or four feet of water which the clouds annually give us in rain and snow, must either go off by evaporation, or by filtration, or run off upon the surface. Under the title of Rain and Evaporation, it will be seen that not much more than half this quantity goes off by evaporation, leaving a vast quantity to pass off through or upon the soil. If lands are ridged up, the manure and finer portions of the soil are, to a great extent, washed away into the open ditches and lost. Of the water which filters downwards, a large portion enters open ditches near the surface, before the fertilizing elements have been strained out; whereas, in covered drains of proper depth, the water is filtered through a mass of soil sufficiently deep to take from it the fertilizing substances, and discharge it, comparatively pure, from the field. In a paper by Prof. Way (11th Jour. Roy. Ag. Soc.), on "The Power of Soils to retain Manure," will be found interesting illustrations of the filtering qualities of different kinds of soil. In addition to the above reasons for preferring covered drains, it has been asserted by one of the most skillful drainers in the world (Mr. Parkes), "that a proper covered drain of the same depth as an open ditch, will drain a greater breadth of land than the ditch can effect. The sides of the ditch," he says, "become dried and plastered, and covered with vegetation; and even while they are free from vegetation, their absorptive power is inferior to the covered drain." Of the depth, direction, and distance of drains, our views will be found under the appropriate heads. They apply alike to open and covered drains. BRUSH DRAINS. Having a farm destitute of stones, before tiles were known among us, we made several experiments with covered drains filled with brush. Some of those drains operated well for eight or ten years; others caved in and became useless in three or four years, according to the condition of the soil. In a wet swamp a brush drain endures much longer than in sandy land, which is dry a part of the year, because the brush decays in dry land, but will prove nearly imperishable in land constantly wet. In a peat or muck swamp, we should expect that such drains, if carefully constructed, might last twenty years, but that in a sandy loam they would be quite unreliable for a single year. Our failure on upland with brush drains, has resulted, not from the decay of the wood, but from the entrance of sand, which obstructed the channel. Moles and field-mice find these drains the very day they are laid, and occupy them as permanent homes ever after. Those little animals live partly upon earth-worms, which they find by burrowing after them in the ground, and partly upon insects, and vegetation above ground. They have a great deal of business, which requires convenient passages leading from their burrows to the day-light, and drains in which they live will always be found perforated with holes from the surface. In the Spring, or in heavy showers, the water runs in streams into these holes, breaks down the soft soil as it goes, and finally the top begins to fall in, and the channel is choked up, and the work ruined. We have tried many precautions against this kind of accident, but none that was effectual on light land. The general mode of construction is this: Open the trench to the depth required, and about 12 inches wide at the bottom. Lay into this poles of four or five inches diameter at the butt, leaving an open passage between. Then lay in brush of any size, the coarsest at the bottom, filling the drain to within a foot of the surface, and covering with pine, or hemlock, or spruce boughs. Upon these lay turf, carefully cut, as close as possible. The brush should be laid but-end up stream, as it obstructs the water less in this way. Fill up with soil a foot above the surface, and tread it in as hard as possible. The weight of earth will compress the brush, and the surface will settle very much. We have tried placing boards at the sides, and upon the top of the brash, to prevent the caving in, but with no great success. Although our drains thus laid, have generally continued to discharge some water, yet they have, upon upland, been dangerous traps and pitfalls for our horses and cattle, and have cost much labor to fill up the holes, where they have fallen through by washing away below. In clay, brush drains might be more durable. In the English books, we have descriptions of drains filled with thorn cuttings from hedges and with gorse. When well laid in clay, they are said to last about 15 years. When the thorns decay, the clay will still retain its form, and leave a passage for the water. A writer in the Cyclopedia sums up the matter as to this kind of drains, thus: "Although in some districts they are still employed, they can only be looked upon as a clumsy, and superficial plan of doing that which can be executed in a permanent and satisfactory manner, at a very small additional expense, now that draining-tiles are so cheap and plentiful." Draining-tiles are not yet either cheap or plentiful in this country; but we have full faith that they will become so very soon. In the mean time it may be profitable for us to use such of the substitutes for them as may lie within our reach, selecting one or another according as material is convenient. PLUG-DRAINING has never been, that we are aware, practiced in America. Our knowledge of it is limited to what we learn from English books. We, therefore, content ourselves with giving from Morton's Cyclopedia the following description and illustrations. "_Plug-draining_, like mole-draining, does not require the use of any foreign material--the channel for the water being wholly formed of clay, to which this kind of drain, like that last mentioned is alone suited. "This method of draining requires a particular set of tools for its execution, consisting of, first, a common spade, by means of which the first spit is removed, and laid on one side; second, a smaller-sized spade, by means of which the second spit is taken out, and laid on the opposite side of the trench thus formed; third, a peculiar instrument called a bitting iron (Fig. 11), consisting of a narrow spade, three and a half feet in length, and one and a half inches wide at the mouth and sharpened like a chisel; the mouth, or blade, being half an inch in thickness in order to give the necessary strength to so slender an implement. From the mouth, _a_, on the right-hand side, a ring of steel, _b_, six inches long and two and a half broad, projects at right angles; and on the left, at fourteen inches from the mouth, a tread, _c_, three inches long, is fitted. [Illustration: Fig. 11.] "A number of blocks of wood, each one foot long, six inches high, and two inches thick at the bottom, and two and a half at the top, are next required. From four to six of these are joined together by pieces of hoop-iron let into their sides by a saw-draught, a small space being left between their ends, so that when completed, the whole forms a somewhat flexible bar, as shown in the cut, to one end of which a stout chain is attached. These blocks are wetted, and placed with the narrow end undermost, in the bottom of the trench, which should be cut so as to fit them closely; the clay which has been dug out is then to be returned, by degrees, upon the blocks, and rammed down with a wooden rammer three inches wide. As soon as the portion of the trench above the blocks, or plugs, has been filled, they are drawn forward, by means of a lever thrust through a link of the chain, and into the bottom of the drain for a fulcrum, until they are all again exposed, except the last one. The further portion of the trench, above the blocks, is now filled in and rammed, and so on the operations proceed until the whole drain is finished." [Illustration: Fig. 12.--PLUG DRAINAGE.] MOLE DRAINING. We hear of an implement, in use in Illinois and other Western States, called the Gopher Plow, worked by a capstan, which drains wet land by merely drawing through it an iron shoe, at about two and a half feet in depth, without the use of any foreign substance. We hear reports of a mole plow, in use in the same State, known by the name of Marcus and Emerson's Patent Subsoiler, with which, an informant says, drains are made also in the manner above named. This machine is worked by a windlass power, by a horse or yoke of oxen, and the price charged is twenty-eight cents a rod for the work. These machines are, from description, modifications of the English Mole Plow, an implement long ago known and used in Great Britain. [Illustration: Fig. 13.--MOLE PLOW.] The following description is from Morton's Cyclopedia: "_Mole-Drains_ are the simplest of all the forms of the covered drains. They are formed by means of a machine called the mole plow. This machine consists of a long wooden beam and stilts, somewhat in the form of the subsoil plow; but instead of the apparatus for breaking up the subsoil in the latter, a short cylindrical and pointed bar of iron is attached, horizontally, to the lower end of the broad coulter, which can be raised or lowered by means of a slot in the beam. The beam itself is sheathed with iron on the under side, and moves close to the ground; thus keeping the bar at the end of the coulter at one uniform depth. This machine is dragged through the soft clay, which is the only kind of land on which it can be used with propriety, by means of a chain and capstan, worked by horses, and produces a hollow channel very similar to a mole-run, from which it derives its name." A correspondent of the _New York Tribune_ thus describes the operation and utility of a mole plow, which he saw on the farm of Major A. B. Dickinson, of Hornby, Steuben County, New York: "I believe there is not a rod of tile laid on this farm, and not a dozen rods of covered stone drain. But the major has a home-made, or, at least, home-devised, 'bull plow,' consisting of a sharp-pointed iron wedge, or roller, surmounted by a broad, sharp shank nearly four feet high, with a still sharper cutter in front, and with a beam and handles above all. With five yoke of oxen attached, this plow is put down through the soil and subsoil to an average depth of three feet--in the course which the superfluous water is expected and desired to take--and the field thus plowed through and through, at intervals of two rods, down to three feet, as the ground is more or less springy and saturated with water. The cut made by the shank closes after the plow and is soon obliterated, while that made by the roller, or wedge, at the bottom, becomes the channel of a stream of water whenever there is any excess of moisture above its level, which stream tends to clear itself and rather enlarge its channel. From ten to twenty acres a day are thus drained, and Major D. has such drains of fifteen to twenty years' standing, which still do good service. In rocky soils, this mode of draining is impracticable: in sandy tracts it would not endure; but here it does very well, and, even though it should hold good in the average but ten years, it would many times repay its cost." Major Dickinson himself in a recent address, thus speaks of what he calls his SHANGHAE PLOW. "I will take the poorest acre of stubble ground, and if too wet for corn in the first place, I will thoroughly drain it with a Shanghae plow and four yoke of oxen in three hours. "I will suppose the acre to be twenty rods long and eight rods wide. To thoroughly drain the worst of your clay subsoil, it may require a drain once in eight feet, and they can be made so cheaply that I can afford to make them at that distance. To do so, will require the team to travel sixteen times over the twenty rods lengthwise, or one mile in three hours; two men to drive, one to hold the plow, one to ride the beam, and one to carry the crow-bar, pick up any large stones thrown out by going to the right or left, and to help to carry around the plow, which is too heavy for the other two to do quickly. "The plow is quite simple in its construction, consisting of a round piece of iron three and a half or four inches in diameter, drawn down to a point, with a furrow cut in the top one and a half inches deep; a plate, eighteen inches wide and three feet long, with one end welded into the furrow of the round bar, while the other is fastened to the beam. The coulter is six inches in width, and is fastened to the beam at one end, and at the other to the point of the round bar. The coulter and plate are each three-fourths of an inch thick, which is the entire width of the plow above the round iron at the bottom. "It would require much more team to draw this plow on some soils than on yours. The strength of team depends entirely on the character of the subsoil. Cast-iron, with the exception of the coulter, for an easy soil would be equally good; and from eighteen to twenty-four inches is sufficiently deep to run the plow. I can as thoroughly drain an acre of ground in this way as any that can be found in Seneca County." From the best information we can gather, it would seem, that on certain soils with a clay subsoil, the mole plow, as a sort of pioneer implement, may be very useful. The above account certainly indicates that on the farm in question it is very cheap, rapid, and effectual in its operation. Stephens gives a minute description of the mole plow figured above, in his Book of the Farm. Its general structure and principle of operation may be easily understood by what has been already said, and any person desirous of constructing one may find in that work exact directions. WEDGE AND SHOULDER DRAINS. These, like the last-mentioned kind of drains, are mere channels formed in the subsoil. They have, therefore, the same fault of want of durability, and are totally unfitted for land under the plow. In forming _wedge-drains_, the first spit, with the turf attached, is laid on one side, and the earth removed from the remainder of the trench is laid on the other. The last spade used is very narrow, and tapers rapidly, so as to form a narrow wedge-shaped cavity for the bottom of the trench. The turf first removed is then cut into a wedge, so much larger than the size of the lower part of the drain, that when rammed into it with the grassy side undermost, it leaves a vacant space in the bottom six or eight inches in depth, as in Fig. 14. The _shoulder-drain_ does not differ very materially from the wedge-drain. Instead of the whole trench forming a gradually tapering wedge, the upper portion of the shoulder-drain has the sides of the trench nearly perpendicular, and of considerable width, the last spit only being taken out with a narrow, tapering spade, by which means a shoulder is left on either side, from which it takes its name. After the trench has been finished, the first spit, having the grassy side undermost as in the former case, is placed in the trench, and pushed down till it rests upon the shoulders already mentioned; so that a narrow wedge-shaped channel is again left for the water, as shown in Fig. 15. [Illustration: Fig. 14.--WEDGE-DRAIN.] [Illustration: Fig. 15.--SHOULDER-DRAIN.] These drains may be formed in almost any kind of land which is not a loose gravel or sand. They are a very cheap kind of drain; for neither the cost of cutting nor filling in, much exceeds that of the ordinary tile drain, while the expense of tiles or other materials is altogether saved. Still, such drains cannot be recommended, for they are very liable to injury, and, even under the most favorable circumstances, can only last a very limited time. LARCH TUBES. These have been used in Scotland, in mossy or swampy soils, it is said, with economy and good results. The tube represented below presents a square of 4 inches outside, with a clear water-way of 2 inches. Any other durable wood will, of course, answer the same purpose. The tube is pierced with holes to admit the water. In wet meadows, these tubes laid deep would be durable and efficient, and far more reliable than brush or even stones, because they may be better protected from the admission of sand and the ruinous working of vermin. Their economy depends upon the price of the wood and the cost of tiles--which are far better if they can be reasonably obtained. [Illustration: Fig. 16.--LARCH TUBE-DRAIN.] Near Washington, D. C., we know of drainage tolerably well performed by the use of common fence-rails. A trench is opened about three inches wider at bottom than two rails. Two rails are then laid in the bottom, leaving a space of two or three inches between them. A third rail is then laid on for a cover, and the whole carefully covered with turf or straw, and then filled up with earth. Poles of any kind may be used instead of rails, if more convenient. In clay, these drains would be efficient and durable; in sand, they would be likely to be filled up and become useless. This is an extravagant waste of timber, except in the new districts where it is of no value. Mr. J. F. Anderson, of Windham, Maine, has adopted a mode of draining with poles, which, in regions where wood is cheap and tiles are dear, may be adopted with advantage. Two poles, of from 3 to 6 inches diameter, are laid at the bottom of the ditch, with a water-way of half their diameter between them. Upon these, a third pole is laid, thus forming a duct of the desired dimensions. The security of this drain will depend upon the care with which it is protected by a covering of turf and the like, to prevent the admission of earth, and its permanency will depend much upon its being placed low enough to be constantly wet, as such materials are short-lived when frequently wet and dried, and nearly imperishable if constantly wet. It is unnecessary to place brush or stones over such drains to make them draw, as it is called. The water will find admission fast enough to destroy the work, unless great care is used. [Illustration: Fig. 17.--POLE-DRAIN.] In Ireland, and in some parts of England and Scotland, peat-tiles are sometimes used in draining bogs. They are cheap and very durable in such localities, but, probably, will not be used in this country. They are formed somewhat like pipes, of two pieces of peat. Two halves are formed with a peculiar tool, with a half circle in each. When well dried, they are placed together, thus making a round opening. [Illustration: Fig. 18.--TOOL FOR PEAT-TILES.] [Illustration: Fig. 19.--PEAT-TILES.] In draining, the object being merely to form a durable opening in the soil, at suitable depth, which will receive and conduct away the water which filters through the soil, it is obvious that a thousand expedients may be resorted to, to suit the peculiar circumstances of persons. In general, the danger to be apprehended is from obstruction of the water-way. Nothing, except a tight tube of metal or wood, will be likely to prevent the admission of water. Economy and durability are, perhaps, the main considerations. Tiles, at fair prices, combine these qualities better than anything else. Stones, however, are both cheap and durable, so far as the material is concerned; but the durability of the material, and the durability of the drains, are quite different matters. DRAINS OF STONES. Providence has so liberally supplied the greater part of New England with stones, that it seems to most inexperienced persons to be a work of supererogation, almost, to manufacture tiles or any other draining material for our farms. We would by no means discourage the use of stones, where tiles cannot be used with greater economy. Stone drains are, doubtless, as efficient as any, so long as the water-way can be kept open. The material is often close at hand, lying on the field and to be removed as a nuisance, if not used in drainage. In such cases, true economy may dictate the use of them, even where tiles can be procured; though, we believe, tiles will be found generally cheaper, all things considered, where made in the neighborhood. In treating of the cost of drainage, we have undertaken to give fair estimates of the comparative cost of different materials. Every farmer is capable of making estimates for himself, and of testing those made by us, and so of determining what is true economy in his particular case. The various modes of constructing drains of stones, may be readily shown by simple illustrations: [Illustration: Fig. 20.] [Illustration: Fig. 21.] [Illustration: Fig. 22.] [Illustration: Fig. 23.] If stone-drains are decided upon, the mode of constructing them will depend upon the kind of stone at hand. In some localities, round pebble-stones are found scattered over the surface, or piled in heaps upon our farms; in others, flat, slaty stones abound, and in others, broken stones from quarries may be more convenient. Of these, probably, the least reliable is the drain filled with pebble-stones, or broken stones of small size. They are peculiarly liable to be obstructed, because there is no regular water-way, and the flow of the water must, of course, be very slow, impeded as it is by friction at all points with the irregular surfaces. Sand, and other obstructing substances, which find their way, more or less, into all drains, are deposited among the stones--the water having no force of current sufficient to carry them forward--and the drain is soon filled up at some point, and ruined. Miles of such drains have been laid on many New England farms, at shoal depths, of two or two and a half feet, and have in a few years failed. For a time, their effect, to those unaccustomed to under-drainage, seems almost miraculous. The wet field becomes dry, the wild grass gives place to clover and herds-grass, and the experiment is pronounced successful. After a few years, however, the wild grass re-appears, the water again stands on the surface, and it is ascertained, on examination, that the drain is in some place packed solid with earth, and is filled with stagnant water. The fault is by no means wholly in the material. In clay or hard pan, such a drain may be made durable, with proper care, but it must be laid deep enough to be beyond the effect of the treading of cattle and of loaded teams, and the common action of frost. They can hardly be laid low enough to be beyond the reach of our great enemy, the mole, which follows relentlessly all our operations. We recollect the remarks of Mr. Downing about the complaints in New England, of injury to fruit-trees by the gnawing of field-mice. He said he should as soon think of danger from injury by giraffes as field-mice, in his own neighborhood, though he had no doubt of their depredations elsewhere! It may seem to many, that we lay too much stress on this point, of danger from moles and mice. We know whereof we do testify in this matter. We verily believe that we never finished a drain of brush or stones, on our farm, ten rods long, that there was not a colony of these _varmint_ in the one end of it, before we had finished the other. If these drains, however, are made three or four feet deep, and the solid earth rammed hard over the turf, which covers the stones, they will be comparatively safe. The figures 24 and 25 below, represent a mode of laying stone drains, practiced in Ireland, which will be found probably more convenient and secure than any other method, for common small drains. A flat stone is set upright against one side of the ditch, which should be near the bottom, perpendicular. Another stone is set leaning against the first, with its foot resting against the opposite bank. If the soil be soft clay, a flat stone may be placed first on the bottom of the ditch, for the water to flow upon; but this will be found a great addition to the labor, unless flat stones of peculiarly uniform shape and thickness are at hand. A board laid at the bottom will be usually far cheaper, and less liable to cause obstructions. [Illustration: Figs. 24, 25.--STONE DRAINS.] Figure 25 represents the ditch without the small stones above the duct. These small stones are, in nine cases in ten, worse than useless, for they are not only unnecessary to admit the water, but furnish a harbor for mice and other vermin. Drawings, representing a filling of small stones above the duct, have been copied from one work to another for generations, and it seems never to have occurred, even to modern writers, that the small stones might be omitted. Any one, who knows anything of the present system of draining with tiles, must perceive at once that, if we have the open triangular duct or the square culvert, the water cannot be kept from finding it, by any filling over it with such earth as is usually found in ditching. Formerly, when tiles were used, the ditch was filled above the tiles, to the height of a foot or more, with broken stones; but this practice has been everywhere abandoned as expensive and useless. An opening of any form, equal to a circle of two or three inches diameter, will be sufficient in most cases, though the necessary size of the duct must, of course, depend on the quantity of water which may be expected to flow in it at the time of the greatest flood. Whatever the form of the stone drain, care should be taken to make the joints as close as possible, and turf, shavings, straw, tan, or some other material, should be carefully placed over the joints, to prevent the washing in of sand, which is the worst enemy of all drains. It is not deemed necessary to remark particularly upon the mode of laying large drains for water-courses, with abutments and covering stones, forming a square duct, because it is the mode universally known and practiced. For small drains, in thorough-draining lands, it may, however, be remarked, that this is, perhaps, the most expensive of all modes, because a much greater width of excavation is necessary in order to place in position the two side stones and leave the requisite space between them. That mode of drainage which requires the least excavation and the least carriage of materials, and consequently the least filling up and levelling, is usually the cheapest. Our conclusion as to stone drains is, that, at present, they may be, in many cases, found useful and economical; and even where tiles are to be procured at present prices stones may well be used, where materials are at hand, for the largest drains. CHAPTER VI. DRAINAGE WITH TILES. What are Drain-Tiles?--Forms of Tiles.--Pipes.--Horse-shoe Tiles.--Sole-Tiles--Form of Water-Passage.--Collars and their Use.--Size of Pipes.--Velocity.--Friction.--Discharge of Water through Pipes.--Tables of Capacity.--How Water enters Tiles.--Deep Drains run soonest and longest.--Pressure of Water on Pipes.--Durability of Tile Drains.--Drain-Bricks 100 years old. WHAT ARE DRAIN-TILES? This would be an absurd question to place at the head of a division in a work intended for the English public, for tiles are as common in England as bricks, and their forms and uses as familiar to all. But in America, though tiles are used to a considerable extent in some localities, probably not one farmer in one hundred in the whole country ever saw one. The author has recently received letters of inquiry about the use and cost of tiles, from which it is manifest that the writers have in their mind as tiles, the square bricks with which our grandfathers used to lay their hearths. In Johnstone's _Report to the Board of Agriculture on Elkington's System of Draining_, published in England in 1797, the only kind of tiles or clay conduits described or alluded to by him, are what he calls "draining-bricks," of which he gives drawings, which we transfer to our pages precisely as found in the American edition. It will be seen to be as clumsy a contrivance as could well be devised. [Illustration: Fig. 26.--DRAINING-BRICKS.] So lately as 1856, tiles were brought from Albany, N. Y., to Exeter, N. H., nearly 300 miles, by railway, at a cost, including freight, of $25 a thousand for two-inch pipes, and it is believed that no tiles were ever made in New Hampshire till the year 1857. These facts will soon become curiosities in agricultural literature, and so are worth preserving. They furnish excuse, too, for what may appear to learned agriculturists an unnecessary particularity in what might seem the well-known facts relative to tile-drainage. Drain-tiles are made of clay of almost any quality that will make bricks, moulded by a machine into tubes, or into half-tube or horse-shoe forms, usually fourteen inches long before drying, and burnt in a furnace or kiln to be about as hard as what are called hard-burnt bricks. They are usually moulded about half an inch in thickness, varying with the size and form of the tile. The sizes vary from one inch to six inches, and sometimes larger, in the diameter of the bore. The forms are also very various; and as this is one of the most essential matters, as affecting the efficiency, the cost, and the durability of tile-drainage, it will be well to give it critical attention. THE FORMS OF TILES. The simplest, cheapest, and best form of drain-tile is the cylinder, or merely a tube, round outside and with a round bore. [Illustration: Figs. 27, 28, 29.--ROUND PIPES.] Tiles of this form, and all others which are tubular, are called _pipes_, in distinction from those with open bottoms, like those of horse-shoe form. About forty years ago, as Mr. Gisborne informs us, small pipes for land-drainage were used, concurrently, by persons residing in the counties of Lincoln, Oxford, and Kent, who had, probably, no knowledge of each other's operations. Most of those pipes were made with eyelet-holes, to admit the water. Pipes for thorough-draining excited no general attention till they were exhibited by John Read at the show at Derby, in the year 1843. A medal was awarded to the exhibitor. Mr. Parkes was one of the judges, and brought the pipes to the special notice of the council. From this time, inventions and improvements were rapid, and soon, collars were introduced, and the use of improved machines to mould the pipes; and drainage, under the fostering influence of the Royal Agricultural Society, became a subject of general attention throughout the kingdom. The round pipe, or _the pipe_, as it seems, _par excellence_, to be termed by English drainers, though one of the latest, if not the last form of tiles introduced in England, has become altogether the most popular among scientific men, and is generally used in all works conducted under the charge of the Land Drainage Companies. This ought to settle the question for us, when we consider that the immense sum of twenty millions of dollars of public funds has been expended by them, in addition to vast amounts of private funds, and that the highest practical talent of the nation is engaged in the work. After giving some idea of the various forms of tiles in use, it is, however, proposed to examine the question upon its merits, so that each may judge for himself which is best. The earliest form of tiles introduced for the purpose of thorough-drainage, was the horse-shoe tile, so called from its shape. The horse-shoe tile has been sometimes used without any sole to form the bottom of the drain, thus leaving the water to run on the ground. There can hardly be a question of the false economy of this mode, for the hardest and most impervious soil softens under the constant action of running water, and then the edges of the tiles must sink, or the bottom of the drain rise, and thus destroy the work. Various devices have been tried to save the expense of soles, such as providing the edges of the tiles with flanges or using pieces of soles on which to rest the ends of the tiles. They all leave the bottom of the drain unprotected against the wearing action of the water. HORSE-SHOE TILES, or "tops and bottoms" as they are called in some counties, are still much used in England; and in personal conversation with farmers there, the writer found a strong opinion expressed in their favor. The advantages claimed for the "tops and bottoms" are, that they lie firmly in place, and that they admit the water more freely than others. The objections to them are, that they are more expensive than round pipes, and are not so strong, and are not so easily laid, and that they do not discharge water so well as tiles with a round bore. In laying them, they should be made to rest partly upon two adjoining soles, or to break bond, as it is called. The soles are made separate from the tiles, and are merely flat pieces, of sufficient width to support firmly both edges of the tiles. The soles are usually an inch wider than the tiles. [Illustration: Fig. 30--HORSE-SHOE TILES AND SOLES.] The above figure represents the horse-shoe tiles and soles properly placed. As this form of tile has been generally used by the most successful drainers in New York, it may be well to cite the high authority of Mr. Gisborne for the objections which have been suggested. It should be recollected in this connection, that the drainage in this country has been what in England would be called shallow, and that it is too recent to have borne the test of time. Mr. Gisborne says: "We shall shock and surprise many of our readers, when we state confidently that, in average soils, and still more in those which are inclined to be tender, horse-shoe tiles form the weakest and most failing conduit which has ever been used for a deep drain. It is so, however; and a little thought, even if we had no experience, will tell us that it must be so. "A horse-shoe tile, which may be a tolerably secure conduit in a drain of 2 feet, in one of 4 feet becomes an almost certain failure. As to the longitudinal fracture, not only is the tile subject to be broken by one of those slips which are so troublesome in deep draining, and to which the lightly-filled material, even when the drain is completed, offers an imperfect resistance, but the constant pressure together of the sides, even when it does not produce a fracture of the soil, catches hold of the feet of the tile, and breaks it through the crown. When the Regent's Park was first drained, large conduits were in fashion, and they were made circular by placing one horse-shoe tile upon another. It would be difficult to invent a weaker conduit. On re-drainage, innumerable instances were found in which the upper tile was broken through the crown and had dropped into the lower." Another form of tiles, called _sole-tiles_, or _sole-pipes_, is much used in America, more indeed than any other, except perhaps the horse-shoe tile; probably, because the first manufacturers fancied them the best, and offered no others in the market. In this form, the sole is solid with the tile. The bottom is flat, but the bore is round, or oval, or egg-shaped, with the small end of the orifice downward. [Illustration: Fig. 31--SOLE-TILE.] The sole-pipe has considerable advantages theoretically. The opening or bore is of the right shape, the bottom lies fair and firm in place, and the drain, indeed, is perfect, if carefully and properly laid. The objections to the sole-pipes are, that they are somewhat more expensive than round pipes, and that they require great care in placing them, so as to make the passage even from one pipe to another. A slight depression of one side of a pipe of this kind, especially if the bore be oval or egg-shaped, throws the water passage out of line. In laying them, the author has taken the precaution to place under each joint a thin piece of wood, such as our honest shoe manufacturers use for stiffening in shoes, to keep the bottoms of the pipes even, at least until the ground has settled compactly, and as much longer as they may escape "decay's effacing finger." COLLARS for tiles are used wherever a sudden descent occurs in the course of a drain, or where there is a loose sand or a boggy place, and by many persons they are used in all drains through sandy or gravelly land. [Illustration: Fig. 32.--PIPES AND COLLAR.] The above figure represents pipe-tiles fitted with collars. Collars are merely short sections of pipes of such size as to fit upon the smaller ones loosely, covering the joint, and holding the ends in place, so that they cannot slip past each other. In very bad places, small pipes may be entirely sheathed in larger ones; and this is advisable in steep descents or flowing sands. A great advantage in round pipes is, that there is no wrong-side-up to them, and they are, therefore, more readily placed in position than tiles of any other form. Again: all tiles are more or less warped in drying and burning; and, where it is desired to make perfect work, round pipes may be turned so as to make better joints and a straighter run for the water--which is very important. If collars are used, there is still less difficulty in adjusting the pipes so as to make the lines straight, and far less danger of obstruction by sand or roots. Indeed, it is believed that no drain can be made more perfect than with round pipes and collars. As it is believed that few collars have ever yet been used in this country, and the best drainers in England are not agreed as to the necessity of using them, we give the opinions of two or three distinguished gentlemen, in their own language. Mr. Gisborne says: "We were astounded to find, at the conclusion of Mr. Parkes' Newcastle Lecture, this sentence: 'It may be advisable for me to say, that in clays, and other clean-cutting and firm-bottomed soils, I do not find the collars to be indispensably necessary, although I always prefer their use.' This is a barefaced treachery to pipes, an abandonment of the strongest point in their case--the assured continuity of the conduit. Every one may see how very small a disturbance at their point of junction would dissociate two pipes of one inch diameter. One finds a soft place in the bottom of the drain and dips his nose into it one inch deep, and cocks up his other end. By this simple operation, the continuity of the conduit is twice broken. An inch of lateral motion produces the same effect. Pipes of a larger diameter than two inches are generally laid without collars. This is a practice on which we do not look with much complacency; it is the compromise between cost and security, to which the affairs of men are so often compelled. No doubt, a conduit from three to six inches in diameter is much less subject to a breach in its continuity than one which is smaller; but, when no collars are used, the pipes should be laid with extreme care, and the bed which is prepared for them at the bottom of the drain should be worked to their size and shape with great accuracy. "To one advantage which is derived from the use of collars we have not yet adverted--the increased facility with which free water existing in the soil can find entrance into the conduit. "The collar for a one and a half inch pipe has a circumference of nine inches. The whole space between the collar and the pipe, on each side of the collar, is open, and affords no resistance to the entrance of water: while, at the same time, the superincumbent arch of the collar protects the junction of two pipes from the intrusion of particles of soil. We confess to some original misgivings, that a pipe resting only on an inch at each end, and lying hollow, might prove weak, and liable to fracture by weight pressing on it from above; but the fear was illusory. Small particles of soil trickle down the sides of every drain, and the first flow of water will deposit them in the vacant space between the two collars. The bottom, if at all soft, will also swell up into any vacancy. Practically, if you re-open a drain well laid with pipes and collars, you will find them reposing in a beautiful nidus, which, when they are carefully removed, looks exactly as if it had been moulded for them." As to the danger of breaking the pipes, which might well be apprehended, we found by actual experiment, at the New York Central Park, that a one-inch Albany pipe resting on collars upon a floor, with a bearing at each end of but one inch, would support the weight of a man weighing 160 pounds, standing on one foot on the middle of the pipe. Mr. Parkes sums up his opinion upon the subject of collars, in these words: "It may be advisable for me to say, that in clays, and other clean-cutting and firm-bottomed soils, I do not find collars to be at all necessary; but that they are essential in all sandy, loose, and soft strata." In draining in the neighborhood of trees, collars are also supposed to be of great use in preventing the intrusion of roots into the pipes, although it may be impossible, even in this way, to exclude the roots of water-loving trees. From the most careful inquiry that the writer was able to make, as to the practice in England, he is satisfied that collars are not generally used there in the drainage of clays, but that the pipes are laid in openings shaped for them at the bottom of the drains, with a tool which forms a groove into which the pipes fall readily into line, and very little seems to be said of collars in the published estimates of the cost of drainage. On this subject, we have the opinion of Mr. Denton, thus expressed: "The use of collars is by no means general, although those who have used them speak highly of their advantages. Except in sandy soils, and in those that are subject to sudden alteration of character, in some of the deposits of red sand-stones, and in the clayey subsoils of the Bagshot sand district, for instance, collars are not found to be essential to good drainage. In the north of England they are used but seldom, and, in my opinion, much less than they ought to be; but this opinion, it is right to state, is opposed, in numerous instances of successful drainage, by men of extensive practice; and as every cause of increased outlay is to be avoided, the value of collars, as general appliances, remains an open question. In all the more porous subsoils in which collars have not been used, the more successful drainers increase the size of the pipes in the minor drains to a minimum size of two inches bore." _The form of the bore, or water passage_, in tiles, is a point of more importance than at first appears. At one of our colleges, certain plank sewers, in the ordinary square form, were often obstructed by the sediment from the dirty water. "Turn them cornerwise," suggested the professor of Natural Philosophy. It was done, and ever after they kept in order. The pressure of water depends on its height, or head. Everybody knows that six feet of water carries a mill-wheel better than one foot. The same principle operates on a small scale. An inch head of water presses harder than a half inch. The _velocity_ of water, again, depends much on its height. Whether there be much or little water passing through a drain, it has manifestly a greater power to make its way, to drive before it sand or other obstructions, when it is heaped up in a round passage, than when wandering over the flat surface of a tile sole. Any one who has observed the discharge of water from flat-bottomed and round tiles, will be satisfied that the quantity of water which is sufficient to run in a rapid stream of a half or quarter inch diameter from a round tile, will lazily creep along the flat bottom of a sole tile, with hardly force sufficient to turn aside a grain of sand, or to bring back to light an enterprising cricket that may have entered on an exploration. On the whole, solid tiles, with flat-bottomed passages, may be set down among the inventions of the adversary. They have not the claims even of the horse-shoe form to respect, because they do not admit water better than round pipes, and are not united by a sole on which the ends of the adjoining tiles rest. They combine the faults of all other forms, with the peculiar virtues of none. [Illustration: Fig. 33--FLAT-BOTTOMED PIPE-TILE.] From an English report on the drainage of towns, the following, which illustrates this point, is taken: "It was found that a large proportion of sewers were constructed with flat bottoms, which, when there was a small discharge, spread the water, increased the friction, retarded the flow, and accumulated deposit. It was ascertained, that by the substitution of circular sewers of the same width, with the same inclination and the same run of water, the amount of deposit was reduced more than one-half." THE SIZE OF TILES. Is a matter of much importance, whether we regard the efficiency and durability of our work, or economy in completing it. The cost of tiles, and the freight of them, increase rapidly with their size, and it is, therefore, well to use the smallest that will effect the object in view. Tiles should be large enough, as a first proposition, to carry off, in a reasonable time, all the surplus water that may fall upon the land. Here, the English rules will not be safe for us; for, although England has many more rainy days than we have, yet we have, in general, a greater fall of rain--more inches of water from the clouds in the year. Instead of their eternal drizzle, we have thunder showers in Summer, and in Spring and Autumn north-east storms, when the windows of heaven are opened, and a deluge, except in duration, bursts upon us. Then, at the North, the Winter snows cover the fields until April, when they suddenly dissolve, often under heavy showers of rain, and planting time is at once upon us. It is desirable that all the snow and rain-water should pass through the soil into the drains, instead of overflowing the surface, so as to save the elements of fertility with which such water abounds, and also to prevent the washing of the soil. We require, then, a greater capacity of drainage, larger tiles, than do the English, for our drains must do a greater work than theirs, and in less time. There are several other general considerations that should be noticed, before we attempt to define the particular size for any location. Several small drains are usually discharged into one main drain. This main should have sufficient capacity to conduct all the water that may be expected to enter it, and no more. If the small drains overflow it, the main will be liable to be burst, or the land about it filled with water, gushing from it at the joints; especially, if the small drains come down a hill side, so as to give a great pressure, or head of water. On the other hand, if the main be larger than is necessary, there is the useless expense of larger tiles than were required. The capacity of pipes to convey water, depends, other things being equal, upon their size; but here the word size has a meaning which should be kept clearly in mind. The capacity of round water-pipes is in proportion to the squares of their diameters. A one-inch pipe carries one inch (circular, not square) of water, but a two-inch pipe carries not two inches only, but twice two, or four inches of water; a three-inch pipe carries three times three, or nine inches; and a four-inch pipe, sixteen inches. Thus we see, that under the same conditions as to fall, directness, smoothness, and the like, a four-inch pipe carries just four times as much water as a two-inch pipe. In fact, it will carry more than this proportion, because _friction_, which is an important element in all such calculations, is greater in proportion to the smaller size of the pipe. VELOCITY is another essential element to be noticed in determining the amount of water which may be discharged through a pipe of given diameter. Velocity, again, depends on several conditions. Water runs faster down a steep hill than down a gentle declivity. This is due to the weight of the water, or, in other words, to gravitation, and operates whether the water be at large on the ground, or confined in a pipe, and it operates alike whether the water in a pipe fill its bore or not. But, again, the velocity of water in a pipe depends on the pressure, or head of water, behind it, and there is, perhaps, no definite limit to the quantity of water that may be forced through a given orifice. More water, for instance, is often forced through the pipe of a fire-engine in full play, in ten minutes, than would run through a pipe of the same diameter, lying nearly level in the ground, in ten hours. In ordinary aqueducts, for supplying water, and not for drainage, it is desirable to have a high pressure upon the pipes to ensure a rapid flow; but in drainage, a careful distinction must be made between velocity induced by gravitation, and velocity induced by pressure. If induced by the former merely, the pipe through which the water is swiftly running, if not quite full, may still receive water at every joint, while, if the velocity be induced by pressure, the pipe must be already full. It can then receive no more, and must lose water at the joints, and wet the land through which it passes, instead of draining it. So that although we should find that the mains might carry a vast quantity of water admitted by minor drains from high elevations, yet we should bear in mind, that drains when full can perform no ordinary office of drainage. If there is more than the pressure of four feet head of water behind; the pipes, if they passed through a pond of water, at four feet deep, must lose and not receive water at the joints. The capacity of a pipe to convey water depends, then, not only on its size, but on its inclination or fall--a pipe running down a considerable descent having much greater capacity than one of the same size lying nearly level. This fact should be borne in mind even in laying single drains; for it is obvious that if the drain lie along a sandy plain, for instance, extending down a springy hill-side, and then, as is usually the case, along a lower plain again, to its outlet at some stream, it may collect as much water as will fill it before it reaches the lower level. Its stream rushes swiftly down the descent, and when it reaches the plain, there is not sufficient fall to carry it away by its natural gravitation. It will still rush onward to its outlet, urged by the pressure from behind; but, with such pressure, it will, as we have seen, instead of draining the land, suffuse it with water. FRICTION, as has already been suggested, is an element that much interferes with exact calculations as to the relative capacity of water-pipes of various dimensions, and this depends upon several circumstances, such as smoothness, and exactness of form, and directness. The smoother, the more regular in form, and the straighter the drain, the more water will it convey. Thus, in some recent English experiments, "it was found that, with pipes of the same diameter, exactitude of form was of more importance than smoothness of surface; that glass pipes, which had a wavy surface, discharged less water, at the same inclinations, than Staffordshire stone-ware clay pipes, which were of perfectly exact construction. By passing pipes of the same clay--the common red clay--under a second pressure, obtained by a machine at an extra expense of about eighteen pence per thousand, whilst the pipe was half dry, very superior exactitude of form was obtained, and by means of this exactitude, and with nearly the same diameters, an increased discharge of water of one-fourth was effected within the same time." So all sudden turns or angles increase friction and retard velocity, and thus lessen the capacity of the drain--a topic which may be more properly considered under the head of the junction of drains. "On a large scale, it was found that when equal quantities of water were running direct, at a rate of 90 seconds, with a turn at right-angles, the discharge was only effected in 140 seconds; whilst, with a turn or junction with a gentle curve, the discharge was effected in 100 seconds." We are indebted to Messrs. Shedd & Edson for the following valuable tables showing the capacity of water-pipes, with the accompanying suggestions: "DISCHARGE OF WATER THROUGH PIPES. "The following tables of discharge are founded on the experiments made by Mr. Smeaton, and have been compared with those by Henry Law, and with the rules of Weisbach and D'Aubuisson. The conditions under which such experiments are made may be so essentially different in each case, that few experiments give results coincident with each other, or with the deductions of theory: and in applying these tables to practice, it is quite likely that the discharge of a pipe of a certain area, at a certain inclination, may be quite unlike the discharge found to be due to those conditions by this table, and that difference may be owing partly to greater or less roughness on the inside of the pipe, unequal flow of water through the joints into the pipe, crookedness of the pipes, want of accuracy in their being placed, so that the fall may not be uniform throughout, or the ends of the pipes may be shoved a little to one side, so that the continuity of the channel is partially broken; and, indeed, from various other causes, all of which may occur in any practical case, unless great care is taken to avoid it, and some of which may occur in almost any case. "We have endeavored to so construct the tables that, in the ordinary practice of draining, the discharge given may approximate to the truth for a well laid drain, subject even to considerable friction. The experiments of Mr. Smeaton, which we have adopted as the basis of these tables, gave a less quantity discharged, under certain conditions, than given under similar conditions by other tables. This result is probably due to a greater amount of friction in the pipes used by Smeaton. The curves of friction resemble, very nearly, parabolic curves, but are not quite so sharp near the origin. "We propose, during the coming season, to institute some careful experiments, to ascertain the friction due to our own drain-pipe. Water can get into the drain-pipe very freely at the joints, as may be seen by a simple calculation. It is impossible to place the ends so closely together, in laying, as to make a tight joint on account of roughness in the clay, twisting in burning, &c.; and the opening thus made will usually average about one-tenth of an inch on the whole circumference, which is, on the inside of a two-inch pipe, six inches--making six-tenths of a square inch opening for the entrance of water at each joint. "In a lateral drain 200 feet long, the pipes being thirteen inches long, there will be 184 joints, each joint having an opening of six-tenth square inch area; in 184 joints there is an aggregate area of 110 square inches; the area of the opening at the end of a two-inch pipe is about three inches; 110 square inches inlet to three inches outlet; thirty-seven times as much water can flow in as can flow out. There is, then, no need for the water to go through the pores of the pipe; and the fact is, we think, quite fortunate, for the passage of water through the pores would in no case be sufficient to benefit the land to much extent. We tried an experiment, by stopping one end of an ordinary drain-pipe and filling it with water. At the end of sixty-five hours, water still stood in the pipe three-fourths of an inch deep. About half the water first put into the pipe had run out at the end of twenty-four hours. If the pipe was stopped at both ends and plunged four feet deep in water, it would undoubtedly fill in a short time; but such a test is an unfair one, for no drain could be doing service, over which water could collect to the depth of four feet." 1-1/2-INCH DRAIN-PIPE. Area: 1.76709 inches. ==================================================================== FALL | VELOCITY | DISCHARGE || FALL | VELOCITY | DISCHARGE in |per second| in gallons || in |per second| in gallons 100 feet.| in feet. |in 24 hours.||100 feet.| in feet. |in 24 hours. ---------+----------+------------++---------+----------+------------ ft. in. | | || ft. in. | | 0.3 | 0.71 | 5630.87 || 5.3 | 3.75 | 29704.51 0.6 | 1.04 | 8248.03 || 5.6 | 3.84 | 30454.28 0.9 | 1.29 | 10230.73 || 5.9 | 3.93 | 31168.06 1.0 | 1.52 | 12054.81 || 6.0 | 4.00 | 31723.21 1.3 | 1.74 | 13799.59 || 6.3 | 4.10 | 32516.36 1.6 | 1.91 | 15147.83 || 6.6 | 4.18 | 33150.76 1.9 | 2.10 | 16654.68 || 6.9 | 4.25 | 33705.91 2.0 | 2.26 | 17923.61 || 7.0 | 4.33 | 34340.38 2.3 | 2.41 | 19113.23 || 7.3 | 4.41 | 34974.85 2.6 | 2.56 | 20302.86 || 7.6 | 4.49 | 35609.30 2.9 | 2.69 | 21333.86 || 7.9 | 4.56 | 36154.45 3.0 | 2.83 | 22444.17 || 8.0 | 4.65 | 36878.23 3.3 | 2.94 | 23150.71 || 8.3 | 4.71 | 37354.08 3.6 | 3.06 | 24268.25 || 8.6 | 4.79 | 37988.55 3.9 | 3.16 | 25061.34 || 8.9 | 4.85 | 38464.40 4.0 | 3.28 | 26013.03 || 9.0 | 4.91 | 38940.25 4.3 | 3.38 | 26806.11 || 9.3 | 4.98 | 39495.39 4.6 | 3.46 | 27440.58 || 9.6 | 5.04 | 39971.24 4.9 | 3.56 | 28233.66 || 9.9 | 5.10 | 40447.10 5.0 | 3.65 | 28947.43 || 10.0 | 5.16 | 40922.93 ==================================================================== ==================================================================== || 2-INCH DRAIN-PIPE. || 3-INCH DRAIN-PIPE. || ---------+----------+------------++---------+----------+------------ FALL | VELOCITY | DISCHARGE || FALL | VELOCITY | DISCHARGE in |per second| in gallons || in |per second| in gallons 100 feet.| in feet. |in 24 hours.||100 feet.| in feet. |in 24 hours. ---------+----------+------------++---------+----------+------------ ft. in. | | || ft. in. | | 0.3 | 0.79 | 10575.4 || 0.3 | 0.90 | 24687.2 0.6 | 1.16 | 15528.4 || 0.6 | 1.33 | 36482.2 0.9 | 1.50 | 20079.9 || 0.9 | 1.66 | 45534.2 1.0 | 1.71 | 22891.1 || 1.0 | 1.94 | 53214.7 1.3 | 1.94 | 25970.0 || 1.3 | 2.19 | 60072.2 1.6 | 2.16 | 28915.1 || 1.6 | 2.43 | 66655.5 1.9 | 2.35 | 31458.5 || 1.9 | 2.63 | 72141.5 2.0 | 2.53 | 33868.1 || 2.0 | 2.83 | 77627.6 2.3 | 2.69 | 36009.9 || 2.3 | 3.00 | 82290.7 2.6 | 2.83 | 37884.0 || 2.6 | 3.16 | 86679.6 2.9 | 2.97 | 39758.2 || 2.9 | 3.31 | 90794.1 3.0 | 3.11 | 41632.4 || 3.0 | 3.47 | 95182.9 3.3 | 3.24 | 43372.6 || 3.3 | 3.60 | 98748.9 3.6 | 3.36 | 44979.0 || 3.6 | 3.74 | 102589.1 3.9 | 3.48 | 46585.4 || 3.9 | 3.87 | 106155.0 4.0 | 3.59 | 48057.9 || 4.0 | 3.99 | 109446.7 4.3 | 3.70 | 49530.5 || 4.3 | 4.11 | 112738.3 4.6 | 3.80 | 50869.1 || 4.6 | 4.23 | 116029.9 4.9 | 3.91 | 52341.6 || 4.9 | 4.34 | 119047.3 5.0 | 4.02 | 53814.1 || 5.0 | 4.46 | 122338.9 5.3 | 4.11 | 55018.9 || 5.3 | 4.57 | 125356.2 5.6 | 4.22 | 56491.5 || 5.6 | 4.68 | 128373.5 5.9 | 4.31 | 57696.3 || 5.9 | 4.78 | 131116.6 6.0 | 4.40 | 58901.1 || 6.0 | 4.89 | 134133.9 6.3 | 4.49 | 60105.9 || 6.3 | 4.98 | 136602.6 6.6 | 4.58 | 61309.7 || 6.6 | 5.08 | 139345.6 6.9 | 4.66 | 62381.6 || 6.9 | 5.18 | 142088.7 7.0 | 4.74 | 63452.5 || 7.0 | 5.27 | 144557.4 7.3 | 4.83 | 64667.3 || 7.3 | 5.37 | 147306.4 7.6 | 4.91 | 65728.3 || 7.6 | 5.46 | 150069.1 7.9 | 4.99 | 66799.2 || 7.9 | 5.55 | 152237.8 8.0 | 5.07 | 67870.1 || 8.0 | 5.64 | 154706.6 8.3 | 5.15 | 68941.0 || 8.3 | 5.73 | 157175.3 8.6 | 5.23 | 70011.9 || 8.6 | 5.82 | 159644.0 8.9 | 5.31 | 71082.8 || 8.9 | 5.91 | 162112.7 9.0 | 5.38 | 72019.9 || 9.0 | 5.99 | 164313.2 9.3 | 5.46 | 73090.9 || 9.3 | 6.07 | 166501.6 9.6 | 5.53 | 74027.9 || 9.6 | 6.16 | 168970.3 9.9 | 5.60 | 74965.0 || 9.9 | 6.24 | 171164.7 10.0 | 5.67 | 75902.0 || 10.0 | 6.32 | 173359.1 ==================================================================== ==================================================================== || 4-INCH DRAIN-PIPE. || 5-INCH DRAIN-PIPE. || ---------+----------+------------++---------+----------+------------ FALL | VELOCITY | DISCHARGE || FALL | VELOCITY | DISCHARGE in |per second|in gallons || in |per second| in gallons 100 feet.| in feet. |in 24 hours.||100 feet.| in feet. |in 24 hours. ---------+----------+------------++---------+----------+------------ ft. in. | | || ft. in. | | 0.3 | 1.08 | 43697.6 || 0.3 | 1.13 | 99584.2 0.6 | 1.50 | 60691.2 || 0.6 | 1.57 | 138362.4 0.9 | 1.83 | 74043.2 || 0.9 | 1.90 | 167442.6 1.0 | 2.13 | 86181.4 || 1.0 | 2.20 | 193881.0 1.3 | 2.38 | 96296.6 || 1.3 | 2.45 | 215912.9 1.6 | 2.61 | 105602.6 || 1.6 | 2.70 | 237944.9 1.9 | 2.81 | 113694.8 || 1.9 | 2.90 | 255569.5 2.0 | 3.00 | 121382.3 || 2.0 | 3.10 | 273195.9 2.3 | 3.19 | 129089.9 || 2.3 | 3.29 | 289940.1 2.6 | 3.36 | 135948.2 || 2.6 | 3.46 | 304921.9 2.9 | 3.53 | 142826.5 || 2.9 | 3.64 | 320784.9 3.0 | 3.68 | 148895.7 || 3.0 | 3.80 | 334885.4 3.3 | 3.82 | 154560.2 || 3.3 | 3.96 | 348974.8 3.6 | 3.96 | 160224.7 || 3.6 | 4.11 | 362204.9 3.9 | 4.10 | 165889.2 || 3.9 | 4.26 | 375424.1 4.0 | 4.24 | 171553.7 || 4.0 | 4.40 | 387762.1 4.3 | 4.37 | 176813.6 || 4.3 | 4.52 | 398337.5 4.6 | 4.50 | 182073.5 || 4.6 | 4.66 | 410675.3 4.9 | 4.62 | 186928.3 || 4.9 | 4.78 | 421250.6 5.0 | 4.75 | 192188.7 || 5.0 | 4.90 | 430825.0 5.3 | 4.86 | 196639.4 || 5.3 | 5.02 | 442401.3 5.6 | 4.97 | 201090.1 || 5.6 | 5.14 | 452976.6 5.9 | 5.09 | 205945.3 || 5.9 | 5.25 | 462670.6 6.0 | 5.20 | 210396.0 || 6.0 | 5.37 | 473246.0 6.3 | 5.30 | 214442.1 || 6.3 | 5.49 | 483820.4 6.6 | 5.41 | 218892.8 || 6.6 | 5.60 | 493514.6 6.9 | 5.51 | 222938.8 || 6.9 | 5.70 | 502327.4 7.0 | 5.61 | 226984.9 || 7.0 | 5.80 | 511140.2 7.3 | 5.71 | 231031.0 || 7.3 | 5.90 | 520052.0 7.6 | 5.81 | 235077.1 || 7.6 | 6.00 | 528766.5 7.9 | 5.91 | 239123.2 || 7.9 | 6.10 | 537578.7 8.0 | 6.01 | 243169.2 || 8.0 | 6.20 | 546391.5 8.3 | 6.10 | 246810.7 || 8.3 | 6.30 | 555204.5 8.6 | 6.19 | 250452.2 || 8.6 | 6.40 | 564017.0 8.9 | 6.28 | 255493.7 || 8.9 | 6.49 | 571948.0 9.0 | 6.37 | 257735.2 || 9.0 | 6.58 | 579880.0 9.3 | 6.45 | 260971.9 || 9.3 | 6.66 | 586930.2 9.6 | 6.54 | 264603.1 || 9.6 | 6.75 | 594861.4 9.9 | 6.63 | 268254.9 || 9.9 | 6.84 | 602793.2 10.0 | 6.71 | 271491.8 || 10.0 | 6.93 | 610723.8 ==================================================================== 8-INCH DRAIN-PIPE. Area: 50.2640 inches. ==================================================================== FALL | VELOCITY | DISCHARGE || FALL | VELOCITY | DISCHARGE in |per second|in gallons || in |per second| in gallons 100 feet.| in feet. |in 24 hours.||100 feet.| in feet. |in 24 hours. ---------+----------+------------++---------+----------+------------ ft. in. | | || ft. in. | | 0.3 | 1.23 | 277487.7 || 5.3 | 5.35 | 1206959.3 0.6 | 1.65 | 372239.7 || 5.6 | 5.47 | 1234031.3 0.9 | 2.01 | 453455.7 || 5.9 | 5.59 | 1261103.3 1.0 | 2.33 | 525647.7 || 6.0 | 5.71 | 1288175.3 1.3 | 2.60 | 586559.7 || 6.3 | 5.83 | 1315247.3 1.6 | 2.85 | 642959.6 || 6.6 | 5.95 | 1343838.9 1.9 | 3.08 | 694847.6 || 6.9 | 6.07 | 1369391.3 2.0 | 3.30 | 744479.7 || 7.0 | 6.17 | 1391951.2 2.3 | 3.50 | 789599.6 || 7.3 | 6.27 | 1414531.1 2.6 | 3.70 | 844719.7 || 7.6 | 6.39 | 1441583.2 2.9 | 3.89 | 877583.5 || 7.9 | 6.50 | 1466399.3 3.0 | 4.05 | 913679.5 || 8.0 | 6.60 | 1488959.2 3.3 | 4.21 | 949775.6 || 8.3 | 6.70 | 1511539.1 3.6 | 4.37 | 971658.7 || 8.6 | 6.80 | 1534099.0 3.9 | 4.53 | 920447.4 || 8.9 | 6.90 | 1556658.9 4.0 | 4.67 | 1055551.4 || 9.0 | 7.00 | 1579199.3 4.3 | 4.81 | 1086135.4 || 9.3 | 7.10 | 1601759.2 4.6 | 4.95 | 1116718.7 || 9.6 | 7.20 | 1624319.1 4.9 | 5.08 | 1146047.4 || 9.9 | 7.29 | 1644622.1 5.0 | 5.22 | 1177631.3 || 10.0 | 7.38 | 1664927.1 ==================================================================== HOW WATER ENTERS THE TILES. How water enters the tiles, is a question which all persons unaccustomed to the operation of tile-draining usually ask at the outset. In brief, it may be answered, that it enters both at the joints and through the pores of the burnt clay, but mostly at the joints. Mr. Parkes expresses the opinion, based upon careful observation, that five hundred times as much water enters at the crevices as through the pores of the tiles! If this be so, we may as well, for all practical purposes, regard the water as all entering at the joints. In several experiments which we have attempted, we have found the quantity of water that enters through the pores to be quite too small to be of much practical account. Tiles differ so much in porosity, that it is difficult to make experiments that can be satisfactory--soft-burnt tiles being, like pale bricks, quite pervious, and hard-burnt tiles being nearly or quite impervious. The amount of pressure upon the clay in moulding also affects the density and porosity of tiles. Water should enter at the bottom of the tiles, and not at the top. It is a well-known fact in draining, that the deepest drain flows first and longest. A familiar illustration will make this point evident. If a cask or deep box be filled with sand, with one hole near the bottom and another half way to the top, these holes will represent the tiles in a drain. If water be poured into the sand, it will pass downward to the bottom of the vessel, and will not flow out of either hole till the sand be saturated up to the lower hole, and then it will flow out there. If, now, water be poured in faster than the lower hole can discharge it, the vessel will be filled higher, till it will run out at both holes. It is manifest, however, that it will first cease to flow from the upper orifice. There is in the soil a line of water, called the "water-line," or "water-table;" and this, in drained land, is at about the level of the bottom of the tiles. As the rain falls it descends, as in the vessel; and as the water rises, it enters the tiles at the bottom, and never at the top, unless there is more than can pass out of the soil by the lower openings (the crevices and pores) into the tiles. It is well always to interrupt the direct descent of water by percolation from the surface to the top of the tiles, because, in passing so short a distance in the soil, the water is not sufficiently filtered, especially in soil so recently disturbed, but is likely to carry with it not only valuable elements of fertility, but also particles of sand, which may obstruct the drain. This is prevented by placing above the tiles (after they are covered a few inches with gravel, sand, or other porous soil) compact clay, if convenient. If not, a furrow each side of the drain, or a heaping-up of the soil over the drain, when finished, will turn aside the surface-water, and prevent such injury. In the estimates as to the area of the openings between pipes, it should be considered that the spaces between the pipes are not, in fact, clean openings of one-tenth of an inch, but are partially closed by earthy particles, and that water enters them by no means as rapidly as it would enter the clean pipes before they are covered. Although the rain-fall in England is much less in quantity and much more regular than in this country, yet it is believed that the use of two-inch pipes will be found abundantly sufficient for the admission and conveyance of any quantity of water that it may be necessary to carry off by drainage in common soils. In extraordinary cases, as where the land drained is a swamp, or reservoir for water which falls on the hills around, larger pipes must be used. In many places in England "tops and bottoms," or horse-shoe tiles, are still preferred by farmers, upon the idea that they admit the water more readily; but their use is continued only by those who have never made trial of pipes. No scientific drainer uses any but pipes in England, and the million of acres well drained with them, is pretty good evidence of their sufficiency. In this country, horse-shoe tiles have been much used in Western New York, and have been found to answer a good purpose; and so it may be said of the sole-pipes. Indeed, it is believed that no instance is to be found on record in America of the failure of tile drains, from the inability of the water to gain admission at the joints. It may be interesting in this connection to state, that water is 815 times heavier than air. Here is a drain at four feet depth in the ground, filled only with air, and open at the end so that the air can go out. Above this open space is four feet of earth saturated with water. What is the pressure of the water upon the tiles? Mr. Thomas Arkell, in a communication to the Society of Arts, in England, says-- "The pressure due to a head of water four or five feet, may be imagined from the force with which water will come through the crevices of a hatch with that depth of water above it. Now, there is the same pressure of water to enter the vacuum in the pipe-drain as there is against the hatches, supposing the land to be full of water to the surface." It is difficult to demonstrate the truth of this theory; but the same opinion has been expressed to the writer by persons of learning and of practical skill, based upon observations as to the entrance of water into gas pipes, from which it is almost, if not quite, impossible to exclude it by the most perfect joints in iron pipes. Whatever be the theory as to pressure, or the difficulties as to the water percolating through compact soils to the tiles, there will be no doubt left on the mind of any one, after one experiment tried in the field, that, in common cases, all the surplus water that reaches the tiles is freely admitted. A gentleman, who has commenced draining his farm, recently, in New Hampshire, expressed to the author his opinion, that tiles in his land admitted the water as freely as a hole of a similar size to the bore of the tile would admit it, if it could be kept open through the soil without the tile. DURABILITY OF TILE DRAINS. How long will they last? This is the first and most important question. Men, who have commenced with open ditches, and, having become disgusted with the deformity, the inconvenience, and the inefficiency of them, have then tried bushes, and boards, and turf, and found them, too, perishable; and again have used stones, and after a time seen them fail, through obstructions caused by moles or frost--these men have the right to a well-considered answer to this question. The foolish fellow in the Greek Reader, who, having heard that a crow would live a hundred years, purchased one to verify the saying, probably did not live long enough to ascertain that it was true. How long a properly laid tile-drain of hard-burnt tiles will endure, has not been definitely ascertained, but it is believed that it will outlast the life of him who lays it. No tiles have been long enough laid in the United States to test this question by experience, and in England no further result seems to have been arrived at, than that the work is a _permanent_ improvement. In another part of this treatise, may be found some account of Land Drainage Companies, and of Government loans in aid of improvements by drainage in Great Britain. One of these acts provides for a charge on the land for such improvements, to be paid in full in fifty years. That is to say, the expense of the drainage is an incumbrance like a mortgage on the land, at a certain rate of interest, and the tenant or occupant of the land, each year pays the interest and enough more to discharge the debt in just fifty years. Thus, it is assumed by the Government, that the improvement will last fifty years in its full operation, because the last year of the fifty pays precisely the same as every other year. It may therefore be considered as the settled conviction of all branches of the British government, and of all the best-informed, practical land-drainers in that country, that TILE-DRAINAGE WILL ENDURE FIFTY YEARS AT LEAST, if properly executed. This is long enough to satisfy any American; for the migratory habits of our citizens, and the constant changes of cultivated fields into village and city lots, prevent our imagination even conceiving the idea that we or our posterity can remain for half a century upon the same farm. It is much easier, however, to lay tile-drains so that they will not be of use half of fifty years, than to make them permanent in their effect. Tile-drainage, it cannot be too much enforced, is an operation requiring great care and considerable skill--altogether more care and skill than our common laborers, or even most of our farmers, are accustomed to exercise in their farm operations. A blunder in draining, like the blunder of a physician, may be soon concealed by the grass that grows over it, but can never be corrected. Drainage is a new art in this country, and tile-making is a new art. Without good, hard-burnt tiles, no care or skill can make permanent work. Tile-drainage will endure so long as the tiles last, if the work be properly done. There is no reason why a tile should not last in the ground as long as a brick will last. Bricks will fall to pieces in the ground in a very short time if not hard-burnt, while hard-burnt bricks of good clay will last as long as granite. Tiles must be hard-burnt in order to endure. But this is not all. Drains fail from various other causes than the crumbling of the tiles. They are frequently obstructed by mice, moles, frogs, and vermin of all kinds, if not protected at the outlet. They are often destroyed by the treading of cattle, and by the deposit of mud at the outlet, through insufficient care. They are liable to be filled with sand, through want of care in protecting the joints in laying, and through want of collars, and other means of keeping them in line. They are liable, too, to fill up by deposits of sand and the like, by being laid lower in some places than the parts nearer the outlet, so that the slack places catch and retain whatever is brought down, till the pipe is filled. FROST is an enemy which in this country we have to contend with, more than in any other, where tile-drainage has been much practiced. Upon all these points, remarks will be found under the appropriate heads; and these suggestions are repeated here, because we know that haste and want of skill are likely to do much injury to the cause which we advocate. Any work that requires only energy and progress, is safe in American hands; but cautious and slow operations are by no means to their taste. Dickens says, that on railways and coaches, wherever in England they say, "All right," the Americans use, instead, the phrase, "Go ahead." In tile-drainage, the motto, "All right," will be found far more safe than the motto, "Go ahead." Instances are given in England of drains laid with handmade tiles, which have operated well for thirty years, and have not yet failed. Mr. Parkes informs us: "That, about 1804, pipe-tiles made tapering, with one end entering the other, and two inches in the smallest point, were laid down in the park now possessed by Sir Thomas Whichcote, Aswarby, Lincolnshire, and that they still act well." Stephens gives the following instance of the durability of bricks used in draining: "Of the durability of common brick, when used in drains, there is a remarkable instance mentioned by Mr. George Guthrie, factor to the Earl of Stair or Calhoun, Wigtonshire. In the execution of modern draining on that estate, some brick-drains, on being intersected, emitted water very freely. According to documents which refer to these drains, it appears that they had been formed by the celebrated Marshal, Earl Stair, _upwards of a hundred years ago_. They were found between the vegetable mould and the clay upon which it rested, between the 'wet and the dry,' as the country phrase has it, and about thirty-one inches below the surface. They presented two forms--one consisting of two bricks set asunder on edge, and the other two laid lengthways across them, leaving between them an opening of four inches square for water, but having no soles. The bricks had not sunk in the least through the sandy clay bottom upon which they rested, as they were three inches broad. The other form was of two bricks laid side by side, as a sole, with two others built or laid on each other, at both sides, upon the solid ground, and covered with flat stones, the building being packed on each side of the drain with broken bricks." In our chapter upon the "Obstruction of Drains," the various causes which operate against the permanency of drains, are more fully considered. CHAPTER VII. DIRECTION, DISTANCE, AND DEPTH OF DRAINS. DIRECTION OF DRAINS.--Whence comes the Water?--Inclination of Strata.--Drains across the Slope let Water out as well as Receive it.--Defence against Water from Higher Land.--Open Ditches.--Headers.--Silt-basins. DISTANCE OF DRAINS.--Depends on Soil, Depth, Climate, Prices, System.--Conclusions as to Distance. DEPTH OF DRAINS.--Greatly Increases Cost.--Shallow Drains first tried in England.--10,000 Miles of Shallow Drains laid in Scotland by way of Education.--Drains must be below Subsoil plow, and Frost.--Effect of Frost on Tiles and Aqueducts. DIRECTION OF DRAINS. Whether drains should run up and down the slope of the hill, or directly across it, or in a diagonal line as a compromise between the first two, are questions which beginners in the art and mystery of drainage usually discuss with great zeal. It seems so plain to one man, at the first glance, that, in order to catch the water that is running down under the soil upon the subsoil, from the top of the hill to the bottom, you must cut a ditch across the current, that he sees no occasion to examine the question farther. Another, whose idea is, to catch the water in his drain before it rises to the surface, as it is passing up from below or running along on the subsoil, and keep it from rising higher than the bottom of his ditch, thinks it quite as obvious that the drains should run up and down the slope, that the water, once entering, may remain in the drain, going directly down hill to the outlet. A third hits on the Keythorpe system, and regarding the water as flowing down the slope, under the soil, in certain natural channels in the subsoil, fancies they may best be cut off by drains, in the nature of mains, running diagonally across the slope. These different ideas of men, if examined, will be found to result mainly from their different notions of the underground circulation of water. In considering the Theory of Moisture, an attempt was made to suggest the different causes of the wetness of land. To drain land effectually, we must have a correct idea of the sources of the water that makes the particular field too wet; whether it falls from the clouds directly upon it; or whether it falls on land situated above it and sloping towards it, so that the water runs down, as upon a roof, from other fields or slopes to our own; or whether it gushes up in springs which find vent in particular spots, and so is diffused through the soil. If we have only to take care of the water that falls on our own field, from the clouds, that is quite a different matter from draining the whole adjoining region, and requires a different mode of operation. If your field is in the middle, or at the foot, of an undrained slope, from which the water runs on the surface over your land, or soaks through it toward some stream or swamp below, provision must be made not only for drainage of your own field, but also for partial drainage of your neighbor's above, or at least for defence against his surplus of water. The first, and leading idea to be kept in mind, as governing this question of the direction of drains, is the simple fact that _water runs down hill_; or, to express the fact more scientifically, water constantly seeks a lower level by the force of gravitation, and the whole object of drains is to open lower and still lower passages, into which the water may fall lower and lower until it is discharged from our field at a safe depth. Water goes down, then, by its own weight, unless there is something through which it cannot readily pass, to bring it out at the surface. It will go into the drains, only because they are lower than the land drained. It will never go _upward_ to find a drain, and it will go toward a drain the more readily, in proportion as the descent is more steep toward it. To decide properly what direction a drain should have, it is necessary, then, to have a definite and a correct idea as to what office the drain is to perform, what water is to fall into it, what land it is to drain. Suppose the general plan to be, to lay drains forty feet apart, and four feet deep over the field, and the question now to be determined, as to the _direction_, whether across, or up and down the slope, there being fall enough to render either course practicable. The first point of inquiry is, what is expected of each drain? How much and what land should it drain? The general answer must be, forty feet breadth, either up and down the slope, or across it; according to the direction. But we must be more definite in our inquiry than even this. From _what_ forty feet of land will the water fall into the drain? Obviously, from some land in which the water is higher than the bottom of the drain. If, then, the drain run directly _across_ the slope, most of the water that can fall into it, must come from the forty feet breadth of land between the drain in question, and the drain next above it. If the water were falling on an impervious surface, it would all run according to the slope of the surface, in which case, by the way, no drains but those across, could catch any of it except what fell upon the drains. But the whole theory of drainage is otherwise, and is based on the idea that we change the course of the underground flow, by drawing out the water at given points by our drains; or, in other words, that "the water seeks the lowest level in all directions." Upon the best view the writer has been able to take of the two systems as to the direction of drains, there is but a very small advantage in theory in favor of either over the other, in soil which is homogeneous. But it must be borne in mind that homogeneous soil is rather the exception in nature than the rule. Without undertaking to advance or defend any peculiar geological views of the structure of the earth, or of the depositions or formations that compose its surface, it may be said, that very often the first four feet of subsoil is composed of strata, or layers of earth of varying porosity. Beneath sand will be found a stratum of clay, or of compact or cemented gravel, and frequently these strata are numerous and thin. Indeed, if there be not some stratum below the soil, which impedes the passage of water, it would pass downward, and the land would need no artificial drainage. Quite often it will be found that the dip or inclination of the various strata below the soil is different from that of the surface. The surface may have a considerable slope, while the lower strata lie nearly level, as if they had been cut through by artificial grading. The following figure from the Cyclopedia of Agriculture, with the explanation, fully illustrates this idea. "In many subsoils there are thin partings, or layers, of porous materials, interspersed between the strata, which, although not of sufficient capacity to give rise to actual springs, yet exude sufficient water to indicate their presence. These partings occasionally crop out, and give rise to those damp spots, which are to be seen diversifying the surface of fields, when the drying breezes of Spring have begun to act upon them. In the following cut, the light lines represent such partings. "Now, it will be evident, in draining such land, that if the drains be disposed in a direction transverse or oblique to the slope, it will often happen that the drains, no matter how skillfully planned, will not reach these partings at all, as at A. In this case, the water will continue to flow on in its accustomed channel, and discharge its waters at B. [Illustration: Fig. 34--DRAINS ACROSS THE SLOPE.] "But again, even though it does reach these partings, as at C, a considerable portion of water will escape from the drain itself, and flow to the _lower level_ of its old point of discharge at D. Whereas, a drain cut in the line of the slope, as from D to E, intersects all these partings, and furnishes an outlet to them at a lower level than their old ones." These reasons are, it is true, applicable only to land of peculiar structure; but there are reasons for selecting the line of greatest fall for the direction of drains which are applicable to all lands alike. "The line of the greatest fall is the only line in which a drain is relatively lower than the land on either side of it." Whether we regard the surplus water as having recently fallen upon the field, and as being stopped near the surface by an impervious stratum, or as brought down on these strata from above, we have it to be disposed of as it rests upon this stratum, and is borne out by it to the surface. If there is a decided dip, or inclination, of this stratum outward down the slope, it is manifest that the water cannot pass backward to a cross drain higher up the slope. The course of the water must be downward upon the stratum on which it lies, and so all between two cross drains must pass to the lower one. The upper drain could take very little, if any, and the greater the inclination of this stratum, the less could flow backward. But in such case a drain down the slope gives to the water borne up by these strata, an outlet of the depth of the drain. If the drain be four feet deep, it cuts the water-bearing strata each at that depth, and takes off the water. In these cases, the different layers of clay or other impervious "partings," are like the steps of a huge stairway, with the soil filling them up to a regular grade. The ditch cuts through these steps, letting the water that rests on them fall off at the ends, instead of running over the edges. Drains across the slope have been significantly termed "mere catch-waters." If we wish to use water to irrigate lands, we carefully conduct it along the surface across the slope, allowing it to flow over and to soak through the soil. If we desire to carry the same water off the field as speedily as possible, we should carry our surface ditch directly down the slope. Now, looking at the operation of drains across the slope, and supposing that each drain is draining the breadth next above it, we will suppose the drain to be running full of water. What is there to prevent the water from passing out of that drain in its progress, at every point of the tiles, and so saturating the breadth below it? Drainpipes afford the same facility for water to soak out at the lower side, as to enter on the upper, and there is the same law of gravitation to operate in each case. Mr. Denton gives instances in which he has observed, where drains were carried across the slope, in Warwickshire, lines of moisture at a regular distance below the drains. He could ascertain, he says, the depth of the drain itself, by taking the difference of height between the line of the drain at the surface, and that of the line of moisture beneath it. He says again: "I recently had an opportunity, in Scotland, of gauging the quantity of water traveling along an important drain carried obliquely across the fall, when I ascertained with certainty, that, although the land through which it passed was comparatively full of water, the drain actually lost more than it gained in a passage of several chains through it." So far as authority goes, there seems, with the exception of some advocates of the Keythorpe system, of which an account has been given, to be very little difference of opinion. Mr. Denton says: "With respect to the direction of drains, I believe very little difference of opinion exists. All the most successful drainers concur in the line of the steepest descent, as essential to effective and economical drainage. Certain exceptions are recognized in the West of England, but I believe it will be found, as practice extends in that quarter, that the exceptions have been allowed in error." In another place, he says: "The very general concurrence in the adoption of the line of greatest descent, as the proper course for the minor drains in soils free from rock, would almost lead me to declare this as an incontrovertible principle." Allusion has been made to cases where we may have to defend ourselves from the flow of water from higher undrained lands of our neighbor. To arrest the flow of mere surface water, an open ditch, or catch-water, is the most effectual, as well as the most obvious mode. There are many instances in New England, where lands upon the lowest slopes of hills are overflowed by water which fell high up upon the hill, and, after passing downward till arrested by rock formation, is borne out again to the surface, in such quantity as to produce, just at the foot of the hill, almost a swamp. This land is usually rich from the wash of the hills, but full of cold water. To effect perfect drainage of a portion of this land, which we will suppose to be a gentle slope, the first object must be to cut off the flow of water upon or near the surface. An open ditch across the top would most certainly effect this object, and it may be doubtful whether any other drain would be sufficient. This would depend upon the quantity of water flowing down. If the quantity be very great at times, a part of it would be likely to flow across the top of an under-drain, from not having time to percolate downward into it. In all cases, it is advised, where our work stops upon a slope, to introduce a cross-drain, connecting the tops of all the minor-drains. This cross-drain is called a _header_. The object of it is to cut off the water that may be passing along in the subsoil down the slope, and which would otherwise be likely to pass downward between the system of drains to a considerable distance before finding them. If we suppose the ground saturated with water, and our drains running up the slope and stopping at 4 feet depth, with no header connecting them, they, in effect, stop against 4 feet head of water, and in order to drain the land as far up as they go, must not only take their fair proportion of water which lies between them, but must draw down this 4 feet head beyond them. This they cannot do, because the water from a higher source, with the aid of capillary attraction, and the friction or resistance met with in percolation, will keep up this head of water far above the drained level. In railway cuttings, and the like, we often see a slope of this kind cut through, without drying the land above the cutting; and if the slope be disposed in alternate layers of sand or gravel, and clay, the water will continue to flow out high up on the perpendicular bank. Even in porous soils of homogeneous character, it will be found that the _head_ of water, if we may use the expression, is affected but a short distance by a drain across its flow. Indeed, the whole theory as to the distance of drains apart, rests upon the idea, that the limit to which drains may be expected effectually to operate, is at most but two or three rods. Whether, in a particular case, a header alone will be sufficient to cut off the flow of water from the higher land, or whether, in addition to the header, an open catch-water may be required, must depend upon the quantity of water likely to flow through or upon the land. An under-drain might be expected to absorb any moderate quantity of what may be termed drainage-water, but it cannot stop a river or mill-stream; and if the earth above the tiles be compact, even water flowing through the soil with rapidity, might pass across it. If there is reason to apprehend this, an open ditch might be added to the header; or, if this is not considered sufficiently scientific or in good taste, a tile-drain of sufficient capacity may be laid, with the ditch above it carefully packed with small stones to the top of the ground. Such a drain would be likely to receive sand and other obstructing substances, as well as a large amount of water, and should, for both reasons, be carried off independently of the small drains, which would thus be left to discharge their legitimate service. Where it is thought best to connect an open, or surface drain, with a covered drain, it will add much to its security against silt and other obstructions, to interpose a trap or silt-basin at the junction, and thus allow the water to pass off comparatively clean. Where, however, there is a large flow of water into a basin, it will be kept so much in motion as to carry along with it a large amount of earth, and thus endanger the drain below, unless it be very large. DISTANCES APART, OR FREQUENCY OF DRAINS. The reader, who has studied carefully the rival systems of "deep drainage" and "thorough drainage," has seen that the distance of drains apart, is closely connected with that controversy. The greatest variety of opinion is expressed by different writers as to the proper distances, ranging all the way from ten feet apart to seventy, or even more. Many English writers have ranged themselves on one side or the other of some sharp controversy as to the merits of some peculiar system. Some distinguished geologist has discovered, or thinks he has, some new law of creation by which he can trace the underground currents of water; or some noble noble lord has "patronized" into notice some caprice of an aspiring engineer, and straight-way the kingdom is convulsed with contests to set up or cast down these idols. By careful observation, it is said, we may find "sermons in stones, and good in everything;" and, standing aloof from all exciting controversies, we may often profit, not only by the science and wisdom of our brethren, but also by their errors and excesses. If, by the help of the successes and failures of our English neighbors, we shall succeed in attaining to their present standard of perfection in agriculture, we shall certainly make great advances upon our present position. As the distances of drains apart, depend manifestly on many circumstances, which may widely vary in the diversity of soil, climate, and cost of labor and materials to be found in the United States, it will be convenient to arrange our remarks on the subject under appropriate heads. DISTANCES DEPEND UPON THE NATURE OF THE SOIL. Water runs readily through sand or gravel. In such soils it easily seeks and finds its level. If it be drawn out at one point, it tends towards that point from all directions. In a free, open sand, you may draw out all the water at one opening, almost as readily as from an open pond. Yet, even such sands may require draining. A body of sandy soil frequently lies not only upon clay, but in a basin; so that, if the sand were removed, a pond would remain. In such a case, a few deep drains, rightly placed, might be sufficient. This, however, is a case not often met with, though open, sandy soil upon clay is a common formation. Then there is the other extreme of compact clay, through which water seems scarcely to percolate at all. Yet it has water in it, that may probably soak out by the same process by which it soaked in. Very few soils, of even such as are called clay, are impervious to water, especially in the condition in which they are found in nature. To render them impervious, it is necessary to wet and stir them up, or, as it is termed, _puddle_ them. Any soil, so far as it has been weathered--that is, exposed to air, water and frost--is permeable to water to a greater or less degree; so that we may feel confident that the upper stratum of any soil, not constantly under water, will readily allow the water to pass through. And in considering the "Drainage of Stiff Clays," we shall see that the most obstinate clays are usually so affected by the operation of drainage, that they crack, and so open passages for the water to the drains. All gravels, black mud of swamps, and loamy soils of any kind, are readily drained. Occasionally, however--even in tracts of easy drainage, as a whole--deposits are found of some combinations with iron, so firmly cemented together, as to be almost impenetrable with the pick-axe, and apparently impervious to water. Exceptional cases of this nature must be carefully sought for by the drainer. Whenever a wet spot is observed, seek for the cause, and be satisfied whether it is wet because a spring bursts up from the bottom; or because the subsoil is impervious, and will not allow the surface-water to pass downward. Ascertain carefully the cause of the evil, and then skillfully doctor the disease, and not the symptoms merely. A careful attention to the theory of moisture, will go far to enable us properly to determine the requisite frequency of drains. DISTANCES DEPEND UPON THE DEPTH OF THE DRAINS. The relations of the depth and distance of drains will be more fully considered, in treating of the depth of drains. The idea that depth will compensate for frequency, in all cases, seems now to be abandoned. It is conceded that clay-soils, which readily absorb moisture, and yet are strongly retentive, cannot be drained with sufficient rapidity, or even thoroughness, by drains at any depth, unless they are also within certain distances. In a porous soil, as a general rule, the deeper the drain, the further it will draw. The tendency of water is to lie level in the soil; but capillary attraction and mechanical obstructions offer constant resistance to this tendency. The farther water has to pass in the soil, the longer time, other things being equal, will be required for the passage. Therefore, although a single deep drain might, in ten days lower the water-line as much as two drains of the same depth, or, in other words, might draw the water all down to its own level, yet, it is quite evident that the two drains might do the work in less time--possibly, in five days. We have seen already the necessity of laying drains deep enough to be below the reach of the subsoil plow and below frost, so that, in the Northern States, the question of shallow drainage seems hardly debatable. Yet, if we adopt the conclusion that four feet is the least allowable depth, where an outfall can be found, there may be the question still, whether, in very open soils, a still greater depth may not be expedient, to be compensated by increased distance. DISTANCES DEPEND UPON CLIMATE. Climate includes the conditions of temperature and moisture, and so, necessarily, the seasons. In the chapter which treats of _Rain_, it will be seen that the quantity of rain which falls in the year is singularly various in different places. Even, in England, "the annual average rain-fall of the wettest place in Cumberland is stated to be 141 inches, while 19-1/2 inches may be taken as the average fall in Essex. In Cumberland, there are 210 days in the year in which rain falls, and in Chiswick, near London, but 124." A reference to the tables in another place, will show us an infinite variety in the rain-fall at different points of our own country. If we expect, therefore, to furnish passage for but two feet of water in the year, our drains need not be so numerous as would be necessary to accommodate twice that quantity, unless, indeed, the time for its passage may be different; and this leads us to another point which should ever be kept in mind in New England--the necessity of quick drainage. The more violent storms and showers of our country, as compared with England, have been spoken of when considering _The Size of Tiles_. The sudden transition from Winter to Summer, from the breaking up of deep snows with the heavy falls of rain, to our brief and hasty planting time, requires that our system of drainage should be efficient, not only to take off large quantities of water, but to take them off in a very short time. How rapidly water may be expected to pass off by drainage, is not made clear by writers on the subject. "One inch in depth," says an English writer, "is a very heavy fall of rain in a day, and it generally takes two days for the water to drain fully from deep drained land." One inch of water over an acre is calculated to be something more than one hundred tons. This seems, in gross, to be a large amount, but we should expect that an inch, or even two inches of water, spread evenly over a field, would soon disappear from the surface; and if not prevented by some impervious obstruction, it must continue downward. It is said, on good authority, that, in England, the smallest sized pipes, if the fall be good, will be sufficiently large, at ordinary distances, to carry off all the surplus water. In the author's own fields, where two-inch tiles are laid at four feet depth and fifty feet apart, in an open soil, they seem amply sufficient to relieve the ground of all surplus water from rain, in a very few days. Most of them have never ceased to run every day in the year, but as they are carried up into an undrained plain, they probably convey much more water than falls upon the land in which they lie. So far as our own observation goes, their flow increases almost as soon as rain begins to fall, and subsides, after it ceases, about as soon as the water in the little river into which they lead, sinks back into its ordinary channel, the freshet in the drains and in the stream being nearly simultaneous. Probably, two-inch pipes, at fifty feet distances, will carry off, with all desirable rapidity, any quantity of water that will ever fall, if the soil be such that the water can pass through it to the distance necessary to find the drains; but it is equally probable that, in a compact clay soil, fifty feet distance is quite too great for sufficiently rapid drainage, because the water cannot get to the drains with sufficient rapidity. DISTANCES DEPEND UPON THE COMPARATIVE PRICES OF LABOR AND TILES. The fact, that the last foot of a four-foot drain costs as much labor as the first three feet, is shown in another chapter, and the deeper we go, the greater the comparative cost of the labor. With tiles at $10 per thousand, the cost of opening and filling a four-foot ditch is, in, round numbers, by the rod, equal to twice the cost of the tiles. In porous soils, therefore, where depth may be made to compensate for greater distance, it is always a matter for careful estimate, whether we shall practice true economy by laying the tiles at great depths, or at the smallest depth at which they will be safe from frost and the subsoil plow, and at shorter distances. The rule is manifest that, where labor is cheap and tiles are dear, it is true economy to dig deep and lay few tiles; and, where tiles are cheap and labor is dear, it is economy to make the number of drains, if possible, compensate for less depth. DISTANCES DEPEND UPON SYSTEM. While we would not lay down an arbitrary arrangement for any farm, except upon a particular examination, and while we would by no means advocate what has been called the gridiron system--of drains everywhere at equal depths and distances--yet some system is absolutely essential, in any operation that approaches to thorough drainage. If it be only desired to cut off some particular springs, or to assist Nature in some ravine or basin, a deep drain here and there may be expedient; but when any considerable surface is to be drained, there can be no good work without a connected plan of operations. Mains must be laid from the outfall, through the lowest parts; and into the mains the smaller drains must be conducted, upon such a system as that there may be the proper fall or inclination throughout, and that the whole field shall be embraced. Again, a perfect _plan_ of the completed work, accurately drawn on paper, should always be preserved for future reference. Now it is manifest, that it is impossible to lay out a given field, with proper mains and small drains, dividing the fall as equally as practicable between the different parts of an undulating field, preserving a system throughout, by which, with the aid of a plan, any drain may at any time be traced, without making distances conform somewhat to the system of the whole. It is easily demonstrable, too, that drains at right angles with the mains, and so parallel with each other, are the shortest possible drains in land that needs uniform drainage. They take each a more uniform share of the water, and serve a greater breadth of soil than when laid at acute angles. While, therefore, it may be supposed that in particular parts of the field, distances somewhat greater or less might be advisable, considered independently, yet in practice, it will be found best, usually, to pay becoming deference to order, "Heaven's first law," and sacrifice something of the individual good, to the leading idea of the general welfare. In the letter of Mr. Denton, in another chapter, some remarks will be found upon the subject of which we are treating. The same gentleman has, in a published paper, illustrated the impossibility of strict adherence to any arbitrary rule in the distances or arrangement of drains, as follows: "The wetness of land, which for distinction's sake, I have called 'the water of pressure,' like the water of springs, to which it is nearly allied, can be effectually and cheaply removed only by drains devised for, and devoted to the object. Appropriate deep drains at B B B, for instance, as indicated in the dark vertical lines, are found to do the service of many parallel drains, which as frequently miss, as they hit, those furrows, or 'lips,' in the horizontal out-crop of water-bearing strata which continue to exude wetness after the higher portions are dry. [Illustration: Fig. 35.--The vertical dotted lines show the position of parallel drains.] "A consideration, too, of the varying inclinations of surface, of which instances will frequently occur in the same field, necessitates a departure from uniformity, not in direction only, but in intervals between drains. Take, for instance, the ordinary case of a field, in which a comparatively flat space will intervene between quickly rising ground and the outfall ditch. It is clear that the soak of the hill will pervade the soil of the lower ground, let the system of drainage adopted be what it may; and, therefore, supposing the soil of the hill and flat to be precisely alike, the existence of bottom water in a greater quantity in the lower lands than in the higher, will call for a greater number of drains. It is found, too, that an independent discharge or relief of the water coming from the hill, at B, should always be provided, in order to avoid any impediment by the slower flow of the flatter drains. [Illustration: Fig. 36.] "Experience shows that, with few exceptions, hollows, or 'slacks,' observable on the surface, as at B B, have a corresponding undulation of subsoil and that any system which does not provide a direct release for water, which would otherwise collect in and draw towards these spots, is imperfect and unsatisfactory. It is found to be much more safe to depend on relief drains, than on the cutting of drains sufficiently deep through the banks, at A A, to gain a fall at a regular inclination. "Still, in spite of experience, we often observe a disregard of these facts, even in works which are otherwise well executed to a depth of four feet, but fettered by methodical rules, and I feel compelled to remark, that it has often occurred to me, when I have observed with what diligent examination the rules of depth and distance have been tested, that if more attention had been paid to the _source_ of injury, and to the mode of securing an effective and permanent _discharge_ of the injurious water, much greater service would be done." In conclusion, as to distances, we should advise great caution on the part of beginners in laying out their drains. Draining is too expensive a work to be carelessly or unskillfully done. A mistake in locating drains too far apart, brings a failure to accomplish the end in view. A mistake in placing them too near, involves a great loss of labor and money. Consult, then, those whose experience has given them knowledge, and pay to a professional engineer, or some other skillful person, a small amount for aid, which will probably save ten times as much in the end. We have placed our own drains in porous, though very wet soil, at fifty feet distances, which, in most soils, might be considered extremely wide. We are fully satisfied that they would have drained the land as well at sixty feet, except in a few low places, where they could not be sunk four feet for want of fall. In most New England lands that require drainage, we believe that from 40 to 50 feet distances, with four feet depth, will prove sufficient. Upon stiff clays, we have no experience of our own of any value, although we have a field of the stiffest clay, drained last season at 40 feet distances and four feet depth. In England, this would, probably, prove insufficient, and, perhaps, it will prove so here. One thing is certain, that, at present, there is little land in this country that will pay for drainage by hand labor, at the English distances in clay, of 16 or 20 feet. If our powerful Summer's sun will not somehow compensate in part for distance, we must, upon our clays, await the coming of draining plows and steam. DEPTH OF DRAINS. Cheap and temporary expedients in agriculture are the characteristics of us Americans, who have abundance of land, a whole continent to cultivate, and comparatively few hands and small capital with which to do the work. We erect temporary houses and barns and fences, hoping to find time and means at a future day, to reconstruct them in a more thorough manner. We half cultivate our new lands, because land is cheaper than labor; and it pays best for the present, rather to rob our mother earth, than to give her labor for bread. The easy and cheap process in draining, is that into which we naturally fall. It is far easier and cheaper to dig shallow than deep drains, and, therefore, we shall not dig deep unless we see good reason to do so. If, however, we carefully study the subject, it will be manifest that superficial drainage is, in general, the result of superficial knowledge of the subject. Thorough-drainage does not belong to pioneer farming, nor to a cheap and temporary system. It involves capital and labor, and demands skill and system. It cannot be patched up, like a brush fence, to answer the purpose, from year to year, but every tile must be placed where it will best perform its office for a generation. In England, the rule and the habit in all things, is thoroughness and permanency; yet the first and greatest mistake there in drainage was shallowness, and it has required years of experiments, and millions of money, to correct that mistake. If we commit the same folly, as we are very likely to do, we cannot claim even the originality of the blunder, and shall be guilty of the folly of pursuing the crooked paths of their exploration, instead of the straight highway which they have now established. To be sure, the controversy as to the depth of drains has by no means ceased in England, but the question is reduced to this, whether the least depth shall be three feet or four; one party contending that for certain kinds of clay, a three-foot drain is as effectual as a four-foot drain, and that the least effectual depth should be used, because it is the cheapest; while the general opinion of the best scientific and practical men in the kingdom, has settled down upon four feet as the minimum depth, where the fall and other circumstances render it practicable. At the same time, all admit that, in many cases, a greater depth than four feet is required by true economy. It may seem, at first, that a controversy, as to one additional foot in a system of drainage, depends upon a very small point; but a little reflection will show it to be worthy of careful consideration. Without going here into a nice calculation, it may be stated generally as an established fact, that the excavation of a ditch four feet deep, costs twice as much as that of a ditch three feet deep. Although this may not seem credible to one who has not considered the point, yet it will become more probable on examination, and very clear, when the actual digging is attempted. Ditches for tiles are always opened widest at top, with a gradual narrowing to near the bottom, where they should barely admit the tile. Now, the addition of a foot to the depth, is not, as it would perhaps at first appear, merely the addition of the lowest and narrowest foot, but rather of the topmost and widest foot. In other words, a four-foot ditch is precisely a three-foot ditch in size and form, with an additional foot on the top of it, and not a three-foot ditch deepened an additional foot. The lowest foot of a four-foot ditch is raised one foot higher, to get it upon the surface, than if the ditch were but three feet deep. In clays, and most other soils, the earth grows harder as we go deeper, and this consideration, in practice, will be found important. Again: the small amount of earth from a three-foot ditch, may lie conveniently on one bank near its edge, while the additional mass from a deeper one must be thrown further; and then is to be added the labor of replacing the additional quantity in filling up. On the whole, the point may be conceded, that the labor of opening and finishing a four-foot drain is double that of a three-foot drain. Without stopping here to estimate carefully the cost of excavation and the cost of tiles, it may be remarked, that, upon almost any estimate, the cost of labor, even in a three-foot drain in this country, yet far exceeds the cost of tiles: but, if we call them equal, then, if the additional foot of depth costs as much as the first three feet, we have the cost of a four-foot tile-drain fifty per cent. more than that of a three-foot drain. In other words, 200 rods of four-foot drain will cost just as much as 300 rods of three-foot drain. This is, probably, as nearly accurate as any general estimate that can be made at present. The principles upon which the calculations depend, having been thus suggested, it will not be difficult to vary them so as to apply them to the varying prices of labor and tiles, and to the use of the plow or other implements propelled by animals or steam, when applied to drainage in our country. The earliest experiments in thorough-drainage, in England, were at very small depths, two feet being, for a time, considered very deep, and large tracts were underlaid with tiles at a depth of eighteen, and even twelve inches. It is said, that 10,000 miles of drains, two feet deep and less, were laid in Scotland before it was found that this depth was not sufficient. Of course, the land thus treated was relieved of much water, and experimenters were often much gratified with their success; but it may be safely said now, that there is no advocate known to the public, in England, for a system of drainage of less than three feet depth, and no one advocates a system of drainage of less than four feet deep, except upon some peculiar clays. The general principle seems well established, that depth will compensate for width; or, in other words, that the deeper the drain, the farther it will draw. This principle, generally correct, is questioned when applied to peculiar clays only. As to them, all that is claimed is, that it is more economical to make the drains but three feet, because they must, even if deep, be near together--nobody doubting, that if four feet deep or more, and near enough, they will drain the land. In speaking of _clay_ soil, it should always be borne in mind, that clay is merely a relative term in agriculture. "A clay in Scotland," says Mr. Pusey, "would be a loam in the South of England." Professor Mapes, of our own country, in the _Working Farmer_, says, "We are convinced, that, with thorough subsoil plowing, no clay soil exists in this country which might not be underdrained to a depth of four feet with advantage." There can be no doubt, that, with four-foot drains at proper distances, all soils, except some peculiar clays, may be drained, even without reference to the changes produced in the mechanical structure of soil by the operation. There is no doubt, however, that all soils are, by the admission of air, which must always take the place of the water drawn out, and by the percolation of water through them, rendered gradually more porous. Added to this, the subsoil plow, which will be the follower of drainage, will break up the soil to considerable depth, and thus make it more permeable to moisture. But there is still another and more effective aid which Nature affords to the land-drainer, upon what might be otherwise impracticable clays. This topic deserves a careful and distinct consideration, which it will receive under the title of "Drainage of Stiff Clays." In discussing the subject of the depth of drains, we are not unmindful of the fact that, in this country, the leaders in the drainage movement, especially Messrs. Delafield, Yeomans, and Johnston, of New York, have achieved their truly striking results, by the use of tiles laid at from two and a half to three feet depth. On the "Premium Farm" of R. J. Swan, of Rose Hill, near Geneva, it is stated that there are sixty-one miles of under-drains, laid from two and a half to three feet deep. That these lands thus drained have been changed in their character, from cold, wet, and unproductive wastes, in many cases, to fertile and productive fields of corn and wheat, sufficiently appears. Indeed, we all know of fields drained only with stone drains two feet deep, that have been reclaimed from wild grasses and rushes into excellent mowing fields. In England and in Scotland, as we have seen, thousands of miles of shallow drains were laid, and were for years quite satisfactory. These facts speak loudly in favor of drainage in general. The fact that shoal drains produce results so striking, is a stumbling-block in the progress of a more thorough system. It may seem like presumption to say to those to whom we are so much indebted for their public spirit, as well as private enterprise, that they have not drained deep enough for the greatest advantage in the end. It would seem that they should know their own farms and their own results better than others. We propose to state, with all fairness, the results of their experiments, and to detract nothing from the credit which is due to the pioneers in a great work. We cannot, however, against the overwhelming weight of authority, and against the reasons for deeper drainage, which, to us, seem so satisfactory, conclude, that even three feet is, in general, deep enough for under-drains. Three-foot drains will produce striking results on almost any wet lands, but four-foot drains will be more secure and durable, will give wider feeding-grounds to the roots, better filter the percolating water, warm and dry the land earlier in Spring, furnish a larger reservoir for heavy rains, and, indeed, more effectually perform every office of drains. In reviewing our somewhat minute discussion of this essential point--the proper depth of drains--certain propositions may be laid down with considerable assurance. TILES MUST BE LAID BELOW THE REACH OF THE SUBSOIL PLOW. Let no man imagine that he shall never use the subsoil plow; for so surely as he has become already so much alive to improvement, as to thorough-drain, so surely will he next complete the work thus begun, by subsoiling his land. The subsoil plow follows in the furrow of another plow, and if the forward plow turn a furrow one foot deep, the subsoil may be run two feet more, making three feet in all. Ordinarily, the subsoil plow is run only to the depth of 18 or 20 inches; but if the intention were to run it no deeper than that, it would be liable to dip much deeper occasionally, as it came suddenly upon the soft places above the drains. The tiles should lie far enough below the deepest path of the subsoil plow, not to be at all disturbed by its pressure in passing over the drains. It is by no means improbable that fields that have already been drained in this country, may be, in the lifetime of their present occupants, plowed and subsoiled by means of steam-power, and stirred to as great a depth as shall be found at all desirable. But, in the present mode of using the subsoil plow on land free from stones, a depth less than three and a half or four feet would hardly be safe for the depth of tile-drains. TILES MUST BE LAID BELOW FROST. This is a point upon which we must decide for our selves. There is no country where drainage is practiced, where the thermometer sinks, as in almost every Winter it does in New England, to 20° below zero (Fahrenheit). All writers seem to assume that tile-drains must be injured by frost. What the effect of frost upon them is supposed to be, does not seem very clear. If filled with water, and frozen, they must, of course, burst by the expansion of the water in freezing; but it would probably rarely happen, that drainage-water, running in cold weather, could come from other than deep sources, and it must then be considerably above the freezing point. Still; we know that aqueduct pipes do freeze at considerable depths, though supplied from deep springs. Neither these nor gas-pipes are, in our New England towns, safe below frost, unless laid four feet below the surface; and instances occur where they freeze at a much greater depth, usually, however, under the beaten paths of streets, or in exposed positions, where the snow is blown away. In such places, the earth sometimes freezes solid to the depth of even six feet. It will be suggested at once that our fields, and especially our wet lands, do not freeze so deep, and this is true; but it must be borne in mind, that the very reason why our wet lands do not freeze deeper, may be, that they are filled with the very spring-water which makes them cold in Summer, indeed, but is warmer than the air in Winter, and so keeps out the frost. Drained lands will freeze deeper than undrained lands, and the farmer must be vigilant upon this point, or he may have his work ruined in a single Winter. We are aware, that upon this, as every other point, ascertained facts may seem strangely to conflict. In the town of Lancaster, among the mountains in the coldest part of New Hampshire, many of the houses and barns of the village are supplied with water brought in aqueducts from the hills. We observed that the logs which form the conduit are, in many places, exposed to view on the surface of the ground, sometimes partly covered with earth, but generally very little protected. There has not been a Winter, perhaps in a half century, when the thermometer has not at times been 10° below Zero, and often it is even lower than that. Upon particular inquiry, we ascertained that very little inconvenience is experienced there from the freezing of the pipes. The water is drawn from deep springs in the mountains, and fills the pipes of from one to two-inch bore, passing usually not more than one or two hundred rods before it is discharged, and its warmth is sufficient, with the help of its usual snow covering, to protect it from the frost. We have upon our own premises an aqueduct, which supplies a cattle-yard, which has never been covered more than two feet deep, and has never frozen in the nine years of its use. We should not, therefore, apprehend much danger from the freezing of pipes, even at shallow depths, if they carry all the Winter a considerable stream of spring-water; but in pipes which take merely the surface water that passes into them by percolation, we should expect little or no aid from the water in preventing frost. The water filtering downward in Winter must be nearly at the freezing point; and the pipes may be filled with solid ice, by the freezing of a very small quantity as it enters them. Neither hard-burnt bricks nor hard-burnt tiles will crumble by mere exposure to the Winter weather above ground, though soft bricks or tiles will scarcely endure a single hard frost. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the importance of using hard-burnt tiles only, as the failure of a single tile may work extensive mischief. Writers seem to assume, that the freezing of the ground about the drains will displace the tiles, and so destroy their continuity, and this may be so; though we find no evidence, perhaps, that at three or four feet, there is any disturbance of the soil by freezing. We dig into clay, or into our strong subsoils, and find the earth, at three feet deep, as solid and undisturbed as at twice that depth, and no indication that the frost has touched it, though it has felt the grip of his icy fingers every year since the Flood. With these suggestions for warning and for encouragement, the subject must be left to the sound judgment of the farmer or engineer upon each farm, to make the matter so safe, that the owner need not have an anxious thought, as he wakes in a howling Winter night, lest his drains should be freezing. Finally, in view of the various considerations that have been, suggested, as well as of the almost uniform authority of the ablest writers and practical men, it is safe to conclude, that, in general, in this country, wherever sufficient outfall can be had, _four feet above the top of the tiles should be the minimum depth of drains_. CHAPTER VIII. ARRANGEMENT OF DRAINS. Necessity of System.--What Fall is Necessary.--American Examples.--Outlets.--Wells and Relief-Pipes.--Peep holes.--How to secure Outlets.--Gate to Exclude Back-Water.--Gratings and Screens to keep out Frogs, Snakes, Moles, &c.--Mains, Submains, and Minors, how placed.--Capacity of Pipes.--Mains of Two Tiles.--Junction of Drains.--Effect of Curves and Angles on Currents.--Branch Pipes.--Draining into Wells or Swallow Holes.--Letter from Mr. Denton. As every act is, or should be, a part of a great plan of life, so every stake that is set, and every line laid in the field, should have relation not only to general principles, but also to some comprehensive plan of operations. Assuming, then, that the principles advocated in this treatise are adopted as to the details, that the depth preferred is not less than four feet--that the direction preferred is up and down the slope--that the distance apart may range from fifteen to sixty feet, and more in some cases, according to the depth of drains and the nature of the soil--that no tiles smaller than one and a half inch bore will be used, and none less than two inches except for the first one hundred yards, there still remains the application of all these principles to the particular work in hand. With the hope of assisting the deliberations of the farmer on this point, some additional suggestions will be made under appropriate heads. ARRANGEMENT MUST HAVE REFERENCE TO SYSTEM. The absolute necessity of some regularity of plan in our work, must be manifest. Without system, we can never, in the outset, estimate the cost of our operation; we can never proportion our tiles to the quantity of water that will pass through them; we can never find the drains afterwards, or form a correct opinion of the cause of any failure that may await us. We prefer, in general, where practicable, parallel lines for our minor drains, at right angles with the mains, because this is the simplest and most systematic arrangement; but the natural ravines or water-courses in fields, seldom run parallel with each other, or at right angles with the slope of the hills, so that regular work like this, can rarely be accomplished. If the earth were constructed of regular slopes, or plains of uniform character, we could easily apply to it all our rules; but, broken as it is into hills and valleys, filled with stones here, with a bank of clay there, and a sand-pit close by, we are obliged to sacrifice to general convenience, often, some special abstract rule. We prefer to run drains up and down the slope; but if the field be filled with undulations, or hills with various slopes, we may often find it expedient, for the sake of system, to vary this course. If the question were only as to one single drain, we could adjust it so as to conform to our perfect ideal; but as each drain is, as it were, an artery in a complicated system, which must run through and affect every part of it, all must be located with reference to every other, and to the general effect. Keeping in mind, then, the importance of some regular system that shall include the whole field of operation, the work should be laid out, with as near a conformity to established principles as circumstances will permit. ARRANGEMENT MUST HAVE REFERENCE TO THE FALL. In considering what fall is necessary, and what is desirable, we have seen, that although a very slight inclination may carry off water, yet a proportionably larger drain is necessary as the fall decreases, because the water runs slower. "It is surprising," says Stephens, "what a small descent is required for the flow of water in a well-constructed duct. People frequently complain that they cannot find sufficient fall to carry off the water from the drains. There are few situations where a sufficient fall cannot be found if due pains are exercised. It has been found in practice, that a water-course thirty feet wide and six feet deep, giving a transverse sectional area of one hundred and eighty square feet, will discharge three hundred cubic yards of water per minute, and will flow at the rate of one mile per hour, with a fall of no more than _six inches per mile_." Messrs. Shedd and Edson, of Boston, have superintended some drainage works in Milton, Mass., where, after obtaining permission to drain through the land of an adjacent owner, not interested in the operation, they could obtain but three inches fall in one hundred feet, or a half inch to the rod, for three quarters of a mile, and this only by blasting the ledges at the outlet. This fall, however, proves sufficient for perfect drainage, and by their skill, a very unhealthful swamp has been rendered fit for gardens and building-lots. In another instance, in Dorchester, Mass., Mr. Shedd informs us that in one thousand feet, they could obtain only a fall of two inches for their main, and this, by nice adjustment, he expects to make sufficient. In another instance, he has found a fall of two and a half inches in one hundred feet, in an open paved drain to be effectual. It is certainly advisable always to divide the fall as even as possible throughout the drains, yet this will be found a difficult rule to follow. Very often we have a space of nearly level ground to pass through to our outfall; and, usually, the mains, in order that the minor drains may be carried into them from both sides, must follow up the natural valleys in the field, thus controlling, in a great measure, our choice as to the fall. We are, in fact, often compelled to use the natural fall nearly as we find it. It is thought advisable to have the mains from three to six inches lower than the drains discharging into them, so that there may be no obstruction in the minor drains by the backing up of water, and the consequent deposition of sand or other obstructing substances. Wherever one stream flows into another, there must be more or less interruption of the course of each. If the water from the minors enters the main with a quick fall, the danger of obstruction in the minor, at least, is much lessened. A frequent cause of partial failure of drains, is their not having been laid with a regular inclination. If, instead of a gradual and uniform fall, there should be a slight rising in the bed of a drain, the descending water will be interrupted there till it accumulate so high as to be above the level of the rising. At this point, therefore, the water must have a tendency to press out of the drains, and will deposit whatever particles of sand or other earthy matter it may bring down. Drains must, therefore, be so arranged, that in cutting them, their beds may be as nearly as possible, straight, or, at least, have a constant, if not a regular and equal fall. ARRANGEMENT MUST HAVE REFERENCE TO THE OUTLET. All agree that it is best to have but few general outlets. "In the whole process of draining," says an engineer of experience, "there is nothing so desirable as permanent and substantial work at the point of discharge." The outlet is the place, of all others, where obstruction is most likely to occur. Everywhere else the work is protected by the earth above it, but here it is exposed to the action of frost, to cattle, to mischievous boys, to reptiles, as well as to the obstructing deposits which are discharged from the drains themselves. In regular work, under the direction of engineers, iron pipes, with swing gratings set in masonry, are used, to protect permanently this important part of the system of drainage. It may often be convenient to run parallel drains down a slope, bringing each out into an open ditch, or at the bottom of some bank, thus making a separate outlet for each. This practice, however, is strongly deprecated. These numerous outlets cannot be well protected without great cost; they will be forgotten, or, at least, neglected, and the work will fail. Regarding this point, of few and well-secured outlets, as of great importance, the arrangement of all the drains must have reference to it. When drains are brought down a slope, as just suggested, let them, instead of discharging separately, be crossed, near the foot of the slope, by a sub-main running a little diagonally so as to secure sufficient fall, and so carried into a main, or discharged at a single outlet. It may be objected, that by thus uniting the whole system, and discharging the water at one point, there may be difficulty in ascertaining by inspection, whether any of the drains are obstructed, or whether all are performing their appropriate work. There is prudence and good sense in this suggestion, and the objection may be obviated by placing _wells_, or "peep-holes," at proper intervals, in which the flow of the water at various points may be observed. On the subject of wells and peep-holes, the reader will find in another chapter a more particular description of their construction and usefulness. The position of the outlet must, evidently, be at a point sufficiently low to receive all the water of the field; or, in other words, it must be the lowest point of the work. It will be fortunate, too, if the outlet can be at the same time high enough to be at all times above the back-water of the stream, or pond, or marsh, into which it empties; and high enough, too, to be protected by solid earth about it. In any case, great care should be taken to make the outlet secure and permanent. The process of thorough-drainage is expensive, and will only repay cost, upon the idea that it is permanent--that once well done, it is done forever. The tiles may be expected to operate well, for a lifetime; and the outlet, the only exposed portion of the work, should be constructed to endure as long as the rest. It is true that this portion of the work may be reached and repaired more conveniently than the tiles themselves; but it must be remembered that the decay of the outlet obstructs the flow of the water, produces a general stagnation throughout the drains, and so may cause their permanent obstruction at various points, hard to be ascertained, and difficult to be reached. Considering our liability to neglect such things as perish by a gradual decay, as well as the many accidental injuries to which the outlet is exposed, there is no security but in a solid and permanent structure at the first. To illustrate the importance attached to this point in England, as well as to indicate the best mode of securing the outlet, the drawings below have been taken from a pamphlet by Mr. Denton. Fig. 37 represents the mode of constructing the common small outlets of field drainage. [Illustration: Fig. 37.--SMALL OUTLET.] The distinguished engineer, of whose labors we have so freely availed ourselves, remarks as follows upon the subject: "Too many outlets are objectionable, on account of the labor of their maintenance: too few are objectionable, because they can only exist where there are mains of excessive length. A limit of twenty acres to an outlet, resulting in an average of, perhaps, fourteen acres, will appear, by the practices of the best drainers, to be about the proper thing. If a shilling an acre is reserved for fixing the outlets, which should be _iron pipes, with swing gratings_, in masonry, very substantial work may be done." Figures 38 and 39 represent the elevation and section of larger outlets, used in more extensive works. [Illustration: Fig. 38.--LARGE OUTLET.] [Illustration: Fig. 39.--LARGE OUTLET.] It is almost essential to the efficiency of drains, that there be fall enough beyond the outlet to allow of the quick flow of the water discharged. At the outlet, must be deposited whatever earth is brought down by the drains; and, in many cases, the outlet must be at a swamp or pond. If no decided fall can be obtained at the outlet, there must be care to provide and keep an open ditch or passage, so that the drainage-water may not be dammed back in the drains. It is advised, even, to follow down the bank of a stream or river, so as to obtain sufficient fall, rather than to have the outlet flooded, or _back-water_ in the drains. Still, there may be cases where it will be impossible to have an outlet that shall be always above the level of the river or pond which may receive the drainage water. If the outlet must be so situated as to be at times overflowed, great care should be taken to excavate a place at the outlet, into which any deposits brought down by the drain, may fall. If the outlet be level with the ground beyond it, the smallest quantity of earth will operate as a dam to keep back the water. Therefore, at the outlet, in such cases, a small well of brick or stonework should be constructed, into which the water should pour. There, even if the water stand above the outlet, will be deposited the earth brought along in the drain. This well must at times, when the water is low, be cleared of its contents, and kept ready for its work. The effect of back-water in drains cannot ordinarily be injurious, except as it raises the water higher in the land, and occasions deposits of earthy matter, and so obstructs the drains. We have in mind now, the common case of water temporarily raised, by Winter flowage or by Summer freshets. It should be remembered that even when the outlet is under water, if there is any current in the stream into which the drain empties, there must be some current in the drain also; and even if the drain discharge into a still pond, there must be a current greater or less, as water from a level higher than the surface of the pond, presses into the drains. Generally, then, under the most unfavorable circumstances, we may expect to have some flow of water through the pipes, and rarely an utter stagnation. If, then, the tiles be carefully laid, so as to admit only well-filtered water, there can be but little deposit in the drain; and a temporary stagnation, even, will not injure them, and a trifling flow will keep them clean. Much will depend, as to the obstruction of drains, in this, and indeed in all cases, upon the internal smoothness, and upon the nice adjustment of the pipes. In case of the drainage of marshes, and other lands subject to sudden flood, a flap, or gate, is used to exclude the water of flowage, until counterbalanced by the drainage-water in the pipes. [Illustration: Fig. 40.--OUTLET PIPE WITH FLAP TO EXCLUDE FLOOD-WATER.] We are quite sure that it is not in us a work of supererogation to urge upon our farmers the importance of careful attention to this matter of outlets. This is one of that class of things which will never be attended to, if left to be daily watched. We Americans have so much work to do, that we have no time to be careful and watchful. If a child fall into the fire, we take time to snatch him out. If a sheep or ox get mired in a ditch, we leave our other business, and fly to the rescue. Even if the cows break into the corn, all hands of us, men and boys and dogs, leave hoeing or haying, and drive them out. And, by the way, the frequency with which most of us have had occasion to leave important labors to drive back unruly cattle, rendered lawless by neglect of our fences, well illustrates a national characteristic. We are earnest, industrious, and intent on _doing_. We can look forward to accomplish any labor, however difficult, but lack the conservatism which preserves the fruit of our labors--the "old fogyism" which puts on its spectacles with most careful adjustment, after wiping the glasses for a clear sight, and at stated periods, revises its affairs to see if some screw has not worked loose. A steward on a large estate, or a corporation agent, paid for inspecting and superintending, may be relied upon to examine his drainage works, and maintain them in repair; but no farmer in this country, who labors with his own hands, has time even for this most essential duty. His policy is, to do his work now, while he is intent upon it, and not trust to future watchfulness. We speak from personal experience in this matter of outfalls. Our first drains ran down into a swamp, and the fall was so slight, that the mains were laid as low as possible, so that at every freshet they are overflowed. We have many times, each season, been compelled to go down, with spade and hoe, and clear away the mud which has been trodden up by cattle around the outlet. Although a small river flows through the pasture, the cows find amusement, or better water, about these drains, and keep us in constant apprehension of a total obstruction of our works. We propose to relieve ourself of this care, by connecting the drains together, and building one or more reliable outlets. GRATINGS OR SCREENS AT THE OUTLET. There are many species of "vermin," both "creeping things" and "slimy things, that crawl with legs," which seem to imagine that drains are constructed for their especial accommodations. In dry times, it is a favorite amusement of moles and mice and snakes, to explore the devious passages thus fitted up for them, and entering at the capacious open front door, they never suspect that the spacious corridors lead to no apartments, that their accommodations, as they progress, grow "fine by degrees and beautifully less," and that these are houses with no back doors, or even convenient places for turning about for a retreat. Unlike the road to Hades, the descent to which is easy, here the ascent is inviting; though, alike in both cases, "_revocare gradum, hoc opus hic labor est_." They persevere upward and onward till they come, in more senses than one, to "an untimely end." Perhaps stuck fast in a small pipe tile, they die a nightmare death; or, perhaps overtaken by a shower, of the effect of which, in their ignorance of the scientific principles of drainage, they had no conception, they are drowned before they have time for deliverance from the straight in which they find themselves, and so are left, as the poet strikingly expresses it, "to lie in cold _obstruction_ and to rot." In cold weather, water from the drains is warmer than the open ditch, and the poor frogs, reluctant to submit to the law of Nature which requires them to seek refuge in mud and oblivious sleep, in Winter, gather round the outfalls, as they do about springs, to bask in the warmth of the running water. If the flow is small, they leap up into the pipe, and follow its course upward. In Summer, the drains furnish for them a cool and shady retreat from the mid-day sun, and they may be seen in single file by scores, at the approach of an intruding footstep, scrambling up the pipe. Dying in this way, affects these creatures, as "sighing and grief" did Falstaff, "blows them up like a bladder;" and, like Sampson, they do more mischief in their death, than in all their life together. They swell up, and stop the water entirely, or partially dam it, so that the effect of the work is impaired. To prevent injuries from this source, there should be, at every outlet, a grating or screen of cast iron, or of copper wire, to prevent the intrusion of vermin. The screen should be movable, so that any accumulation in the pipe may be removed. An arrangement of this kind is shown in Fig. 40, as used in England. We know of nothing of the kind used in this country. For ourself, we have made of coarse wire-netting, a screen, which is attached to the pipe by hinges of wire. Holes may be bored with a bit through even a hard tile, or a No. 9 wire may be twisted firmly round the end of it, and the screen thus secured. This has thus far, been our own poor and unsatisfactory mode of protecting our drains. It is only better than none, but it is not permanent, and we hope to see some successful invention that may supply this want. So far as we have observed, no such precaution is used in this country; and in England, farmers and others who take charge of their own drainage works, often run their pipes into the mud in an open ditch, and trust the water to force its own passage. OF WELLS AND RELIEF PIPES. In draining large tracts of land of uniform surface, it is often convenient to have single mains, or even minors, of great length. Obstructions are liable to occur from various causes: and, moreover, there is great satisfaction in being certain that all is going right, and in watching the operation of our subterranean works. It is a common practice, and to be commended, to so construct our drains, that they may be inspected at suspicious points, and that so we may know their real condition. For this purpose, wells, or traps, are introduced at suitable points, into which the drains discharge, and from which the water proceeds again along its course. These are made of iron, or of stone or brick work, of any size that may be thought convenient, secured by covers that may be removed at pleasure. Where there is danger of obstruction below the wells, relief pipes may be introduced, or the wells may overflow, and so discharge temporarily, the drainage water. These wells, sometimes called silt basins, or traps, are frequently used in road drainage, or in sewers where large deposits are made by the drainage water. The sediment is carried along and deposited in the traps, while the water flows past. These traps are large enough for a man to enter, and are occasionally cleared of their contents. When good stone, or common brick, are at hand, occasional wells may be easily constructed. Plank or timber might be used; and we have even seen an oil cask made to serve the purpose temporarily. In most parts of New England, solid iron castings would not be expensive. The water of thorough-drainage is usually as pure as spring-water, and such wells may often be conveniently used as places for procuring water for both man and beast, a consideration well worth a place in arrangements so permanent as those for drainage. The following figures represent very perfect arrangements of this kind, in actual use. [Illustration: Figs. 41 & 42.--WELL WITH SILT BASIN, OR TRAP, AND COVER.] The flap attached to a chain at A, is designed to close the incoming drain, so as to keep back the water, and thus flush the drain, as it is termed, by filling it with water, and then suddenly releasing it. It is found that by this process, obstructions by sand, and by per-oxide of iron, may be brought down from the drains, when the flow is usually feeble. SMALL WELLS, OR PEEP-HOLES. By the significant, though not very elegant name of peep-holes, are meant openings at junctions, or other convenient points, for watching the pulsations of our subterranean arteries. In addition to the large structures of wells and traps, such as have been represented, we need small and cheap arrangements, by which we may satisfy ourselves and our questioning friends and neighbors, that every part of our buried treasure, is steadily earning its usury. It is really gratifying to be able to allow those who "don't see how water can get into the tiles," and who inquire so distrustfully whether you "don't think that land on the hill would be just as dry without the drains," to satisfy themselves, by actually seeing, that there is a liberal flow through all the pipes, even in the now dry soil. And then, again, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley." and drains will get obstructed, by one or other of the various means suggested in another place. It is then convenient to be able to ascertain with certainty, and at once, the locality of the difficulty, and this may be done by means of peep-holes. These may be formed of cast iron, or of well-burnt clay, or what is called stone-ware, of 4, 6, or 10 inches internal diameter, and long enough to reach from the bottom of the drain to the surface, or a little above it. The drain or drains, coming into this little well, should enter a few inches above the pipe which carries off the water, so that the incoming stream may be plainly seen. A strong cover should be fitted to the top, and secured so as not to cause injury to cattle at work or feeding on the land. The arrangement will be at once seen by a sketch given on the following page. [Illustration: Figs. 43 & 44.--SMALL WELL, OR PEEP-HOLE, AND COVER.] In our own fields, we have adopted several expedients to attain this object of convenient inspection. In one case, where we have a sub-main, which receives the small drains of an acre of orchard, laid at nearly five feet depth, we sunk two 40-gallon oil casks, one upon the other, at the junction of this sub-main with another, and fitted upon the top a strong wooden cover. The objections to this contrivance are, that it is temporary; that it occupies too much room; and that it is more expensive than a well of cast iron or stone-ware of proper size. In another part of the same field, we had a spring of excellent water, where, "from the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," people had fancied they found better water to drink, than anywhere else. It is near a ravine, through which a main drain is located, and which is now graded up into convenient plow land. To preserve this spring for use in the Summer time, we procured a tin-worker to make a well, of galvanized iron, five feet long and ten inches diameter, into which are conducted the drain and the spring. A friendly hand has sketched it for us very accurately; thus: [Illustration: Figs. 45 & 46.--HOW TO PRESERVE A SPRING IN A DRAINED FIELD.] The spring is brought in at _a_ by a few tiles laid into the bank where the water naturally bursts out. The pipe _b_ brings in the drain, which always flows largely, and the pipe _c_ carries away the water. The small dipper, marked _d_, hangs inside the well, and is used by every man, woman, and boy, who passes that way. The spring enters six inches above the drain, for convenience in catching its water to drink. By careful observation the present Winter of 1858-9, the impression that there is some peculiar quality in this water is confirmed, for it is ascertained that it is six degrees warmer in cold weather than any other water upon the farm. The spring preserves a temperature of about 47°, while the drain running through the same well, and the other drains in the field, and the well at the house, vary from 39° to 42°. We confess to the weakness of taking great satisfaction in sipping this water, cool in Summer and warm in Winter, and in watching the mingled streams of spring and drainage water, and listening as we pass by, to their tinkling sound, which, like the faithful watchman of the night, proclaims that "all is well." POSITION AND SIZE OF THE MAINS. Having fixed on the proper position of the outlet, for the whole, or any portion of our work, the next consideration is the location of the drains that shall discharge at that point. It is convenient to speak of the different drains as _mains_, _sub-mains_, and _minors_. By _mains_, are understood the principal drains, of whatever material, the office of which is, to receive and carry away water collected by other drains from the soil. By _minors_, are intended the small drains which receive the surplus water directly from the soil. By _sub-mains_, are meant such intermediate drains as are frequently in large fields, interposed across the line of the minors, to receive their discharge, and conduct their water to the mains. They are principally used, where there is a greater length of small drains in one direction than it is thought expedient to use; or where, from the unequal surface, it is necessary to lay out subordinate systems of drains, to reach particular localities. Whether after the outlet is located, the mains or minors should next be laid out, is not perhaps very important. The natural course would seem to be, to lay out the mains according to the surface formation of the land, through the principal hollows of the field, although we have high authority for commencing with the minors, and allowing their appropriate direction to determine the location of the mains. This is, however, rather a question of precedence and etiquette, than of practical importance. The only safe mode of executing so important a work as drainage, is by careful surveys by persons of sufficient skill, to lay out the whole field of operations, before the ground is broken; to take all the levels; to compare all the different slopes; consider all the circumstances, and arrange the work as a systematic whole. Generally, there will be no conflict of circumstances, as to where the mains shall be located. They must be lower than the minors, because they receive their water. They must ordinarily run across the direction of the minors, either at right angles or diagonally, because otherwise they cannot receive their discharge. If, then, in general, the minors, as we assume, run down the slope, the mains must run at the foot of the slope and across it. It will be found in practice, that all the circumstances alluded to, will combine to locate the mains across the foot of regular slopes; and whether in straight or curved lines, along through the natural valleys of the field. In locating the mains, regard must always be had to the quantity of water and to the fall. Where a field is of regular slope, and the descent very slight, it will be necessary, in order to gain for the main the requisite fall, to run it diagonally across the bottom of the slope, thus taking into it a portion of the fall of the slope. If the fall requires to be still more increased, often the main may be deepened towards the outlet, so as to gain fall sufficient, even on level ground. If the fall is very slight, the size of the main may be made to compensate in part for want of fall, for it will not be forgotten, that the capacity of a pipe to convey water depends much on the velocity of the current, and the velocity increases in proportion to the fall. If the fall and consequent velocity be small, the water will require a larger drain to carry it freely along. The size of the mains should be sufficient to convey, with such fall as is attainable, the greatest quantity of water that may ever be expected to reach them. Beyond this, an increase of size is rather a disadvantage than otherwise, because a small flow of water runs with more velocity when compressed in a narrow channel, than when broadly spread, and so has more power to force its way, and carry before it obstructing substances. We have seen, in considering the size of tiles, that in laying the minor drains, their capacity to carry all the water that may reach them is not the only limit of their size. A one-inch tile might in many cases be sufficient to conduct the water; but the best drainers, after much controversy on the point, now all agree that this is a size too small for prudent use, because so small an opening is liable to be obstructed by a very slight deposit from the water, or by a slight displacement, and because the joints furnish small space for the admission of water. Mains, however, being designed merely to carry off such water as they may receive from other drains, may in general be limited to the size sufficient to convey such water, at the greatest flow. It might seem a natural course, to proportion the capacity of the main to the capacity of the smaller drains that fall into it; and this would be the true rule, were the small drains expected to run full. If our smallest drain, however, be of two-inch, or even one and a half inch bore, it can hardly be expected to fill at any time, unless of great length, or in some peculiarly wet place. Considering, then, what quantity of water will be likely to be conducted into the main, proportion the main not to the capacity of all the smaller drains leading into it, but to the probable maximum flow--not to what they _might_ bring into it, but to what they _will_ bring. If the mains be of three-inch pipes, other things being equal, their capacity is nine times that of a one-inch pipe, and two and a quarter times the capacity of a two-inch pipe. A three-inch main may, then, with equal fall and directness, be safely relied on to carry nine streams of water equal each to one inch diameter, or two and a quarter streams, equal to a two-inch stream. The three-inch main will, in fact, from the less amount of friction, carry much more than this proportion. The allowance to be made for a less fall in the mains, has already been adverted to, and must not be overlooked. It is believed that the capacity of a three or four-inch pipe to convey water, is in general likely to be much under-estimated. It is a common error, to imagine that some large stone water-course must be necessary to carry off so large a flow as will be collected by a system over a ten or twenty-acre field. Any one, however, who has watched the full flow of even a three-inch pipe, and observed the water after it has fallen into a nearly level ditch, will be aware, that what seems in the ditch a large stream, impeded as it is by a rough, uneven bottom, may pass through a three inch opening of smooth, well-jointed pipes. When we consider that a four-inch pipe is four times as capacious as a two-inch pipe, and sixteen times as large as a one-inch pipe, we may see that we may accommodate any quantity of water that may be likely anywhere to be collected by drainage, without recourse to other materials than tiles. When one three or four-inch pipe is not sufficient to convey the water, mains may conveniently be formed of two or more tiles of any form. A main drain is sometimes formed by combining two horse-shoe tiles, with a tile sole or slate between them, to prevent slipping, as in fig. 47. [Illustration: Fig. 47. Fig. 48. Main Drain of two or more Horse-shoe Tiles.] The combinations represented in the above figures, will furnish sufficient suggestions to enable any one to select or arrange such forms as may be deemed best suited to the case in hand. Where the largest obtainable tile is not large enough, two or more lines of pipes may be laid abreast. POSITION OF THE MINOR DRAINS. Assuming that it is desirable to run the small drains, as far as practicable, up and down the slope, the following directions, from the Cyclopedia of Agriculture, are given: "There is a very simple mode of laying out these (the minor drains), which will apply to most cases, or, indeed, to all, although in some its application may be more difficult. The surface of each field must be regarded as being made up of one or more planes, as the case may be, for each of which the drains should be laid out separately. Level lines are to be set out, a little below the upper edge of each of these planes, and the drains must be then made to cross these lines at right angles. By this means, the drains will run in the line of the greatest slope, no matter how distorted the surface of the field may be." Much is said, in the English books, about "furrows," and the "direction of the furrows," in connection with the laying out of drains. Much of the land in England, especially in moist places, was formerly laid up by repeated plowings, into ridges varying in breadth from ten to twenty feet, so as to throw off, readily, the water from the surface. [Illustration: PART OF FIELD Thoroughly Drained BY B F. NOURSE ORRINGTON, ME.] These ridges were sometimes so high, that two boys in opposite furrows, between the ridges, could not see each other. In draining lands thus ridged, it is found far more easy to cut the ditches in the furrows, rather than across or upon the ridges. After thorough-drainage, in most localities, these ridges and furrows are dispensed with. The fact is, probably, only important here, as explaining the constant reference by English writers to this mode of working the land. Whether we shall drain "down the furrows," or "across the ridges," is not likely to be inquired of, by Americans. The accompanying diagram represents a field of about thirty acres, as drained by the owner, B. F. Nourse, Esq., of Orrington, Me., a particular description of which will be found in another place. The curves of the ends of the minors, at their junction with the mains, will indicate their course--the minors curving always so as to more nearly coincide, in course, with the current of water in the mains. THE JUNCTION OF DRAINS. Much difficulty arises in practice, as to connecting, in a secure and satisfactory manner, the smaller with the larger drains. It has already been suggested, that the streams should not meet at right angles, but that a bend should be made in the smaller drain, a few feet before it enters the main, so as to introduce the water of the small drain in the direction of the current in the main. In another place, an instance is given where it was found that a quantity of water was discharged with a turn, or junction with a gentle curve, in 100 seconds, that required 140 seconds with a turn at right angles; and that while running direct, that is, without any turn, it was discharged in 90 seconds. This is given as a mere illustration of the principle, which is obvious enough. Different experiments would vary with the velocity, quantity of water, and smoothness of the pipe; but nothing is more certain, than that every change of direction impedes velocity. Thus we see that if we had but a single drain, the necessary turns should be curved, to afford the least obstruction. Where the drain enters into another current, there is yet a further obstruction, by the meeting of the two streams. Two equal streams, of similar velocity and size, thus meeting at right angles, would have a tendency to move off diagonally, if not confined by the pipe; and, confined as they are, must both be materially retarded in their flow. In whatever manner united, there must be much obstruction, if the main is nearly full, at the point of junction. The common mode of connecting horse-shoe tile-drains is shown thus: [Illustration: Fig. 50.--JUNCTION OF DRAINS.] Having no tiles made for the purpose, we, at first, formed the union by means of common hard bricks. Curving down the small drain toward the direction of the main, we left a space between two tiles of the main, of two or three inches, and brought down the last tile of the small drain to this opening, placing under the whole a flat stone, slate, or bricks, or a plank, to keep all firm at the bottom. Then we set bricks on edge on all sides, and covered the space at the top with one or more, as necessary, and secured carefully against sand and the like. We have since procured branch-pipes to be made at the tile-works, such as are in use in England, and find them much more satisfactory. The branches may be made to join the mains at any angle, and it might be advisable to make this part of both drains larger than the rest, to allow room for the obstructed waters to unite peacefully. [Illustration: Fig. 51. BRANCH PIPES.] The mains should be from three to six inches deeper than the minors. The fall from one to the other may usually be made most conveniently, by a gradual descent of three or four feet to the point of junction; but with branch-pipes, the fall may be nearly vertical, if desired, by turning the branch upward, to meet the small pipe. It will be necessary, in procuring branches for sole-tiles, to bear in mind that they are "rights and lefts," and must be selected accordingly, as the branch comes in upon the one or other side of the main. The branch should enter the larger pipe not level with the bottom, but as high as possible, to give an inch fall to the water passing out of the branch into the main, to prevent possible obstruction at the junction. DRAINAGE INTO WELLS, OR SWALLOW HOLES. In various parts of our country, there are lands lying too flat for convenient drainage in the ordinary methods, or too remote from any good outlet, or perhaps enclosed by lands of others who will not consent to an outfall through their domain, where the drainage water may be discharged into wells. In the city of Washington, on Capitol Hill, it is a common practice to drain cellars into what are termed "dry wells." The surface formation is a close red clay, of a few feet thickness, and then comes a stratum of coarse gravel; and the wells for water are sunk often as deep as sixty feet, indicating that the water-table lies very low. The heavy storms and showers fill the surface soil beyond saturation, and the water gushes out, literally, into the cellars and other low places. A dry well, sunk through the clay, conducts this water into the gravel bed, and this carries it away. This idea is often applied to land drainage. It is believed that there are immense tracts of fertile land at the West, upon limestone, where the surface might readily be relieved of surplus water, by conducting the mains into wells dug for the purpose. In some places, there are openings called "sink-holes," caused by the sinking of masses of earth, as in the neighborhood of the city of St. Louis, which would afford outlets for all the water that could be poured into them. In the Report of the Tioga County Agricultural Society for 1857, it is said in the _Country Gentleman_, that instances are given, where swamps were drained through the clay bottom into the underlying gravelly soil, by digging wells and filling them with stones. In Fig. 7, at page 82, is shown a "fault" in the stratification of the earth; which faults, it is said, so completely carry off water, that wells cannot be sunk so as to reach it. Mr. Denton says that in several parts of England, advantage is taken of the natural drainage existing beneath wet clay soils, by concentrating the drains to holes, called "swallow-holes." He says this practice is open to the objection that those holes do not always absorb the water with sufficient rapidity, and so render the drainage for a time, inoperative. These wells are liable, too, to be obstructed in their operation by their bottoms being puddled with the clay carried into them by the water, and so becoming impervious. This point would require occasional attention, and the removal of such deposits. This principle of drainage was alluded to at the American Institute, February 14, 1859, by Professor Nash. He states, that there are large tracts of land having clay soil, with sand or gravel beneath the clay, which yet need drainage, and suggests that this may be effected by merely boring frequent holes, and filling them with pebbles, without ditches. In all such soils, if the mode suggested prove insufficient, large wells of proper depth, stoned up, or otherwise protected, might obviously serve as cheap and convenient outlets for a regular system of pipe or stone drains. Mr. Bergen, at the same meeting, stated that such clayey soil, based on gravel, was the character of much of the land on Long Island; and we cannot doubt that on the prairies of the West, where the wells are frequently of great depth to obtain water for use, wells or swallow-holes to receive it, may often be found useful. Whenever the water-line is twenty or thirty feet below the surface, it is certain that it will require a large amount of water poured in at the surface of a well to keep it filled for any considerable length of time. The same principle that forces water into wells, that is, pressure from a higher source, will allow its passage out when admitted at the top. We close this chapter with a letter from Mr. Denton. The extract referred to, has been here omitted, because we have already, in the chapter preceding this, given Mr. Denton's views, expressed more fully upon the same subject, with his own illustrations. It should be stated that the letter was in reply to inquiries upon particular points, which, although disconnected, are all of interest, when touched upon by one whose opinions are so valuable. "LONDON, 52 Parliament Street, Westminster, S. W. "MY DEAR SIR:--I have received your letter of the 17th August, and hasten to reply to it. "I am gratified at the terms in which you speak of my roughly-written 'Essays on Land Drainage.' If you have not seen my published letter to Lord Berners, and my recent essay 'On the Advantages of a Daily Record of Rain-fall,' I should much like you to look over them, for my object in both has been to check the uniformity of treatment which too much prevails with those who are officially called upon to direct draining, and who still treat mixed soils and irregular surfaces pretty much in the same way as homogeneous clays and even surfaces, the only difference being, that the distance between the drains is increased. We have now, without doubt, arrived at that point in the practice of draining in this country, which necessitates a revision of all the principles and rules which have been called into force by the Drainage Acts, and the institution of the Drainage Commission, whose duty it is to administer those Acts, and to protect the interests of Reversioners. "This protection is, in a great measure, performed by the intervention of 'Inspectors of Drainage,' whose subordinate duty it is to see that the improvements provisionally sanctioned are carried out according to certain implied, if not fixed, rules. This is done by measuring depth and distance, which tends to a _parallel system (4 feet deep) in all soils_, which was Smith of Deanston's notion, only his drains were shallower, _i.e._, from 2 to 3 feet deep. "Some rules were undoubtedly necessary when the Commissioners first commenced dispensing the public money, and I do not express my objection to the absurd position to which these rules are bringing us, from any disrespect to them, nor with an idea that any better course could have been followed by the Government, in the first instance, than the adoption of the '_Parkes--Smith frequent drain system_.' This system was correctly applied, and continues to be correctly applied, to absorbent and retentive soils requiring the aeration of frequent drains to counteract their retentive nature; but it is altogether misapplied when adopted in the outcropping surfaces of the free water-bearing strata, which, though equally wet, are frequently drained by a comparatively few drains, at less than half the cost. "The only circumstance that can excuse the indiscriminate adoption of a parallel system, is the fact, that all drains do some good, and the chances of a cure being greater in proportion to the number of drains, it was not necessary to insist upon that judgment which ten years' experience should now give. "My views on this point will perhaps be best understood by the following extract from an address I recently delivered. [Extract omitted, see p. 161]. * * * "I use one and a half inch pipes for the upper end of drains (_though I prefer two-inch_), one half being usually one and a half and the other half two-inch. This for minor drains; the mains run up to 9 or 10 inches, and even 18 inches in size, according to their service. "There is no doubt sufficient capacity in one-inch pipes for minor drains; but, inasmuch as agricultural laborers are not mathematical scholars, and are apt to lay the pipes without precise junctions, it is best to have the pipes so large as to counteract that degree of carelessness which cannot be prevented. The ordinary price of pipes in this country will run thus: + meaning _above_, and-_below_, the prices named: 1-1/2 inch 15s. + 2 " 20s. - 3 " 30s. 4 " 40s. + 5 " 50s. + 6 " 60s. + "The price of cutting clays 4 feet deep, will vary from 1d. to 1-1/2d. per yard, according to density and mixture with stone; and the price of cutting in mixed soils will vary from 1-1/2d. to 6d., according to the quantity of pick-work and rock, and with respect, also, to the price of agricultural labor. (See my tabular table of cost in Land Drainage and Drainage Systems.) "I should have thought it would have been quite worth the while of the American Government to have had a farm of about 500 acres, drained by English hands, under an experienced engineer, as a practical sample of English work, for the study of American agriculturists, with every drain laid down on a plan, with the sizes of the pipes, and all details of soil, and prices of labor and material, set forth. "I am, dear Sir, "Yours very faithfully, "The HON. H. F. FRENCH, Exeter. "J. BAILEY DENTON." CHAPTER IX. THE COST OF TILES--TILE MACHINES. Prices far too high; Albany Prices.--Length of Tiles.--Cost in Suffolk Co., England.--Waller's Machine.--Williams' Machine.--Cost of Tiles compared with Bricks.--Mr. Denton's Estimate of Cost.--Other Estimates.--Two-inch Tiles can be Made as Cheaply as Bricks.--Process of Rolling Tiles.--Tile Machines.--Descriptions of Daines'.--Pratt & Bro.'s. The prices at which tiles are sold is only, as the lawyers say, _primâ facie_ evidence of their cost. It seems to us, that the prices at which tiles have thus far been sold in this country, are very far above those at which they may be profitably manufactured, when the business is well understood, and pursued upon a scale large enough to justify the use of the best machinery. The following is a copy of the published prices of tiles at the Albany Tile Works, and the same prices prevail throughout New England, so far as known: _Horse-shoe Tile--Pieces._ 2-1/2 inches rise $12 per 1000. 3-1/2 " " 15 " 4-1/2 " " 18 " 5-1/2 " " 40 " 6-1/2 " " 60 " 7-1/2 " " 75 " _Sole-Tile--Pieces._ 2 inches rise $12 per 1000. 3 " " 18 " 4 " " 40 " 5 " " 60 " 6 " " 80 " 8 " " 125 " Few round pipe-tiles have yet been used in this country, although they are the kind generally preferred by engineers in England. The prices of round tiles would vary little from those of sole-tiles. Tiles are usually cut fourteen inches long, and shorten, in drying and burning, to about twelve and a half inches, so that, with breaking and other casualties, they may be calculated to lay about one foot each; that is to say, 1,000 tiles may be expected to lay 1,000 feet of drains. To assist those who desire to manufacture tiles for sale, or for private use, it is proposed to give such information as has been gathered from various sources as to the cost of making, and the selling prices of tiles, in England. The following is a memorandum made at the residence of Mr. Thomas Crisp, at Butley Abbey, in Suffolk Co., Eng., from information given the author on the 8th of July, 1857: "Mr. Crisp makes his own tiles, and also supplies his neighbors who need them. He sells one and a half inch pipes at 12s. ($3) per 1,000. He pays 5s. ($1.25) per 1,000 for having them made and burnt. His machine is Waller's patent, No. 22, made by Garrett and Son, Leiston, Saxemundham, Suffolk. It works by a lever, makes five one and a half inch pipes at once, or three sole-tiles about two-inch. The man at work said, that he, with a man to carry away, &c., could make 4,000 one and a half inch pipes per day. They used no screen, but cut the clay with a wire. The machine cost £25 (about $125). At the kiln, which is permanent, the tiles are set on end, and bricks with them in the same kiln. They require less heat than bricks, and _cost about half as much_ as bricks here, which are moulded ten inches by five. "Two girls were loading bricks into a horse-cart, and two women receiving them, and setting them in the kiln. They made roof-tiles with the same machine, and also moulded large ones by hand. The wages of the women are about 8d. (sixteen cents) per day." At the exhibition of the Royal Agricultural Society, in England, the author saw Williams' Tile Machine in operation, and was there informed by the exhibitor, who said he was a tile-maker, that it requires _five-sevenths as much coal_ to burn 1,000 two-inch tiles, as 1,000 bricks--the size of bricks being 10 by 5; and he declared, that he, with one boy, could make with the machine, 7,000 two-inch tiles per day, after the clay is prepared. Of course, one other person, at least, must be employed to carry off the tiles. Mr. Denton gives his estimates of the prices at which pipe-tiles may be procured in England, as follows--the prices, which he gives in English currency, being translated into our own: "When ordinary agricultural labor is worth $2 50 per week, pipes half one and a half inch, and half two-inch, maybe taken at an average cost of $4 38 per 1,000. When labor is $3 00 per week, the pipes will average $5 00 per 1,000, and when labor is $3 50, they will rise to $5 62." He adds: "In giving the above average cost of materials, those districts are excluded from consideration, where clay suitable for pipes, exists in the immediate vicinity of coal-pits, which must necessarily reduce the cost of producing them very considerably." Taking the averages of several careful estimates of the cost of tiles and bricks, from the "Cyclopædia of Agriculture," we have the price of tiles in England about $5 per 1,000, and the price of bricks $7.87, from which the duty of 5s. 6d. should be deducted, leaving the average price of bricks $6.50. Upon tiles there is no such duty. Bricks in the United States are made of different sizes, varying from 8 × 4 in. to the English standard 10 × 5 in. Perhaps a fair average price for bricks of the latter size, would be not far from $5 per 1,000; certainly below $6.50 per 1,000. There is no reason why tiles may not be manufactured in the United States, as cheaply, compared with the prices of bricks, as in England; and it is quite clear that tiles of the sizes named, are far cheaper there than common bricks. What is wanted in this country is, first, a demand sufficient to authorize the establishment of works extensive enough to make tiles at the best advantage; next, competent skill to direct and perform the labor; and, finally, the best machinery and fixtures for the purpose. It is confidently predicted, that, whenever the business of tile-making becomes properly established, the ingenuity of American machinists will render it easy to manufacture tiles at English prices, notwithstanding the lower price of labor there; and that we shall be supplied with small tiles in all parts of the country at about the current prices of bricks, or at about one half the present Albany prices of tiles, as given at the head of this chapter. It should be mentioned here, perhaps, that, in England, it is common to burn tiles and bricks together in the same kiln, placing the tiles away from the hottest parts of the furnace; as, being but about half an inch in thickness, they require less heat to burn them than bricks. In the estimates of labor in making tiles in England, a small item is usually included for "rolling." Round pipes are chiefly used in England. When partly dried, they are taken up on a round stick, and rolled upon a small table, to preserve their exact form. Tiles usually flatten somewhat in drying, which is not of importance in any but round pipes, but those ought to be uniform. By this process of rolling, great exactness of shape, and a great degree of smoothness inside, are preserved. TILE MACHINES. Drainage with tiles is a new branch of husbandry in America. The cost of tiles is now a great obstacle in prosecuting much work of this kind which land-owners desire to accomplish. The cost of tiles, and so the cost of drainage, depends very much--it may be said, chiefly--upon the perfection of the machinery for tile-making; and here, as almost everywhere else, agriculture and the mechanic arts go hand in hand. Labor is much dearer in America than in Europe, and there is, therefore, more occasion here than there, for applying mechanical power to agriculture. We can have no cheap drainage until we have cheap tiles; and we can have cheap tiles only by having them made with the most perfect machinery, and at the lowest prices at which competing manufacturers, who understand their business, can afford them. In the preceding remarks on the _cost of tiles_, may be found estimates, which will satisfy any thinking man that tiles have not yet been sold in America at reasonably low prices. To give those who may desire to establish tileries, either for public or private supply, information, which cannot readily be obtained without great expense of English books, as to the prices of tile machines, it is now proposed to give some account of the best English machines, and of such American inventions as have been brought to notice. It is of importance that American machinists and inventors should be apprised of the progress that has been made abroad in perfecting tile machines; because, as the subject attracts attention, the ingenuity of the universal Yankee nation will soon be directed toward the discovery of improvements in all the processes of tile-making. Tiles were made by hand long before tile machines were invented. A Mr. Read, in the "Royal Agricultural Journal," claims to have used _pipe_ tiles as early as 1795, made by hand, and formed on a round stick. No machine for making tiles is described, before that of Mr. Beart's, in 1840, by which "common tile and sole (not pipes or tubes) were made." This machine, however, was of simple structure, and not adapted to the varieties of tiles now used. All tile machines seem to operate on the same general principle--that of forcing wet clay, of the consistency of that used in brick-making, through apertures of the desired shape and size. To make the mass thus forced through the aperture, _hollow_, the hole must have a piece of metal in the centre of it, around which the clay forms, as it is pushed along. This centre piece is kept in position by one or two thin pieces of iron, which of course divide the clay which passes over them, but it unites again as it is forced through the die, and comes out sound, and is then cut off, usually by hand, by means of a small wire, of the required length, about fourteen inches. Tile machines work either vertically or horizontally. The most primitive machine which came to the author's notice abroad, was one which we saw on our way from London to Mr. Mechi's place. It was a mere upright cylinder, of some two feet height, and perhaps eight inches diameter, in which worked a piston. The clay was thrown into the cylinder, and the piston brought down by means of a brake, like an old-fashioned pump, and a single round pipe-tile forced out at the bottom. The force employed was one man and two boys. One boy screened the clay, by passing through it a wire in various directions, holding the wire by the ends, and cutting through the mass till he had found all the small stones contained in it. The man threw the masses thus prepared, into the cylinder, and put on the brake, and the other boy received the tiles upon a round stick, as they came down through the die at the bottom, and laid them away. The cylinder held clay enough to make several, perhaps twenty, two-inch pipes. The work was going on in a shed without a floor, and upon a liberal estimate, the whole establishment, including shed and machine, could not cost more than fifty dollars. Yet, on this simple plan, tiles were moulded much more rapidly than bricks were made in the same yard, where they were moulded singly, as they usually are in England. It was said that this force could thus mould about 1,800 small tiles per day. This little machine seems to be the same described by Mr. Parkes as in general use in 1843, in Kent and Suffolk Counties. Most of the tile machines now in use in England and America, are so constructed, as to force out the tiles upon a horizontal frame-work, about five two-inch, or three three-inch pipes abreast. The box to contain the clay may be upright or horizontal, and the power may be applied to a wheel, by a crank turned by a man, or by horse, steam, or water power, according to the extent of the works. We saw at the Exhibition of the Royal Agricultural Society, at Salisbury, in England, in July, 1857, the "pipe and tile machine," of W. Williams, of Bedford. It was in operation, for exhibition, and was worked by one man, who said he was a tile maker, and that he and one boy could make with the machine 7,000 two-inch tiles per day, after the clay was prepared in the pug mill. Four tiles were formed at once, by clay passed through four dies, and the box holds clay enough for thirty-two two-inch tiles, so that thirty-two are formed as quickly as they can be removed, and as many more, as soon as the box can be refilled. The size, No. 3, of this machine, such as we then saw in operation, and which is suitable for common use, costs at Bedford $88.50, with one set of dies; and the extra dies, for making three, four, and six-inch pipes, and other forms, if desired, with the _horses_, as they are called, for removing the tiles, cost about five dollars each. This, like most other tile machines, is adapted to making tiles for roofs, much used in England instead of shingles or slates, as well as for draining purposes. There are several machines now in use in England namely: Etheridge's, Clayton's, Scragg's, Whitehead's, and Garrett's--either of which would be satisfactory, according to the amount of work desired. We have in America several patented machines for making tiles, of the comparative merits of which we are unable to give a satisfactory judgment. We will, however, allude to two or three, advising those who are desirous to purchase, to make personal examination for themselves. We are obliged to rely chiefly on the statements of the manufacturers for our opinions. [Illustration: DAINES' DRAIN TILE MAKER] Daines' American Drain Tile Machine is manufactured at Birmingham, Michigan, by John Daines. This machine is in use in Exeter, N. H., close by the author's residence, and thus far proves satisfactory. The price of it is about $100, and the weight, about five hundred pounds. It occupies no more space than a common three-and-a-half foot table, and is worked by a man at a crank. It is capable of turning out, by man power, about two hundred and fifty two-inch tiles in an hour, after the clay is prepared in a pug mill. Horse or water power can be readily attached to it. We give a drawing of it, not because we are sure it is the best, but because we are sure it is a good machine, and to illustrate the principle upon which all these machines are constructed. Pratt's Tile Machine is manufactured at Canandaigua, New York, by Pratt & Brothers, and is in use in various places in that State as well as elsewhere. This machine differs from Daines' in this essential matter, that here the clay is _pugged_, or tempered, and formed into tiles at one operation, while with Daines' machine, the clay is first passed through a pug mill, as it is for making bricks in the common process. Pratt's machine is worked by one or two horses, or by steam or water power, as is convenient. The price of the smaller size, worked by one horse, is $150, and the price of the larger size, worked by two horses, $200. Professor Mapes says he saw this machine in operation and considers it "perfect in all its parts." The patentees claim that they can make, with the one-horse machine, 5,000 large tiles a day. They state also that "two horses will make tiles about as cheap as bricks are usually made, and as fast, with the large-sized machine." [Illustration: Fig. 53.--PRATT'S TILE MACHINE.] These somewhat indefinite statements are all that we can give, at present, of the capacity of the machines. We should have no hesitation in ordering a Pratt machine were we desirous of entering into an extensive business of Tile-making, and we should feel quite safe with a Daines' machine for a more limited manufacture. SALISBURY'S TILE MACHINE. S. C. Salisbury, at the Novelty Works, in the city of New York, is manufacturing a machine for making tiles and bricks, which exhibits some new and peculiar features, worthy of attention by those who propose to purchase tile machines. Prof. Mapes expresses the confident opinion that this machine excels all others, in its capacity to form tiles with rapidity and economy. We have examined only a working model. It is claimed that the large size, with horse-power, will make 20,000 two-inch tiles per day, and the hand-power machine 3,000 per day. We advise tile makers to examine all these machines in operation, before purchasing either. CHAPTER X. THE COST OF DRAINAGE. Draining no more expensive than Fencing.--Engineering.--Guessing not accurate enough.--Slight Fall sufficient.--Instances.--Two Inches to One Thousand Feet.--Cost of Excavation and Filling.--Narrow Tools required.--Tables of Cubic contents of Drains.--Cost of Drains on our own Farm.--Cost of Tiles.--Weight and Freight of Tiles.--Cost of Outlets.--Cost of Collars.--Smaller Tiles used with Collars.--Number of Tiles to the Acre, with Tables.--Length of Tiles varies.--Number of Rods to the Acre at different Distances.--Final Estimate of Cost.--Comparative Cost of Tile-Drains and Stone-Drains. A prudent man, intending to execute a work, whether it be "to build a tower," or drain a field, "sitteth down first and counteth the cost, whether he hath sufficient to finish it." There is good sense and discretion in the inquisitiveness which suggests so often the inquiry, "How much does it cost to drain an acre?" or, "How much does it cost a rod to lay drains?" These questions cannot be answered so briefly as they are asked; yet much information can be given, which will aid one who will investigate the subject. The process of drainage is expensive, as compared with the price of land in our new settlements; but its cost will not alarm those who have been accustomed to see the improvements made in New England upon well cultivated farms. Compared with the labor and cost of building and maintaining FENCES upon the highways, and in the subdivisions of lots, common in the Eastern States, the drainage of land is a small matter. We see in many places long stretches of faced walls, on the line of our roads near towns and villages, which cost from two to five dollars per rod. Our common "stone walls" in these States cost about one dollar per rod to build originally; and almost any kind of wooden fence costs as much. Upon fences, there is occasion for annual repairs, while drains properly laid, are permanent. These suggestions are thrown out, that farmers may not be alarmed without cause, at the high cash estimates of the cost of drainage operations. Money comes slowly to farmers, and a cash estimate looks larger to them than an estimate in labor. The cost of fencing seems no great burden; though, estimated in cash, it would seem, as in fact it is, a severe charge. Drainage can be performed principally by the same kind of labor as fencing, the cost of the tiles being a small item in the whole expense. The estimates of labor will be made at one dollar per day, in investigating this matter. This would be the fair cash value of work by the day, perhaps; but it is far more than farmers, who have work in hand on their own farms, which may be executed in the leisure season after haying, and even into the Winter, when convenient, will really expend for such labor. Few farm operations would pay expenses, if every hour of superintendence, and every hour of labor by man and boy and beast, were set down at this high rate. The cost of the tiles will, ordinarily, be a cash item, and the labor may be performed like that of planting, hoeing, haying, and harvesting, by such "help" hired by the mouth or day, or rendered by the family, as may be found convenient. The cost of drainage may be considered conveniently, to borrow a clerical phrase, "under the following heads." 1. _Laying out, or Engineering._--In arranging our Spring's work, we devote time and attention to laying it out, though this hardly forms an item in the expense of the crop. Most farmers may think themselves competent to lay out their drainage-works, without paying for the scientific skill of an engineer, or even of a surveyor. It is believed, however, that generally, it will be found true economy, to procure the aid of an experienced engineer, if convenient, to lay out the work at the outset. Certainly, in most cases, some skill in the use of levelling instruments, at least, is absolutely essential to systematic work. No man, however experienced, can, by the eye, form any safe opinion of the fall of a given tract of land. Fields which appear perfectly level to the eye, will be found frequently to give fall enough for the deepest drainage. The writer recently had occasion to note this fact on his own land. A low wet spot had many times been looked at, as a place which should be drained, both to improve its soil, and the appearance of the land about it; but to the eye, it seemed doubtful whether it was not about as low as the stream some forty rods off, into which it must be drained. Upon testing the matter carefully with levelling instruments, it was found that from the lowest spot in this little swamp, there was a fall of seven and a half feet to the river, at its ordinary height! Again, there are cases where it will be found upon accurate surveys, that the fall is very slight, so that great care will be requisite, to lay the drains in such a way that the descent may be continuous and uniform. Without competent skill in laying out the work, land-owners will be liable not only to errors in the fall of the drains, but to very expensive mistakes in the location of them. A very few rods of drains, more than are necessary, would cost more than any charge of a competent person for laying them out properly. Again, experience gives great facility in judging of the underground flow of water, of the permeability of soil, of the probability of finding ledges or other rock formation, and many other particulars which might not suggest themselves to a novice in the business. The laying out of drains is important, not only with reference to the work in hand, but to additional work to be executed in future on adjoining land, so that the whole may be eventually brought into one cheap and efficient system with the smallest effective number of drains, both minors and mains, and the fewest outlets possible; with such wells, or other facilities for inspection, as may be necessary. In the English tables of the cost of drainage by the Drainage Companies, an estimate of $1.25 per acre is usually put down for "superintendence," which includes the engineering and the supervision of the whole process of opening, laying and filling, securing outfalls, and every other process till the work is completed. The general estimate of the cost of drainage is about $25.00 per acre, and this item of $1.25 is but a small per centage on that amount. The point has been dwelt upon here, more for the purpose of impressing upon land-owners, the importance of employing competent skill in the laying out of their drainage works, than because the expense thus incurred, forms any considerable item of the cost of the whole work. 2. _Excavation and Filling._ The principal expense of drainage is incurred in the excavation of the ditch, whether it be for tiles or for stones. The labor of excavation depends much upon the nature of the soil to be moved. "Draining on a sound clay," says the writer of a prize essay, "free from stones, may be executed at a cheaper rate per rod, in length, than on almost any other kind of soil, as, from the firmness of the clay, the work may be done with narrow spades, and but a small quantity of soil requires to be removed. The draining of wet sands or grounds, or clays in which veins of sand abound, is more expensive than on sound clays, because a broader spade has to be used, and consequently a larger amount of soil removed; and draining stony or rocky soils is still more expensive, because the pick has to be used. This adds considerably to the expense." Great stress is laid, by all experienced persons, upon using narrow spades, and opening ditches as narrow as possible. It is somewhat more convenient for unskillful laborers to work in a wide ditch than in a narrow one, and although the laborers frequently protest that they cannot work so rapidly in narrow ditches, yet it is found that, in contract work, by the rod, they usually open the ditches very narrow. Indeed, it will be found that, generally, the cost of excavation bears a pretty constant proportion to the number of cubic feet of earth thrown out. It will surprise those unaccustomed to these estimates, to observe how rapidly the quantity excavated, increases with the increased width of the ditch. To enable the reader accurately to compute the measurement of drains of any dimensions likely to be adopted, a table and explanations, found in the Report of the Board of Health, already quoted, are given below. The dimensions, or contents of any drain, are found by multiplying together the length, depth, and _mean_ width of the drain. "Thus, if a drain is 300 yards long, and the cutting 3 feet deep, 20 inches wide at the top, and 4 inches wide at the bottom, the mean width would be 12 inches (or the half of the sum of 20 and 4), and if we multiply 300, the length, by 1, the depth in yards, and by 1/3, the mean width in yards, and the product would be 100 cubic yards. The following table will serve to facilitate such calculations. _Table showing the number of Cubic Yards of Earth in each Rod (5-1/2 Yards in length), in Drains or Ditches of various Dimensions._ ================================================= DEPTH. | MEAN WIDTH. -------+------+------+------+------+------+------ Inches.|7 In. |8 In. |9 In. |10 In.|11 In.|12 In. -------+------+------+------+------+------+------ 30 |0.89 |1.02 |1.146 |1.27 |1.40 |1.53 33 |0.98 |1.12 |1.26 |1.40 |1.54 |1.68 36 |1.07 |1.22 |1.375 |1.53 |1.68 |1.83 39 |1.16 |1.324 |1.49 |1.655 |1.82 |1.986 42 |1.25 |1.426 |1.604 |1.78 |1.96 |2.14 45 |1.34 |1.53 |1.72 |1.91 |2.10 |2.29 48 |1.426 |1.63 |1.833 |2.04 |2.24 |2.444 51 |1.515 |1.73 |1.95 |2.164 |2.38 |2.60 54 |1.604 |1.83 |2.06 |2.29 |2.52 |2.75 57 |1.69 |1.935 |2.18 |2.42 |2.66 |2.90 60 |1.78 |2.036 |2.29 |2.546 |2.80 |3.056 ================================================= ================================================= DEPTH. | MEAN WIDTH. -------+------+------+------+------+------+------ Inches.|13 In.|14 In.|15 In.|16 In.|17 In.|18 In. -------+------+------+------+------+------+------ 30 |1.655 |1.78 |1.91 |2.04 |2.164 |2.29 33 |1.82 |1.96 |2.10 |2.24 |2.38 |2.52 36 |1.986 |2.14 |2.29 |2.244 |2.60 |2.75 39 |2.15 |2.32 |2.48 |2.65 |2.81 |2.98 42 |2.32 |2.495 |2.674 |2.85 |3.03 |3.21 45 |2.48 |2.67 |2.865 |3.055 |3.246 |3.438 48 |2.65 |2.85 |3.056 |3.26 |3.46 |3.667 51 |2.81 |3.03 |3.25 |3.46 |3.68 |3.896 54 |2.98 |3.20 |3.44 |3.666 |3.895 |4.125 57 |3.14 |3.38 |3.63 |3.87 |4.11 |4.354 60 |3.31 |3.564 |3.82 |4.074 |4.33 |4.584 ================================================= "Along the top of the table is placed the mean widths in inches, and on the left-hand side the depths of the drains, extending from 30 inches to 5 feet. The numbers in the body of the table express cubic yards, and decimals of a yard. In making use of the table, it is necessary first to find the mean width of the drain, from the widths at the top and bottom. Thus, if a drain 3 feet deep were 16 inches wide at the top, and 4 inches at the bottom, the mean width would be half of 16 added to 4, or 10; then, by looking in the table for the column under 10 (width), and opposite 36 (inches of depth), we find the number of cubic yards in each rod of such a drain to be 1.53, or somewhat more than one and a half. If we compare this with another drain 20 inches wide at the top, 4 inches at the bottom, and 4-1/2 feet deep, we have the mean width 12, and looking at the table under 12 and opposite 54, we find 2.75 cubic yards, or two and three-quarters to the rod. In this case, the quantity of earth to be removed is nearly twice as much as in the other, and hence, as far as regards the digging, the cost of the labor will be nearly double. But in the case of deep drains, the cost increases slightly for another reason, namely, the increased labor of lifting the earth to the surface from a greater depth." Under the title of the "Depth of Drains," other reasons are suggested why shallow drains are more easily wrought than deeper drains. The widths given in English treatises, and found perfectly practicable there, with proper drainage-tools, will seem to us exceedingly narrow. Mr. Parkes gives the width of the top of a four-foot drain 18 inches, of a three-and-a-half foot drain 16 inches, and of a three-foot drain 12 inches. He gives the width of drains for tiles, three inches at bottom, and those for stones, eight inches. Of the cost of excavating a given number of cubic yards of earth from drains, it is difficult to give reliable estimates. In the writer's own field, where a pick was used to loosen the lower two feet of earth, the labor of opening and filling drains 4 feet deep, and of the mean width of 14 inches, all by hand labor, has been, in a mile of drains, being our first experiments, about one day's labor to three rods in length. The excavated earth of such a drain, measures not quite three cubic yards. (Exactly, 2.85.) In work subsequently executed, we have opened our drains of 4 foot depth, but 20 inches at top, and 4 inches at bottom, giving a mean width of 12 inches. In one instance, in the Summer of 1858, two men opened 14 rods of such drain in one day. In six days, the same two men opened, laid, and filled 947 feet, or about 57-1/2 rods of such drain. Their labor was worth $12.00, or 21 cents per rod. The actual cost of this job was as follows: 847 two-inch tiles, at $13 per 1,000 $11.01 100 three-inch " " for main 2.50 70 bushels of tan, to protect the joints .70 Horse to haul tiles and tan .50 Labor, 12 days, at $1 12.00 ------- Total $26.71 This is 46-1/2 cents per rod, besides our own time and skill in laying out and superintending the work. The work was principally done with Irish spades, and was in a sandy soil. In the same season, the same men opened, laid, and filled 70 rods of four-foot drain, of the same mean width of 12 inches, in the worst kind of clay soil, where the pick was constantly used. It cost 35 days' labor to complete the job, being 50 cents per rod for the labor alone. The least cost of the labor of draining 4 feet deep, on our own land, is thus shown to be 21 cents per rod, and the greatest cost 50 cents per rod, all the labor being by hand. One-half these amounts would have completed the drains at 3 feet depth, as has been already shown. But the excavation here is much greater than is usual in England, Mr. Parkes giving the mean width of a four-foot drain but 10-1/2 inches, instead of 14 or 12, as just given. Mr. Denton gives estimates of the cost, in England, of cutting and filling four-foot drains, which vary from 12 cents per rod upwards, according to the prices of labor, and other circumstances. In New England, where labor may be fairly rated at one dollar per day, the cost of excavating and filling four-foot drains by hand labor, must vary from 20 to 50 cents per rod, according to the soil, and half those amounts for drains of three-foot depth. Of the aid which may be derived from the use of draining plows, or of the common plow, or subsoil plow, our views may be found expressed under the appropriate heads. That drains will long continue to be opened in this vast country by hand labor, is not to be supposed, but we give our estimates of the expenses, at this first stage of our education in drainage. 3. _Cost of the Tiles._ Under the title of "The Cost of Tiles," we have given such information as can be at present procured, touching that matter. It will be assumed, in these estimates, that no tiles of less than 1-1/2 inch bore will be used for any purpose, and for mains, usually those of three-inch bore are sufficient. The proportion of length of mains to that of minors is small, and, considering the probable reduction of prices, we will, for the present, assume $10 per 1,000 as the prices of such mixed sizes as may be used. Add to this, the freight of them to a reasonable distance, and we have the cost of the tiles on the field. The weight of two-inch tiles is usually rated at about 3 lbs. each, though they fall short of this weight until wet. 4. _Outlets._ A small per-centage should be added to the items already noticed, for the cost of the general outfall, which should be secured with great care; although, from such examination as the writer has made in this country, and in England also, in the large majority of cases, drains are discharged with very little precaution to protect the outlets. Works completed under the charge of regular engineers, form an exception to this remark; and an item of 37 cents per acre, for iron outlets and masonry, is usually included in the estimated cost per acre of drainage. 5. _Collars._ It is not known to the author that collars have been at all used in America, except at the New York Central Park, in 1858; round pipes, upon which they are commonly used abroad, when used on any, not being yet much in use here. In the estimates of Mr. Denton, in his tables, collars are set down at about half the cost of the mixed tiles. The bore of them being large enough to receive the end of the tile, increases the price in proportion to the increase in size. It is believed, however, that a smaller size of tiles may prudently be used with collars than without, because the collars keep the tiles perfectly in line, and freely admit water, while they exclude roots, sand, and other obstructions. A drain laid with one and a half inch tiles with collars is, no doubt, better in any soil than two-inch tiles without collars. Some compensation for the cost of collars may thus be found in the less price of the smaller tiles. 6. _Laying._ The cost of laying tiles is so trifling as hardly to be worth estimating, except to show its insignificance. The estimate, by English engineers, is two cents per rod for "pipe laying and finishing." What is included in "finishing," does not appear. From the personal observations of the writer, it is believed that an active man may lay from 60 to 100 rods of tiles per day, in ditches well prepared. Indeed, we have seen our man James, lay twelve rods of two-inch tiles, in a four-foot ditch, in forty-five minutes, when he was not aware that he was working against time. This is at the rate of sixteen rods an hour, which would give just 160 rods, or a half-mile, in a day of ten hours. 7. _Number of Tiles to the Acre._ The number of tiles used depends, of course, upon the distances apart of the drains, and upon the length of the tiles used. The following table gives the number of tiles of various length, per acre, required at different intervals: ======================================================================== Intervals between |Twelve inch|Thirteen inch|Fourteen inch|Fifteen inch the Drains, | Pipe. | Pipe. | Pipe. | Pipe. in feet. | | | | ------------------+-----------+-------------+-------------+------------- 15 | 2904 | 2680 | 2489 | 2323 18 | 2420 | 2234 | 2074 | 1936 21 | 2074 | 1915 | 1778 | 1659 24 | 1815 | 1676 | 1555 | 1452 27 | 1613 | 1489 | 1383 | 1290 30 | 1452 | 1340 | 1244 | 1161 33 | 1320 | 1219 | 1131 | 1056 36 | 1210 | 1117 | 1037 | 968 39 | 1117 | 1031 | 957 | 893 42 | 1037 | 958 | 888 | 829 ======================================================================== The following table gives the number of rods per acre of drains at different distances: ===================================================================== Intervals between the Drains, in feet. | Rods per acre. ------------------------------------------+-------------------------- 15 | 176 18 | 146-2/3 21 | 125-5/7 24 | 110 27 | 97-7/9 30 | 88 33 | 80 36 | 73-1/3 39 | 67-9/13 42 | 62-6/7 ===================================================================== It may be remarked here, that tiles, moulded of the same length, vary nearly two inches when burned, according to the severity of the heat. It may be suggested, too, that the length of the tile, in the use of any machine, is entirely at the option of the maker. It is not, perhaps, an insult to our common humanity, to suggest to buyers the propriety of measuring the length as well as calibre of tiles before purchasing. In the estimates which will be made in this detail, it will be assumed that tiles will lay one foot each, with allowance for imperfections and breakage. This is as near as possible to accuracy, according to our best observation; and, besides, there is convenience in this simple estimate of one tile to one foot, which is important in practice. We have now the data from which we may make some tolerably safe estimates of the cost of drainage. With labor at one dollar per day, and tiles at $10 per 1,000, or one cent each, or one cent a foot, and ditches four feet deep, opened and filled at one-third of a day's labor to the rod, we may set down the principal items of the cost of drainage by the rod, as follows: Cutting and filling per rod 33-1/3 cts. Tiles 16-2/3 " ---- 50 This is putting the tiles at one cent a foot, and the labor at two cents a foot, or just twice as much as the cost of tiles, and it brings a total of half a dollar a rod, all of them numbers easily remembered, and convenient for calculation. By reference to the table giving the number of rods to the acre, the cost of labor and tiles per acre may be at once found, by taking half the number of rods in dollars. At 42 feet distance, the cost will be $31.42 per acre; at 30 feet distance, $44; and at 60 feet, half that amount, or $22 per acre. Our views as to the frequency of drains, may be found under the appropriate head. Our estimate thus far, is of four-foot drains. We have shown, under the head of the "Depth of Drains," that the cost of cutting and filling a four-foot drain is double that of cutting and filling a three-foot drain. There is no doubt, that, after all the good advice we have given on this subject, many, who "grow wiser than their teachers are," will set aside the teachings of the best draining engineers in the world, and insist that three feet deep is enough, and persist in so laying their tiles. This _shallowness_ will reduce the cost of labor about one half, so that we shall have the cost of labor and tiles equal--one cent a foot, making 33? cents per rod, or one-third of a dollar, instead of one-half a dollar per rod. To the cost of labor and tiles, we should add a fair estimate of the cost of the other items of engineering and outlets. These are trifling matters, which English tables, as has been shown, estimate together, at about $1.67 per acre. Briefly to recapitulate the elements of computation of the cost of drainage, we find them to be these: the price of labor, the price of tiles, and freight of them; the character of the soil, the depth of the drains, and their distance apart, with the incidental expense of engineering and of outfalls, and the large additional cost of _collars_, where they are deemed necessary. COMPARATIVE COST OF TILE AND STONE DRAINS. It is not possible to answer, with precision, the question so often asked, as to the comparative cost of drainage with tiles and stones. The estimates given of the cost of tile drains, are based upon the writer's own experience, upon his own farm mainly; and the mean width of four-foot tile drains, may be assumed to be 14 inches, instead of 10-1/2 inches, as actually practiced in England. For a stone drain of almost any form, certainly for any regular water-course laid with stones, our ditch must be at least 21 inches wide from top to bottom. This is just 50 per cent, more than our own estimate, and 100 per cent., or double the English estimate for tile drains. It will require at least two ox-cart loads of stones to the rod, to construct any sort of a stone drain, costing, perhaps, 25 cents a load for picking up and hauling. In most cases, where the stones are not on the farm, it will cost twice that sum. We will say 25 cents per rod for laying the stones, though this is a low estimate. We have, then, for cutting and filling the ditch, 50 cents per rod, 50 cents for hauling stone, and for laying, 25 cents per rod, making $1.25 a rod for a stone drain, against 50 cents per rod for tile drains. Then we have a large surplus of earth, two cartloads to the rod, displaced by the two loads of stone, to be disposed of; and in case of the tiles, we have just earth enough. There are many other considerations in favor of tiles: such as the cutting up of the ground by teaming heavy loads of stones; the greater permanency of tiles; and the fact that they furnish no harbor for mice and other vermin, as the English call such small beasts. In favor of stones, is the fact, that often they are on the land, and must be moved, and it is convenient to dispose of them in the ditches. Again, there are many parts of the country where tiles are not to be procured, without great cost of freight, and where labor is abundant at certain seasons, and money scarce at all seasons, so that the question is really between stone drains and no drains. Stone drains, if laid very deep, are far more secure than when shallow; because, if shallow, they are usually ruined by the breaking in of water at the top, in the Spring time, by the action of frost, and by the mining of mice and moles. If laid four feet deep, and the earth rammed hard above the stones, and rounded on the surface to throw off surface water, they may be found efficient and permanent. The conclusion, however, is, that where it can be procured, at any reasonable cost, drainage with tiles will generally cost less than one-half the expense of drainage with stones, and be incomparably more satisfactory in the end. CHAPTER XI. DRAINING IMPLEMENTS. Unreasonable Expectations about Draining Tools.--Levelling Instruments; Guessing not Accurate.--Level by a Square.--Spirit Level.--Span, or A Level.--Grading by Lines.--Boning-rod.--Challoner's Drain Level.--Spades and Shovels.--Long-handled Shovel.--Irish Spade, Description and Cut.--Bottoming Tools.--Narrow Spades.--English Bottoming Tools.--Pipe-layer.--Pipe-laying Illustrated.--Pick-axes.--Drain Gauge.--Drain Plows, and Ditch-Diggers.--Fowler's Drain Plow.--Pratt's Ditch-Digger.--McEwan's Drain Plow.--Routt's Drain Plow. It seems to be a characteristic of Americans, to be dissatisfied with every recent improvement in art or science, and the greater the step in advance of former times, the more captious and critical do we become. There is many a good lady, who cannot tolerate a sewing-machine, although she knows it will do the work of ten seamstresses, because it will not sew on buttons and work buttonholes! Most of us are very much out of temper with the magnetic telegraph, just now, because it does not bring us the Court news from England every morning before breakfast, though we have hourly dispatches from Washington, New Orleans, and St. Louis; and, returning to our _moutons_, everybody is finding fault with us just now, because we cannot tell them of some universal, all-penetrating, cheap, strong, simple, enduring little implement, by means of which any kind of a laborer, Scotch, Irish, or Yankee, may conveniently open all kinds of drains in all kinds of land, whether sand, hard-pan, gravel, or clay. Having personally inquired and examined, touching draining tools in England, and having been solicited by an extensive agricultural implement house in Boston, to furnish them a list and description of a complete set of draining tools, and feeling the obligation which seemed to be imposed on us, to know all about this matter, we wrote to Mr. Denton, one of the first draining engineers in the world, to send us a list, with drawings and descriptions of such implements as he finds most useful, or, if more convenient the implements themselves. Mr. Denton kindly replied to our inquiry, and his answer may be taken as the best evidence upon this point. He says: "As to tools, it is the same with them as it is with the art of draining itself--too much rule and too much drawing upon paper; all very right to begin with, but very prejudicial to progress. I employ, as engineer to the General Land Drainage Company, and on my private account, during the drainage season, as many as 2,000 men, and it is an actual fact, that not one of them uses the set of tools figured in print. I have frequently purchased a number of sets of the Birmingham tools, and sent them down on extensive works. The laborers would purchase a few of the smaller tools, such as Nos. 290, 291, and 301, figured in Morton's excellent Cyclopædia of Agriculture, and would try them, and then order others of the country blacksmith, differing in several respects; less weighty and much less costly, and, moreover, much better as working tools. All I require of the cutters, is, that the bottom of the drain should be evenly cut, to fit the size of the pipe. The rest of the work takes care of itself; for a good workman will economize his labor for his own sake, by moving as little earth as practicable; thus, for instance, a first-class cutter, in clays, will get down four feet with a twelve-inch opening, _ordinarily_; if he wishes to _show off_, he will sacrifice his own comfort to appearance, and will do it with a ten-inch opening." Having thus "freed our mind" by way of preliminary, we propose to take up our subject, and pursue it as practically and quietly as possible to the end. It may be well, perhaps, first to suggest by way of explanation of Mr. Denton's letter, above quoted, that drains are usually opened in England by the yard, or rod, the laborer finding his own tools. As has been intimated, the implements convenient for draining, depend on many circumstances. They depend upon the character of the earth to be moved. A sharp, light spade, which may work rapidly and well in a light loam or sand, may be entirely unfit to drive into a stiff clay; and the fancy bottoming tools which may cut out a soft clay or sand in nicely-measured slices, will be found quite too delicate for a hard-pan or gravel, where the pick-axe alone can open a passage. The implements again must be suited to the workman who handles it. Henry Ward Beecher, in speaking of creeds, which he, on another occasion, had said were "the skins of religion set up and stuffed," remarked, that it was of more importance that a man should know how to make a practical use of his faith, than that he should subscribe to many articles; for, said he, "I have seen many a man who could do more at carpenter's work with one old jack-knife, than another could do with a whole chest of tools!" What can an Irishman do with a chopping ax, and what cannot a Yankee do with it? Who ever saw a Scotchman or an Irishman who could not cut a straight ditch with a spade, and who ever saw a Yankee who could or would cut a ditch straight with any tool? One man works best with a long-handled spade, another prefers a short handle; one drives it into the earth with his right foot, another with his left. A laboring man, in general, works most easily with such tools as he is accustomed to handle; while theorizing implement-makers, working out their pattern by the light of reason, may produce such a tool as a man _ought_ to work with, without adapting it at all to the capacity or taste of the laborer. A man should be measured for his tools, as much as for his garment, and not be expected to fit himself to another's notions more than to another's coat. If the land-owner proposes to act as his own engineer, the first instrument he will want to use is a SPIRIT LEVEL, or some other contrivance by which he may ascertain the variations of the surface of his field. The natural way for a Yankee to get at the grades is to _guess_ at them, and this, practically, is what is usually done. Ditches are opened where there appears to be a descent, and if there is water running, the rise is estimated by its current; and if there is no water rising in the drain, a bucketfull is occasionally poured in to guide the laborer in his work. No one who has not tested the accuracy, or, rather, inaccuracy, of his judgment, as to the levels of fields, can at all appreciate the deceitfulness of appearances on this point. The human eye will see straight; but it will not see level without a guide. It forms conclusions by comparison; and the lines of upland, of forest tops and of distant hills, all conspire to confuse the judgment, so that it is quite common for a brook to appear to the eye to run up hill, even when it has a quick current. A few trials with a spirit-level will cure any man of his conceit on this subject. And so it is as to the regular inclination of the bottom of drains. It is desirable not only to have an inclination all the way, but a regular inclination, as nearly as possible, especially if the descent be small. Workmen are very apt to work at a uniform depth from the surface, and so give the bottom of the drain the same variations as the surface line; and thus at one point there may be a fall of one inch in a rod; at another, twice that fall; and at another, a dead level, or even a hollow. On our own farm, we have found, in twelve rods, a variation of a foot in the bottom line of a drain opened by skillful workmen on a nearly level field, where they had no water to guide them, and where they had supposed their fall was regular throughout. The following sketch shows the difference between lines of tiles laid with and without instruments. Next to guessing at the fall in our field, may be placed a little contrivance, of which we have made use sufficiently to become satisfied of its want of practical accuracy. It is thus figured and described in the excellent treatise of Thomas, on Farm Implements. [Illustration: Fig. 54.] "_A_ is a common square, placed in a slit in the top of the stake _B_. By means of a plumb-line the square is brought to a level, when a thumbscrew, at _C_, fixes it fast. If the square is two feet long, and is so carefully adjusted as not to vary more than the twentieth of an inch from a true level, which is easily accomplished, then a twentieth of an inch in two feet will be one inch in forty feet--a sufficient degree of accuracy for many cases." [Illustration: Fig. 55.--SQUARE AND PLUMB-LEVEL.] We do not so much object to the principle of the above level, as to its practical working. We find it difficult, without cross sights, to take an accurate level with any instrument. However, those who are used to rifle-shooting may hit tolerably near the mark with the square. Mr. Thomas only claims that it is accurate enough "for many cases." A proper spirit-level, such as is used by engineers of railroads and canals, attached to a telescope, is the best of all instruments. "So great is the perfection of this instrument," says the writer just quoted, "that separate lines of levels have been run with it, for sixty miles, without varying two-thirds of an inch for the whole distance." A cheap and convenient spirit-level, for our purpose, is thus constructed. It is furnished with eye sights, _a b_, and, when in use, is placed into a framing of brass which operates as a spring to adjust it to the level position, _d_, by the action of the large-headed brass screw, _c_. A stud is affixed to the framing, and pushed firmly into a gimlet-hole in the top of the short rod, which is pushed or driven into the ground at the spot from whence the level is desired to be ascertained. It need scarcely be mentioned, that the height of the eye sight, from the guard, is to be deducted from the height of observation, which quantity is easily obtained by having the rod marked off in inches and feet; but it may be mentioned, that this instrument should be used in all cases of draining on level ground, even when one is confident that he knows the fall of the ground; for the eye is a very deceitful monitor for informing you of the levelness of ground. It is so light as to admit of being carried in the pocket, whilst its rod may be used as a staff or cane. [Illustration: Fig. 56.--SPIRIT LEVEL.] A staff of ten feet in length, graduated in feet and inches, and held by an attendant at the various points of observation, is necessary in the use of the spirit-level in the field. A painted target, arranged with a slide to be moved up and down on this staff, and held by a thumbscrew, will be found useful. We have made for our own use a level like the above, and find it sufficiently accurate for drainage purposes. Small spirit-levels set in iron can be had at the hardware shops for twenty cents each, and can be readily attached to wood by a screw, in constructing our implement; or a spirit-level set in mahogany, of suitable size, may be procured for a half dollar, and any person, handy with tools, can do the rest. The sights should be arranged both ways, with a slit cut with a chisel through the brass or tin, and an oblong opening at each end. The eye is placed at the slit, and sight is taken by a hair or fine thread, drawn across the opening at the other end. Then, by changing ends, and sighting through the other end at a given object, any error in the instrument may be detected. The hair or thread may be held in place by a little wax, and moved up or down till it is carefully adjusted. The instrument should turn upon the staff in all directions, so that the level of a whole field, so far as it is within range, may be taken from one position. [Illustration: Fig. 57. STAFF AND TARGET.] To maintain a uniform grade in the bottom of a drain so as to economize the fall, and distribute it equally through the whole length, several different instruments and means may be adopted. The first which we will figure, is what is called the Span, or A Level. Such a level may be easily constructed of common inch-board. If it be desired to note the fall in feet, the span may conveniently be ten feet. If a notation in rods be preferred, the span should be a rod, or half rod long. The two feet being placed on a floor, and ascertained to be perfectly level by a spirit-level, the plumb-line will hang in the centre, where a distinct mark should be made on the cross-bar. Then place a block of wood, exactly an inch thick, under one leg, and mark the place where the line crosses the bar. Put another block an inch thick under the same leg, and again mark where the line crosses the bar, and so on as far as is thought necessary. Then put the blocks under the other leg in the same manner, and mark the cross-bar. If the span be ten feet, the plumb-line will indicate upon the bar, by the mark which it crosses, the rise or fall in inches, in ten feet. If the span be a rod, the line will indicate the number of inches per rod of the rise or fall. [Illustration: Fig. 58.--SPAN, OR A LEVEL.] This instrument is used thus: The fall of the ditch from end to end being ascertained by the spirit-level, and the length also, the fall per rod, or per one hundred feet, may be computed. The span is then placed in the bottom of the drain, from time to time, to guide the workman, or for accurate inspection of the finished cut. We have constructed and used this level, and found it very convenient to test the accuracy of the workmen, who had opened drains in our absence. A ten-foot span will be found as large as can be conveniently carried about the farm. For the accurate grading of the bottom of drains, as the work proceeds, we have in practice found nothing so convenient and accurate as the arrangement which we are about to illustrate. The object is simply to draw a line parallel with the proposed bottom of the drain, for the laborers to work under, so that they, as they proceed, may measure down from it, as a guide to depth. Having with the spirit-level, ascertained the fall from end to end of the drain, a short stake is set at each end, and a line is drawn from one to the other at the requisite height, and supported by the cross-pieces, at suitable distances, to prevent the sagging of the line. [Illustration: Fig. 59.--GRADING TRENCHES BY LINES.] Suppose the drain to be ten rods long, and that it is intended to cut it four feet deep, the natural fall being, from end to end, sufficient. We drive a stake at each end of the drain, high enough to attach to it a line three feet above the surface, which will be seven feet above the bottom of the finished drain--high enough to be above the heads of the cutters, when standing near the bottom. Before drawing the line, the drain may be nearly completed. Then drive the intermediate stakes, with the projecting arms, which we will call squares, on one side of the drain, carefully sighting from one end of the stake to the other, at the point fixed for the line, and driving the squares till they are exactly even. Then attach a strong small cord, not larger than a chalk line, to one of the stakes, and draw it as tight as it will bear, and secure it at the other stake. The line is now directly over the middle of the drain, seven feet from the bottom. Give the cutters, then, a rod seven feet long, and let them cut just deep enough for the rod to stand on the bottom and touch the line. Practically, this has been found by the author, the most accurate and satisfactory method of bringing drains to a regular grade. Instead of a line, after the end stakes have been placed, a _boning rod_, as it is called, may be used thus: A staff is used, with a cross-piece at the top, and long enough, when resting on the proper bottom of the drain, to reach to the level of the marks on the stakes, three feet above the surface. Cross-pieces nailed to the stakes are the most conspicuous marks. A person stands at one stake sighting along to the other; a second person then holds the rod upright in the ditch, just touching the bottom, and carries it thus along. If, while it is moved along, its top is always in a line with the cross-bars on the end stakes, the fall is uniform; if it rise above, the bottom of the drain must be lowered; if it fall below, the bottom of the drain must be raised. This may be convenient enough for mere inspection of works, but it requires two persons besides the cutters, to finish the drain by this mode; whereas, with the lines and squares, any laborer can complete the work with exactness. Another mode of levelling, by means of a mammoth mason's level, with an improvement, was invented by Colonel Challoner, and published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. It may appear to some persons more simple than the span level. We give the cut and explanation. "I first ascertain what amount of fall I can obtain, from the head of every drain to my outfall. Suppose the length of the drain to be 96 yards, and I find I have a fall of two feet, that gives me a fall of a quarter of an inch in every yard. I take a common bricklayer's level 12 feet long, to the bottom of which I attach, with screws, a piece of wood the whole length, _one inch wider_ at one end than at the other, thereby throwing the level one inch out of the true horizontal line. When the drain has got to its proper depth at the outfall, I apply the broadest end of the level to the mouth; and when the plumb-bob indicates the level to be correct, the one-inch fall has been gained in the four yards, and so on. I keep testing the drain as it is dug, quite up to the head, when an unbroken, even, and continuous fall of two feet in the whole 96 yards has been obtained." [Illustration: Fig. 60.--CHALLONER'S LEVEL.] SPADES AND SHOVELS. [Illustration: Fig. 61, 62, 63.--DRAIN SPADES.] No peculiar tool is essential in opening that part of the drain which is more than a foot in width. Shovels and spades, of the forms usually found upon well-furnished farms, and adapted to its soil, will be found sufficient. A Boston agricultural house, a year or two since, sent out an order to London for a complete set of draining tools. In due season, they received, in compliance with their order, three spades of different width, like those represented in the cut. These are understood to be the tools in common use in England and Scotland, for sod-draining, and for any other drains, indeed, except tiles. The widest is 12 inches wide, and is used to remove the first spit, of about one foot depth. The second is 12 inches wide at top, and 8 at the point, and the third, eight at top, and four at the point. The narrowest spade is usually made with a spur in front, or what the Irish call a _treader_, on which to place the foot in driving it into the earth. [Illustration: Fig. 64. SPADE WITH SPUR.] For wedge drains, these spades are made narrower than those above represented, the finishing spade being but two and a half inches wide at the point. It will be recollected that this kind of drainage is only adapted to clay land. The shovels and spades which have been heretofore in most common use in New England are made with short handles, thus-- [Illustration: Figs. 65, 66.--COMMON SHOVEL AND SPADE.] They are of cast-steel, and combine great strength and lightness. Long-handled shovels and spades are much preferred, usually, by Irish laborers, whose fancy is worth consulting in matters with which they have so much to do. We believe their notion is correct, that the long-handled tool is the easier to work with, at almost any job. In our own draining, we find the common spade, with long or short handle, to be best in marking out the lines in turf; and either the spade or common shovel, according to the nature of the soil, most convenient in removing the first foot of earth. After this, if the pick is used, a long-handled round-pointed shovel, now in common use on our farms, is found convenient, until the ditch is too narrow for its use. Then the same shovel, turned up at the sides so as to form a narrow scoop, will be found better than any tool we yet have to remove this loosened earth. [Illustration: Figs. 67, 68.--LONG-HANDLED ROUND SHOVEL. SCOOP SHOVEL.] Of all the tools that we have ever seen in the hands of an Irishman, in ditching, nothing approximates to the true Irish spade. It is a very clumsy, ungainly-looking implement used in the old country both for ditching, and for ridging for potatoes, being varied somewhat in width, according to the intended use. For stony soil, it is made narrower and stronger, while for the bog it is broader and lighter. The Irish blacksmiths in this country usually know how to make them, and we have got up a pattern of them, which are manufactured by Laighton and Lufkin, edge-tool makers, of Auburn, N. H., which have been tested, and found to suit the ideas of the Irish workmen. This is a correct portrait of an Irish spade of our own pattern, which has done more in opening two miles of drains on our own farm, than any other implement. The spade of the Laighton and Lufkin pattern weighs 5 lbs., without the handle, and is eighteen inches long. It is of iron, except about eight inches of the blade, which is of cast steel, tempered and polished like a chopping axe. It is considerably curved, and the workmen suit their own taste as to the degree of curvature, by putting the tool under a log or rock, and bending it to suit themselves. It is a powerful, strong implement, and will cut off a root of an inch or two diameter as readily as an axe. The handle is of tough ash, and held in place by a wedge driven at the side of it, and can be knocked out readily when the spade needs new steel, or any repair. The length of the handle is three feet eight inches, and the diameter about one and one-fourth inches. The wedge projects, and forms a "treader," broad and firm, on which the foot comes down, to drive the spade into the ground. [Illustration: Fig. 69.--IRISH SPADE.] We have endeavored to have the market supplied with the Irish spades, because, in the hands of such Irishmen as have used them "at home," we find them a most effective tool. We are met with all sorts of reasonable theoretical objections on the part of implement sellers, and of farmers, who never saw an Irish spade in use. "Would not the tool be better if it were wider and lighter," asks one. "I think it would be better if the spur, or "treader," were movable and of iron, so as to be put on the other side or in front," suggests another. "It seems as if it would work better, if it were straight," adds a third. "Would it not hold the dirt better if it were a little hollowing on the front," queries a fourth. "No doubt," we reply, "there might be a very good implement made, wider and lighter, without a wooden treader, and turned up at the sides, to hold the earth better, but it would not be an Irish spade when finished. Your theories may be all correct and demonstrable by the purest mathematics, but the question is, with what tool will Patrick do the most work? If he recognizes the Irish spade as an institution of his country, as a part of 'home,' you might as well attempt to reason him out of his faith in the Pope, as convince him that his spade is not perfect." Our man, James, believes in the infallibility of both. There is no digging on the farm that his spade is not adapted to. To mark out a drain in the turf by a line, he mounts his spade with one foot, and hops backward on the other, with a celerity surprising to behold. Then he cuts the sod in squares, and, with a sleight of hand, which does not come by nature, as Dogberry says reading and writing come, throws out the first spit. When he comes on to the gravel or hard clay, where another man would use a pick-axe, his heavy boot comes down upon the treader, and drives the spade a foot or more deep; and if a root is encountered, a blow or two easily severs it. The last foot at the bottom of the four-foot drain, is cut out for the sole-tile only four and a half inches wide, and the sides of the ditch are kept trimmed, even and straight, with the sharp steel edge. And it is pleasant to hear James express his satisfaction with his national implement. "And, sure, we could do nothing at this job, sir, without the Irish spade!" "And, sure, I should like to see a man that will spade this hard clay with anything else, sir!" On the whole, though the Irish spade does wonders on our farm, we recommend it only for Irishmen, who know how to handle it. In our own hands, it is as awkward a thing as we ever took hold of, and we never saw any man but an Irishman, who could use it gracefully and effectively. _Bottoming Tools._--The only tools which are wanted of peculiar form in draining, are such as are used in forming the narrow part of the trenches at the bottom. We can get down two feet, or even three, with the common spade and pick-axe, and in most kinds of drainage, except with tiles, it is necessary to have the bottom as wide, at least, as a spade. In tile-draining, the narrower the trench the better, and in laying cylindrical pipes without collars, the bottom of the drain should exactly fit the pipes, to hold them in line. Although round pipes are generally used in England, we have known none used in America until the past season--the sole-pipe taking their place. As the sole-pipe has a flat bottom, a different tool is required to finish its resting-place, from that adapted to the round pipe. As we have not, however, arrived quite at the bottom, we will return to the tools for removing the last foot of earth. And first, we give from Morton, the Birmingham spades referred to by Mr. Denton, in his letter, quoted in this chapter. They are the theoretically perfect tools for removing the last eighteen or twenty inches of soil in a four or five-foot drain. Mr. Gisborne says of the drain properly formed: "It is wrought in the shape of a wedge, brought in the bottom to the narrowest limit which will admit the collar, by tools admirably adapted to that purpose. The foot of the operator is never within twenty inches of the floor of the drain; his tools are made of iron, plated on steel, and never lose their sharpness, even when worn to the stumps; because, as the softer material, the iron, wears away, the sharp steel edge is always prominent." [Illustration: Fig. 70. Fig. 71. Fig. 72. BIRMINGHAM SPADES.] This poetical view of digging drains, meets us at every turn, and we are beset with inquiries for these wonderful implements. We do not intimate that Mr. Gisborne, and those who so often quote the above language, are not reliable. Mr. Gisborne "is an honorable man, so are they all honorable men;" but we must reform our tiles, and our land too, most of it, we fear, before we can open four-foot trenches, and lay pipes in them, without putting a foot "within twenty inches of the floor of the drain." In the first place, we have great doubt whether pipes can be laid close enough to make the joints secure without collars, unless carefully laid by hand, or unless they are round pipes, rolled in the making, when half dried, and so made straight and even at the ends. In laying such sole-pipes as we have laid, it requires some care to adjust them, so as to make the joints close. Most of them are warped in drying or burning, so that spaces of half an inch will often be left at the top or side, where two are laid end to end. Now, if the foot never goes to the bottom of the drain, the pipes must be laid with a hook or pipe-layer, such as will be presently described, which may do well for pipes and collars, because the collar covers the joint, so that it is of no importance if it be somewhat open. Again, we know of no method of working with a pick-axe, except by standing as low as the bottom of the work. No man can pick twenty inches, or indeed any inches, lower than he stands, because he must move forward in this work, and not backward. Each land-owner may judge for himself, whether his land requires the pick in its excavation. In soft clays, no doubt, with suitable tools, the trench may be cut a foot, or more, lower than the feet of the workman. We have seen it done in our land, in a sandy soil, with the Irish spade, though, as we used sole-pipes, our "pipe-layer" was a live Irishman, who walked in the trench backwards, putting down the pipes with his hand. We are satisfied, that the instances in which trenches may be opened a foot or two below the feet of the workmen, are the exceptions, and not the rule, and that in laying sole-tiles, the hand of a careful workman must adjust each tile in its position. We have found a narrow spade, four inches wide, with a long handle, a convenient tool for finishing drains for sole-tiles. [Illustration: Fig. 73. Fig. 74. NARROW SPADES FOR TILES.] We have thoroughly tested the matter; and in all kinds of soil, give a decided preference to spades as broad at the point as at the heel. We have used common long-handled spades, cut down with shears at a machine-shop, into these shapes. The spade of equal width, works much more easily in the bottom of a trench, because its corners do not catch, as do those of the other. The pointed spade is apparently nearer the shape of the sloping ditch, but such tools cannot be used vertically, and when the heel of the pointed spade is lowered, it catches in the side of the trench, before the point reaches the bottom. Very strong spades, of various width, from three to eight inches, and thick at the heel, to operate as a wedge, will be found most suitable for common use. The narrowest spades should have the spur, as shown in Fig. 64, because there is not room for the foot by the side of the handle. The various tools for finishing the bottoms of drains, as figured in Morton, are the following: [Illustration: Fig. 75. Fig. 76. Fig. 77. Fig. 78. Fig. 79. ENGLISH BOTTOMING TOOLS.] The last implement, which is a scoop for the bottom of trenches for round pipes, is one of the tools mentioned in Mr. Denton's letter, as not being found to the taste of his workmen. For scooping out our flat-bottomed trenches, we use a tool like Fig. 77. For boggy land, soft clay, or, indeed, any land where water is running at the time of the excavation, scoops like the following will be found convenient for flat bottoms. [Illustration: Fig. 80. Fig. 81. Fig. 82. DRAWING AND PUSHING SCOOP, AND PIPE-LAYER.] The pushing scoop (Fig. 81), as it is called, may be made of a common long-handled shovel, turned up at the sides by a blacksmith, leaving it of the desired width. The _pipe-layer_, of which mention has so often been made, is a little implement invented by Mr. Parkes, for placing round pipes and collars in narrow trenches, without stepping into them. The following sketch, by our friend Mr. Shedd, shows the pipe-layer in use. The cross section of the land, shown in front, represents it as having had the advantage of draining, by which the water-table is brought to a level with the bottom of the drain, as shown by the heavy shading. An "Irish spade" and a pipe-layer are shown lying on the ground. [Illustration: Fig. 83.--PIPE-LAYING.] The _pick-axes_ commonly used in excavation of trenches, are in the following forms: [Illustration: Fig. 84, 85.--PICK-AXES.] Pick-axes may be light or heavy, according to the nature of the soil. A chisel at one end, and point at the other, is found best in most cases. A _Drain-gauge_ is usually mentioned in a list of draining tools. It is used when ditches are designed for stone or other material than tiles, and where the width is important. In tile-draining the width is entirely immaterial. If opened by the rod, it is only important that they be of proper depth and inclination, with the bottom wide enough for the tile. [Illustration: Fig. 86.--DRAIN-GAUGE.] The above figure shows the usual form of the drain-gauge. Below, we give from Morton, drawings, and a description of Elkington's augers for boring in the bottoms of ditches. "The cut annexed represents the auger employed by Elkington, where _a b_ and _c_ are different forms of the tool; _d_, a portion of the shaft: _e_, with the wedges, _h h_, the cross handle; and _f_ and _g_ additional pieces for grasping the shaft, and so enabling more than one person to work at it." The auger-hole ought to be a little at one side of the drain, as in Fig. 3, at page 35, so that the water may not rise at right angles to the flow of water in it, and obstruct its current. [Illustration: Fig. 87.--ELKINGTON'S DRAINING AUGER.] [Illustration: _a._ The plug, or point under ground, to which the string of pipes is attached. _bb._ The coulter from the point up through the beam, regulated by wheel and screw midway. _c._ The beam connecting the two pairs of wheels. _e._ Drain opened by hand where pipes enter the ground. _a to e._ Pipes under ground. _e to f._ Pipes above ground. _g._ Windlass or capstan, worked by horses. _h._ Wire rope attached to plow, and wound round the windlass. _i._ Pulley round which the rope runs to keep the plow in the line of the ditch.] DRAINING-PLOWS AND DITCH-DIGGERS. The man who can invent and construct a machine that shall be capable of cutting four-foot ditches for pipe-drains, with facility, will deserve well of his country. It is not essential that the drain be cut to its full depth at one operation. If worked by oxen or horses, it may go several times over the work, taking out a few inches at each time. If moved by a capstan, or other slowly-operating power, it must work more thoroughly, so as not to consume too much time. With a lever, such as is used in Willis's Stump Puller, sufficient power for any purpose may be applied. An implement like a subsoil plow, constructed to run four feet deep, and merely doing the work of the pick, would be of great assistance. Prof. Mapes says he has made use of such an implement with great advantage. For tile-drains, the narrower the ditch the better, if it be only wide enough to receive the tiles. A mere slit, four inches wide, if straight and of even inclination at the bottom, would be the best kind of ditch, the pipes being laid in with a pipe-layer. But if the ditch is to be finished by the machine, it is essential that it be so contrived that it will grade the bottom, and not leave it undulating like the surface. Fowler's Drain Plow is said to be so arranged, by improvements since its first trials, as to attain this object. Having thus briefly suggested some of the points to be kept in mind by inventors, we will proceed to give some account of such machines as come nearest to the wants of the community. Fowler's Draining-Plow would meet the largest wants of the public, were it cheap enough, and really reliable to perform what it is said to perform. The author saw this implement in England, but not in operation, and it seems impossible, from inspection of it, as well as from the theory of its operation, that it can succeed, if at all, in any but soft homogeneous clay. The idea is, however, so bold, and so much is claimed for the implement, that some description of it seems indispensable in a work like this. The pipes, of common drain tiles, are strung on a rope, and this rope, with the pipes, is drawn through the ground, following a plug like the foot of a subsoil plow, leaving the pipes perfectly laid, and the drain completed at a single operation. (See Fig. 88.) The work is commenced by opening a short piece of ditch by hand, and strings of pipes, each about 50 feet long, are added as the work proceeds; and when the ditch is completed, the rope is withdrawn. When the surface is uneven, the uniform slope is preserved by means of a wheel and screw, which governs the plug, or coulter, raising or lowering it at pleasure. A man upon the frame-work controls this wheel, guided by a sight on the frame, and a cross-staff at the end of the field. Drains, 40 rods long, are finished at one operation. This plow has been carefully tested in England. Its work has been uncovered when completed, and found perfect in every respect. The great expense of the machine, and the fact that it is only adapted to clay land free from obstructions, has prevented its general use. We cannot help believing that, by the aid of steam, on our prairies, at least, some such machine may be found practicable and economical. PRATT'S DITCH DIGGER, Patented by Pratt & Bro., of Canandaigua, is attracting much attention. We have not seen it in operation, nor have we seen statements which satisfy us that it is just what is demanded. It is stated, in the _Country Gentleman_, to be incapable of cutting a ditch more than two and a half feet deep. A machine that will do so much is not to be despised; but more than one half the digging remains of a four-foot ditch, after two and a half feet are opened, and we want an implement to do the lowest and worst half. It is stated that, in one instance, a ditch, 60 rods long, about two feet deep, in hard clay, was cut with this machine, worked by two horses, in five hours. We trust that the enterprising inventors will perfect their implement, so that it will open drains four feet deep, and thus meet the great want of the public. It is not to be expected that any such implement can be made to operate in ground full of stones and roots; and inventors should not be discouraged by the continual croakings of those sinister birds, which see nothing but obstacles, and prophecy only failure. [Illustration: Fig. 89.--PRATT'S DITCH DIGGER.] The drain plow was first introduced into Scotland by M'Ewan. The soil in his district was mostly a strong unctuous clay, free from stones. He constructed an immense plow, worked by 12 or 16 horses, by means of which a furrow-slice, 16 inches in depth, was turned out; and, by a modification of the plow, a second slice was removed, to the depth, in all, of two feet. This plow is expensive and heavy, and incapable of working to sufficient depth. Mr. Paul, of Norfolk Co., England, has lately invented an ingenious machine for cutting drains, of which we give an elevation. [Illustration: Fig. 90.--PAUL'S DITCHING MACHINE.] It is worked by a chain and capstan, by horses, and, of course, may be operated by steam or lever power. It is drawn forward, and, as it moves, it acts as a slotting machine on the land, the tools on the circumference of the acting-wheel taking successive bites of the soil, each lifting a portion from the full depth to which it is desired that the trench should be cut, and laying the earth thus removed on the surface at either side. There is a lifting apparatus at the end of the machine, by which the cutting-wheel may be raised or lowered, according to the unevenness of the surface, in order to secure a uniform fall in the bottom of the drain. The whole process is carried on at the rate of about four feet per minute, and it results, on suitable soils, in cutting a drain from three to five feet deep, leaving it in a finished state, with a level bottom for the tiles to rest upon. We give the cut and statement from the Cyclopædia of Agriculture, and if the machine shall prove what it is represented to be, we see but little more to be desired in a ditching machine. The principle of this implement appears to us to be the correct one, and we see no reason to doubt the statement of its performance. Routt's drain plow is designed for surface-draining merely. We give, from the _New England Farmer_, a statement of its merits, as detailed by a correspondent who saw it at the exhibition of the U. S. Agricultural Society at Richmond, in 1858: "One of the most attractive implements on the Fair ground, to the farmer, was A. P. Routt's patent drain plow. This implement makes a furrow a foot deep, two feet and a half wide at the top, and four inches wide at the bottom, the sides sloping at such an angle as to insure the drain from falling in by the frost, the whole being perfectly completed at one operation by this plow, or tool. Those who have tried it say it is the very thing for surface-draining, which, on wet lands, is certainly very beneficial where under-draining has not been done. The manufacturer resides in Somerset, Orange County, Va. The plow is so made that it opens a deep furrow, turning both to the right and left, and is followed by a heavy iron roller that hardens the earth, both on the sides and the bottom of the surface-drain, thus doing very handsome work. The price, as heretofore stated, is $25, and with it, a man can, with a good pair of team horses, surface-drain 60 acres of land a day." CHAPTER XII. PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR OPENING DRAINS AND LAYING TILES. Begin at the Outlet.--Use of Plows.--Levelling the Bottom.--Where to begin to lay Pipes.--Mode of Procedure.--Covering Pipes.--Securing Joints.--Filling.--Securing Outlets.--Plans. In former chapters, we have spoken minutely of the arrangement, depth, distance, and width of drains; and in treating of tools for drainage, we have sufficiently described the use of levelling instruments and of the various digging tools. We assume here, that the engineering has been already done, and that the whole system has been carefully staked out, so that every main, sub-main, and minor is distinctly located, and the fall accurately ascertained. Until so much has been accomplished, we are unprepared to put the first spade into the ground. We propose to give our own experience as to the convenient method of procedure, with such suggestions as occur to us, for those who are differently situated from ourselves. The work of excavation must begin at the outlet, so that whatever water is met with, may pass readily away; and the outlet must be kept always low enough for this purpose. If there is considerable fall, it may not be best to deepen the lower end of the main to its full extent, at first, because the main, though first opened, must be the last in which the pipes are laid, and may cave in, if unnecessarily deep at first. In many cases there is fall enough, so that the upper minors may be laid and find sufficient fall, before the lower end of the main is half opened. With a garden line drawn straight, mark out the drain, with a sharp spade, on both sides, and remove the turf. If it is desired to use the turf for covering the pipes, or to replace it over the drains, when finished, it should at first be placed in heaps outside the line of the earth to be thrown out. A plow is used sometimes to turn out the sod and soil; but we have few plowmen who can go straight enough; and in plowing, the soil is left too near to the ditch for convenience, and the turf is torn in pieces and buried, so as not to be fit for use. Usually, it will be found convenient to remove the turf, if there be any, with a spade, by a line. Then, a plow may be used for turning out the next spit, and the drain may be kept straight, which is indispensable to good work. A good ditching-machine is, of course, the thing needful; but we are endeavoring in these directions to do our best without it. We have opened our own trenches entirely by hand labor, finding laborers more convenient than oxen or horses, and no more expensive. Many have used the plow in the first foot or two of the cutting, but it is not here "the first step which costs," but the later steps. After the first foot is removed, if the ground be hard, a pick or subsoil plow must be used. A subsoil plow, properly constructed, may be made very useful in breaking up the subsoil, though there is a difficulty in working cattle astride of a deep ditch, encumbered with banks of earth. A friend of ours used, in opening drains, a large bull in single harness, trained to walk in the ditch; but the width of a big bull is a somewhat larger pattern for a drain, than will be found economical. The ingenuity of farmers in the use of a pair of heavy wheels, with a chain attached to the axle, so that the cattle may both walk on one side of the ditch, or by the use of long double-trees, so that horses may go outside the banks of earth, will generally be found sufficient to make the most of their means. It will be found convenient to place the soil at one side, and the subsoil at the other, for convenience in returning both right side up to their places. Having worked down to the depth of two feet or more, the ditch should be too narrow for the use of common spades, and the narrow tools already described will be found useful. The Irish spade, on our own fields, is in use from the first to the last of the excavation; and at three feet depth, we have our trench but about six inches in width, and at the bottom, at four feet depth, it is but four inches--just wide enough for the laborer to stand in it, with one foot before the other. Having excavated to nearly our depth, we use the lines, as described in another place, for levelling, and the men working under them, grade the bottom as accurately as possible. If flat-bottomed tiles are used, the ditch is ready for them. If round pipes are used, a round bottoming tool must be used to form a semi-circular groove in which the pipes are to lie. We have not forgotten that English drainers tell us of tools and their use, whereby drains may be open twenty inches lower than the feet of the workman; but we have never chanced to see that operation, and are skeptical as to the fact that work can thus be performed economically, except in very peculiar soils. That such a _crack_ may be thus opened, is not doubted; but we conceive of no means by which earth, that requires the pick, can be moved to advantage, without the workman standing as low as his work. Having opened the main, and finished, as we have described, the minor which enters the main at its highest point, we are ready to lay the tiles. By first laying the upper drain, it will be seen that we may finish and secure our work to the junction of the first minor with its main. Convey the pipes by wagon or otherwise, as is convenient, to the side of the ditch where the soil lies, and where there is least earth, and lay them close to the edge of the ditch, end to end the whole way, discarding all imperfect pieces. If it is designed to use gravel, turf, or other covering for the pipes, lay it also in heaps along the trench. Then place the first pipe at the upper end of the ditch, with a brick or stone against its upper end, to exclude earth. We have heretofore used sole-tiles, with flat bottoms, and have found that a thin chip of wood, not an eighth of an inch thick, and four by two inches in size, such as may be found at shoe shops in New England, assists very much in securing an even bearing for the tiles. It is placed so that the ends of two tiles rest on it, and serves to keep them in line till secured by the earth. A man walking backward in the ditch, takes the tiles from the bank, carefully adjusting them in line and so as to make good joints, and he can lay half a mile or more in a day, if the bottom is well graded. Another should follow on the bank, throwing in a shovel full of gravel or tan, if either is used, upon the joint. If turf is to be used to secure the joint, pieces should be cut thin and narrow, and laid along the bank, and the man in the ditch must secure each joint as he proceeds. It will be found to cost twice the labor, at least, to use turf, as it is to use gravel or tan, if they are at hand. If the soil be clay, we do not believe it is best to return it directly upon the tiles, because it is liable to puddle and stop the joint, and then to crack and admit silt at the joint, while gravel is not thus affected. We prefer to place the top soil of clay land, next the pipes, rather than the clay in the condition in which it is usually found. As to small stones above the pipes, we should decidedly object to them. They are unnecessary to the operation of the drain, and they allow the water to come in, in currents, on to the top of the pipes, in heavy storms or showers, and so endanger their security. The practice of placing stones above the tiles is abandoned by all scientific drainers. We have, in England, seen straw placed over the joints of pipes, but it seems an inconvenient and insecure practice. Long straw cannot be well placed in such narrow openings, and it is likely to sustain the earth enough, so that when thrown in, it will not settle equally around the pipes; whereas a shovelfull of gravel or other earth sifted in carefully, will at once fasten them in place. Having laid and partially covered the first or upper drain, proceed with the next in the same way, laying and securing the main or sub-main, at the same time, to each intersection, thus carrying the work from the highest point down towards the outlet. After sufficient earth has been thrown in to make the work safe against accidents by rain, or caving in of earth, the filling may be completed at leisure. Mr. Johnston, of Geneva, uses for this purpose a plow, having a double-tree nine and a half feet long, to enable a horse to go on each side of the ditch. We suggest that a side-hill plow might well enough be used with horses _tandem_, or with oxen and cart wheels and draughts. The filling, however, will be found a small matter, compared with the digging. In laying pipes in narrow trenches, a tool called a pipe-layer is sometimes used, a cut of which, showing its mode of use, may be found in another place. In filling drains where the soil is partly clay, and partly sand or gravel, we recommend that the clay be placed in the upper part of the drain, so as to prevent water from passing directly down upon the pipes, by which they are frequently displaced as soon as laid. If the work is completed in Autumn, it is well to turn two or three furrows from each side on to the drains, so as to raise the surface there, and prevent water from cutting out the ditch, or standing above it. If the land is plowed in Autumn, it is best to back-furrow on to the drains, leaving dead furrows half way between them, the first season. As to the importance of securing the outlets, and the manner of doing it, we have spoken particularly elsewhere. And here, again, we will remind the beginner, of the necessity of making and preserving accurate plans of the work, so that every drain may be at any time found by measurement. After a single rotation, it is frequently utterly impossible to perceive upon the surface any indication of the line of the drains. In this connection, it may be well perhaps to remind the reader, that whatever arrangements are made as to silt-basins, or peep-holes, must be included in the general plan, and executed as the work proceeds. CHAPTER XIII. EFFECTS OF DRAINAGE UPON THE CONDITION OF THE SOIL. Drainage deepens the Soil, and gives the roots a larger pasture.--Cobbett's Lucerne 30 feet deep.--Mechi's Parsnips 13 feet long!--Drainage promotes Pulverization.--Prevents Surface-Washing.--Lengthens the Season.--Prevents Freezing out.--Dispenses with Open Ditches.--Saves 25 per cent. of Labor.--Promotes absorption of Fertilizing Substances from the Air.--Supplies Air to the Roots.--Drains run before Rain; so do some Springs.--Drainage warms the Soil.--Corn sprouts at 55°; Rye on Ice.--Cold from Evaporation.--Heat will not pass downward in Water.--Count Rumford's Experiments with Hot Water on Ice.--Aeration of Soil by Drains. The benefits which high-lands, as we ordinarily call them, in distinction from swamp or flowed lands, derive from drainage, may be arranged in two classes, _mechanical_ and _chemical_; though it is not easy, nor, indeed, is it important, to maintain this distinction in all points. Among those which partake rather of the nature of mechanical changes, are the following: _Drainage deepens the soil._ Every one who has attempted to raise deep-rooted vegetables upon half-drained swamp-land, has observed the utter impossibility of inducing them to extend downward their usual length. Parsnips and carrots, on such land, frequently grow large at the top, but divide into numerous small fibres just below the surface, and spread in all directions. No root, except those of aquatic plants, will grow in stagnant water. If, therefore, it is of any advantage to have a deep, rather than a shallow soil, it is manifestly necessary, from this consideration alone, to lower the line of standing water, at least, to the extent to which the roots of our cultivated crops descend. A deep soil is better than a shallow one, because it furnishes a more extensive feeding-ground for the roots. The elements of nutrition, which the plant finds in the soil, are not all upon the surface. Many of them are washed down by the rains into the subsoil, and some are found in the decomposing rocks themselves. These, the plants, by a sort of instinct, search out and find, as well in the depths of the earth as at its surface, if no obstacle opposes. By striking deep roots again, the plants stand more firmly in the earth, so that they are not so readily drawn out, or shaken by the winds. Indeed, every one knows that a soil two feet deep is better than one a foot deep; and market-gardeners and nursery-men show, by their practice, that they know, if others do not, that a trenched soil three feet deep is better than one of any less depth. We all know that Indian corn, in a dry soil, sends down its rootlets two feet or more, as well as most of the grasses. Cobbett says: "The lucerne will send its roots thirty feet into a dry bottom!" The Chinese yam, recently introduced, grows downward two or three feet. The digging of an acre of such a crop, by the way, on New England soil generally, would require a corps of sappers and miners, especially when we consider that the yam grows largest end downward. However, the yam may prove a valuable acquisition to the country. Every inch of additional soil gives 100 tons of active soil per acre. Says Mr. Denton: "I have evidence now before me, that the roots of the wheat plant, the mangold wurzel, the cabbage, and the white turnip, frequently descend into the soil to the depth of three feet. I have myself traced the roots of wheat nine feet deep. I have discovered the roots of perennial grasses in drains four feet deep; and I may refer to Mr. Mercer, of Newton, in Lancashire, who has traced the roots of rye grass running for many feet along a small pipe-drain, after descending four feet through the soil. Mr. Hetley, of Orton, assures me that he discovered the roots of the mangolds, in a recently made drain, five feet deep; and the late Sir John Conroy had many newly-made drains, four feet deep, stopped by the roots of the same plants." Mr. Sheriff Mechi's parsnips, however, distance anything in the way of deep rooting that has yet been recorded. The Sheriff is a very deep drainer, and an enthusiast in agriculture, and Nature seems to delight to humor his tastes, by performing a great many experiments at his famous place called Tiptree Hall. He stated, at a public meeting, that, in his neighborhood, where a crop of parsnips was growing on the edge of a clay pit, the roots were observed to descend 13 feet 6 inches; in fact, the whole depth to which this pit had once been filled up! _Drainage assists pulverization._ It was Tull's theory that, by the comminution, or minute division, of soils alone, without the application of any manures, their fertility might be permanently maintained; and he so far supported this theory as, by repeated plowings, to produce twelve successive crops of wheat on the same land, without manure. The theory has received support from the known fact, that most soils are benefitted by Summer fallowing. The experiments instituted for the purpose of establishing this theory, although they disproved it, showed the great value of thorough pulverization. It is manifest that a wet soil can never be pulverized. Plowing clayey, or even loamy soil, when wet, tends rather to press it together, and render it less pervious to air and water. The first effect of under-draining is to dry the surface-soil, to draw out all the water that will run out of it, so that, in early Spring, or in Autumn, it may be worked with the plow as advantageously as undrained lands in mid-Summer. Striking illustrations of the benefits of thorough pulverization will be found in the excellent remarks of Dr. Madden, given in a subsequent chapter. _Drainage prevents surface-washing._ All land which is not level, and is not in grass, is liable to great loss by heavy rains in Spring and Autumn. If the land is already filled with water, or has not sufficient drainage, the rain cannot pass directly downward, but runs away upon the surface, carrying with it much of the soil, and washing out of what remains, of the valuable elements of fertility which have been applied with such expense. If the land be properly drained, the water falling from the clouds is at once absorbed, and passes downwards, saturating the soil in its descent, and carrying the soluble substances with it to the roots, and the surplus water runs away in the artificial channels provided by the draining process. So great is the absorbent power of drained land, that, after a protracted drought, all the water of a heavy rainstorm will be drunk up and held by the soil, so that, for a day or two, none will find its way to the drains, nor will it run upon the surface. _Drainage lengthens the season for labor and vegetation._ In the colder latitudes of our country, where a long Winter is succeeded by a torrid Summer, with very little ceremony by way of an intervening Spring, farmers have need of all their energy to get their seed seasonably into the ground. Snow often covers the fields in New England into April; and the ground is so saturated with water, that the land designed for corn and potatoes, frequently cannot be plowed till late in May. The manure is to be hauled from the cellar or yard, over land lifted and softened by frost, and all the processes of preparing and planting, are necessarily hurried and imperfect. In the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, of the State of Maine, for 1856, a good illustration of this idea is given: "Mr. B. F. Nourse, of Orrington, plowed and planted with corn a piece of his drained and subsoiled land, in a drizzling rain, after a storm of two days. The corn came up and grew well; yet this was a clayey loam, formerly as wet as the adjoining grass-field, upon which oxen and carts could not pass, on the day of this planting, without cutting through the turf and miring deeply. The nearest neighbor said, if he had planted that day, it must have been from a raft." Probably two weeks would be gained in New England, in Spring, in which to prepare for planting, by thorough-drainage, a gain, which no one can appreciate but a New England man, who has been obliged often to plow his land when too wet, to cut it up and overwork his team, in hauling on his manure over soft ground, and finally to plant as late as the 6th of June, or leave his manure to waste, and lose the use of his field till another season; and all because of a surplus of cold water. Mr. Yeomans, of New York, in a published statement of his experience in draining, says, that on his drained lands, "the ground becomes almost as dry in two or three days after the frost comes out in Spring, or after a heavy rain, as it would do in as many weeks, before draining." But the gain of time for labor is not all. We gain time also for vegetation, by thorough-drainage. Ten days, frequently, in New England, may be the security of our corn-crop against frost. In less than that time, a whole field passes from the milky stage, when a slight frost would ruin it, to the glazed stage, when it is safe from cold; and twice ten days of warm season are added by this removal of surplus water. _Drainage prevents freezing out._ Mr. John Johnston, of Seneca County, New York, in 1851, had already made sixteen miles of tile drains. He had been experimenting with tiles from 1835, and had, on four acres of his drained clayey land, raised the largest crop of Indian corn ever produced in that county--eighty-three bushels of shelled corn to the acre. He states, that on this clayey soil, when laid down to grass, "not one square foot of the clover froze out." Again he says, "Heretofore, many acres of wheat were lost on the upland by freezing out, and none would grow on the lowlands. Now there is no loss from that cause." The growing of Winter wheat has been entirely abandoned in some localities on account of freezing out, or Winter-killing; and one of the worst obstacles in the way of getting our lands into grass, and keeping them so, is this very difficulty of freezing out. The operation seems to be merely this: The soil is pulverized only to the depth of the plow, some six or eight inches. Below this is a stratum of clay, nearly impervious to water. The Autumn rains saturate the surface soil, which absorbs water like a sponge. The ground is suddenly frozen; the water contained in it crystallizes into ice; and the soil is thrown up into spicules, or honey-combs; and the poor clover roots, or wheat plants, are drawn from their beds, and, by a few repetitions of the process, left dead on the field in Spring. Draining, followed by subsoiling, lets down the falling water at once through the soil, leaving the root bed of the plants so free from moisture, that the earth is not "heaved," as the term is, and the plants retain their natural position, and awaken refreshed in the Spring by their Winter's repose. _There are no open ditches on under-drained land._ An open ditch in a tillage or mowing-field, is an abomination. It compels us, in plowing, to stop, perhaps midway in our field; to make short lands; to leave headlands inconvenient to cultivate; and so to waste our time and strength in turning the team, and treading up the ground, instead of profitably employing it in drawing a long and handsome furrow the whole length of the field, as we might do were there no ditch. Open ditches, as usually made, obstruct the movement of our teams as much as fences, and a farm cut into squares by ditches, is nearly as objectionable as a farm fenced off into half or quarter-acre fields. In haying, we have the same inconvenience. We must turn the mowing-machine and horse-rake at the ditch, and finish by hand-labor, the work on its banks; we must construct bridges at frequent intervals, and then go out of our way to cross them with loads, cutting up the smooth fields with wheels and the feet of animals. Or, what is a familiar scene, when a shower is coming up, and the load is ready, Patrick concludes to drive straight to the barn, across the ditch, and gets his team mired, upsets his load, and perhaps breaks the leg of an animal, besides swearing more than half a mile of hard ditching will expiate. Such accidents are a great temptation to profanity, and under-draining might properly be reckoned a moral agent, to counteract such traps and pitfalls of the great adversary. A moment's thought will satisfy any farmer who has the means, that true economy dictates a liberal expenditure of labor, at once, to obviate these difficulties, rather than be subject for a lifetime to the constant petty annoyances which have been named. Open ditches, even when formed so skillfully that they may be conveniently crossed, or water-furrows which remain where land is laid into ridges by back-furrowing, as much of our flat land must be, if not under-drained, are serious obstructions, at the best. They render the soil unequal in depth, taking it from one point where it is wanted, and heaping it upon another where it is not wanted, thus giving the crops an uneven growth. They render the soil also unequal in respect to moisture, because the back or top of the ridge must always be drier than the furrow. Thorough-drained land may be laid perfectly flat, giving us, thus, the control of the whole field, to divide and cultivate according to convenience, and making it of uniform texture and temperature. Attempts have been made, to estimate the saving in the number of horses and men by drainage, and it is thought to be a reasonable calculation to fix it at one in four, or twenty-five per cent. It probably will strike any farmer as a fair estimate, that, on land which needs drainage, it will require four horses and four men to perform the same amount of cultivation, that three men and three horses may perform on the same land well drained. _Drained land will not require re-planting._ There is hardly a farmer in New England, who does not, each Spring, find himself compelled to re-plant some portion of his crop. He is obliged to hurry his seed into the ground, at the earliest day, because our season for planting is short at the best. If, after this, a long cold storm comes, on wet land, the seed rots in the ground, and he must plant again, often too late, incurring thus the loss of the seed, the labor of twice doing the same work, the interruption of his regular plan of business, and often the partial failure of his crop. Upon thorough-drained land, this cost and labor could rarely be experienced, because nothing short of a small deluge could saturate well drained land, so as to cause the seed to fail, if sowed or planted with ordinary care and prudence, as to the season. _Drained land is lighter to work._ It is often difficult to find a day in the year, when a wet piece of land is in suitable condition to plow. Usually, such tracts are unequal, some parts being much wetter than others, because the water settles into the low places. In such fields, we now drive our team knee deep into soft mud, and find a stream of water following us in the furrow, and now we rise upon a knoll, baked hard, and sun-cracked; and one half the surface when finished is shining with the plastered mud, ready to dry into the consistency of bricks, while the other is already in hard dry lumps, like paving stones, and about as easily pulverized. This is hard work for the team and men, hard in the plowing, and hard through the whole rotation. The same field, well drained, is friable and porous, and uniform in texture. It may be well plowed and readily pulverized, if taken in hand at any reasonable season. Land which has been puddled by the tread of cattle, or by wheels, acquires a peculiar consistency, and a singular capacity to hold water. Certain clays are wet and beaten up into this consistency, to form the bottoms of ponds, and to tighten dams and reservoirs. A soil thus puddled, requires careful treatment to again render it permeable to water, and fit for cultivation. This puddling process is constantly going on, under the feet of cattle, under the plow and the cart-wheels, wherever land containing clay is worked upon in a wet state. Thus, by performing a day's work on wet land, we often render necessary as much additional labor as we perform, to cure the evil we have done. _We may haul loads without injury on drained land._ On many farms, it is difficult to select a season for hauling out manure, or carting stones from place to place, when great injury is not done to some part of the land by the operation. Many farmers haul out their manure in Winter, to avoid cutting up their farms; admitting that the manure is wasted somewhat by the exposure, but, on the whole, choosing this loss as the lesser evil. In spreading manure in Spring, we are often obliged to carry half loads, because the land is soft, not only to spare our beasts, but also to spare our land the injury by treading it. Drained land is comparatively solid, especially in Spring, and will bear up heavy loads with little injury. _Drained land is least injured by cattle in feeding._ Whether it is good husbandry to feed our mowing fields at any time, is a question upon which farmers have a right to differ. Without discussing the question, it is enough for our purpose, that most farmers feed their fields late in the Autumn. Whether we approve it, or not, when the pastures are bare and burnt up, and the second crop in the home-field is so rich and tempting, and the women are complaining that the cows give no milk, we usually bow to the necessity of the time, and "turn in" the cows. The great injury of "Fall-feeding" is not usually so much the loss of the grass-covering from the field, as the poaching of the soil and destruction of the roots by treading. A hard upland field is much less injured by feeding, than a low meadow, and the latter less in a dry than a wet season. By drainage, the surplus water is taken from the field. None can stand upon its surface for a day after the rain ceases. The soil is compact, and the hoofs of cattle make little impression upon it, and the second or third crop may be fed off, with comparatively little damage. _Weeds are easily destroyed on drained land._ If a weed be dug or pulled up from land that is wet and sticky, it is likely to strike root and grow again, because earth adheres to its roots; whereas, a stroke of the hoe entirely separates the weeds in friable soil from the earth, and they die at once. Every farmer knows the different effect of hoeing, or of cultivating with the horse-hoe or harrow, in a rain storm and in dry weather. In one case, the weeds are rather refreshed by the stirring, and, in the other, they are destroyed. The difference between the surface of drained land and water-soaked land is much the same as that between land in dry weather under good cultivation, and land just saturated by rain. Again, there are many noxious weeds, such as wild grasses, which thrive only on wet land, and which are difficult to exterminate, and which give us no trouble after the land is lightened and sweetened by drainage. Among the effects of drainage, mainly of a chemical nature, on the soil, are the following: _Drainage promotes absorption of fertilizing substances from the air._ The atmosphere bears upon its bosom, not only the oxygen essential to the vitality of plants, not only water in the form of vapor, to quench their thirst in Summer droughts, but also various substances, which rise in exhalations from the sea, from decomposing animals and vegetables, from the breathing of all living creatures, from combustion, and a thousand other causes. These would be sufficient to corrupt the very air, and render it unfit for respiration, did not Nature, with her wondrous laws of compensation, provide for its purification. It has already been stated, how the atmosphere returns to the hills, in clouds and vapor, condensed at last to rain, all the water which the rivers carry to the sea; and how the well-drained soil derives moisture, in severest time of need, from its contact with the vapor-loaded air. But the rain and dew return not their waters to the earth without treasures of fertility. Ammonia, which is one of the most valuable substances found in farm-yard manures, and which is a constant result of decomposition, is absorbed in almost incredible quantities by water. About 780 times its own bulk of ammonia is readily absorbed by water at the common temperature and pressure of the atmosphere; and, freighted thus with treasures for the fields, the moisture of the atmosphere descends upon the earth. The rain cleanses the air of its impurities, and conveys them to the plants. The vapors of the marshes, and of the exposed manure heaps of the thriftless farmer, are gently wafted to the well-drained fields of his neighbor, and there, amidst the roots of the well-tilled crops, deposit, at the same time, their moisture and fertilizing wealth. Of the wonderful power of the soil to absorb moisture, both from the heavens above and the earth beneath--by the deposition of dew, as well as by attraction--we shall treat more fully in another chapter. It will be found to be intimately connected with the present topic. _Thorough drainage supplies air to the roots._ Plants, if they do not breathe like animals, require for their life almost the same constant supply of air. "All plants," says Liebig, "die in soils and water destitute of oxygen; absence of air acts exactly in the same manner as an excess of carbonic acid. Stagnant water on a marshy soil excludes air, but a renewal of water has the same effect as a renewal of air, because water contains it in solution. When the water is withdrawn from a marsh, free access is given to the air, and the marsh is changed into a fruitful meadow." Animal and vegetable matter do not decay, or decompose, so as to furnish food for plants, unless freely supplied with oxygen, which they must obtain from air. A slight quantity of air, however, is sufficient for putrefaction, which is a powerful deoxydizing process that extracts oxygen even from the roots of plants. We are accustomed to think of the earth as a compact body of matter, vast and inert; subject, indeed, to be upheaved and rent by volcanoes and earthquakes, but as quite insensible to slight influences which operate upon living beings and upon vegetation. This, however, is a great mistake; and it may be interesting to refer to one or two facts, which illustrate the wonderful effect of changes of the atmosphere upon the soil, and upon the subterranean currents of the earth. The following is from remarks by Mr. Denton, in a public address: "But, as a proof of the sensibility of a soil drained four feet deep, to atmospheric changes, I may mention, that my attention has been, on more than one occasion, called to the circumstance that drains have been observed to run, after a discontinuance of that duty, without any fall of rain on the surface of the drained land; and, upon reference to the barometer, it has been found that the quicksilver has fallen whenever this has occurred. Mr. George Beaumont, jun., who first afforded tangible evidence of this extraordinary circumstance, has permitted me to read the following extracts of his letter: "'I can verify the case of the drains running without rain, during a falling barometer, beyond all doubt. "'The case I named to you last year of the barometer falling four days consecutively, and with rapidity, was a peculiarly favorable time for noticing it, as it occurred in a dry time, and the drains could be seen distinctly. My man, on being questioned and cautioned by me not to exaggerate, has declared the actual stream of water issuing from one particular drain to be as thick as a three-eighth-inch wire. All the drains ran--they did more than drop--and ditches, which were previously dry, became quite wet, with a perceptible stream of water; this gradually ceased with the change in the density of the atmosphere, as shown by the barometer. "'During last harvest, 1855, the men were cutting wheat, and on getting near to a drain outlet, the ditch from the outlet downwards was observed to be wet, and the drain was dripping. No rain fell in sufficient quantity to enter the ground. The men drank of the water while they were cutting the wheat. A few days after, it was dry again. I have seen and noticed this phenomenon myself.' "A correspondent of the _Agricultural Gazette_ has stated, that Professor Brocklesby, of Hartford, in America, had observed the same phenomena, in the case of two springs in that country; and explained, that the cause was 'the diminished atmospheric pressure which exists before a rain.'" Dr. Lardner states many facts which support the ideas above suggested. In his lectures on science, he says: "When storms are breaking in the heavens, and sometimes long before their commencement, and when their approach has not yet been manifested by any appearances in the firmament, phenomena are observed, apparently sympathetic, proceeding from the deep recesses of the earth, and exhibited under very various forms at its surface." Dr. Lardner cites many instances of fountains which, when a storm is approaching, burst forth with a violent flow of water, before any rain has fallen. The cases named by Prof. Brocklesby, referred to by Mr. Denton, are those of a spring in Rutland, Vermont, and a brook in Concord, Massachusetts. Prof. Brocklesby states, as the result of his personal observation, that the spring referred to, supplies an aqueduct; that, in several instances, when the spring had become so low, in a time of drought, that no water ran in the aqueduct, it suddenly rose so as to fill the pipes, and furnish a supply of water, before any rain had fallen in the neighborhood. This occurrence, he says, was familiar to the occupants of the premises, and they expected rain in a few days after this mysterious flow of water; which expectations were usually, if not always, realized. The other instance is that of a brook in Concord, Mass., called Dodge's brook, which Prof. B. says, he was informed, commenced frequently to rise very perceptibly before a drop of rain had fallen. We have inquired of our friends in Concord about this matter, and find that this opinion is entertained by many of the people who live near this brook, and it is probably well founded, though we cannot ascertain that accurate observations have been made, so as to afford any definite results. _Thorough drainage warms the soil._ It has been stated, on high authority, that drainage raises the temperature of the soil, often as much as 15° F. Indian corn vegetates at about 55°. At 45°, the seed would rot in the ground, without vegetating. The writer, however, has seen rye sprouted upon ice in an ice-house, with roots two inches long, so grown to the ice that they could only be separated by thawing. Winter rye, no doubt, makes considerable growth under snow. Cultivated plants, in general, however, do not grow at all, unless the soil be raised above 45°. The sun has great power to warm dry soils, and, it is said, will often raise their temperature to 90° or 100°, when the air in the shade is only 60° or 70°. But the sun has no such power to warm a wet soil, and for several reasons, which are as follows: 1. _The soil is rendered cold by evaporation._ If water cannot pass through the land by drainage, either natural or artificial, it must escape, if at all, at the surface, by evaporation. Now, it is a fact well known, that the heat disappears, or becomes latent, by the conversion of water into vapor. Every child knows this, practically, at least, who, in Winter, has washed his hands and gone out without drying them. The same evaporation which thus affects the hands, renders the land cold, when filled with water, every gallon of which thus carried off requires, and actually carries off, as much heat as would raise five and a half gallons of water from the freezing to the boiling point. Morton, in his "Encyclopædia of Agriculture," estimates that it would require an expenditure of nearly 1,200 pounds of coal per day, to evaporate artificially one half the rain which falls on an acre during the year. In other words, about 219 tons of coals annually, would be required for every acre of undrained land, so as to allow the free use of the sun's rays for the legitimate purpose of growing and maturing the crops cultivated upon it. It will not then be surprising that undrained soils are, in the language of the farmer, "cold." 2. _Heat will not pass downward in water._ If, therefore, your soil be saturated with water, the heat of the sun, in Spring, cannot warm it, and your plowing and planting must be late, and your crop a failure. Count Rumford tried many experiments to illustrate the mode of the propagation of heat in fluids, and his conclusion, it is presumed, is now held to be the true theory, that heat is transmitted in water only by the motion of the particles of water; so that, if you could stop the heated particles from rising, water could not be warmed except where it touches the vessel containing it. Heat applied to the bottom of a vessel of water warms the particles in contact with the vessel, and colder particles descend, and so the whole is warmed. Heat, applied to the surface of the water, can never warm it, except so far as it is conducted downward by some other medium than the water itself. Count Rumford confined cakes of ice in the bottom of glass jars, and, covering it with one thickness of paper, poured boiling-hot water on the top of it, and there it remained for hours without melting the ice. The paper was placed over the ice, so that the hot water could not be poured on it, which would have thawed it at once. Every man who has poured hot water into a frozen pump, hoping to thaw out the ice by this means, has arrived at the fact, if not at the theory, that ice will not melt by hot water on the top of it. If, however, a piece of lead pipe be placed in the pump, resting on the ice, and hot water be poured through it, the ice will melt at once. In the first instance, the hot water in contact with the ice becomes cold; and there it remains, because cold water is heavier than warm, and there it will remain, though the top be boiling. But when hot water is poured through the pipe, the downward current drives away the cold water, and brings heated particles in succession to the ice. Heat is propagated in water, then, only by circulation; that is, by the upward movement of the heated particles, and the downward movement of the colder ones to take their place. Anything which obstructs circulation, prevents the passage of heat. Chocolate retains heat longer than tea, because it is thicker, and the hot particles cannot so readily rise to be cooled at the surface. Count Rumford illustrated this fact satisfactorily, by putting eider-down into water, which was found to obstruct the circulation, and to prevent the rapid heating and cooling of it. The same is true of all viscous substances, as starch and glue; and so of oil. They retain heat much longer than water or spirits. In a soil saturated with water, or even in water thickened with mud, there could then be but little circulation of the particles, even were the heat applied at the bottom instead of the top. Probably the soil, though saturated with water, does, to some extent, transmit heat from one particle of earth to another, but it must be but very slowly. In the chapter upon Temperature as affected by Drainage, farther illustrations of this point may be found. AERATION BY DRAINS. Among the advantages of thorough-drainage, is reckoned by all, the circulation of air through the soil. No drop of water can run from the soil into a drain without its place being supplied by air, unless there is more water to supply it; so that drainage, in this way, manifestly promotes the permeation of air through the soil. But it is claimed that drains may be made to promote circulation of air in another way, and in dry times, when no water is flowing through them, by connecting them together by means of a header at the upper ends, and leaving an opening so that the air may pass freely through the whole system. Our friend, Prof. Mapes, is an advocate for this practice, and certainly the theory seems well supported. It is said that in dry, hot weather, when the air is most highly charged with moisture, currents thus passing constantly through the earth, must, by contact with the cooler subsoil, part with large quantities of moisture, and tend to moisten the soil from the drains to the surface, giving off also with the moisture whatever of fertilizing elements the air may bear with it. This point has not escaped the notice of English drainers. Mr. J. H. Charnock, an assistant commissioner under the Drainage act, in 1843, read a paper in favor of this practice, but in 1849 he published a second article in which he suggests doubts of the advantages of such arrangements, and says he has discontinued their application. He says they add to the cost of the work, and tend to the decay of the pipes, and to promote the growth into the pipes, of any roots that may approach them. Mr. Parkes, in a published article in 1846, speaks of this idea, but passes it by as of very little importance. Mr. Denton quotes the authority of some of his correspondents strongly in favor of this theory. After trying some experiments himself upon clay soil, he admits the advantages of such an arrangement for such soil, in the following not very enthusiastic terms: "It will be readily understood that as clay will always contract rapidly under the influence of a draught of air, in consequence of the rapid evaporation of moisture from its surface, one of the benefits of draining is thus very cheaply acquired; and for the denser clays it may possibly be a desirable thing to do, but in the porous soils it would appear that no advantage is gained by it." Yet, notwithstanding this summary disposition of the question in England, it is by no means clear, that in the tropical heat of American summers, when the difference between the temperature of the air and the subsoil is so much greater than it can ever be in England, and when we suffer from severer droughts than are common there, we may not find substantial practical advantage from the passage of these air currents through the soil. We are not aware of experiments in America, accurate enough to be quoted as authority on the subject. CHAPTER XIV. DRAINAGE ADAPTS THE SOIL TO GERMINATION AND VEGETATION. Process of Germination.--Two Classes of Pores in Soils, illustrated by Cuts.--Too much Water excludes Air, reduces Temperature.--How much Air the Soil Contains.--Drainage Improves the Quality of Crops.--Drainage prevents Drought.--Drained Soils hold most Water.--Allow Roots to go Deep.--Various Facts. No apology will be necessary for the long extract which we are about to give, to any person who will read it with attention. It is from a lecture on Agricultural Science, by Dr. Madden, and we confess ourselves incompetent to condense or improve the language of the learned author. We think we are safe in saying that it has never been before published in America: "The first thing which occurs after the sowing of the seed is, of course, _germination_; and before we examine how this process may be influenced by the condition of the soil, we must necessarily obtain some correct idea of the process itself. The most careful examination has proved that the process of germination consists essentially of various chemical changes, which require for their development the presence of air, moisture, and a certain degree of warmth. Now it is obviously unnecessary for our present purpose that we should have the least idea of the nature of these processes: all we require to do, is to ascertain the conditions under which they take place; having detected these, we know at once what is required to make a seed grow. These, we have seen, are air, moisture, and a certain degree of warmth; and it consequently results, that wherever a seed is placed in these circumstances, germination will take place. Viewing matters in this light, it appears that soil does not act _chemically_ in the process of germination; that its sole action is confined to its being the vehicle, by means of which a supply of air and moisture and warmth can be continually kept up. With this simple statement in view, we are quite prepared to consider the various conditions of soil, for the purpose of determining how far these will influence the future prospects of the crop, and we shall accordingly at once proceed to examine carefully into the _mechanical relations of the soil_. This we propose doing by the aid of figures. Soil examined mechanically, is found to consist entirely of particles of all shapes and sizes, from stones and pebbles, down to the finest powder; and, on account of their extreme irregularity of shape, they cannot lie so close to one another as to prevent there being passages between them, owing to which circumstance soil in the mass is always more or less _porous_. If, however, we proceed to examine one of the smallest particles of which soil is made up, we shall find that even this is not always solid, but is much more frequently porous, like soil in the mass. A considerable proportion of this finely-divided part of soil, _the impalpable matter_ as it is generally called, is found, by the aid of the microscope, to consist of _broken-down vegetable tissue_, so that when a small portion of the finest dust from a garden or field is placed under the microscope, we have exhibited to us particles of every variety of shape and structure, of which a certain part is evidently of vegetable origin. In these figures I have given a very rude representation of these particles; and I must beg you particularly to remember that they are not meant to represent by any means accurately what the microscope exhibits, but are only designed to serve as a plan by which to illustrate the mechanical properties of the soil. On referring to Fig. 91, we perceive that there are two distinct classes of pores; first, the large ones, which exist _between_ the particles of soil, and second, the very minute ones, which occur in the particles themselves; and you will at the same time notice, that whereas all the larger pores--those between the particles of soil--communicate most freely with each other, so that they form canals, the small pores, however freely they may communicate with one another in the interior of the particle in which they occur, have no direct connection with the pores of the surrounding particles. Let us now, therefore, trace the effect of this arrangement. In Fig. 91, we perceive that these canals and pores are all empty, the soil being _perfectly dry_; and the canals communicating freely at the surface with the surrounding atmosphere, the whole will of course be filled with air. If in this condition, a seed be placed in the soil, as at _a_, you at once perceive that it is freely supplied with air, _but there is no moisture_; therefore, when soil is _perfectly dry_, a seed cannot grow. [Illustration: Fig. 91.] [Illustration: Fig. 92.] "Let us turn our attention now to Fig. 92. Here we perceive that both the pores and canals are no longer represented white, but black, this color being used to indicate water; in this instance, therefore, water has taken the place of air, or, in other words, the soil is _very wet_. If we observe our seed _a_ now, we find it abundantly supplied with water, but _no air_. Here again, therefore, germination cannot take place. It may be well to state here, that this can never occur _exactly_ in nature, because water having the power of dissolving air to a certain extent, the seed _a_ in Fig. 92 is, in fact, supplied with a _certain_ amount of this necessary substance; and, owing to this, germination does take place, although by no means under such advantageous circumstances as it would were the soil in a better condition. [Illustration: Fig. 93.] [Illustration: Fig. 94.] "We pass on now to Fig. 93. Here we find a different state of matters. The canals are open and freely supplied with air, while the pores are filled with water; and consequently you perceive that, while the seed _a_ has quite enough of air from the canals, it can never be without moisture, as every particle of soil which touches it, is well supplied with this necessary ingredient. This, then, is the proper condition of soil for germination, and in fact for every period of the plant's development; and this condition occurs when soil is _moist_ but not _wet_--that is to say, when it has the color and appearance of being well watered, but when it is still capable of being crumbled to pieces by the hands, without any of its particles adhering together in the familiar form of mud. "Turning our eyes to Fig. 94, we observe still another condition of soil. In this instance, as far as _water_ is concerned, the soil is in its healthy condition--it is moist, but not wet, the pores alone being filled with water. But where are the canals? We see them in a few places, but in by far the greater part of the soil none are to be perceived; this is owing to the particles of soil having adhered together, and thus so far obliterated the interstitial canals, that they appear only like pores. This is the state of matters in every _clod of earth_, _b_; and you will at once perceive, on comparing it with _c_, which represents a stone, that these two differ only in possessing a few pores, which latter, while they may form a reservoir for moisture, can never act as vehicles for the _food_ of plants, as the roots are not capable of extending their fibres into the interior of a clod, but are at all times confined to the interstitial canals. "With these four conditions before us, let us endeavor to apply them _practically_ to ascertain when they occur in our fields, and how those which are injurious may be obviated. "The first of them, we perceive, is a state of too great dryness, _a very rare_ condition, in this climate at least; in fact, the only case in which it is likely to occur is in very coarse sands, where the soil, being chiefly made up of pure sand and particles of flinty matter, contains comparatively much fewer pores; and, from the large size of the individual particles, assisted by their irregularity, the canals are wider, the circulation of air freer, and, consequently, the whole is much more easily dried. When this state of matters exists, the best treatment is to leave all the stones which occur on the surface of the field, as they cast shades, and thereby prevent or retard the evaporation of water. "We will not, however, make any further observations on this very rare case, but will rather proceed to Fig. 92, a much more frequent, and, in every respect, more important condition of soil: I refer to an _excess of water_. "When water is added to perfectly dry soil, it, of course, in the first instance, fills the interstitial canals, and from these enters the pores of each particle; and if the supply of water be not too great, the canals speedily become empty, so that the whole of the fluid is taken up by the pores: this, we have already seen, is the _healthy_ condition of the soil. If, however, the supply of water be too great, as is the case when a spring gains admission into the soil, or when the sinking of the fluid through the canals to a sufficient depth below the surface is prevented, it is clear that these also must get filled with water so soon as the pores have become saturated. This, then, is the condition of _undrained soil_. "Not only are the pores filled, but the interstitial canals are likewise full; and the consequence is, that the whole process of the germination and growth of vegetables is materially interfered with. We shall here, therefore briefly state the injurious effects of an excess of water, for the purpose of impressing more strongly on your minds the necessity of thorough-draining, as the first and most essential step towards the improvement of your soil. "The _first_ great effect of an excess of water is, that it produces a corresponding diminution of the amount of air beneath the surface, which air is of the greatest possible consequence in the nutrition of plants; in fact, if entirely excluded, germination could not take place, and the seed sown would, of course, either decay or lie dormant. "_Secondly_, an excess of water is most hurtful, by reducing considerably the _temperature_ of the soil: this I find, by careful experiment, to be to the extent of six and a-half degrees Fahrenheit in Summer, which amount is equivalent to an elevation above the level of the sea of 1,950 feet. "These are the two chief injuries of an excess of water in soil which affect the soil itself. There are very many others affecting the climate, &c.; but these not so connected with the subject in hand as to call for an explanation here. "Of course, all these injurious effects are at once overcome by thorough-draining, the result of which is, to establish a direct communication between the interstitial canals and the drains, by which means it follows, that no water can remain any length of time in these canals without, by its gravitation, finding its way into the drains. "The 4th Fig. indicates badly-cultivated soil, or soil in which large unbroken clods exist; which clods, as we have already seen, are very little better than stones, on account of their impermeability to air and the roots of plants. "Too much cannot be said in favor of pulverizing the soil; even thorough-draining itself will not supersede the necessity of performing this most necessary operation. The whole valuable effects of plowing, harrowing, grubbing, &c., may be reduced to this: and almost the whole superiority of _garden_ over _field_ produce is referable to the greater perfection to which this pulverizing of the soil can be carried. "The whole success of the drill husbandry is owing, in a great measure, to its enabling you to stir up the soil well during the progress of your crop; which stirring up is of no value beyond its effects in more minutely pulverizing the soil, increasing, as far as possible, the size and number of the interstitial canals. "Lest any one should suppose that the contents of these interstitial canals must be so minute that their whole amount can be of but little consequence, I may here notice the fact, that, in moderately well pulverized soil, they amount to no less than one-fourth of the whole bulk of the soil itself; for example, 100 cubic inches of _moist_ soil (that is, of soil in which the pores are filled with water while the canals are filled with air), contain no less than 25 cubic inches of air. According to this calculation, in a field pulverized to the depth of eight inches, a depth perfectly attainable on most soils by careful tillage, every imperial acre will retain beneath its surface no less than 12,545,280 cubic inches of air. And, to take one more element into the calculation, supposing the soil were not properly drained, the sufficient pulverizing of an additional inch in depth would increase the escape of water from the surface by upwards of one hundred gallons a day." _Drainage improves the quality of crops._ In a dry season, we frequently hear the farmer boast of the quality of his products. His hay-crop, he says, is light, but will "spend" much better than the crop of a wet season; his potatoes are not large, but they are sound and mealy. Indeed, this topic need not be enlarged upon. Every farmer knows that his wheat and corn are heavier and more sound when grown upon land sufficiently drained. _Drainage prevents drought._ This proposition is somewhat startling at first view. How can draining land make it more moist? One would as soon think of watering land to make it dry. A drought is the enemy we all dread. Professor Espy has a plan for producing rain, by lighting extensive artificial fires. A great objection to his theory is, that he cannot limit his showers to his own land, and all the public would never be ready for a shower on the same day. If we can really protect our land from drought, by under-draining it, everybody may at once engage in the work without offence to his neighbor. If we take up a handfull of rich soil of almost any kind, after a heavy rain, we can squeeze it hard enough with the hand to press out drops of water. If we should take of the same soil a large quantity, after it was so dry that not a drop of water could be pressed out by hand, and subject it to the pressure of machinery, we should force from it more water. Any boy, who has watched the process of making cider with the old-fashioned press, has seen the pomace, after it had been once pressed apparently dry and cut down, and the screw applied anew to the "cheese," give out quantities of juice. These facts illustrate, first, how much water may be held in the soil by attraction. They show, again, that more water is held by a pulverized and open soil, than by a compact and close one. Water is held in the soil between the minute particles of earth. If these particles be pressed together compactly, there is no space left between them for water. The same is true of soil naturally compact. This compactness exists more or less in most subsoils, certainly in all through which water does not readily pass. Hence, all these subsoils are rendered more permeable to water by being broken up and divided; and more retentive by having the particles of which they are composed separated, one from another--in a word, by pulverization. This increased capacity to contain moisture by attraction, is the greatest security against drought. The plants, in a dry time send their rootlets throughout the soil, and flourish in the moisture thus stored up for their time of need. The pulverization of drained land may be produced, partly by deep, or subsoil plowing, which is always necessary to perfect the object of thorough-draining; but it is much aided, in stiff clays, also, by the shrinkage of the soil by drying. Drainage resists drought, again, by the very deepening of the soil of which we have already spoken. The roots of plants, we have seen, will not extend into stagnant water. If, then, as is frequently the case, even on sandy plains, the water-line be, in early Spring, very near the surface, the seed may be planted, may vegetate, and throw up a goodly show of leaves and stalks, which may flourish as long as the early rains continue; but, suddenly, the rains cease; the sun comes out in his June brightness; the water-line lowers at once in the soil; the roots have no depth to draw moisture from below, and the whole field of clover, or of corn, in a single week, is past recovery. Now, if this light, sandy soil be drained, so that, at the first start of the crop, there is a deep seed-bed free from water, the roots strike downward, at once, and thus prepare for a drought. The writer has seen upon deep-trenched land in his own garden, parsnips, which, before midsummer, had extended downward three feet, before they were as large as a common whiplash; and yet, through the Summer drought, continued to thrive till they attained in Autumn a length, including tops, of about seven feet, and an extraordinary size. A moment's reflection will satisfy any one that, the dryer the soil in Spring, the deeper will the roots strike, and the better able will be the plant to endure the Summer's drought. Again, drainage and consequent pulverization and deepening of the soils increase their capacity to absorb moisture from the atmosphere, and thus afford protection against drought. Watery vapor is constantly, in all dry weather, rising from the surface of the earth; and plants, in the day-time, are also, from their leaves and bark, giving off moisture which they draw from the soil. But Nature has provided a wonderful law of compensation for this waste, which would, without such provision, parch the earth to barrenness in a single rainless month. The capacity of the atmosphere to take up and convey water, furnishes one of the grandest illustrations of the perfect work of the Author of the Universe. "All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full;" and the sea is not full, because the numerous great rivers and their millions of tributaries, ever flowing from age to age, convey to the ocean only as much water as the atmosphere carries back in vapor, and discharges upon the hills. The warmer the atmosphere, the greater its capacity to hold moisture. The heated, thirsty air of the tropics drinks up the water of the ocean, and bears it away to the colder regions, where, through condensation by cold, it becomes visible as a cloud; and as a huge sponge pressed by an invisible hand, the cloud, condensed still further by cold, sends down its water to the earth in rain. The heated air over our fields and streams, in Summer, is loaded with moisture as the sun declines. The earth has been cooled by radiation of its heat, and by constant evaporation through the day. By contact with the cooler soil, the air, borne by its thousand currents gently along its surface, is condensed, and yields its moisture to the thirsty earth again, in the form of dew. At a Legislative Agricultural Meeting, held in Albany, New York, January 25th, 1855, "the great drought of 1854" being the subject, the secretary stated that "the experience of the past season has abundantly proved that thorough-drainage upon soils requiring it, has proved a very great relief to the farmer;" that "the crops upon such lands have been far better, generally, than those upon undrained lands, in the same locality;" and that, "in many instances, the increased crop has been sufficient to defray the expenses of the improvement in a single year." Mr. Joseph Harris, at the same meeting, said: "An underdrained soil will be found damper in dry weather, than an undrained one, and the thermometer shows a drained soil warmer in cold weather, and cooler in hot weather, than one which is undrained." The secretary of the New York State Agricultural Society, in his Report for 1855, says: "The testimony of farmers, in different sections of the State, is almost unanimous, that drained lands have suffered far less from drought than undrained." Alleghany county reports that "drained lands have been less affected by the drought than undrained;" Chatauque county, that "the drained lands have stood the drought better than the undrained." The report from Clinton county says: "Drained lands have been less affected by the drought than undrained." Montgomery county reports: "We find that drained lands have a better crop in either wet or dry seasons than undrained." B. F. Nourse, of Orrington, Maine, states that, on his drained land, in that State, "during the drought of 1854, there was at all times sufficient dampness apparent on scraping the surface of the ground with his foot in passing, and a crop of beans was planted, grown and gathered therefrom, without as much rain as will usually fall in a shower of fifteen minutes' duration, while vegetation on the next field was parching for lack of moisture." A committee of the New York Farmers' Club, which visited the farm of Prof. Mapes, in New Jersey, in the time of a severe drought, in 1855, reported that the Professor's fences were the boundaries of the drought, all the lands outside being affected by it, while his remained free from injury. This was attributed, both by the committee and by Prof. Mapes himself, to thorough-drainage and deep tillage with the subsoil plow. Mr. Shedd, in the _N. E. Farmer_, says: "A simple illustration will show the effect which stagnant water, within a foot or two of the surface, has on the roots of plants. "Perhaps it will aid the reader, who doubts the benefit of thorough-draining in case of drought, to see why it is beneficial. [Illustration: Fig. 95. Section of land before it is drained.] [Illustration: Fig. 96. Section of land after it is drained.] "In the first figure, 1 represents the surface soil, through which evaporation takes place, using up the heat which might otherwise go to the roots of plants; 2, represents the water table, or surface of stagnant water below which roots seldom go; 3, water of evaporation; 4, water of capillary attraction; 5, water of drainage, or stagnant water. "In the second figure, 1 represents the surface-soil warmed by the sun and Summer rains; 2, the water-table nearly four feet below the surface--roots of the wheat plant have been traced to a depth of more than four feet in a free mold; 3, water of capillary attraction; 4, water of drainage, or stagnant water." CHAPTER XV. TEMPERATURE AS AFFECTED BY DRAINAGE. Drainage Warms the Soil in Spring.--Heat cannot go down in Wet Land.--Drainage causes greater Deposit of Dew in Summer.--Dew warms Plants in Night, Cools them in the Morning Sun.--Drainage varies Temperature by Lessening Evaporation.--What is Evaporation.--How it produces Cold.--Drained Land Freezes Deepest, but Thaws Soonest, and the Reasons. _Drainage raises the temperature of the soil, by allowing the rain to pass downwards._ In the growing season, especially in the Spring, the rain is considerably warmer than the soil. If the soil be saturated with the cold snow-water, the water which falls must, of course, run away upon the surface. If the soil be drained, the rain-water finds ready admission into it, carrying and imparting to it a portion of its heat. The experiments of Count Rumford, showing that heat is not propagated downward in fluids, may be found at page 273. This is a principle too important to be overlooked, especially in New England, where we need every aid from Nature and Art, to contend successfully against the brevity of the planting season. Soil saturated with cold water, cannot be warmed by any amount of heat applied to the surface. Warm water is lighter than cold water, and stays at the surface. In boiling water in a kettle, we apply fire at the bottom, and no amount of heat at the surface of the vessel would produce the desired effect. So rapid is the passage of heat upward in water, that the hand may without injury be held upon the bottom of a kettle of boiling water one minute after it has been removed from the fire. The following experiments and illustrations, from the _Horticulturist_ of Nov. 1856, beautifully illustrate this point: "RATIONALE OF DRAINING LAND EXPLAINED. "The reason why drained land gains heat, and water-logged land is always cold, consists in the well-known fact that heat cannot be transmitted _downwards_ through water. This may readily be seen by the following experiments: [Illustration: Fig. 97.] "_Experiment No. 1._--A square box was made, of the form represented by the annexed diagram, eighteen inches deep, eleven inches wide at top, and six inches wide at bottom. It was filled with peat, saturated with water to _c_, forming to that depth (twelve and a half inches) a sort of artificial bog. The box was then filled with water to _d_. A thermometer _a_, was plunged, so that its bulb was within one inch and a half of the bottom. The temperature of the whole mass of peat and water was found to be 39-1/2° Fahr. A gallon of boiling water was then added; it raised the surface of the water to _e_. In five minutes, the thermometer, _a_, rose to 44°, owing to the conduction of heat by the thermometer and its guard tube; at ten minutes from the introduction of the hot water, the thermometer, _a_, rose to 46°, and it subsequently rose no higher. Another thermometer, _b_, dipping under the surface of the water at _e_, was then introduced, and the following are the indications of the two thermometers at the respective intervals, reckoning from the time the hot water was supplied: _Thermometer b._ _Thermometer a._ 20 minutes 150° 46° 1 hour 30 " 101° 45° 2 hours 30 " 80-1/2° 42° 12 " 40 " 45° 40° "The mean temperature of the external air to which the box was exposed during the above period, was 42°, the maximum being 47°, and the minimum 37°. "_Experiment No. 2._--With the same arrangement as in the preceding case, a gallon of boiling water was introduced above the peat and water, when the thermometer _a_, was at 36°; in ten minutes it rose to 40°. The cock was then turned for the purpose of drainage, which was but slowly effected; and, at the end of twenty minutes, the thermometer _a_, indicated 40°; at twenty-five minutes, 42°, whilst the thermometer _b_, was 142°. At thirty minutes, the cock was withdrawn from the box, and more free egress of water being thus afforded, at thirty-five minutes the flow was no longer continuous, and the thermometer _b_, indicated 48°. The mass was drained, and permeable to a fresh supply of water. Accordingly, another gallon of boiling water was poured over it; and, in 3 minutes, the thermometer _a_, rose to 77°. 5 " " fell to 76-1/2°. 15 " " " 70-1/2°. 20 " " remained at 71°. 1 hour 50 " " " " 70-1/2°. "In these two experiments, the thermometer at the bottom of the box suddenly rose a few degrees immediately after the hot water was added; and it might be inferred that the heat was carried downwards by the water. But, in reality, the rise was owing to the action of the hot water on the thermometer, and not to its action upon the cold water. To prove this, the perpendicular thermometers were removed. The box was filled with peat and water to within three inches of the top, a horizontal thermometer, _a f_, having been previously secured through a hole made in the side of the box, by means of a tight-fitting cork, in which the naked stem of the thermometer was grooved. A gallon of boiling water was then added. The thermometer, a very delicate one, was _not in the least affected_ by the boiling water in the top of the box. "In this experiment, the wooden box may be supposed to be a field; the peat and cold water represent the water-logged portion; rain falls on the surface, and becomes warmed by contact with the soil, and, thus heated, descends. But it is stopped by the cold water, and the heat will go no further. But, if the soil is drained, and not water-logged, the warm rain trickles through the crevices of the earth, carrying to the drain-level the high temperature it had gained on the surface, parts with it to the soil as it passes down, and thus produces that bottom heat which is so essential to plants, although so few suspect its existence." Water, although it will not conduct heat downwards, is a ready vehicle of cold from the surface towards the bottom. Water becomes heavier by cooling till it is reduced to about 39°, at which point it attains its greatest density, and has a tendency to go to the bottom until the whole mass is reduced to this low temperature. Thus, the circulation of water in the saturated soil, in some conditions of the temperature of the surface and subsoil, may have a chilling effect which could not be produced on drained soil. After water is reduced to about 39°, instead of obeying the common law of becoming heavier by cooling, it forms a remarkable exception to it, and becomes lighter until it freezes. Were it not for this admirable provision of Nature, all our ponds and rivers would, in the Winter, become solid ice from the surface to the bottom. Now as the surface water is chilled it goes to the bottom, and is replaced by warmer water, which rises, until the whole is reduced to the point of greatest density. Then the circulation ceases, and the water colder than 39° remains at the surface, is converted into ice which becomes still lighter, by crystallization, and floats upon the surface. No experiments, showing the temperature of undrained soils at various depths, in the United States, have come to our knowledge. Mr. Gisborne says: "Many experiments have shown that, in retentive soils, the temperature, at two or three feet below the surface of the water-table, is, at no period of the year, higher than from 46° to 48° in agricultural Britain." Prof. Henry states in the Patent Office Report for 1857, that in the cellars of the observatory, at Paris, at the depth of sixty-seven and a half feet, in fifty years, the temperature has never varied a tenth of a degree from 53° 28', in all that period, Summer or Winter. Mr. Parkes gives the results of a valuable series of experiments, in which he compared the temperature of drained and undrained portions of a bog. He found the temperature of the undrained portion to remain steadily at 46°, at all depths, from one to thirty feet; and at seven inches from the surface, the temperature remained at 47° during the experiments. During the same period, the temperature of the drained portion was 48-1/4° at two feet seven inches below the surface, and at seven inches, reached as high as 66° during a thunder-storm; while, on a mean of thirty-five observations, the temperature at the latter depth was 10° higher than at the same depth in the undrained portion of the bog. We find in the "Agriculture of New York," the results of observations made at Albany and at Scott, in that State, in the year 1848, upon temperature at different depths. The condition of the soil is not described, but it is presumed that it was soil naturally drained in both cases. A few of the results may give the reader some idea of the range of underground temperature, as compared with that of the air. Temperature at Albany at two feet depth. " " " highest August 17 and 18, 70° " " " lowest February 28, 32-3/4° ---- " " " Range, 37-1/4° ---- " " " at four feet depth. " " " highest July 29, 64-1/2° " " " lowest February 25, 35-1/2° ---- " " " Range, 29° ---- " " " of the air, February 12, -3° " " " " " August, 3, P. M., 90° ---- " " " Range, 93° Temperature at Scott at two feet depth. " " " highest, August 17 and 18, 64° " " " at four ft. depth, 17 days in Aug. 60° " " " of the air, at 3, P. M., highest 90° The temperature of falling rain, however, in the hot season, is many degrees cooler than the lower stratum of the atmosphere, and the surface of the earth upon which it falls. The effects of rain on drained soil, in the heat of Summer, are, then, two-fold; to cool the burning surface, which is, as we have seen, much warmer than the rain, and, at the same time, to warm the subsoil which is cooler than the rain itself, as it falls, and very much cooler than the rain-water, as it is warmed by its passage through the hot surface soil. These are beautiful provisions of Nature, by which the excesses of heat and cold are mitigated, and the temperature of the soil rendered more uniform, upon land adapted, by drainage, to her genial influences. Upon the saturated and water-logged bog, as we have seen, the effect of the greatest heat is insufficient to raise the temperature of the subsoil a single degree, while the surface may be burned up and "shrivelled like a parched scroll." Drainage also raises the temperature of the soil by the admission of warm air. This proposition is closely connected with that just discussed. When the air is warmer than the soil, as it always is in the Spring-time, the water from the melting snow, or from rain, upon drained land, passes downward, and runs off by its gravitation. As "Nature abhors a vacuum," the little spaces in the soil, from which the water passes, must be filled with air, and this air can only be supplied from the surface, and, being warmer than the ground, tends to raise its temperature. No such effect can be produced in land not drained, because no water runs out of it, and there are, consequently, no such spaces opened for the warm air to enter. Drainage equalizes the temperature of the soil in Summer by increasing the deposit of dew. Of this we shall speak further, in a future chapter. _Drainage raises the temperature in Spring by diminishing evaporation._ Evaporation may be defined to be the conversion of liquid and solid bodies into elastic fluids, by the influence of caloric. By heating water over a fire, bubbles rise from the bottom of the vessel, adhere awhile to the sides of it, and then ascend to the surface, and burst and go off in visible vapor, or, in other words, by evaporation. Water is evaporated by the heat of the sun merely, and even without this heat, in the open air. It is evaporated at very low temperatures, when fully exposed to the air. Even ice evaporates in the open air. We often observe in Winter, that a thin covering of ice or snow disappears from our roads, although there has been no thawing weather. In another chapter, we have considered the subject of "Evaporation and Filtration," and endeavored to give some general idea of the proportion of the rain which escapes by evaporation. We have seen, that evaporation proceeds much more rapidly from a surface of water, as a pond or river, than from a land surface, unless it be fully saturated, and that evaporation from the water exceeds the whole amount of rain, about as much as evaporation from the land falls short of the amount of rain. Thus, by this simple agency of evaporation, the vast quantities of water that are constantly flowing, in all the rivers of the earth, into the sea, are brought back again to the land, and so the great system of circulation is maintained throughout the ages. As evaporation is greatest from a water-surface, so it is greater, other things being equal, according to the wetness of the surface of any given field. If the field be covered with water, it becomes a water-surface for the time, and the evaporation is like that from a pond. If, as is often the case, the water stands on it in spots, over half its surface, and the rest is saturated, the evaporation is scarcely less, and has been said to be even more; while, if the surface be comparatively dry, the evaporation is very little. But what harm does evaporation do? and what has all this scientific talk to do with drainage? These, my friend, are very practical questions, and just the ones which it is proposed to answer; but we must bear in mind that, as Nature conducts her grand affairs by systematic laws, the small portion of her domain which for a brief space of time we occupy, is not exempted from their operation. Some of these laws we may comprehend, and turn our knowledge of them to practical account. Of others, we may note the results, without apprehending the reasons of them; for it is true-- "There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Discussions of this kind may seem dry, though the subject itself be moisture. They belong, certainly, to the topic under consideration. Evaporation does harm in the Spring-time, because it produces cold, just when we most want heat. How it produces cold, is not so readily explained. The fact may be made as evident as the existence of sin in the world, and, possibly, the reason of it may be as unsatisfactory. The books say, that heat always disappears when a solid body becomes a liquid; and so it is, that the air always remains cool while the snow and ice are melting in Spring. Again, it is said that heat always disappears, when a fluid becomes vapor. These are said to be laws or principles of nature, and are said to explain other phenomena. To a practical mind, it is perhaps just as satisfactory to say that evaporation produces cold, as to state the principle or law in the language of science. That the fact is so, may be proved by many illustrations. Stockhardt gives the following experiment, which is strikingly appropriate: "Fill a tube half full of water, and fasten securely round the bulb of it, a piece of cloth. Saturate the cloth with cold water, and then twirl the tube rapidly between the hands; presently the water in the tube will become sensibly colder, and the degree of cold may be accurately determined by the thermometer. Moisten the cloth with ether, a very volatile liquid, and twirl it again in the same manner as before; by which means, its contents, even in Summer, may be converted into ice." It is very fortunate for us, that our Spring showers are not of ether; for then, instead of thawing, our land would freeze the harder! The heat of the blood is about 98°; yet man can endure a heat of many degrees more, and even labor under a Summer sun, which would raise the thermometer to 130°, without the temperature of his blood being materially affected, and it is because of perspiration, which absorbs the surplus heat, or, in other words, creates cold. It is said, too, that on the same principle, if two saucers, one filled with water warm enough to give off visible vapor, the other filled with water just from the well, are exposed in a sharp frosty morning, that filled with the warm water will exhibit ice soonest. Wine is cooled by evaporation, by wrapping the bottle in wet flannel, and exposing it to the air. If, after all this, any one doubts the fact that evaporation tends to produce cold, let him countenance his skepticism, by wetting his face with warm water, and going into the air in a Winter's day, and his faith will be greatly strengthened. We have, in the northern part of America, most water in the soil in the Spring of the year, just at the time when we most need a genial warmth to promote germination. If land is well drained, this water sinks downward, and runs away in the drains, instead of passing upward by evaporation. Drainage, therefore, diminishes evaporation simply by removing the surplus snow and rain-water by filtration. It thus raises the temperature of the soil in that part of the season, when water is flowing from the drains; but, in the heat of Summer, the influence of the showers which refresh without saturating the soil, and are retained in it by attraction, is not lessened. As a good soil retains by attraction about one-half its weight of water that cannot be drained out, there can be no reasonable apprehension that the "gentle Summer showers" will be wasted by filtration, even upon thorough-drained land, while an avenue is open, by the drains, for the escape of drowning floods. To show the general effect of drainage, in raising the temperature of wet lands in Summer, the following statement of Mr. Parkes is valuable. An elevation of the temperature of the subsoil ten degrees, will be seen to be very material, when we consider that Indian corn will not vegetate at all at 53°, but will start at once at 63°, 55° being its lowest point of germination: "As regards the temperature of the water derived from drainage at different seasons of the year, I am unacquainted with any published facts. This is a subject of the highest import, as thermometric observations may be rendered demonstrative, in the truest manner, of the effect of drainage on the climate of the soil. At present, I must limit myself to saying, that I have never known the water of drainage issue from land drained at Midsummer, to depths of four and five feet, at a higher temperature than 52° or 53° Fahrenheit: whereas, in the following year and subsequent years, the water discharged from the same drains, at the same period, will issue at a temperature of 60°, and even so high as 63°, thus exhibiting the increase of heat conferred during the Summer months on the terrestrial climate by drainage. This is the all-important fact connected with the art and science of land-drainage." Besides affecting favorably the temperature of the particular field which is drained, the general effect of the drainage of wet lands upon the climate of the neighborhood has often been noticed. In the paper already cited, emanating from the Board of Health, we find the following remarks, which are in accordance with all observation in districts where under-drainage has been generally practiced: "Every one must have remarked, on passing from a district with a retentive soil to one of an open porous nature--respectively characterized as cold and warm soils--that, often, whilst the air on the retentive soil is cold and raw, that on the drier soil is comparatively warm and genial. The same effect which is here caused naturally, may be produced artificially, by providing for the perfect escape of superfluous water by drainage, so as to leave less to cool down the air by evaporation. The reason of this difference is two-fold. In the first place, much heat is saved, as much heat being required for the vaporization of water, as would elevate the temperature of more than three million times its bulk of air one degree. It follows, therefore, that for every inch in depth of water carried off by drains, which must otherwise evaporate, as much heat is saved per acre as would elevate eleven thousand million cubic feet of air one degree in temperature. But that is not all. Not only is the temperature of the air reduced, but its dew point is raised, by water being evaporated which might be drained off; consequently, the want of drainage renders the air both colder and more liable to the formation of dew and mists, and its dampness affects comfort even more than its temperature. It is easy, then, to understand how local climate is so much affected by surplus moisture, and so remarkably improved by drainage. A farmer being asked the effect on temperature of some new drainage works; replied, that all he knew was, that before the drainage he could never go out at night without a great coat, and that now he could, so that he considered it made the difference of a great coat to him." _Drainage increases the coldness of the subsoil in Winter._ Whether this is a gain or loss to the agriculturist, is not for us to determine. The object of our labor is, to lay the whole subject fairly before the reader, and not to extol drainage as the grand panacea of bad husbandry. Although water will not conduct heat downwards, yet it doubtless prevents the deep freezing of the ground. It has already been seen, that the temperature of the earth, a few feet below the surface, is above the freezing point, at all times. The fact that the ground does not freeze, usually, even in New England, where every Winter brings weather below Zero, more than four or five feet deep, in the most exposed situations, shows conclusively the comparatively even temperature of the subsoil. The water which flows underground is of this subsoil temperature, and, in Winter, warms the ground through which it flows. In land thoroughly drained, this warm water cannot rise above the drains, and so cannot defend the soil from frost. Drained land will, undoubtedly, freeze deeper than undrained land, and this is a fact to be impressed upon all who lay tiles in a cold climate. It is a strong argument for deep drainage. "Drain deep, or drain not," is a convenient paraphrase of a familiar quotation. How often do we hear it said, "My meadow never freezes more than a foot deep; there will never be any trouble from frost in that place, if the tiles are no more than two feet deep." Be assured, brother farmer, that the frost will follow the water-table downward, and, unless the warm water move in sufficient quantity through your pipes to protect them in Winter, your work may be ruined by frost. So long as much water is flowing in pipes, especially if it be from deep springs, they will be safe from frost, even at a slight depth. Dr. Madden says, that it has been proved that one great source of health and vigor in vegetation, is the great difference which exists between the temperature of Summer and Winter, which, he says, in dry soils, often amounts to between 30° and 40°; while, in very wet soils, it seldom exceeds 10°. This idea may have value in a mild climate; but, probably, in New England, we get cold enough for our good, without artificial aids. In another view, drainage is known to be essential, even in Winter. Fruit trees are almost as surely destroyed by standing with their feet in cold water all Winter, as any of us "unfeathered bipeds" would be; while the solid freezing of the earth around their roots does not harm them. Perhaps the same is true of most other vegetation. The deep freezing of the ground is often mentioned as a mode of pulverization--as a sort of natural subsoiling thrown in by a kind Providence, by way of compensation for some of the evils of a cold climate. Most of those, however, who have wielded the pick-axe in laying four-foot drains, in clay or hard-pan, will have doubts whether Jack Frost, though he can pull up our fence-posts, and throw out our Winter grain, has much softened the earth two feet below its surface. That the frost comes out of drained land earlier than undrained, in Spring, we are satisfied, both by personal observation, and by the statements of the few individuals who have practiced thorough-drainage in our cold climate. B. F. Nourse, Esq., whose valuable statement will be found in a later chapter, says, that, in 1858, the frost came out a week, at least, earlier from his drained land, in Maine, than from contiguous undrained land; and that, usually, the drained land is in condition to be worked as soon as the frost is out, quite two weeks earlier than any other land in the vicinity. Our observations on our own land, fully corroborate the opinion of Mr. Nourse. The reasons why the frost should come out of drained land soonest, are, that land that is dry does not freeze so solid as land that is wet, and so spaces are left for the permeation of warm air. Again, ice, like water, is almost a nonconductor of heat, and earth saturated with water and frozen, is like unto it, so that neither the warmth of the subsoil or surface-soil can be readily imparted to it. Dry earth, on the other hand, although frozen, is still a good conductor, and readily dissolves at the first warm breath of Spring above, or the pulsations of the great heart of Nature beneath. CHAPTER XVI. POWER OF SOILS TO ABSORB AND RETAIN MOISTURE. Why does not Drainage make the Land too Dry?--Adhesive Attraction.--The Finest Soils exert most Attraction.--How much Water different Soils hold by Attraction.--Capillary Attraction, Illustrated.--Power to Imbibe Moisture from the Air.--Weight Absorbed by 1,000 lbs. in 12 Hours.--Dew, Cause of.--Dew Point.--Cause of Frost.--Why Covering Plants Protects from Frost.--Dew Imparts Warmth.--Idea that the Moon Promotes Putrefaction.--Quantity of Dew. The first and most natural objection made, by those not practically familiar with drainage operations, to the whole system is, that the drains will draw out so much of the water from the soil, as to leave it too dry for the crops. If a cask be filled with round stones, or with musket balls, or with large shot, and with water to the surface, and then an opening be made at the bottom of the cask, all the water, except a thin film adhering to the surface of the vessel and its contents, will immediately run out. If now, the same cask be filled with the dried soil of any cultivated field, and this soil be saturated with water, a part only of the water can be drawn out at the bottom. The soil in the cask will remain moist, retaining more or less of the water, according to the character of the soil. Why does not the water all run out of the soil, and leave it dry? An answer may be found in the books, which is, in reality, but a re-statement of the fact, by reference to a principle of nature, by no means intelligible to finite minds, called attraction. If two substances are placed in close contact with each other, they cannot be separated without a certain amount of force. "If we wet the surfaces of two pieces of glass, and place them in contact, we shall find that they adhere to each other, and that, independently of the effect of the pressure of the air, they oppose considerable resistance to any attempt to separate them. Again, if we bring any substance, as the blade of a knife, in contact with water, the water adheres to the blade in a thin film, and remains, by what is termed _adhesive attraction_. This property resides in the surface of bodies, and is in proportion to the extent of its surface. "Soils possess this property, in common with all other bodies, and possess it, in a greater or less degree, according to the aggregate surface which the particles of a given bulk present. Thus, clay may, by means of kneading, be made to contain so large a quantity of water, as that, at last, it may almost be supposed to be divided into infinitesimally thin layers, having each a film of water adhering to it on either side. Such soils, again, as sand or chalk, the particles of which are coarser exert a less degree of adhesive attraction for water."--_Cyc. of Ag._, 695. Professor Schübler, of Tubingen, gives the results of experiments upon this point. By dropping water upon dried soils of different kinds, until it began to drop from the bottom, he found that 100 lbs. of soil held by attraction, as follows: Sand 25 lbs. of water. Loamy Soil 40 " Clay Loam 50 " Pure Clay 70 " Mr. Shedd, of Boston, gives the result of a recent experiment of his own on this point. He writes thus: "I have made an experiment with a soil of ordinary tenacity, to ascertain how much water it would hold in suspension, with the following result: One cubic foot of earth held 0.4826434 cubic feet of water; three feet of dry soil of that character will receive 1.44793 ft. vertical depth of water before any drains off, or seventeen and three-quarter inches, equal to nearly six month's rain-fall. One cubic foot of earth held 3.53713 gallons of water, or if drains are three feet deep, one square foot of surface would receive 10.61 gallons of water, before saturation. Other soils would sustain a greater or less quantity, according to their character." Besides this power of retaining water, when brought into contact with it, the soil has, in common with other porous bodies, the power of drawing up moisture, or of absorbing it, independent of gravitation, or of the weight of the water which aids to carry it down into the soil. This power is called _capillary attraction_, from the hair-like tubes used in early experiments. If very minute tubes, open at both ends, are placed upright, partly immersed in a vessel of water, the water rises in the tubes perceptibly higher than its general surface in the vessel. A sponge, from which water has been pressed out, held over a basin of water, so that its lower part touches the surface, draws up the water till it is saturated. A common flower-pot, with a perforated bottom, and filled with dry earth, placed in a saucer of water, best illustrates this point. The water rises at once to a common level in the pot and outside. This represents the water-table in the soil of our fields. But, from this level, water will continue to rise in the earth in the pot, till it is moistened to the surface, and this, too, is by capillary attraction. The tendency of water to ascend, however, is not the same in all soils. In coarse gravelly soils, the principle may not operate perfectly, because the interstices are too large, the weight of the water overcoming the power of attraction, as in the cask of stones or shot. In very fine clay, on the other hand, although it be absorptive and retentive of water, yet the particles are so fine, and the spaces between them so small, that this attraction, though sure, would be slow in operation. A loamy, light, well pulverized soil, again, would perhaps furnish the best medium for the diffusion of water in this way. It is impossible to set limits to so uncertain a power as this of capillary attraction. We see that in minute glass tubes, it has power to raise water a small fraction of an inch only. We see that, in the sponge or flower-pot, it has power to raise water many inches; and we know that, in the soil, moisture is thus attracted upwards several feet. By observing a saturated sponge in a saucer, we shall see that, although moist at the top, it holds more and more water to the bottom. So, in the saturated earth in a flower-pot, the earth, merely moist at the surface, is wet mud just above the water-table. So, in drained land, the capillary force which retained the water in the soil to the height of a few inches, is no longer able to sustain it, when the height is increased to feet, and a portion descends into the drain, leaving the surface comparatively dry. Thus, it would seem, that draining may modify the force of capillary attraction, while it cannot affect that of adhesive attraction. It may drain off surplus water, but, unaided, can never render any arable land too dry. If, however, the surplus water be speedily taken off by drainage, and the capillary attraction be greatly impaired, so that little water is drawn upwards by its force, will not the soil soon become parched by the heat of the sun, or, in other words, by evaporation? Without stopping in this place, to speak of evaporation, we may answer, that, in our burning Summer heat, the earth would be burnt up too dry for any vegetation, were it not for a beneficent arrangement of Providence, which counteracts the effect of the sun's rays, and of which we will now make mention. _Power to imbibe moisture from the air._--We have spoken, in another place, of the absorption, by drained land, of fertilizing substances from the atmosphere. Dry soil has, too, a wonderful power of deriving moisture from the same source. "When a portion of soil," says Johnston, "is dried carefully over boiling water, or in an oven, and is then spread out upon a sheet of paper in the open air, it will gradually drink in watery vapor from the atmosphere, and will thus increase in weight. "In hot climates and in dry seasons, this property is of great importance, restoring as it does, to the thirsty soil, and bringing within the reach of plants, a portion of the moisture, which, during the day, they had so copiously exhaled." Different soils possess this power in unequal degrees. During a night of 12 hours, and when the air is moist, according to Schübler, 1000 lbs. of perfectly dry Quartz sand will gain 0 lbs. Calcareous sand 2 " Loamy soil 21 " Clay loam 25 " Pure agricultural clay 27 " Sir Humphrey Davy found, that the power of attraction for water, generally proved an index to the agricultural value of soils. It is, however, but one means of judging of their value. Peaty soils and strong clays are very absorbent of water, although not always the best for cultivation. Sir H. Davy gives the following results of his experiments. When made perfectly dry, 1000 lbs. of a Very fertile soil from East Lothian, gained in an hour 18 lbs. Very fertile soil from Somersetshire 16 " Soil, worth 45s., (rent) from Essex 13 " Sandy soil, worth 28s., from Essex 11 " Coarse sand, worth 15s. 8 " Soil of Bagshot Heath 3 " "This sort of attraction, however," suggests a writer in the Cyclopedia of Agriculture, "it may be believed, depends upon other causes besides the attraction of adhesion. The power of attraction, which certain substances exhibit for the _vapor_ of water, is more akin to the force which enables certain porous bodies to absorb and retain many times their volume of the different gases; as charcoal, of ammonia, of which it is said to absorb ninety times its own bulk." Here again, we find in the soil, an inexplicable but beneficent power, by which it supplies itself with moisture when it most needs it. Warm air is capable of holding more vapor than cooler air, and the very heat of Summer supplies it with moisture by evaporation from land and water. As the air is cooled, at nightfall, it must somewhere deposit the water, which the hand of the Unseen presses out of it by condensation. The sun-dried surface of fertile, well drained soil, is in precisely the condition best adapted to receive the refreshing draught, and convey it to the thirsting plants. We may form some estimate of the vast amount absorbed by an acre of land in a dry season, by considering that the clay loam, in the above statement, absorbed in 12 hours a fortieth part of its own weight. OF DEW. Dew is one of the most ordinary forms in which moisture is deposited in and upon the soil, in its natural conditions. The absorbent power of artificially-dried soils, as has been seen, seems to depend much upon their chemical constitution; and that topic has been considered, without special reference to the comparative temperature of the soil and atmosphere. The soil, as we have seen, absorbs moisture from the air, when both are of the same temperature, the amount absorbed depending also upon the physical condition of the soil, and upon the comparative moisture of the soil and atmosphere. The deposition of dew results from a different law. All bodies throw off, at all times, heat, by radiation, as it is termed. In the day-time, the sun's rays warm the earth, and the air is heated by it, and that nearest the surface is heated most. Evaporation is constantly going on from the earth and water, and loads the air with vapor, and the warmer the air, the more vapor it will hold. When the sun goes down, the earth still continues to throw off heat by radiation, and soon becomes cooler than the air, unless the same amount of heat be returned, by radiation from other surfaces. Becoming cooler than the air, the soil or plants cool the air which comes in contact with them; and thus cooled to a certain point, the air cannot hold all the vapor which it absorbed while warmer, and part of it is deposited upon the soil, plant, or other cool surface. This is dew; and the temperature at which the air is saturated with vapor, is called the dew-point. If saturated at a given temperature with vapor, the air, when cooled below this point, must part with a portion of the vapor, in some way; in the form of rain or mist, if in the air; in the form of dew, if on the surface of the earth. If, however, other surfaces, at night, radiate as much heat back to the earth as it throws off, the surface of the earth is not thus cooled, and there is no dew. Clouds radiate heat to the earth, and, therefore, there is less dew in cloudy than in clear nights. If the temperature of the earth sinks below the freezing-point, the aqueous vapor is frozen, and is then called _frost_. To radiate back a portion of the heat thus thrown off by the soil and plants, gardeners cover their tender plants and vines with mats or boards, or even with thin cloth, and thus protect them from frost. If the covering touch the plants, they are often frozen, the heat being conducted off, by contact, to the covering, and thence radiated. Dew then is an effect, but not a cause, of cold. It imparts warmth, because it can be deposited only on objects cooler than itself. It has been supposed by many that the light of the moon promotes putrefaction. Pliny and Plutarch both affirm this to be true. Dew, by supplying moisture in the warm season, aids this process of decay. We have seen that dew is most abundant in clear nights; and although all clear nights are not moonlight nights, yet all moonlight nights are clear nights; and this, perhaps, furnishes sufficient grounds for this belief, as to the influence of the moon. The quantity of dew deposited is not easily measured. It has, however, been estimated by Dr. Dalton, to amount, in England, to five inches of water in a year, or 500 tons to the acre, equal to about one quarter of our rain-fall during the six summer months! Deep and well-pulverized soils attract much more moisture, in every form, from the atmosphere, than shallow and compact soils. They, in fact, expose a much larger surface to the air. This is the reason why stirring the ground, even in the Summer drought, refreshes our fields of Indian corn. CHAPTER XVII. INJURY OF LAND BY DRAINAGE. Most Land cannot be Over-drained.--Nature a Deep drainer.--Over-draining of Peaty Soils.--Lincolnshire Fens; Visit to them in 1857.--56 Bushels of Wheat to the Acre.--Wet Meadows subside by Drainage.--Conclusions. Is there no danger of draining land too much? May not land be over-drained? These are questions often and very naturally asked, and which deserve careful consideration. The general answer would be that there is no danger to be apprehended from over-draining; that no water will run out of land that would be of advantage to our cultivated crops by being retained. In other words, soils _generally_ hold, by capillary attraction, all the moisture that is of any advantage to the crops cultivated on them; and the water of drainage would, if retained for want of outlets, be stagnant, and produce more evil than good. We say this is generally true; but there are said to be exceptional cases, which it is proposed to consider. If we bear in mind the condition of most soils in Summer, we shall see that this apprehension of over-draining is groundless. The fear is, that crops will suffer in time of drought, if thoroughly drained. Now, we know that, in almost all New England, the water-table is many feet below the surface. Our wells indicate pretty accurately where the water-table is, and drains, unless cut as low as the surface of the water in the wells, would not run a drop of water in Summer. Our farmers dig their wells twenty, and even fifty, feet deep, and expect that, every Summer, the water will sink to nearly that depth; but they have no apprehension that their crops will become dry, because the water is not kept up to within three feet of the surface. The fact is, that Nature drains thoroughly the greater portion of all our lands; so that artificial drainage, though it may remove surplus water from them more speedily in Spring, cannot make them more dry in Summer. And what thus happens naturally, on most of the land, without injury, cannot be a dangerous result to effect by drainage on lands of similar character. By thorough-drainage, we endeavor to make lands which have an impervious or very retentive subsoil near the surface, sufficiently open to allow the surplus water to pass off, as it does naturally on our most productive upland. OVER-DRAINING OF PEATY SOILS. No instance has yet been made public in America, of the injury of peat lands by over-drainage; but there is a general impression among English writers, that peat soils are often injured in this way. The Lincolnshire Fens are cited by them, as illustrations of the fact, that these lands do not require deep drainage. Mr. Pusey says, "Every one who is practically acquainted with moory land, knows that such land may be easily over-drained, so that the soil becomes dusty or _husky_, as it is called--that is, like a dry sponge--the white crops flag, and the turnip leaves turn yellow in a long drought." These Fens contain an immense extent of land. The Great Level of the Fens, it is said, contains 600,000 acres. Much of this was formerly covered by the tides, and all of it, as the name indicates, was of a marshy character. The water being excluded by embankments against the sea and rivers, and pumped out by steam engines, and the land under-drained generally with tiles, so that the height of the water is under the control of the proprietors, grave disputes have arisen as to the proper amount of drainage. An impression has heretofore prevailed, that these lands would be too dry if the water were pumped out, so as to reduce the water-table more than a foot or two below the surface, but this idea is now controverted. In July 1857, in company with three of the best farmers in Lincolnshire, the writer visited the Fens, and carefully examined the crops and drainage. We passed a day with one of the proprietors, who gave us some information upon the point in question. He stated, that in general, the occupants of this land entertain the opinion, that the crops would be ruined by draining to the depth of four feet. So strongly was he impressed with the belief that a deeper drainage was desirable, that he had enclosed his own estate with separate embankments, and put up a steam-engine, and pumped out the water to the depth of four feet, while from the land all around him, it is pumped out only a foot and a half below the surface, though in Summer it may sometimes fall somewhat lower. The crops on this land were astonishing. Our friends estimated that the wheat then growing and nearly ripe, would yield fifty-six bushels to the acre. Although this was considered a very dry season, the crops on the land of our host were fully equal to the best upon the Fens. The soil upon that part of the Fens is now a fine black loam of twelve or eighteen inches depth, resting upon clay. Upon other portions, the soil is of various depth and character, resting sometimes upon gravel. Attention is called to these facts here, to show that the common impression that these lands will not bear deep drainage, is controverted among the occupants themselves, and may prove to be one of those errors which becomes traditional, we hardly know how. Most peat meadows, in New England, when first relieved of stagnant water, are very light and spongy. The soil is filled with acids which require to be neutralized by an application of lime, or what is cheaper and equally effectual, by exposure to the atmosphere. These soils, when the water is suddenly drawn out of them, retain their bulk for a time, and are too porous and unsubstantial for cultivation. A season or two will cure this evil, in many cases. The soil will become more compact, and will often settle down many inches. It is necessary to bear this in mind in adjusting the drains, because a four-foot drain, when laid, may, by the mere subsidence of the land, become a three-foot drain. A hasty judgment, in any case, that the land is over-drained, should be suspended until the soil has acquired compactness by its own weight, and by the ameliorating effect of culture and the elements. Mr. Denton, alluding to the opinion of "many intelligent men, that low meadow-land should be treated differently to upland pasture, and upland pasture differently to arable land," says, "My own observations bring me to the conclusion, that it is not possible to lay pasture-land too dry; for I have invariably remarked, during the recent dry Summer and Autumn particularly, that both in lowland meadows, and upland pastures, those lands which have been most thoroughly drained by deep and frequent drains, are those that have preserved the freshest and most profitable herbage." While, therefore, we have much doubt whether any land, high or low, can be over-drained for general cultivation, it is probable that a less expensive mode of drainage may be sometimes expedient for grass alone. While we believe that, in general, even peat soils may be safely drained to the same depth with other soil, there seems to be a well-founded opinion that they may frequently be rendered productive by a less thorough system. The only safety for us, is in careful experiment with our own lands, which vary so much in character and location, that no precise rules can be prescribed for their treatment. CHAPTER XVIII. OBSTRUCTION OF DRAINS. Tiles will fill up, unless well laid.--Obstruction by Sand or Silt.--Obstructions at the Outlet from Frogs, Moles, Action of Frost, and Cattle.--Obstruction by Roots.--Willow, Ash, &c., Trees capricious.--Roots enter Perennial Streams.--Obstruction by Mangold Wurtzel.--Obstruction by Per-Oxide of Iron.--How Prevented--Obstruction by the Joints Filling.--No Danger with Two-Inch Pipes.--Water through the Pores.--Collars.--How to Detect Obstructions. But won't these tiles get filled up and stopped? asks almost every inquirer on the subject of tile draining. Certainly, they will, if not laid with great care, and with all proper precautions against obstructions. It cannot be too often repeated, that tile-drainage requires science, and knowledge, and skill, as well as money; and no man should go into it blindfold, or with faith in his innate perceptions of right. If he does, his education will be expensive. It is proposed to mention all the various modes by which tiles have been known to be obstructed, and to suggest how the danger of failure, by means of them, may be obviated. Let not enterprising readers be alarmed at such an array of difficulties, for the more conspicuous they become, the less is the danger from them. _Obstruction by Sand or Silt._ Probably, more drains are rendered worthless, by being filled up with earthy matter, which passes with water through the joints of the tiles, than by every other cause. Fine sand will pass through the smallest aperture, if there is a current of water sufficient to move it, and silt, or the fine deposit of mud or other earth, which is held almost in solution in running water, is even more insinuating in its ways than sand. Very often, drains are filled up and ruined by these deposits; and, unless the fall be considerable, and the drain be laid with even descent, if earth of any kind find entrance, it must endanger the permanency of the work. To guard against the admission of everything but water, lay drains deep enough to be beyond the danger of water bursting in, in streamlets. Water should enter the drain at the bottom, by rising to the level of the tiles, and not by sinking from the surface directly to them. If the land is sandy, great care must be used. In draining through flowing sand, especially if there be a quick descent, the precaution of sheathing tiles is resorted to. That is done by putting small tiles inside of larger ones, breaking joints inside, and thus laying a double drain. This is only necessary, however, in spots of sand full of spring-water. Next best to this mode, is the use of collars over the joints, but these are not often used, though recommended for sandy land. At least, in all land not perfectly sound, be careful to secure the joints in some way. An inverted turf, carefully laid over the joint, is oftenest used. Good, clean, fine gravel is, perhaps, best of all. Spent tan bark, when it is to be conveniently procured, is excellent, because it strains out the earth, while it freely admits water; and any particles of tan that find entrance, are floated out upon the water. The same may be said of sawdust. To secure the exit of earth that may enter at the joints, there should be care that the tiles be smooth inside, that they be laid exactly in line, and that there be a continuous descent. If there be any place where the water rises in the tiles, in that place, every particle of sand, or other matter heavier than water, will be likely to stop, until a barrier is formed, and the drain stopped. In speaking of the forms of tiles, the superiority of rounded openings over those with flat bottom has been shown. The greater head of water in a round pipe, gives it force to drive before it all obstructions, and so tends to keep the drain clear. _Obstructions at the Outlet._ The water from deep drains is usually very clear, and cattle find the outlet a convenient place to drink at, and constantly tread up the soft ground there, and obstruct the flow of water. All earthy matter, and chemical solutions of iron, and the like, tend to accumulate by deposit at the outlet. Frogs and mice, and insects of many kinds, collect about such places, and creep into the drains. The action of frost in cold regions displaces the earth, and even masonry, if not well laid; and back-water, by flowing into the drains, hinders the free passage of water. All these causes tend to obstruct drains at the outlet. If once stopped there, the whole pipe becomes filled with stagnant water, which deposits all its earthy matter, and soon becomes obstructed at other points, and so becomes useless. The outlet must be rendered secure from all these dangers, at all seasons, by some such means as are suggested in the chapter on the Arrangement of Drains. _Obstruction by roots._ On the author's farm in Exeter, a wooden drain, to carry off waste water from a watering place, was laid, with a triangular opening of about four inches. This was found to be obstructed the second year after it was laid; and upon taking it up, it proved to be entirely filled for several feet, with willow roots, which grew like long, fine grass, thickly matted together, so as entirely to close the drain. There was a row of large willows about thirty feet distant, and as the drain was but about two feet deep, they found their way easily to it, and entering between the rough joints of the boards, not very carefully fitted, fattened on the spring water till they outgrew their new house. A neighbor says, he never wants a tree within ten rods of any land he desires to plow; and it would be unsafe to undertake to set limits to the extent of the roots of trees. "No crevice, however small," says a writer, "is proof against the entrance of the roots of water-loving trees." The behavior of roots is, however, very capricious in this matter; for, while occasional instances occur of drains being obstructed by them, it is a very common thing for drains to operate perfectly for indefinite periods, where they run through forests and orchards for long distances. They, however, who lay drains near to willows and ashes, and the like cold-water drinkers, must do it at the peril of which they are warned. Laying the tiles deep and with collars will afford the best security from all danger of this kind. Thos. Gisborne, Esq., in a note to the edition of his Essay on Drainage published in 1852, says: My own experience as to roots, in connection with deep pipe draining, is as follows:--I have never known roots to obstruct a pipe through which there was not a perennial stream. The flow of water in Summer and early Autumn appears to furnish the attraction. I have never discovered that the roots of any esculent vegetable have obstructed a pipe. The trees which, by my own personal observation, I have found to be most dangerous, have been red willow, black Italian poplar, alder, ash, and broad-leaved elm. I have many alders in close contiguity with important drains; and, though I have never convicted one, I can not doubt that they are dangerous. Oak, and black and white thorns, I have not detected, nor do I suspect them. The guilty trees have, in every instance, been young and free growing; I have never convicted an adult. Mangold-wurzel, it is said by several writers, will sometimes grow down into tile drains, even to the depth of four feet, and entirely obstruct them; but those are cases of very rare occurrence. In thousands of instances, mangolds have been cultivated on drained land, even where tiles were but 2-1/2 feet deep, without causing any obstruction of the drains. Any reader who is curious in such matters, may find in the appendix to the 10th Vol. of the Journal of the Royal Ag. Soc., a singular instance of obstruction of drains by the roots of the mangold, as well as instances of obstructions by the roots of trees. _Obstruction by Per-oxide of Iron._ In the author's barn-cellar is a watering place, supplied by a half-inch lead pipe, from a spring some eight rods distant. This pipe several times in a year, sometimes once a week, in cold weather, is entirely stopped. The stream of water is never much larger than a lead pencil. We usually start it with a sort of syringe, by forcing into the outlet a quantity of water. It then runs very thick, and of the color of iron rust, sometimes several pails full, and will then run clear for weeks or months, perhaps. In the tub which receives the water, there is always a large deposit of this same colored substance; and along the street near by, where the water oozes out of the bank, there is this same appearance of iron. This deposit is, in common language, called per-oxide of iron, though this term is not, by chemists of the present day, deemed sufficiently accurate, and the word sesqui-oxide is preferred in scientific works. Iron exists in all animal and vegetable matter, and in all soils, to some extent. It exists as protoxide of iron, in which one atom of iron always combines with one atom of oxygen, and it exists as sesqui-oxide of iron, from the Latin _sesqui_, which means one and a half, in which one and a half atoms of oxygen combine with one atom of iron. The less accurate term, per-oxide, has been adopted here, because it is found in general use by writers on drainage. The theory is that the iron exists in the soil, and is held in solution in water as a protoxide, and is converted into per-oxide by contact with the air, either in the drains or at their outlets, and is then deposited at the bottom of the water. In a pipe running full there would be, upon this theory, no exposure to the air, which should form the per-oxide. In the case stated, it is probable that the per-oxide is formed at the exposed surface of a large cask, at the spring, and is carried into the pipe, as it is precipitated. Common drain pipes would be full of air, which might, perhaps, in a feeble current, be sufficient to cause this deposit. Occasionally, cases have occurred of obstruction from this cause, and whenever the signs of this deposit are visible about the field to be drained, care must be used to guard against it in draining. To guard against obstruction from per-oxide of iron, tiles should be laid deep, closely jointed or collared, with great care that the fall be continuous, and especially that there be a quick fall at the junctions of minor drains with mains, and a clear outlet. Mr. Beattie, of Aberdeen, says: Before adopting 4 feet drains, I had much difficulty in dealing with the iron ore which generally appeared at two to three feet from the surface, but by the extra depth the water filters off to the pipes free of ore. Occasionally, iron ore is found at a greater depth, but the floating substance is then in most cases lighter, and does not adhere to the pipes in the same way as that found near the surface. Arrangements should also be made for examining the drains by means of wells, and for flushing them by holding back the water until the drains are filled, and then letting it suddenly off, or, by occasionally admitting a stream of water at the upper end, when practicable, and thus washing out the pipes. Mr. Denton says: "It is found that the use of this contrivance for flushing, will get rid of the per-oxide of iron, about which so much complaint is made." _Obstruction by Filling at the Joints._ One would suppose that tiles might frequently be prevented from receiving water, by the filling up of the crevices between them. If water poured on to tiles in a stream, it would be likely to carry into these openings enough earthy matter to fill them; but the whole theory of thorough-drainage rests upon the idea of slow percolation--of the passage of water in the form of fine dew, as it were--through the motionless particles which compose the soil; and, if drains are properly laid, there can be no motion of particles of earth, either into or towards the tiles. The water should soak through the ground precisely as it does through a wet cloth. In an article in the Journal of the Society of Arts, published in 1855, Mr. Thomas Arkell states that in 1846 he had drained a few acres with 1-1/4 inch pipes, about three feet deep, and 21 to 25 feet apart. The drains acted well, and the land was tolerably dry and healthy for the first few years; but afterwards, in wet seasons, it was very wet, and appeared full of water, like undrained land, although at the time all the drains were running, but very slowly. His conclusion was that mud had entered the crevices, and stopped the water out. He says he has known other persons, who had used small pipes, who had suffered in the same way. There are many persons still in England, who are so apprehensive on this point, that they continue to use horse-shoe tiles, or, as they are sometimes called, "tops and bottoms," which admit water more freely along the joints. The most skillful engineers, however, decidedly prefer round pipes, but recommend that none smaller than one-and-a-half-inch be used, and prefer two-inch to any smaller size. The circumference of a two-inch pipe is not far from nine inches, while that of a one-inch pipe, of common thickness, is about half that, so that the opening is twice as extensive in the two-inch, pipes as in the one-inch pipe. The ascertained instances of the obstruction of pipes, by excluding the water from the joints, are very few. No doubt that clay, puddled in upon the tiles when laid, might have this effect; but they who have experience in tile-drainage, will bear witness that there is far more difficulty in excluding sand and mud, than there is in admitting water. It is thought, by some persons, that sufficient water to drain land may be admitted through the pores of the tiles. We have no such faith. The opinion of Mr. Parkes, that about 500 times as much water enters at the crevices between each pair of tiles, as is absorbed through the tiles themselves, we think to be far nearer the truth. Collars have a great tendency to prevent the closing up of the crevices between tiles; but injuries to drains laid at proper depths, with two-inch pipes, even without collars, must be very rare. Indeed, no single case of a drain obstructed in this way, when laid four feet deep, has yet come within our reading or observation, and it is rather as a possible, than even a probable, cause of failure, that it has been mentioned. HOW TO DETECT OBSTRUCTIONS IN DRAINS. When a drain is entirely obstructed, if there is a considerable flow of water, and the ground is much descending, the water will at once press through the joints of the pipes, and show itself at the surface. By thrusting down a bar along the course of the drain, the place of the obstruction will be readily determined; for the water will, at the point of greatest pressure, burst up in the hole made by the bar, like a spring, while below the point of obstruction, there will be no upward pressure of the water, and above it, the pressure will be less the farther we go. The point being determined, it is the work of but few minutes to dig down upon the drain, remove carefully a few pipes, and take out the frog, or mouse, or the broken tile, if such be the cause of the difficulty. If silt or earth has caused the obstruction, it is probably because of a depression in the line of the drain, or a defect in some junction with other drains, and this may require the taking up of more or less of the pipes. If there be but little fall in the drains, the obstruction will not be so readily found; but the effect of the water will soon be observed at the surface, both in keeping the soil wet, and in chilling the vegetation upon it. If proper peep-holes have been provided, the place of any obstruction may readily be determined, at a glance into them. Upon our own land, we have had two or three instances of obstruction by sand, very soon after the tiles were laid, and always at the junction of drains imperfectly secured with bricks, before we had procured proper branch-pipes for the purpose. A little experience will enable the proprietor at once to detect any failure of his drains, and to apply the proper remedy. Obstructions from silt and sand are much more likely to occur during the first season after the drains are laid, than afterwards, because the earth is loose about the pipes, and more liable to be washed into the joints, than after it has become compact. On the whole, we believe the danger to tile-drains, of obstruction, is very little, provided good tiles are used, and proper care is exercised in laying them. CHAPTER XIX. DRAINAGE OF STIFF CLAYS. Clay not impervious, or it could not be wet and dried.--Puddling, what is.--Water will stand over Drains on Puddled Soil.--Cracking of Clays by Drying.--Drained Clays improve by time.--Passage of Water through Clay makes it permeable.--Experiment by Mr. Pettibone, of Vermont.--Pressure of Water in saturated Soil. It is a common impression that clay is impervious to water, and that, therefore, a clay soil cannot be drained, especially by deep under-drains. A moment's reflection will satisfy any one that such land is not absolutely impervious. We find such land is wet in Spring, at any depth; and, in the latter part of Summer, we find it comparatively dry. How comes it wet, at any time, if water does not go into it? And how comes it dry, at any time, if water does not come out of it? In treating of the power of the soil to absorb moisture, we have shown that a clay soil will absorb more than half its weight and bulk of water, and that it holds more water than any other soil, with, perhaps, the single exception of peat. The facts, however, that clay may be wet, and may be dried, and that it readily absorbs large quantities of water, though they prove conclusively that it is not impervious to water, yet do not prove that water will pass through it with sufficient rapidity to answer the practical purposes of drainage for agriculture. This point can only be satisfactorily determined by experiment. It is not necessary, however, that each farmer should try the experiment for himself; because, although we are very apt to think our own case an exception to all general rules, it is not really probable that any new kind of clay will be discovered hereafter, that is so different from all other clay that is known, that established principles will not apply to it. So far as our own observation extends, owners of clay farms always over-estimate the difficulty of draining their land. There are certain notorious facts with regard to clay, which mislead the judgment of men on this point. One of these facts is, that clay is used for stopping water, by the process called _puddling_. Puddled clay is used for the bottom of ponds, and of canals, and of reservoirs, and, for such purposes, is regarded as nearly, or quite impervious. We see that, on our clay fields, water stands upon the surface, especially in the ruts of wheels, and on headlands much trodden, late in the season, and when, in other places, it has disappeared. This is due, also, to puddling. Puddling is merely the working of wet clay, or other soil, by beating, or treading, or stirring, until its particles are so finely divided that water has an exceedingly slow passage between them, with ordinary pressure. We see the effect of this operation on common highways, where water often stands for many days in puddles, because the surface has been ground so fine, and rendered so compact, by wheels and horses, that the water cannot find passage. This, however, is not the natural condition of any clay; nor can any clay be kept in this condition, except by being constantly wet. If once dried, or subjected to the action of frost, the soil resumes its natural condition of porosity, as will be presently explained. They who object to deep drainage, or to the possibility of draining stiff clays, point to the fact that water may be seen standing directly over the drains, on thorough-drained fields. We have seen this on our own fields. In one instance, we had, after laying tiles through a field, at 50 feet intervals, in the same Autumn, when the land was wet, teamed across it a large quantity of soil for compost, with a heavy ox-team. The next Spring, the water stood for many days in that track which passed across tile-drains, after it had disappeared elsewhere in the field. A fine crop of Indian corn grew on the field that year, but the effect of the puddling was visible the whole season. "One inch of wet and worked clay," says a scientific writer, "will prevent water from passing through, so long as it is kept wet, as effectually as a yard will do." "If," says Gisborne, "you eat off turnips with sheep, if you plow the land, or cart on it, or in any way puddle it, when it is wet, of course the water will lie on the surface, and will not go to your drains. A four-foot drain may go very near a pit, or a water-course, without attracting water from either, because water-courses almost invariably puddle their beds; and the same effect is produced in pits by the treading of cattle, and even by the motion of the water produced by wind. A very thin film of puddle, always wet on one side, is impervious, _because it cannot crack_." In those four words, we find an allusion to the whole mystery of the drainage of clays--a key which unlocks the secret by which the toughest of these soils may be converted, as by a fairy charm, to fields of waving grain. CRACKING OF CLAYS BY DRYING. "In drying under the influence of the sun," says Prof. Johnston, "soils shrink in, and thus diminish in bulk, in proportion to the quantity of clay, or of peaty matter, they contain. Sand scarcely diminishes at all in bulk by drying; but peat shrinks one-fifth in bulk, and strong agricultural clay nearly as much." By laying drains in land, we take from it that portion of the water that will run out at the bottom. The sun, by evaporation, then takes out a portion at the top. The soil is thus contracted, and, as the ends of the field cannot approach each other, both soil and subsoil are torn apart, and divided by a network of cracks and fissures. Every one who is familiar with clay land, or who has observed the bottom of a ditch or frog pond by the roadside, must have observed these cracks, thus caused by the contraction of the soil in drying. The same contraction occurs in drier land, by cold, in Winter; by which, in cold regions, deep rents are made in the earth, and reports, like those of cannon, are often heard. The cracking by drying, however, is more quiet in its effects, merely dividing the ground, noiselessly, into smaller and smaller masses, as the process proceeds. Were it not for this process, it may well be doubted whether clay lands could be effectually drained at all. Nature, however, seems to second our efforts here, for we have seen that the stiffer the clay, the greater the contraction, and the more the soil is split up and rendered permeable by this operation. These cracks are found, by observation, to commence at the drains, and extend further and further, in almost straight lines, into the subsoil, forming so many minor drains, or feeders, all leading to the tiles. These main fissures have numerous smaller ones diverging from them, so that the whole mass is divided and subdivided into the most minute portions. The main fissures gradually enlarge, as the dryness increases, and, at the same time, lengthen out; so that, in a very dry season, they may be traced the whole way between the drains. The following cut will give some idea of these cracks, or fissures, as they exist in a dry time: [Illustration: Fig. 98.--Cracking of Clays by Drainage.] Mr. Gisborne says: "Clay lands always shrink and crack with drought; and the stiffer the clay, the greater the shrinking, as brick-makers well know. In the great drought thirty-six years ago, we saw, in a very retentive soil in the Vale of Belvoir, cracks which it was not very pleasant to ride among. This very Summer, on land, which, with reference to this very subject, the owner stated to be impervious, we put a walking-stick three feet into a sun-crack without finding a bottom, and the whole surface was a network of cracks. In the drained soil, the roots follow the threads of vegetable mould which have been washed into the cracks, and get an abiding tenure. Earth-worms follow either the roots or the mould. Permanent schisms are established in the clay, and its whole character is changed." In the United States, the supply of rain is far less uniform than in England, and much severer droughts are experienced. Thus the contraction, and consequent cracking of the soil, must be greater here than in that country. In laying drains more than four feet deep, in the stiffest clay which the author has seen, in a neighborhood furnishing abundance of brick and potter's clay, these cracks were seen to extend to the very bottoms of the drains, not in single fissures from top to bottom, but in innumerable seams running in all directions, so that the earth, moved with the pick-axe, came up in little cubes and flakes, and could be separated into pieces of an inch or less diameter. This was on a ridge which received no water except from the clouds, having no springs in or upon it, yet so nearly impervious to water, that it remained soft and muddy till late in June. In Midsummer, however, under our burning sun, it had, by evaporation, been so much dried as to produce the effect described. In England, we learn, that these cracks extend to the depth of four feet or more. Mr. Hewitt Davis stated in a public discussion, with reference to draining strong soils, that, "he gave four feet as the minimum depth of the drains in these soils, because he had always found that the cracks and fissures formed by the drought and changes of temperature, on the strongest clay, and which made these soils permeable, extended below this depth, and the water from the surface might be made to reach the drains at this distance." In clay that has never been dried, as for instance, that found under wet meadows from which the water has but recently been drawn, we should not, of course, expect to find these cracks. Accordingly, we find sometimes in clay pits, excavated below the permanent water-line, and in wells, that the clay is in a compact mass, and tears apart without exhibiting anything like these divisions. We should not expect that, on such a clay, the full effect of drainage would be at once apparent. The water falling on the surface would very slowly find its way downward, at first. But after the heat of Summer, aided by the drains underneath, had contracted and cracked the soil, passages for the water would soon be found, and, after a few years, the whole mass, to the depth of the drains, would become open and permeable. As an old English farmer said of his drains, "They do better year by year; the water gets a habit of coming to them." Although this be not philosophical language, yet the fact is correctly stated. Water tends towards the lowest openings. A deep well often diverts the underground stream from a shallower well, and lays it dry. A single railroad cut sometimes draws off the supply of water from a whole neighborhood. Passages thus formed are enlarged by the pressure of the water, and new ones are opened by the causes already suggested, till the drainage becomes perfect for all practical purposes. So much is this cracking process relied on to facilitate drainage, that skillful drainers frequently leave their ditches partly open, after laying the tiles, that the heat may produce the more effect during the first season. As to the depth of drains in stiff clays, enough has already been said, under the appropriate title. In England, the weight of authority is in favor of four-foot drains. In this country, a less depth has thus far, in general, been adopted in practice, but it is believed that this has been because a greater depth has not been tried. It is understood, that the most successful drainers in the State of New York, have been satisfied with three-foot drains, not, as it is believed, because there is any instance on record, in this country, of the failure of four-foot drains, but because the effect of more shallow drains has been so satisfactory, that it has been thought a useless expense to go deeper. To Mr. Johnston and to Mr. Delafield, of Seneca County, the country is greatly indebted for their enterprise and leadership in the matter of drainage. Mr. Johnston gives it as his opinion, that "three feet is deep enough, if the bottom is hard enough to lay tiles on; if not, go deeper." Without intimating that any different mode of drainage than that adopted, would have been better on Mr. Johnston's farm, we should be unwilling to surrender, even to the opinion of Mr. Johnston and his friends, our conviction that, in general, three-foot drains are too shallow. Mr. Johnston expressly disclaims any experience in draining a proper clay soil. In the _Country Gentleman_, of June 10th, 1848, he says: "In a subsoil that is impervious to water, either by being a red clay, blue clay, or hard-pan, within a foot of the surface, I would recommend farmers to feel their way very cautiously in draining. If tiles and labor were as low here as in Great Britain, we could afford to make drains sixteen feet apart in such land, and then, by loosening the soil, say twenty inches deep, by the subsoil plow, I think such land might be made perfectly dry; but I don't think the time is yet come, considering the cost of tiles and labor, to undertake such an outlay; but still it might pay _in the end_. I have found only a little of red clay subsoil in draining my farm. I never had any blue clay on my farm, or hard-pan, to trouble me; but I can readily perceive that it must be equally bad to drain as the tenacious red clay. If I were going to purchase another farm, I would look a great deal more to the subsoil than the surface soil. If the subsoil is right, the surface soil, I think, cannot be wrong." In the same paper, under date of July 8th, Mr. Johnston says, "The only experience I have had in digging into soils, to judge of draining out of this county (Seneca), was in Niagara." He states the result of his observations thus: "A few inches below the surface I found a stiff blue clay for about ten inches deep, and as impervious to water as so much iron. Underneath that blue clay, I found a red clay, apparently impervious to water; but, as water could not get through the blue, I could only guess at that; and, after spending the greater part of the day, with five men digging holes from four to five feet deep, I found I knew no more how such land could be drained, than a man who had never seen a drain dug. I advised the gentleman to try a few experiments, by digging a few ditches, as I laid them out, and plowing as deep as possible with a subsoil plow, but to get no tile until he saw if he could get a run of water. He paid my traveling expenses, treated me very kindly and I have heard nothing from him since. "Now, if your correspondent's soil and subsoil is similar to that soil I would advise him to feel his way cautiously in draining. Certainly, no man would be fool enough to dig ditches and lay tile, if there is no water to carry off." In the _Country Gentleman_ of Nov. 18th, 1858, we find an interesting statement, by John S. Pettibone, of Manchester, Vermont, partly in reply to the statement of Mr. Johnston. The experiment by Mr. Pettibone, showing the increased permeability of clay, merely by the passage of water through it, is very interesting. He says, in his letter to the editor: "When so experienced a drainer as Mr. Johnston expresses an opinion that some soils cannot be drained, it is important we should know what the soil is which cannot be drained. He uses the word _stiff blue_ clay, as descriptive of the soil which cannot be drained. * * * "I had taken a specimen of what I thought to be _stiff blue clay_. That clay, when wet, as taken out, would hold water about as well as iron: yet, from experiments I have made, I am confident that such clay soil can be drained, and at much less expense than a hard-pan soil. Water will pass through such clay, and the clay become dry; and after it becomes once dry, water will, I am convinced, readily pass down through such stiff blue clay. The specimen was taken about three feet below the surface, and on a level with a brook which runs through this clay soil. I filled a one hundred-pound nail-keg with clay taken from the same place. It was so wet, that by shaking, it came to a level, and water rose to the top of the clay. I had made holes in the bottom of the keg, and set it up on blocks. After twenty-four hours I came almost to the conclusion Mr. Johnston did, that water would not pass through this clay. This trial was during the hot, dry weather last Summer. After some ten or twelve days the clay appeared to be dry. I then made a basin-like excavation in the top of the clay, and put water in, and the water disappeared rather slowly. I filled the basin with water frequently, and the oftener I filled it, the more readily it passed off. I left it for more than a week, when we had a heavy shower. After the shower I examined the keg, and not a drop of water was to be seen. I then took a chisel and cut a hole six inches down. I took out a piece like the one I dried in the house, and laid that up till it was perfectly dry. There was a plain difference between the appearance of the two pieces. The texture, I should say, was quite different. That through which the water had passed, after it had been dried, was more open and porous. It did not possess so much of the blue cast. In less than one hour after the rain fell, the clay taken six inches from the top of the keg would crumble by rubbing in the hand." When we observe the effect of heat in opening clays to water by cracking, and the effect of the water itself, aided, as it doubtless is, by the action of the air, in rendering the soil permeable, we hardly need feel discouraged if the question rested entirely on this evidence; but when we consider that thousands upon thousands of acres of the stiffest clays have been, in England and Scotland, rescued from utter barrenness by drainage, and made to yield the largest crops, we should regard the question of practicability as settled. The only question left for decision is whether, under all the circumstances of each particular case, the operation of draining our clay lands will be expedient--whether their increased value will pay the expense. It is often objected to deep drains in clays, that it is so far down to the drains that the water cannot readily pass through so large a mass. If we think merely of a drop of rain falling on the surface, and obliged to find its devious way through the mazes of cracks and particles till it gains an outlet at the bottom of four feet of clay, it does seem a discouraging journey for the poor little solitary thing; but there is a more correct view of the matter, which somewhat relieves the difficulty. All the water that will run out of the soil has departed; but the soil holds a vast amount still, by attraction. The rain begins to fall; and when the soil is saturated, a portion passes into the drain; but it is, by no means, the water which last fell upon the surface, but that which was next the drain before the rain fell. If you pour water into a tube that is nearly full, the water which will first run from the other end is manifestly not that which you pour in. So the ground is full of little tubes, open at both ends, in which the water is held by attraction. A drop upon the surface drives out a drop at the lower end, into to the drain, and so the process goes on--the drains beginning to run as soon as the rain commences, and ceasing to flow only when the principle of attraction balances the power of gravitation. PRESSURE OF WATER IN THE SOIL. In connection with the passage of water through clay soil, it may be appropriate to advert to the question sometimes mooted, whether in a soil filled with water, at four feet depth, there is the same pressure as there would be, at the same depth, in a river or pond. The pressure of fluids on a given area, is, ordinarily, in proportion to their vertical height; and the pressure of a column of water, four feet high, would be sufficient to drive the lower particles into an opening like a drain, with considerable force, and the upper part of such a column would essentially aid the lower part in its downward passage. Does this pressure exist? Mr. Gisborne speaks undoubtingly on this point, thus: "We will assume the drain to be four feet deep, and the water-table to be at one foot below the surface of the earth. Every particle of water which lies at three feet below the water-table, has on it the pressure of a column of water three feet high. This pressure will drive the particle in any direction in which it finds no resistance, with a rapidity varying inversely to the friction of the medium through which the column acts. The bottom of our drains will offer no resistance, and into it particles of water will be pushed, in conformity with the rule we have stated; rapidly, if the medium opposes little friction; slowly, if it opposes much. The water so pushed in runs off by the drain, the column of pressure being diminished in proportion to the water which runs off." Mr. Thomas Arkell, in a paper read before the Society of Arts, in 1855, says, on this point: "The pressure due to a head of water of four or five feet, may be imagined from the force with which water will come through the crevices of a hatch, with that depth of water above it. Now, there is the same pressure of water to enter the vacuum in the pipe-drain, as there is against the hatches, supposing the land to be full to the surface." We do not find any intimation that there is any error in the view advanced by the learned gentleman quoted; and if there is none, we have an explanation of the faculty which water seems to have, of finding its way into drainpipes. Yet, we feel bound to confess, that, aside from authority, we should have supposed that the pressure due to a column of pure water, would be essentially lessened, by the interposition of solid matter between its particles. CHAPTER XX. EFFECT OF DRAINAGE ON STREAMS AND RIVERS. Drainage Hastens the Supply to the Streams, and thus Creates Freshets.--Effect of Drainage on Meadows below; on Water Privileges.--Conflict of Manufacturing and Agricultural Interests.--English Opinions and Facts.--Uses of Drainage Water.--Irrigation.--Drainage Water for Stock.--How used by Mr. Mechi. The effect of drainage upon streams and rivers, has, perhaps, little to interest merely practical men, in this country, at present; but the time will soon arrive, when mill-owners and land-owners will be compelled to investigate the subject. Men unaccustomed to minute investigation, are slow to appreciate the great effects produced by apparently small causes; and it may seem to many, that the operations of drainage for agriculture, are too insignificant in their details, perceptibly to affect the flow of mill-streams and rivers. A moment's thought will convince the most skeptical, that the thorough-drainage of the wet lands, even of a New England township, must produce sensible effects upon the streams which convey its surplus water toward the sea. In making investigations to ascertain what quantity of water may be relied upon to supply a reservoir, whether natural or artificial, for the use of a town or city, a survey is first taken of the district of territory which naturally is drained into the reservoir, and thus the number of square miles of surface is ascertained. Then the rain-tables are consulted, and the fall of rain upon the surveyed district is computed. The ascertained proportion of rain-fall, which usually goes off by evaporation, is then deducted, which leaves with sufficient accuracy, the amount of water which flows both upon the surface, and through the soil, to the reservoir. With proper deductions for waste by freshets, when the water will overflow the reservoir, and for other known losses, a reliable estimate is readily made, in advance, of the quantity of water supplied to the reservoir. Now, these reservoirs Nature has placed in all our valleys, in the form of lakes and ponds, and the drainage into them is by natural springs and streams; and the annual amount of the water thus naturally flowing into them may be readily computed, if the area within their head-waters be known. If the earth's surface were, like iron, impervious to water, the rain-water would come in torrents down the hill-sides, and along the gentle declivities, into the streams, creating freshets and inundations in a few hours. But instead of that, the soft showers fall, often on the open, thirsty soil, and so are gradually absorbed. A part of the rain-water is there held, until it returns by evaporation, to the clouds, while a part slowly percolates downward, finding its way into swamps and springy plains, and finally, after days or weeks of wandering, slowly, but surely, finds its outlet in the stream or pond. If now, this surplus of water, this part which cannot be evaporated, and must therefore, sooner or later, enter the stream or pond, be, by artificial channels, carried directly to its destination, without the delay of filtration through swamps and clay-banks; the effect of rain to raise the streams and ponds, must be more sudden and immediate. Agricultural drains furnish those artificial channels. The flat and mossy swamp, which before retained the water until the Midsummer drought, and then slowly parted with it, by evaporation or gradual filtration, now, by thorough-drainage, in two or three days at most, sends all its surplus water onward to the natural stream. The stagnant clay-beds, which formerly, by slow degrees, allowed the water to filter through them to the wayside ditch, and then to the river, now, by drainage, contribute their proportion, in a few hours, to swell the stream. Thus, evaporation is lessened, and the amount of water which enters the natural channels largely increased; and, what is of more importance, the water which flows from the land is sent at once, after its fall from the heavens, into the streams. This produces upon the mill-streams a two-fold effect; first, to raise sudden freshets to overflow the dams, and sweep away the mills; and, secondly, to dry up their supply in dry seasons, and to diminish their water-power. Upon the low meadows which border the streams, the effects of the drainage of lands above them are various, according to their position. In many cases, it must subject them to inundation by Summer freshets, and must require for their protection, catch-waters and embankments, and large facilities for drainage. The effect of drainage upon "water privileges," must inevitably be, to lessen their value, by giving them a sudden surplus, followed by drought, instead of a regular supply of water. Water-power companies and mill-owners are never careless of their interests. Through the patriotic desire to foster home-manufactures, our State legislatures have granted many peculiar privileges to manufacturing corporations. Indeed, all the streams and rivers of New England are chained to labor at their wheels. Agriculture has thus far taken care of herself, but is destined soon to come in collision with the chartered privileges of manufactures. Many questions, touching the right of land-owners to change the natural flow of the water, to the injury of mill-owners; many questions touching the right of mill-owners to obstruct the natural course of streams, to the injury of the farmer, will inevitably arise in our Courts. Slowly, and step by step, must the lesser interest of manufactures, recede before the advance of the great fundamental interest of agriculture, until, in process of time, steam, or some yet undiscovered giant power, shall put its hand to the great wheel of the factory and the mill, and the pent-up waters shall subside to their natural banks. That these are not mere speculations of our own, may be seen from extracts which will be given from answers returned by distinguished observers of these matters in England and Scotland, to a question proposed to them as to the actual effects produced by extensive drainage. Some diversity of opinion is observable in the different replies, which were made, independently in writing, and so are more valuable. _Mr. Smith._--"During dry periods, more particularly in Summer, the water in the streams is greatly lessened by thorough-draining; for there is so great a mass of comparatively dry and absorbent soil to receive the rain, that Summer showers, unless very heavy and continuous, will be entirely absorbed." _Mr. Parkes._--"The intention and effect of a complete and systematic under-drainage is the liberation of the water of rain more quickly from the land than if it were not drained; and therefore the natural vents, or rivers, very generally require enlargement or deepening, in order to pass off the drainage water in sufficiently quick time, and so as to avoid flooding lower lands. "The sluggish rivers of the midland and southern counties of England especially, oppose great obstacles to land-drainage, being usually full to the banks, or nearly so, and converted into a series of ponds, by mill-dams erected at a few miles distance below each other; so that, frequently, no effectual drainage of the richest alluvial soil composing the meadows, can be made, without forming embankments, or by pumping, or by resort to other artificial and expensive means. "The greater number of the corn and other water-mills throughout England ought to be demolished, for the advantage of agriculture, and steam-power should to be provided for the millers. I believe that such an arrangement would, in most cases, prove to be economical both to the landholder and the miller. "Every old authority, and all modern writers on land drainage in England, have condemned water-mills and mill-dams: and if all the rivers of England were surveyed from the sea to their source, the mills upon them valued, the extent of land injured or benefitted by such mill-dams ascertained, and the whole question of advantage or injury done to the land-owner appreciated and appraised, I have little doubt but that the injury done, would be found so greatly to exceed the rental of the mills, deduction being made of the cost of maintaining them, that it would be a measure of national economy, to buy up the mills, and give the millers steam-power." _Mr. Spooner._--"The effect which extensive drainage produces on the main water-courses of districts, is that of increasing the height of their rise at flood times, and rendering the flow and subsidence more rapid than before. I have repeatedly heard the River Tweed adduced as a striking instance of this fact, and that the change has taken place within the observation of the present generation." _Mr. Maccaw._--"It has been observed that, after extensive surface-drainage on the sheepwalks in the higher parts of the country, and when the lower lands were enclosed by ditches, and partially drained for the purposes of cultivation, all rivers flowing therefrom, rise more rapidly after heavy rains or falls of snow, and discharge their surplus waters more quickly, than under former circumstances." _Mr. Beattie._--"It renders them more speedily flooded, and to a greater height, and they fall sooner. Rivers are lower in Summer and higher in Winter." _Mr. Nielson._--"The immediate effect of the drainage of higher lands has often been to inundate the lower levels." In a prize essay of John Algernon Clarke, speaking of the effect of drainage along the course of the River Nene, in England, he says: "The upland farms are delivering their drain-water in much larger quantities, and more immediately after the downfall, than formerly, and swelling to the depth of three to six feet over the 20,000 acres of open ground, which form one vast reservoir for it above and below Peterborough. The Nene used to overflow its banks, to the extreme height, about the third day after rain: the floods now reach the same height in about half that time. Twelve hours' rain will generally cause an overflow of the land, which all lies unembanked from the stream; and where it is already saturated, this takes place in six or even in two hours. Such a quick rise will cause one body of flood-water to extend for forty or fifty miles in succession, with a width varying from a quarter of a mile to a mile; but it stays sometimes for six weeks, or even two months, upon the ground. And those floods come down with an alarming power and velocity--bridges which have stood for a century are washed away, and districts where floods were previously unknown have became liable to their sudden periodical inundations. The land being wholly in meadow, suffers very heavily from the destruction of its hay. So sudden are the inundations, that it frequently happens that hay made in the day has, in the night been found swimming and gone. A public-house sign at Wansford commemorates the locally-famed circumstance of a man who, having fallen asleep on a hay-cock, was carried down the stream by a sudden flood: awakening just under the bridge of that town, and being informed where he was, he demanded, in astonishment, if this were 'Wansford in England.'" The fact that the floods in that neighborhood now reach their height in half their former time, in consequence of the drainage of the "upland farms," is very significant. Mr. Denton thus speaks upon the same point, though his immediate subject was that of compulsory outfalls. "Although the quantity of land drained was small, in comparison to that which remained to be drained, the water which was discharged by the drainage already effected found its way so rapidly to the outfalls, that the consequences were becoming more and more injurious every day. The millers were now suffering from two causes. At times of excess, after a considerable fall of rain, and when the miller was injuriously overloaded, the excess was increased by the rapidity with which the under-drains discharged themselves; and as the quantity of water thus discharged, must necessarily lessen the subsequent supply, the period of drought was advanced in a corresponding degree. As the millers already saw this, and were anticipating increasing losses, they would join in finding a substitute for water-power upon fair terms." It is not supposed, that any considerable practical effects of drainage, upon the streams of this country, have been observed. A treatise, however, upon the general subject of Drainage, which should omit a point like this, which must, before many years, attract serious attention, would be quite incomplete. Whether the effect of a system of thorough-drainage make for or against the interest of mill and meadow owners on the lower parts of streams, should have no influence over those who design only to present the truth, in all its varied aspects. As some compensation for the evils which may fall upon lands at a lower level, by drainage of uplands, it may be interesting to notice briefly in this place, some of the uses to which drainage-water has been applied, for the advantage of lower lands. In many cases, in Great Britain, the water of drainage has been preserved in reservoirs, or artificial ponds, and applied for the irrigation of water meadows; and as is suggested by Lieut. Maury, in a letter quoted in our introductory chapter, the same may, in many localities, be done in this country, and thus our crops of grass be often tripled, on our low meadows. In many cases, water from deep drains, will furnish the most convenient supply for barn yards and pastures. It is usually sufficiently pure and cool in Summer, and is preferred by cattle to the water of running streams. On Mr. Mechi's farm at Tiptree Hall, in England, we observed a large cistern, in which all the manure necessary for the highest culture of 170 acres of land, is liquified, and from which it is pumped out by a steam engine, over the farm. All the water, which supplies the cistern, is collected from tile drains on the farm, where there had before been no running water. CHAPTER XXI. LEGISLATION--DRAINAGE COMPANIES. England protects her Farmers.--Meadows ruined by Corporation dams.--Old Mills often Nuisances.--Factory Reservoirs.--Flowage extends above level of Dam.--Rye and Derwent Drainage.--Give Steam for Water-Power.--Right to Drain through land of others.--Right to natural flow of Water.--Laws of Mass.--Right to Flow; why not to Drain?--Land-drainage Companies in England.--Lincolnshire Fens.--Government Loans for Drainage. Nothing more clearly shows the universal interest and confidence of the people of Great Britain, in the operation of land-drainage, than the acts of Parliament in relation to the subject. The conservatism of England, in the view of an American, is striking. She never takes a step till she is sure she is right. Justly proud of her position among the nations, she deems change an unsafe experiment, and what has been, much safer than what might be. Vested rights are sacred in England, and especially rights in lands, which are emphatically real estate there. Such are the sentiments of the people, and such the sentiments of their representatives and exponents, the Lords and Commons. Yet England has been so impressed with the importance of improving the condition of the people, of increasing the wealth of the nation, of enriching both tenant and landlord, by draining the land, that the history of her legislation, in aid of such operations, affords a lesson of progress even to fast Young America. Powers have been granted, by which encumbered estates may be charged with the expenses of drainage, so that remainder-men and reversioners, without their consent, shall be compelled to contribute to present improvements; so that careless or obstinate adjacent proprietors shall be compelled to keep open their ditches for outfalls to their neighbor's drains; so that mill-dams, and other obstructions to the natural flow of the water, may be removed for the benefit of agriculture; and, finally, the Government has itself furnished funds, by way of loans, of millions of pounds, in aid of improvements of this character. In America, where private individual right is usually compelled to yield to the good of the whole, and where selfishness and obstinacy do not long stand in the pathway of progress, obstructing manifest improvement in the condition of the people; we are yet far behind England in legal facilities for promoting the improvement of land culture. This is because the attention of the public has not been particularly called to the subject. Manufacturing corporations are created by special acts of legislation. In many States, rights to flow, and ruin, by inundation, most valuable lands along the course of rivers, and by the banks of ponds and lakes, to aid the water-power of mills, are granted to companies, and the land-owner is compelled to part with his meadows for such compensation as a committee or jury shall assess. In almost every town in New England there are hundreds, and often thousands, of acres of lands, that might be most productive to the farmer; overflowed half the year with water, to drive some old saw-mill, or grist-mill, or cotton-mill, which has not made a dividend, or paid expenses, for a quarter of a century. The whole water-power, which, perhaps, ruins for cultivation a thousand acres of fertile land, and divides and breaks up farms, by creating little creeks and swamps throughout all the neighboring valleys, is not worth, and would not be assessed, by impartial men, at one thousand dollars. Yet, though there is power to take the farmer's land for the benefit of manufacturers, there is no power to take down the company's dam for the benefit of agriculture. An old saw-mill, which can only run a few days in a Spring freshet, often swamps a half-township of land, because somebody's great-grandfather had a prescriptive right to flow, when lands were of no value, and saw-mills were a public blessing. There are numerous cases, within our own knowledge, where the very land overflowed and ruined by some incorporated company, would, if allowed to produce its natural growth of timber and wood, furnish ten times the fuel necessary to supply steam-engines, to propel the machinery carried by the water-power. Not satisfied with obstructing the streams in their course, the larger companies are, of late, making use of the interior lakes, fifty or a hundred miles inland, as reservoirs, to keep back water for the use of the mills in the summer droughts. Thus are thousands of acres of land drowned, and rendered worse than useless; for the water is kept up till Midsummer, and drawn off when a dog-day climate is just ready to convert the rich and slimy sediment of the pond into pestilential vapors. These waters, too, controlled by the mill-owners, are thus let down in floods, in Midsummer, to overflow the meadows and corn-fields of the farmer, or the intervals and bottom-lands below. Now, while we would never advocate any attack upon the rights of mill-owners, or ask them to sacrifice their interests to those of agriculture, it surely is proper to call attention to the injury which the productive capacity of the soil is suffering, by the flooding of our best tracts, in sections of country where land is most valuable. Could not mill-owners, in many instances, adopt steam instead of water-power, and becoming land-_draining_ companies, instead of land-_drowning_ companies; at least, let Nature have free course with her gently-flowing rivers, and allow the promise to be fulfilled, that the earth shall be no more cursed with a flood. We would ask for the land-owner, simply equality of rights with the mill-owner. If a legislature may grant the right to flow lands, against the will of the owner, to promote manufactures, the same legislature may surely grant the right, upon proper occasion, to remove dams, and other obstructions to our streams, to promote agriculture. The rights of mill-owners are no more sacred than those of land-owners; and the interests of manufactures are, surely, no more important than those of agriculture. We would not advocate much interference with private rights. In some of the States, no special privileges have been conferred upon water-power companies. They have been left to procure their rights of flowage, by private contract with the land-owners; and in such States, probably, the legislatures would be as slow to interfere with rights of flowage, as with other rights. Yet, there are cases where, for the preservation of the health of the community, and for the general convenience, governments have everywhere exercised the power of interfering with private property, and limiting the control of the owners. To preserve the public health, we abate as nuisances, by process of law, slaughter-houses, and other establishments offensive to health and comfort, and we provide, by compulsory assessments upon land-owners, for sewerage, for side-walks, and the like, in our cities. Everywhere, for the public good, we take private property for highways, upon just compensation, and the property of corporations is thus taken, like that of individuals. Again, we compel adjacent owners to fence their lands, and maintain their proportion of division fences of the legal height, and we elect fence viewers, with power to adjust equitably, the expenses of such fences. We assess bachelors and maidens, in most States, for the construction of schoolhouses, and the education of the children of others, and, in various ways, compel each member of society to contribute to the common welfare. How far it may be competent, for a State legislature to provide for, or assist in, the drainage of extensive and unhealthy marshes; or how far individual owners should be compelled to contribute to a common improvement of their lands; or how far, and in what cases, one land-owner should be authorized to enter upon land of another, to secure or maintain the best use of his own land--these are questions which it is unnecessary for us to attempt to determine. It is well that they should be suggested, because they will, at no distant day, engage much attention. It is well, too, that the steps which conservative England has thought it proper to take in this direction, should be understood, that we may the better determine whether any, and if any, what course our States may safely take, to aid the great and leading interest of our country. The swamps and stagnant meadows along our small streams and our rivers, which are taken from the farmer, by flowage, for the benefit of mills, are often, in New England, the most fertile part of the townships--equal to the bottom lands of the West; and they are right by the doors of young men, who leave their homes with regret, because the rich land of far-off new States offers temptations, which their native soil cannot present. It is certainly of great importance to the old States, to inquire into these matters, and set proper bounds to the use of streams for water-powers. The associated wealth and influence of manufacturers, is always more powerful than the individual efforts of the land-owners. Reservoirs are always growing larger, and dams continually grow higher and tighter. The water, by little and little, creeps insidiously on to, and into, the meadows far above the obstruction, and the land-owner must often elect between submission to this aggression, and a tedious law-suit with a powerful adversary. The evil of obstructions to streams and rivers, is by no means limited to the land visibly flowed, nor to land at the level of the dam. Running water is never level, or it could not flow; and in crooked streams, which flow through meadows, obstructed by grass and bushes, the water raised by a dam, often stands many feet higher, at a mile or two back, than at the dam. It is extremely difficult to set limits to the effect of such a flowage. Water is flowed into the subsoil, or rather is prevented from running out; the natural drainage of the country is prevented; and land which might well be drained artificially, were the stream not obstructed, is found to lie so near the level, as to be deprived of the requisite fall by back water, or the sluggish current occasioned by the dam. These obstructions to drainage have become subjects of much attention, and of legislative intervention in various forms in England, and some of the facts elicited in their investigations are very instructive. In a discussion before the Society of Arts, in 1855, in which many gentlemen, experienced in drainage, took a part, this subject of obstruction by mill-dams came up. Mr. G. Donaldson said he had been much engaged in works of land-drainage, and that, in many instances, great difficulties were experienced in obtaining outfalls, owing to the water rights, on the course of rivers for mill-power, &c. Mr. R. Grantham spoke of the necessity of further legislation, "so as to give power to lower bridges and culverts, under public roads, and straighten and deepen rivers and streams." But, he said, authority was wanting, above all, "for the removal of mills, dams, and other obstructions in rivers, which, in many cases, did incalculable injury, many times exceeding the value of the mills, by keeping up the level of rivers, and rendering it totally impossible to drain the adjoining lands." Mr. R. F. Davis said, "If they were to go into the midland districts, they would see great injury done, from damming the water for mills." In Scotland, the same difficulty has arisen. "In many parts of this country," says a Scottish writer, "small lochs (lakes) and dams are kept up, for the sake of mills, under old tenures, which, if drained, the land gained by that operation, would, in many instances, be worth ten times the rent of such mills." In the case of the Rye and Derwent Drainage, an account of which is found in the 14th Vol. of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, a plan of compensation was adopted, where it became necessary to remove dams and other obstructions, which is worthy of attention. The Commissioners under the Act of 1846, removed the mill-wheels, and substituted steam-engines corresponding to the power actually used by the mills, compensating, also, the proprietors for inconvenience, and the future additional expensiveness of the new power. "The claims of a short canal navigation, two fisheries, and tenants' damages through derangement of business during the alterations, were disposed of without much outlay; and the pecuniary advantages of the work are apparent from the fact, that a single flood, such as frequently overflowed the land, has been known to do more damage, if fairly valued in money, than the whole sum expended under the act." Under this act, it became necessary for the Commissioners to estimate the comparative cost of steam and water-power, in order to carry out their idea of giving to the mill-owners a steam-power equivalent to their water-power. "As the greater part of their water-power was employed on corn and flour-mills, upon these the calculations were chiefly based. It was generally admitted to be very near the truth, that to turn a pair of flour-mill stones properly, requires a power equal to that of two-and-a-half horses, or on an average, twenty horses' power, to turn and work a mill of eight-pairs of stones, and that the total cost of a twenty-horse steam-engine, with all its appliances, would be $5,000, or $250 per horse power." Calculations for the maintenance of the steam-power are also given; but this depends so much on local circumstances, that English estimates would be of little value to us. The arrangements in this case with the mill-owners, were made by contract, and not by force of any arbitrary power, and the success of the enterprise, in the drainage of the lands, the prevention of damage by floods, especially in hay and harvest-time, and in the improvement of the health of vegetation, as well as of man and animals, is said to be strikingly manifest. This act provides for a "water-bailiff," whose duty it is to inspect the rivers, streams, water-courses, &c., and enforce the due maintenance of the banks, and the uninterrupted discharge of the waters at all times. COMPULSORY OUTFALLS. It often happens, especially in New England, where farms are small, and the country is broken, that an owner of valuable lands overcharged with water, perhaps a swamp or low meadow, or perhaps a field of upland, lying nearly level, desires to drain his tract, but cannot find sufficient fall, without going upon the land of owners below. These adjacent owners may not appreciate the advantages of drainage; or their lands may not require it; or, what is not unusual, they may from various motives, good and evil, refuse to allow their lands to be meddled with. Now, without desiring to be understood as speaking judicially, we know of no authority of law by which a land-owner may enter upon the territory of his neighbor for the purpose of draining his own land, and perhaps no such power should ever be conferred. All owners upon streams, great and small, have however, the right to the natural flow of the water, both above and below. Their neighbors below cannot obstruct a stream so as to flow back the water upon, or into, the land above; and where artificial water-courses, as ditches and drains have long been opened, the presumption would be that all persons benefitted by them, have the right to have them kept open. Parliament is held to be omnipotent, and in the act of 1847, known as Lord Lincoln's Act, its power is well illustrated, as is also the determination of the British nation that no trifling impediments shall hinder the progress of the great work of draining lands for agriculture. The act, in effect, authorizes any person interested in draining his lands, to clear a passage through all obstructions, wherever it would be worth the expense of works and compensation. Its general provisions may be found in the 15th Vol. of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. It is not the province of the author, to decide what may properly be done within the authority of different States, in aid of public or private drainage enterprises. The State Legislatures are not, like Parliament, omnipotent. They are limited by their written constitutions. Perhaps no better criterion of power, with respect to compelling contribution, by persons benefitted, to the cost of drainage, and with interfering with individual rights, for public or private advantage, can be found, than the exercise of power in the cases of fences and of flowage. If we may lawfully compel a person to fence his land, to exclude the cattle of other persons, or, if he neglect to fence, subject him to their depredations, without indemnity, as is done in many States; or if we may compel him to contribute to the erection of division fences, of a given height, though he has no animal in the world to be shut in or out of his field, there would seem to be equal reason, in compelling him to dig half a division ditch for the benefit of himself and neighbor. If, again, as we have already hinted, the Legislature may authorize a corporation to flow and inundate the land of an unwilling citizen, to raise a water-power for a cotton-mill, it must be a nice discrimination of powers, that prohibits the same Legislature from authorizing the entry into lands of a protesting mill-owner, or of an unknown or cross-grained proprietor, to open an outlet for a valuable, health-giving system of drainage. In the valuable treatise of Dr. Warder, of Cincinnati, recently published in New York, upon Hedges and Evergreens, an abstract is given of the statutes of most of our States, upon the subject of fences, and we know of no other book, in which so good an idea of the legislation on this subject, can be so readily obtained. By the statutes of Massachusetts, any person may erect and maintain a water-mill, and dam to raise water for working it, upon and across any stream that is not navigable, provided he does not interfere with existing mills. Any person whose land is overflowed, may, on complaint, have a trial and a verdict of a jury; which may fix the height of the dam, decide whether it shall be left open any part of the year, and fix compensation, either annual or in gross, for the injury. All other remedies for such flowage are taken away, and thus the land of the owner may be converted into a mill-pond against his consent. We find nothing in the Massachusetts statutes which gives to land-owners, desirous of improving their wet lands, any power to interfere in any way with the rights of mill-owners, for the drainage of lands. The statutes of the Commonwealth, however, make liberal and stringent provisions, for compelling unwilling owners to contribute to the drainage of wet lands. For the convenience of those who may be desirous of procuring legislation on this subject, we will give a brief abstract of the leading statute of Massachusetts regulating this matter. It may be found in Chapter 115 of the Revised Statutes, of 1836. The first Section explains the general object. When any meadow, swamp, marsh, beach, or other low land, shall be held by several proprietors, and it shall be necessary or useful to drain or flow the same, or to remove obstructions in rivers or streams leading therefrom, such improvements may be effected, under the direction of Commissioners, in the manner provided in this chapter. The statute provides that the proprietors, or a greater part of them in interest, may apply, by petition, to the Court of Common Pleas, setting forth the proposed improvements, and for notice to the proprietors who do not join in the petition, and for a hearing. The court may then appoint three, five, or seven commissioners to cause the improvements to be effected. The commissioners are authorized to cause dams or dikes to be erected on the premises, at such places, and in such manner as they shall direct; and may order the land to be flowed thereby, for such periods of each year as they shall think most beneficial, and also cause ditches to be opened on the premises, and obstructions in any rivers or streams leading therefrom to be removed. Provision is made for assessment of the expenses of the improvements, upon all the proprietors, according to the benefit each will derive from it, and for the collection of the amount assessed. "When the commissioners shall find it necessary or expedient to reduce or raise the waters, for the purpose of obtaining a view of the premises, or for the more convenient or expeditious removal of obstructions therein, they may open the flood-gates of any mill, or make other needful passages through or round the dam thereof or erect a temporary dam on the land of any person, who is not a party to the proceedings, and may maintain such dam, or such passages for the water, as long as shall be necessary for the purposes aforesaid." Provision is made for previous notice to persons who are not parties, and for compensation to them for injuries occasioned by the interference, and for appeal to the courts. This statute gives, by no means, the powers necessary to compel contribution to all necessary drainage, because, first, it is limited in its application to "meadow, swamp, marsh, beach, or other low land." The word _meadow_, in New England, is used in its original sense of flat and wet land. Secondly, the statute seems to give no authority to open permanent ditches on the land of others than the owners of such low land, although it provides for temporary passages for the purposes of "obtaining a view of the premises, or for the more convenient or expeditious removal of obstructions _therein_"--the word "therein" referring to the "premises" under improvement, so that there is no provision for outfalls, under this statute, except through natural streams. By a statute of March 28, 1855, the Legislature of Massachusetts has exercised a _power_ as extensive as is desirable for all purposes of drainage, although the provisions of the act referred to are not, perhaps, so broad as may be found necessary, in order to open outfalls and remove all obstructions to drainage. As this act is believed to be peculiar, we give its substance: "An Act to authorize the making of Roads and Drains in certain cases. "SECT. 1. Any town or city, person or persons, company or body corporate, having the ownership of low lands, lakes, swamps, quarries, mines, or mineral deposits, that, by means of adjacent lands belonging to other persons, or occupied as a highway, cannot be approached, worked, drained, or used in the ordinary manner without crossing said lands or highway, may be authorized to establish roads, drains, ditches, tunnels, and railways to said places in the manner herein provided. "SECT. 2. The party desiring to make such improvements shall file a petition therefor with the commissioners of the county in which the premises are situated, setting forth the names of the persons interested, if known to the petitioner, and also, in detail, the nature of the proposed improvement, and the situation of the adjoining lands." SECT. 3 provides for notice to owners and town authorities. SECT. 4 provides for a hearing, and laying out the improvement, and assessment of damages upon the respective parties, "having strict regard to the benefits which they will receive." SECT. 5 provides for repairs by a majority of those benefitted; and Sect. 6 for appeals, as in the case of highways. By an act of 1857, this act was so far amended as to authorize the application for the desired improvement, to be made to the Select-men of the town, or the Mayor and Aldermen of the city, in case the lands over which the improvement is desired are all situated in one town or city. It is manifest certainly, that the State assumes power sufficient to authorize any interference with private property that may be necessary for the most extended and thorough drainage operations. The power which may compel a man to improve his portion of a swamp, may apply as well to his wet hill-sides; and the power which may open temporary passages through lands or dams, without consent of the owner, may keep them open permanently, if expedient. LAND DRAINAGE COMPANIES. Besides the charters which have at various times, for many centuries, been granted to companies, for the drainage of fens and marshes, and other lowlands, in modern times, great encouragement has been given by the British Government for the drainage and other improvement of high-lands. Not only have extensive powers been granted to companies, to proceed with their own means, to effect the objects in view, but the Government itself has advanced money, by way of loan, in aid of drainage and like improvements. By the provisions of two acts of Parliament, no less than $20,000,000 have been loaned in aid of such improvements. These acts are generally known as PUBLIC MONEYS DRAINAGE ACTS. There are already four chartered companies for the same general objects, doing an immense amount of business, on _private_ funds. It will be sufficient, perhaps, to state, in general terms, the mode of operation under these several acts. Most lands in England are held under incumbrances of some kind. Many are entailed, as it is termed: that is to say, vested for life in certain persons, and then to go to others, the tenant for life having no power to sell the property. Often, the life estate is owned by one person, and the remainder by a stranger, or remote branch of the family, whom the life-tenant has no desire to benefit. In such cases, the tenant, or occupant, would be unwilling to make expensive improvements at his own cost, which might benefit himself but a few years, and then go into other hands. On the other hand, the remainder-man would have no right to meddle with the property while the tenant-for-life was in possession; and it would be rare, that all those interested could agree to unite in efforts to increase the general value of the estate, by such improvements. The great object in view was, then, to devise means, by which such estates, suffering for want of systematic, and often expensive, drainage operations, might be improved, and the cost of improvement be charged on the estate, so as to do no injustice to any party interested. The plan finally adopted, is, to allow the tenant or occupant to have the improvement made, either by expending his private funds, or by borrowing of the Government or the private companies, and having the amount expended, made a charge on the land, to be paid, in annual payments, by the person who shall be in occupation each year. Under one of these acts, the term of payment is fixed at 22 years, and under a later act, at 50 years. Thus, if A own a life-estate in lands, and B the remainder, and the estate needs draining, A may take such steps as to have the improvement made, by borrowing the money, and repaying it by yearly payments, in such sums as will pay the whole expenditure, with interest, in twenty-two or fifty years: and if A die before the expiration of the term, the succeeding occupants continue the payments until the whole is paid. A borrows, for instance, $1,000, and expends it in draining the lands. It is made a charge, like a mortgage, on the land, to be paid in equal annual payments for fifty years. At six per cent., the annual payment will be but about $63.33, to pay the whole amount of debt and the interest, in fifty years. A pays this sum annually as long as he lives, and B then takes possession, and pays the annual installment. If the tenant expend his own money, and die before the whole term expire, he may leave the unpaid balance as a legacy, or part of his own estate, to his heirs. The whole proceeding is based upon the idea, that the rent or income of the property is sufficiently increased, to make the operation advantageous to all parties. It is assumed, that the operation of drainage, under one of these statutes, will be effectual to increase the rent of the land, to the amount of this annual payment, for at least fifty years. The fact, that the British Government, after the most thorough investigation, has thus pronounced the opinion, that drainage works, properly conducted, will thus increase the rent of land, and remain in full operation a half century at least, affords the best evidence possible, both of the utility and the durability of tile drainage. CHAPTER XXII. DRAINAGE OF CELLARS. Wet Cellars Unhealthful.--Importance of Cellars in New England.--A Glance at the Garret, by way of Contrast.--Necessity of Drains.--Sketch of an Inundated Cellar.--Tiles best for Drains.--Best Plan of Cellar Drain; Illustration.--Cementing will not do.--Drainage of Barn Cellars.--Uses of them.--Actual Drainage of a very Bad Cellar described.--Drains Outside and Inside; Illustration. No person needs to be informed that it is unhealthful, as well as inconvenient, to have water, at any time of the year, in the cellar. In New England, the cellar is an essential part of the house. All sorts of vegetables, roots, and fruit, that can be injured by frost, are stored in cellars; and milk, and wine, and cider, and a thousand "vessels of honor," like tubs and buckets, churns and washing-machines, that are liable to injury from heat or cold, or other vicissitude of climate, find a safe retreat in the cellar. Excepting the garret, which is, as Ariosto represents the moon to be, the receptacle of all things useless on earth, the cellar is the greatest "curiosity shop" of the establishment. The poet finds in the moon, "Whate'er was wasted in our earthly state, Here safely treasured--each neglected good, Time squandered, and occasion ill-bestowed; There sparkling chains he found, and knots of gold, The specious ties that ill-paired lovers hold; Each toil, each loss, each chance that men sustain, Save Folly, which alone pervades them all, For Folly never quits this earthly ball." In the garret, are the old spinning wheel, the clock reel, the linen wheel with its distaff, your grandfather's knapsack and cartridge-box and Continental coat, your great-aunt's Leghorn bonnet and side-saddle, or pillion, great files of the village newspapers--the "_Morning Cry_" and "_Midnight Yell_," besides worn out trunks and boxes without number. In the cellar, are the substantiate--barrels of beef, and pork, and apples, "taters" and turnips; in short, the Winter stores of the family. Many, perhaps most, of the cellars in New England are in some way drained, usually by a stone culvert, laid a little lower than the bottom of the cellar, into which the water is conducted, in the Spring, when it bursts through the walls, or rises at the bottom, by means of little ditches scooped out in the surface. In some districts, people seem to have little idea of drains, even for cellars; and on flat land, endeavor to set their houses high enough to have their cellars above ground. This, besides being extremely inconvenient for passage out of, and into the house, often fails to make a dry cellar, for the water from the roof runs in, and causes a flood. And such accidents, as they are mildly termed by the improvident builders, often occur by the failure of drains imperfectly laid. No child, who ever saw a cellar afloat, during one of these inundations, will ever outgrow the impression. You stand on the cellar stairs, and below is a dark waste of waters, of illimitable extent. By the dim glimmer of the dip-candle, a scene is presented which furnishes a tolerable picture of "chaos and old night," but defies all description. Empty dry casks, with cider barrels, wash-tubs, and boxes, ride triumphantly on the surface, while half filled vinegar and molasses kegs, like water-logged ships, roll heavily below. Broken boards and planks, old hoops, and staves, and barrel-heads innumerable, are buoyant with this change of the elements; while floating turnips and apples, with, here and there, a brilliant cabbage head, gleam in this subterranean firmament, like twinkling stars, dimmed by the effulgence of the moon at her full. Magnificent among the lesser vessels of the fleet, "like some tall admiral," rides the enormous "mash-tub," while the astonished rats and mice are splashing about at its base in the dark waters, like sailors just washed, at midnight, from the deck, by a heavy sea. The lookers-on are filled with various emotions. The farmer sees his thousand bushels of potatoes submerged, and devoted to speedy decay; the good wife mourns for her diluted pickles, and apple sauce, and her drowned firkins of butter; while the boys are anxious to embark on a raft or in the tubs, on an excursion of pleasure and discovery. To avoid such scenes as the above, every cellar which is not upon a dry sandbank, should be provided with a drain of some kind, which will be at all times, secure. For a main drain from the cellar, four or six-inch tiles are abundantly sufficient, and where they can be reasonably obtained, much cheaper than stone. The expense of excavation, of hauling stone, and of laying them, will make the expense of a stone drain far exceed that of a tile drain, with tiles at fair prices. The tiles, if well secured at the inlet and outlet of the drain, will entirely exclude rats and mice, which always infest stone drains to cellars. Care must be taken, if the water is conducted on the surface of the cellar into the drain, that nothing but pure water be admitted. This may be effected by a fine strainer of wire or plate; or by a cess-pool, which is better, because it will also prevent any draft of air through the drain. The very best method of draining a cellar is that adopted by the writer, on his own premises. It is, in fact, a mere application of the ordinary principles of field drainage. The cellar was dug in sand, which rests on clay, a foot or two below the usual water-line in winter, and a drain of chestnut plank laid from the cellar to low land, some 20 rods off. Tiles were not then in use in the neighborhood, and were not thought of, when the house was built. In the Spring, water came up in the bottom of the cellar, and ran out in little hollows made for the purpose, on the surface. Not liking this inconvenient wetness, we next dug trenches a few inches deep, put boards at the sides to exclude the sand, and packed the trenches with small stones. This operated better, but the mice found pleasant accommodations among the stones, and sand got in and choked the passage. Lastly, tiles came to our relief, and a perfect preventive of all inconvenient moisture was found, by adopting the following plan: The drain from the cellar was taken up, and relaid 18 inches below the cellar-bottom, at the outlet. Then a trench was cut in the cellar-bottom, two feet from the wall, a foot deep at the farthest corner from the outlet, and deepening towards it, round the whole cellar, following the course of the walls. In this trench, two-inch pipe tiles were laid, and carefully covered with tan-bark, and the trenches filled with the earth. This tile drain was connected with the outlet drain 18 inches under ground, and the earth levelled over the whole. This was done two years ago, and no drop of water has ever been visible in the cellar since it was completed. The water is caught by the drain before it rises to the surface, and conducted away. Vegetables of all kinds are now laid in heaps on the cellar-bottom, which is just damp enough to pack solid, and preserves vegetables better, in a dry cellar, than casks, or bins with floors. A little sketch of this mode of draining cellars, representing the cellar referred to, will, perhaps, present the matter more clearly. [Illustration: Fig. 99--DRAINAGE OF CELLAR.] Many persons have attempted to exclude water from their cellars by cementing them on the bottom, and part way up on the sides. This might succeed, if the cellar wall were laid very close, and in cement, and a heavy coating of cement applied to the bottom. A moment's attention to the subject will show that it is not likely to succeed, as experience shows that it seldom, if ever, does. The water which enters cellars, frequently runs from the surface behind the cellar wall, where rats always keep open passages, and fills the ground and these passages; especially when the earth is frozen, to the surface, thus giving a column of water behind the wall six or eight feet in height. The pressure of water is always in proportion to its height or head, without reference to the extent of surface. The pressure, then, of the water against the cemented wall, would be equal to the pressure of a full mill-pond against its perpendicular dam of six or eight feet height! No sane man would think of tightening a dam, with seven feet head of water, by plastering a little cement on the down-stream side of it, which might as well be done, as to exclude water from a cellar by the process, and under the conditions, stated. DRAINAGE OF BARN CELLARS. Most barns in New England are constructed with good substantial cellars, from six to nine feet deep, with solid walls of stone. They serve a three-fold purpose; of keeping manure, thrown down from the cattle and horse stalls above; of preserving turnips, mangolds, and other vegetables for the stock; and of storing carts, wagons, and other farm implements. Usually, the cellar is divided by stone, brick, or wood partitions, into apartments, devoted to each of the purposes named. The cellar for manure should not be wet enough to have water flow away from it, nor dry enough to have it leach. For the other purposes, a dry cellar is desirable. Perhaps the details of the drainage of a barn cellar on our own premises, may give our views of the best mode of drainage, both for a manure cellar, and for a root and implement cellar. The barn was built in 1849, on a site sloping slightly to the south. In excavating for the wall, at about seven feet below the height fixed for the sills, we came upon a soft, blue clay, so nearly fluid that a ten-foot pole was easily thrust down out of sight, perpendicularly, into it! Here was a dilemma! How could a heavy wall and building stand on that foundation? A skillful engineer was consulted, who had seen heavy brick blocks built in just such places, and who pronounced this a very simple case to manage. "If," said he, "the mud cannot get up, the wall resting on it cannot settle down." Upon this idea, by his advice, we laid our wall, on thick plank, on the clay, so as to get an even bearing, and drove down, against the face of the wall, edge to edge, two-inch plank to the depth of about three feet, leaving them a foot above the bottom of the wall. Against this, we rammed coarse gravel very hard, and left the bottom of the cellar one foot above the bottom of the wall, so that the weight might counterbalance the pressure of the wall and building. The building has been in constant use, and appears not to have settled a single inch. The cellar was first used only for manure, and for keeping swine. It was quite wet, and grew more and more so every year, as the water found passages into it, till it was found that its use must be abandoned, or an amphibious race of pigs procured. It was known, that the most of the water entered at the north corner of the building, borne up by the clay which comes to within three feet of the natural surface; and, as it would be ruinous to the manure to leach it, by drawing a large quantity of water through it into drains, in the usual mode of draining, it was concluded to cut off the water on the outside of the building, and before it reached the cellar. Accordingly, a drain was started at the river, some twenty rods below, and carried up to the barn, and then eight feet deep around two sides of it, by the north corner, where most water came in. We cut through the sand, and four or five feet into the clay, and laid one course only of two-inch pipe-tiles at the bottom. As this was designed for a catch-water, and not merely to take in water at the bottom, in the usual way, we filled the trench, after covering the tiles with tan, with coarse sand above the level of the clay, and put clay upon the top. We believe no water has ever crossed this drain, which operates as perfectly as an open ditch, to catch all that flows upon it. The manure cellar was then dry enough, but the other cellar was wanted for roots and implements, and the water was constantly working up through the soft clay bottom, keeping it of the consistency of mortar, and making it difficult to haul out the manure, and everyway disagreeable. One more effort was made to dry this part. A drain was opened from the highway, which passes the barn, to the south corner; and about two and a half feet below the bottom of the cellar, along inside the wall, at about three feet distance from it, on two of the sides; and another in the same way, across the middle of the cellar. These, laid with two-inch tiles, and filled with gravel, were connected together, and led off to the wayside. The waste water of two watering places, one in the cellar, and another outside, supplied by an aqueduct, was conducted into the tiles, and thus quietly disposed of. The reason why the drains are filled with gravel is, that as the soft clay, in which the tiles were laid, could never have the heat of the direct rays of the sun on its surface, there might be no cracking of it, sufficient to afford passage for the water, and so this was made a catch-water to stop any water that might attempt to cross it. The work was finished last Autumn, and we have had but the experience of a single season with it; but we are satisfied that the object is attained. The surface of the implement cellar, which before, had been always soft and muddy, has ever since been as dry and solid as a highway in Summer; and the root cellar, which has a cemented bottom, is as dry as the barn floor. The manure can now be teamed out, without leaving a rut, and we are free to confess, that the effect is greater than we had deemed possible. The following cut will show at a glance, how all the drains are laid, the dotted lines representing the tile drains: [Illustration: Fig. 100.] The drain outside the barn, on the right, leads from a spring, some two hundred feet off, into the cellar and into the yard, and supplies water to the cattle, at the points indicated. The waste water is then conducted into the drains, and passes off. CHAPTER XXIII. DRAINAGE OF SWAMPS. Vast Extent of Swamp Lands in the United States.--Their Soil.--Sources of their Moisture.--How to Drain them.--The Soil Subsides by Draining.--Catch-water Drains.--Springs.--Mr. Ruffin's Drainage in Virginia.--Is there Danger of Over-draining? In almost, if not quite every State, extensive tracts of swamp lands are found, not only unfit, in their natural condition, for cultivation, but, in many instances, by reason of obnoxious effluvia, arising from stagnant water, dangerous to health. Of the vast extent of such lands, some idea may be formed, by adverting to the fact, that under the grants by Congress, of the public lands given away to the States in which they lie, as of no value to the Government and as nuisances to their neighborhood, in their natural condition; sixty millions of acres, it is estimated, will be included. These are only the public lands, and in the new States. In every township in New England, there are hundreds of acres of swamp land, just beginning to be brought to the notice of their owners, as of sufficient value to authorize the expense of drainage. To say that these swamps are the most fertile and the most valuable lands in New England, is but to repeat the assertion of all who have successfully tried the experiment of reclaiming them. In their natural state, these swamps are usually covered with a heavy growth of timber; but the greater portion of them have been partially cleared, and many of them are mowed, producing a coarse, wild, and nearly worthless grass. The soil of these tracts is usually a black mud or peat, partly the product of vegetable growth and decay on the spot, and partly the deposit of the lighter portion of the upland soil, brought down by the washing of showers, and by spring freshets. The leaves of the surrounding forest, too, are naturally dropped by the Autumn winds into the lowest places, and these swamps have received them, for ages. Usually, these lands lie in basins among the hills, sometimes along the banks of streams and rivers, always at the lowest level of the country, and not, like Irish bogs, upon hill-tops, as well as elsewhere. Their surface is, usually, level and even, as compared with other lands in the old States. Their soil, or deposit, is of various depth, from one foot to twenty, and is often almost afloat with water, so as to shake under the feet, in walking over it. The subsoil corresponds, in general, with that of the surrounding country, but is oftener of sand than clay, and not unfrequently, is of various thin strata, indicating an alluvial formation. Frogs and snakes find in these swamps an agreeable residence, and wild beasts a safe retreat from their common foe. Notoriously, such lands are unhealthful, producing fevers and agues in their neighborhood, often traceable to tracts no larger than a very few acres. In considering how to drain such tracts, the first inquiry is as to the source of the water. What makes the land too wet? Is it the direct fall of rain upon it; the influx of water by visible streams, which have no sufficient outlet; the downflow of rain and snow water from the neighboring hills; or the bursting up of springs from below? Examine and decide, which and how many, of these four sources of moisture, contribute to flood the tract in question. We assume, that the swamp is in a basin, or, at least, is the lowest land of the neighborhood. The three or four feet of rain water annually falling upon it, unless it have an outlet, must make it a swamp, for there can usually be no natural drainage downward, because the swamp itself is the lowest spot, and no adjacent land can draw off water from its bottom. Of course, there is lower land towards the natural outlet, but usually this is narrow, and quite insufficient to allow of drainage by lateral percolation. Then, always, more or less water must run upon the surface, or just below it, from the hills, and usually, a stream is found in the swamp, if none pours into it from above. The first step is a survey, to ascertain the fall over the whole, and the next, to provide a deep and sufficient outlet. Here, we must bear in mind a peculiarity of such lands. All land subsides, more or less, by drainage, but the soils of which we are speaking, far more than any other. Marsh and swamp lands often subside, or _settle_, one or two feet, or even more. Their soil, of fibrous roots, decayed leaves, and the like, almost floats; or, at least, expands like a sponge; and when it is compacted, by removing the water, it occupies far less space than before. This fact must be kept in mind in all the process. The outlet must be made low enough, and the drains must be made deep enough, to draw the water, after the subsidence of the soil to its lowest point. If a natural stream flow through, or from, the tract, it will usually indicate the lowest level; and the straightening and clearing out of this natural drain, may usually be the first operation, after opening a proper outlet. Then a catch-water open drain, just at the junction of the high and low land, entirely round the swamp, will be necessary to intercept the water flowing into the swamp. This water will usually be found to flow in, both on the surface, and beneath it, and in greater or less quantities, according to the formation of the adjacent land. This catch-water is essential to success. The wettest spot in a swamp is frequently, just at its edge, because there the surface-water is received, and because there too, the water that has come down on an impervious subsoil stratum, finds vent. It is in vain to attempt to lay dry a swamp, by drains, however deep, through its centre. The water has done its mischief, before it reaches the centre. It should be intercepted, before it has entered the tract, to be reclaimed. This drain must be deep, and therefore, must be wide and sloping, so that it may be kept open; and it should be curved round, following the line of the upland to the outlet. Often it has been found, in England, that a single drain, six or eight feet deep, has completely drained a tract of twenty or thirty acres, by cutting off all the sources of the supply of water, except that from the clouds. This kind of land is very porous and permeable, and readily parts with its water, and is easily drained; so that the frequent drains necessary on uplands, are often quite unnecessary. Many instances are given, of the effect of single deep drains through such tracts, in lowering the water in wells, or entirely drying them, at considerable distances from the field of operation. When the surface-water and shallow springs have thus been cut off, the drainer will soon be able to determine, whether he has effected a cure of his dropsical patient. Often it will be found, that deep seated springs burst up in the middle of these low tracts, furnishing good and pure water for use. These, being supplied by high and distant fountains, run under our deepest drains, and find vent through some fracture of the subsoil. They diffuse their ice-cold water through the soil, and prevent the growth of all valuable vegetation. To these, we must apply Elkington's system, and hit them _right in the eye_! by running a deep drain from some side or central drain, straight to them, and drawing off the water low enough beneath the surface to prevent injury. A small covered drain with two-inch pipes, will usually be sufficient to afford an outlet to any such spring. When we have thus disposed of the water from the surface-flow, the shallow springs and the deep springs, and given vent to the water accumulated and ponded in the low places, we have then accomplished all that is peculiar to this kind of drainage. We have still the water from the clouds, which is twice as much as will evaporate from a land-surface, to provide for. We assume that this cannot pass directly down by percolation, because the subsoil is already saturated; and therefore, even if all the other sources of wetness are cut off, we shall still have a tract of land too wet for wheat and corn. If the swamp be very small, these main ditches may sufficiently drain it; but if it be extensive, they probably will not. We have seen that we have some eighteen or twenty inches of water to be disposed of by drainage; so much that evaporation cannot remove consistently with good cultivation; and, although this amount might, in a very deep peaty soil, percolate to a great distance laterally, to find a drain, yet in shallow soil resting on a retentive subsoil, drains might be necessary at distances similar to those adopted on wet upland fields. To this part of the operation, we should, therefore, apply the ordinary principles of drainage, putting in covered drains with tiles, if possible, at four feet depth or more, ordinarily, and at distances of from forty to sixty feet, although four-foot drains at even one hundred feet distance, in peat and black mud, might often be found sufficient. Through the kindness of Edmund Ruffin, Esq., of Virginia, we have been furnished with three elaborate and valuable essays, on the drainage and treatment of flat and wet lands in lower Virginia and North Carolina, published in the Transactions of the Virginia State Agricultural Society, for 1857. The principal feature of his system is based upon his correct knowledge of the geological formation of that district; of the fact in particular, that, underlying the whole of that low country, there is a bed of pure sand lying nearly level, and filled with water, which may be drawn down by a few large deep drains, thus relieving the surface-soil of surplus water, by comprehensive but simple means. We have before referred to Mr. Ruffin as the publisher, more than twenty years ago, of "Elkington's Theory and Practice of Draining, &c., by Johnstone;" and we find in his recent essays, evidence of how thoroughly practical he has made the system of Elkington in his own State. Indeed, we know of no other American writer who records any instance of marked success in the use of Elkington's peculiar idea of releasing pent up waters by boring. Mr. Ruffin, however, has applied, with great success, this principle of operation, to the saturated sand-beds which underlie the tracts of low land in his district of country. These water-beds in the sand lie at depths varying usually from four to eight feet below the surface. This surface stratum is comparatively compact, and very slowly pervious to water before it is drained. The water from below, is constantly pressing slowly up through it, of course preventing any downward percolation of the rain-water. By running deep drains at wide intervals, and boring down through this surface stratum with an auger, the pent up water below finds vent and gushes up in copious springs through the holes, and flows off without coming nearer to the surface than the bottom of the drains; thus relieving the pressure upward, and lowering the water-line in proportion to the depth of the drains. Mr. Ruffin gives an instance of the drying up of a well half a mile distant, by cutting a deep drain into this sand-bed, and thus lowering its water-line. No doubt in many localities in our country, a competent geological knowledge may detect formations where this principle of drainage may be applied with perfect success, and with great economy. _Is there danger of over-draining swamp lands?_ In speaking of the injury by drainage, we have treated of this question. Our conclusions may be briefly stated here. There is an impression among English writers, that light peaty soils may be too much drained; but many distinguished drainers doubt the proposition. No doubt there are soils too porous and light to be productive, when first drained. They may require a season or two to become compact, and may require sand, or clay, or gravel, to give them the requisite density; but these soils would, we believe, be usually unproductive if shallow drained. In short, our idea is, that, in general, a soil so constituted as to be productive under any circumstances, will retain, by attraction, moisture enough for the crops, though intersected by four-foot drains at usual distances; and that cold water pumped up to the roots from a stagnant pool at the bottom, is not, either in nature or art, a successful method of irrigation. Still we believe that peaty soils may be usually drained at greater distances, or by shallower drains, than most uplands, because of their more porous nature; and we should advise inexperienced persons not to proceed with a lavish expenditure of labor to put in parallel drains at short distances, till they have watched, for a season, the operation of a cheaper system. They may thus attain the desired object, with the smallest expense. If the first drains are judiciously placed, and are found insufficient, others may be laid between the first, until the drainage is complete. CHAPTER XXIV. AMERICAN EXPERIMENTS IN DRAINAGE--DRAINAGE IN IRELAND. Statement of B. F. Nourse, of Maine.--Statement of Shedd and Edson, of Mass.--Statement of H. F. French, of New Hampshire.--Letter of Wm. Boyle, Albert Model Farm, Glasnevin, Ireland. It was part of the original plan of this work, to give a large number of statements from American farmers of their success in drainage; but, although the instances are abundant, want of space limits us to a few. These are given with such diagrams as will not only make them intelligible, but, it is hoped, will also furnish good examples of the arrangement and modes of executing drains, and of laying them down upon plans for future reference. The mode adopted by Shedd and Edson, of indicating the size of the pipes used, by the number of dots in the lines of drains, is original and convenient. It will be seen by close attention, that a two-inch pipe is denoted by dots in pairs, a three-inch pipe by dots in threes, and so on. It is believed that Mr. Nourse's experiment is one of the most thorough and successful works of drainage yet executed in America. His plan is upon page 195. STATEMENT OF B. F. NOURSE, ESQ. GOODALES CORNER, ORRINGTON, ME., Sept. 1st, 1858. MY DEAR SIR:--So much depends upon the preliminary surveys and "levels" for conducting works of thorough-draining and irrigation cheaply, yet to obtain the most beneficial results, that a competent person, such as an engineer or practiced land-drainer, should be employed to make them, if one can be obtained. Unfortunately for me, when I began this operation, some years ago, there were no such skilled persons in the country, or I could learn of none professionally such, and was forced to do my own engineering. Having thus practically acquired some knowledge of it, I use and enjoy a Summer vacation from other pursuits, in the prosecution of this; and this employment, for the last few weeks, has delayed my answer to your inquiries. Nor could I sooner arrive at the figures of cost, extent, &c., of this season's work. This is expected to be completed in ten days, and then I shall have laid, of Stone drains, including mains 702 rods Tile drains (two inches, or larger) 1043 " ---- In all 1745 " or, about five and one-half miles, laying dry, _satisfactorily_, about thirty-five acres. The character and extent of the work will better appear by reference to the plan of the farm which I send with this for your inspection. The earlier portion was fairly described by the Committee of the Bangor Hort. Soc.--(See Report, for 1856, of the Maine Board of Agriculture.) It was far too costly, as usual in works of a novel character conducted without practical knowledge. No part of my draining, even that of this season, has been done so cheaply as it ought to be done in Maine, and will be done when tiles can be bought at fair prices near at hand. I call your attention particularly to this, because the magnitude of the cost, as I represent it, ought not to be taken as a necessary average, or standard outlay per acre, by any one contemplating similar improvement, when almost any farmer can accomplish it equally well at far less cost. My unnecessary expenditures will not have been in vain, if they serve as a finger-post to point others in a profitable way. My land had upon its surface, and mingled in its super soil, a large quantity of stones, various in size, from the huge boulders, requiring several blasts of powder to reduce them to movable size, to the rubble stones which were shoveled from the cart into the drains. To make clean fields all these had to be removed, besides the many "heaps" which had been accumulated by the industry of my predecessors. A tile-drain needs no addition of stone above the pipe; indeed, the stone may be a positive injury, as harboring field vermin, or, if allowed to come within two feet of the surface, as obstructing deep tillage, and favoring the access of particles of soil upon or into the tile with the rapid access of water which they promote. Carefully placed to the depth of six or eight inches in a four-foot drain, quite small stones are, perhaps, useful, and they certainly facilitate the drawing of water from the surface. Such was, and still is, with many, the prescribed method of best drainage in Scotland, and some parts of England. The increased cost of adding the stone above the tile is obvious; and when the width of that drain is enlarged to receive them, the cost is materially enhanced. Yet such has been my practice, at first, under the impression of its necessity, and all the time from a desire to put to use, and out of sight, the small stones with which I was favored in such abundance. The entire cost of moving, and bringing more than 2,500 heavy loads of stone, is included in the cost of drains, as set down for the 1,745 rods. Including this part of expense, which is never _necessary_ with tile, and cannot be incurred in plain clay soils, or clay loams free of stones, the last 700 rods cost an average of 97 cents per rod completed. This includes the largest mains; of which, one of 73 rods was opened four feet wide at bottom of the trench, of which the channel capacity is 18 × 18 = 324 square inches, and others 110 rods of three and one-half and three feet width at bottom, all these mains being laid entirely with stone. The remainder of the 700 rods was laid with two-inch tile, which cost at the farm eighteen dollars per 1,000. These last were opened four rods apart, and lay dry about seventeen acres, at a cost, including the mains, of $678, or $40 per acre. In this is included every day's labor of man and beast, and all the incidental expenses, nothing being contributed by the farm, which is under lease. I infer that an intelligent farmer, beginning aright, and availing himself of the use of team and farm labor, when they can best be spared from other work--as in the dry season, after haying--or paying fair prices for digging his ditches only, and doing the rest of the work from the farm, can drain thoroughly at a cost of $20 per acre, drains four rods apart, and four feet deep; or at $25 per acre, forty feet apart, and three feet nine inches deep. My subsoil is very hard, requiring constant use of the pick, and sharpening of the picks every day, so that the labor of loosening the earth was one-third or one-half more than the throwing out with a shovel. The price paid per rod, for opening only, to the depth of three and a half feet (or, perhaps, three and three-quarters average,) of a width for laying tile, was 25 cents per rod. At this price, the industrious men, skillful with tools, earned $1.12 to $1.25 per day, besides board; and they threw out one-third more earth than was really necessary, for "room to work" as they said. _But they labored hard, 14 hours per day._ The same men, working in a soil free from stones, and an easier subsoil, would, in the same time, open from 50 to 100 per cent. more length of ditch. The greater part of these drains were laid four rods apart. When first trying this distance upon a field, of which the soil was called "springy and cold," and was always too wet in the Spring and early Summer for plowing, a partial, rather than "thorough" drainage was attempted, with the design, at some future day, to lay intermediate drains. The execution of that design may yet appear expedient, although the condition of soil already obtained, is satisfactory beyond expectation. Owing to the excess of water that saturated the soil in Spring and Fall, the former proprietors of the farm had not attempted the cultivation of the field alluded to, for many years. Originally producing heavy crops of hay, it had been mowed for thirty years or more, and was a good specimen of "exhausted land," yielding one-half or three-fourths of a ton of hay per acre. This field is designated in the plan, as the "barley field, 1858," lies south-west of the dwelling-house, and contains nearly six acres. Its northerly half, being the lower end of the field, was drained in 1855, having been Summer-plowed, and sowed with buckwheat, which was turned under, when in flower, as a fallow crop. The other half was drained in 1856; plowed and subsoiled the same Fall. In 1857, nearly the whole field was planted with roots--potatoes, rutabagas, mangolds, carrots, English turnips, &c.--and one acre in corn. For these crops, fair dressings of manure were applied--say ten or twelve cartloads of barn-manure plowed in, and one hundred pounds of either guano or bone-dust harrowed in, or strewed in the drill, for each acre; about fifteen loads per acre of seasoned muck or peat were also plowed in. There was a good yield of all the roots; for the corn, the season was unfavorable. Last Spring, a light dressing of manure, but all that we could afford, was applied, the whole well ploughed, harrowed, seeded to grass with barley, harrowed, and rolled. The barley was taken off last week; and, from the five and three-quarter acres, seventeen heavy loads were hauled into the barn, each estimated to exceed a ton in weight. The grain from a measured acre was put apart to be separately threshed, and I will advise of its yield when ascertained.[A] This was said, by the many farmers who saw it, including some from the Western States, to be the "handsomest field of grain" they had ever seen. The young grass looks well; and I hope, next Summer, to report a good cut of "hay from drained land." [Footnote A: This was threshed about the middle of November, and yielded "51 bushels, round measure." The entire field averaged 45 bushels per acre.] Last Winter, there were no snows to cover the ground for sleighing until March; and, lying uncovered, our fields were all frozen to an unusual depth. But, _our drains did not cease to run through the Winter_. And Mr. O. W. Straw, who works the farm, and was requested to note the facts accurately, wrote to me this Spring, "the frost came out of the drained land about one week first" (that is, earlier than from the undrained land adjacent); and, "in regard to working condition, the drained land was in advance of the undrained, ten days, at least." The absence of snow permitting this unusual depth of frost, had caused a rare equality of condition the last Spring, because, until the frost was out, the drains would not draw surface-water. Usually, when early snows have fallen to protect the ground, and it remains covered through the Winter, the frost goes off with the snow, _or earlier_, and, within a few days, the land becomes in good condition for plowing--quite two weeks earlier than the driest of my undrained fields, or any others in the vicinity. These remarks apply to land in which the drains are four rods apart. The farm lies with an inclination northerly and easterly, the fall varying from 1 in 33 to 1 in 8; that in most of the drains laid four rods apart, being about 1 in 25. The drains in the "barley field" fall 1 in 27, average, all affording a rapid run of water, which, from the mode of construction, and subsequent subsoiling, finds ready access to the drain-channels. Hence, we never observe running water upon the surface of any of our drained lands, either during the heaviest rains, or when snows are melting, and the wasteful "washing" from the surface that formerly injured our plowed grounds, has ceased. It is fair to suppose that it is the considerable descent which renders the drains so effectual at four rods apart; and that where there is but slight fall, other circumstances being the same, it would be necessary to lay drains much nearer, for equal service. The results of one man's experiments, or practice, whether of success or failure, should not be conclusive to another, unless all the circumstances are identical. These are ever varying from one farm to another; and only a right understanding of the natural laws or principles brought into use, can determine what is best in each case. Therefore, a description of the methods I have used, or any detailed suggestions I may give, as the result of experience, would not be worth much, unless tested by the well-ascertained rules applicable to them, which men of science and skill have adopted and proved, by the immensely extended draining operations in Great Britain, and those begun in this country. These are now given in elaborate treatises, and quoted in agricultural journals. But they should be made familiar to every farmer, in all their practical details, and with methods suited to our country, where labor is dear and land cheap, as contrasted with the reversed conditions in England, where the practice of "thorough-draining" has so generally obtained, and has so largely improved the conditions of both landlord and tenant. Your book will do this, and thus do a great good; for draining will greatly enlarge the productive capacity of our land, and, consequently, its value, while it will render labor more effective and more remunerative to the employer and the employed. The fact of increased production from a given quantity of land, by draining, being ascertained beyond question, and the measure of that increase, at its minimum, being more than the interest at six per cent. upon the sum required to effect it--even at $50 per acre--the question of expediency is answered. To the owner of tillage lands there is no other such safe, sure, and profitable investment for his money. He lodges it in a bank that will never suspend payments, and from which better than six per cent. dividend can be received annually. Very truly, yours, B. F. NOURSE. Hon. H. F. FRENCH, Exeter, N. H. STATEMENT OF SHEDD AND EDSON. BOSTON, February 1, 1859. DEAR SIR:--The plan for a system of thorough drainage, a copy of which we send you herewith, was executed for Mr. I. P. Rand, of Roxbury. An outfall was obtained, at the expense of considerable labor, by deepening the Roxbury and Dorchester Brook for a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile, about four hundred feet of which was through a rocky bottom, which required some blasting. The fall thus obtained was only about two inches in the whole distance. The fall which can be obtained for the main drain is less than two inches per hundred feet, but the lateral drains entering into the main, will have a fall varying from two inches to a foot per hundred. The contour lines, or lines traced along the ground, intersecting points on an equal level, are drawn on this plan, showing a fall of four-tenths of a foot, each line being in every part four-tenths of a foot lower than the line above it. Where the lines are near together, the fall is greater, as a less horizontal distance is passed over before reaching a point which is four-tenths lower than the line above. [Illustration: Thorough Drainage BY SHEDD & EDSON. AGR'L ENG'S BOSTON, 1859] It will be seen by the plan, that the fall in the line occupied by the main drain is very slight, while the side drains have a fall much greater. The lateral drains are run in the line of steepest descent, which is, of course, at right angles to the general direction of the contour lines. The water from the entire system is collected, and escapes at one outlet into the brook. A peep hole is placed at the intersection of the sub-main drain with the main, which commands about one-half the entire area--the other, half is commanded by the outlet. Two-inch tile will be laid in the lateral drains, and three, four, and five-inch in the sub-main and main. It is quite indispensable, to the successful execution of a plan of drainage on land so level as this, that careful measurements be made on the ground with an engineer's level, and such a representation of its surface projected as will show to the eye at a glance what all the natural inclinations are. The work can then be laid out with ease in the best position, and executed in a systematic manner. The time and labor which is devoted to such an examination of the ground is well spent, and, with the knowledge gained by it, the work can be carried on with such economy as to save the original cost of the examination many times over. Very truly, yours, SHEDD & EDSON Hon. H. F. FRENCH, Exeter, N. H. STATEMENT OF HENRY F. FRENCH, OF EXETER, N. H. The drained field represented in the plan (Fig. 102), contains about eight acres. I purchased it in 1846. The upper part of it is sand, with underlying clay at depths of from four to ten feet. The field slopes towards the river, and, on the slope, the clay strata coming out to the surface, naturally bring out the water, so that the side hill was so wet as to produce cranberries--quite too wet for any hoed crop. At the foot of the hill the soil is a stiff clay, with veins of sand and gravel. Through the centre was a wet ravine, which served as a natural outlet for the springs, and which was so full of black alders as to make an excellent cover for woodcock. Until the land was drained, this ravine was impassable in the hay season even, except by a bridge which I built across it. Now it may be crossed at any season and at any point. I first attempted to drain the wettest parts with brush drains, running them into the wet places merely, and succeeded in drying the land sufficiently to afford good crops of hay. I laid one brush-drain across the brow of the hill, five feet deep, hoping to cut off all the water, which I supposed ran along upon the surface of the clay. This dried the land for a few rods, but the water still ruined the lower parts of the field, and the drain produced very little effect upon the land above it. In 1856, finding my brush drains quite insufficient, I thorough-drained the side-hill on the lower part of the plan at the reader's left hand, at fifty feet distances, up and down the slope, at an average of about four feet depth, going five feet deep on the brow of the hill, to cut through the brush-drain. I used two-inch sole-tiles for minors, and three-inch for the main. The effect was instantaneous. The land which, in the Spring of 1856, had been so wet that it could not, even though partially drained with brush-drains, be planted till the 5th of June, was, in 1857, ready to work as soon as the snow was off. My farm journal says, under date of April 6th, "plowed drained land with double plow two days after a heavy storm--dry enough." I spent that Summer in Europe. The land was planted with corn, which produced a heavy crop. I find an entry in my journal, on my return, "My drained land has been in good condition--neither too wet nor too dry--all Summer." In the Fall of 1857, I laid about 170 rods in other parts of the field, at similar depths and distances, and in 1858 completed the upper part, on which is an orchard of apple trees. A part of this orchard was originally so wet as to kill the trees the first year, but by brush-drains I dried it enough to keep the next set alive. There was no water visible at the surface, and the land was dry enough for corn and potatoes; still the trees looked badly, and many were winter-killed. I had learned the formation of the earth about my premises, of which I had at first no adequate conception, and was satisfied that no fruit tree could flourish with its feet in cold water, even in Winter. All nursery-men and fruit-growers agree, that land must be well drained for fruit. I therefore laid four-foot tile drains between the rows of trees, in this apparently dry sand. We found abundance of water, in the driest season, at four feet, and it has never ceased to flow copiously. I measured accurately the discharge of water from the main which receives the drainage of about one and a half acres of the orchard, at a time when it gave, what seemed to me an average quantity for the Winter months, when the earth was frozen solid, and found it to be about 480 barrels per day! The estimate was made by holding a bucket, which contained ten quarts, under the outlet, when it was found that it would fill in fifteen seconds, equal to ten gallons per minute; and six hundred gallons, or twenty barrels per hour, and four hundred and eighty barrels per day. I have seen the same drain discharge at least four times that quantity, at some times! The peep-holes give opportunity for inspection, and I find the result to be, that the water-table is kept down four feet below the surface at all times, except for a day or two after severe rain-storms. There is an apparent want of system in this plan, partly to be attributed to my desire to conform somewhat to the line of the fences, and partly to the conformation of the land, which is quite uneven. At several points near the ravine, springs broke out, apparently from deep fountains, and short drains were run into them, to keep them below the surface. The general result has been, to convert wet land into early warm soil, fit for a garden, to render my place more dry and healthful, and to illustrate for the good of the community the entire efficiency of tile-drainage. The cost of this work throughout, I estimate at fifty cents per rod, reckoning labor at $1 per day, and tiles at $12 per thousand, and all the work by hand-tools. I think in a few years, we may do the same work at one-half this cost. Further views on this point are given in the chapter on the "Cost of Drainage." After our work was in press, we received from Mr. William Boyle, Farmer at the Albert Model Farm in Ireland, the paper which is given below, kindly sent in reply to a series of questions proposed by the author. The Albert Model Farm is one of the Government institutions for the promotion of agriculture, by the education of young men in the science and the practice of farming; and from what was apparent, by a single day's examination of the establishment in our visit to it in August, 1857, we are satisfied of its entire success. The crops then growing were equal, if not superior, to any we have seen in any country. Much of the land covered by those crops is drained land; and having confidence that the true principles of drainage for that country must be taught and practiced at this institution, we thought it might be instructive, as well as interesting to the farmers of America, to give them the means of comparison between the system there approved, and those others which we have described. Had the paper been sooner received, we should have referred to it earlier in our book; yet coming as it does, after our work was mostly in type, we confess to some feeling of satisfaction, at the substantial coincidence of views entertained at the Albert Model Farm, with our own humble teachings. With many thanks to Mr. Boyle for his valuable letter, which we commend to our readers as a reliable exposition of the most approved principles of land-draining for Ireland, we give the paper entire: ALBERT MODEL FARM, Glasnevin, Dublin, January 31, 1859. To the Hon. HENRY F. FRENCH, Exeter, N. H.: SIR:--Your queries on land-drainage have been too long unanswered. I have now great pleasure in sending you, herewith, my views on the points noted. * * * Pray excuse me for the delay in writing. I am, sir, Your obliged and obedient servant, WILLIAM BOYLE. LAND DRAINAGE--REPLIES TO QUERIES, ETC. _Introductory observations._ Ireland contains close on to twenty-one millions of acres, thirteen and a half millions of which were returned as "arable land," in 1841. By "Arterial" and thorough-drainage, &c., effected through loans granted by government, the extent of arable land has been increased to fifteen and a half millions of acres. The "Board of Works" has the management of the funds granted for drainage and land improvements generally, and competent inspectors are appointed to see that the works are properly executed. The proprietor, or farmer, who obtains a loan may, if competent, claim and obtain the appointment of overseer on his own property, and thus have an opportunity of economically expending the sum which he will have to repay (principal and interest) by twenty-two installments. The average cost of thorough-drainage, under the Board of Works, has been about £5 per statute acre. In 1847, when government granted the first loan for land-drainage, tiles were not so easily obtained as at present, nor was tile-drainage well understood in this country; and the greater part of the drains then made--and for some years after--were either sewered with stones, formed into a conduit of various dimensions, and covered over with finely-broken stones, or the latter were filled into the bottom of the drain, to about one foot in depth, as recommended by Smith, of Deanston. The dimensions for minor drains, sewered with stones, were, usually, three and a half feet deep, fifteen inches wide at top, and three to four inches wide at bottom (distance apart being twenty-one feet); and the overseer carried about with him a wooden gauge, of a size to correspond, so that the workmen could see at a glance what they had to do. These drains are reported to have given general satisfaction; and they were cheaply made, as the stones were to be had in great abundance in almost every field. On _new_ land, trenching was sometimes carried on simultaneously with the drainage; and it very often happened that the removal of the stones thus brought to the surface, was very expensive; but they were turned to profitable account in sewering drains and building substantial fences. In almost every case the drains were made in the direction of the greatest inclination, or fall of the land; and this is the practice followed throughout the country. Some exceptions occur on _hill-sides_, where I have seen the drains laid off at an acute angle with the line of inclination. It is not necessary that I should explain the scientific reasons for draining in the direction of the fall of the land, as that point has been fully treated of, and well illustrated, in your article already referred to. I shall now pass on to the Queries. [Illustration: Thorough Drainage BY HENRY F. FRENCH. EXETER N.H.] _Depth of drains, and distance apart._ There is still a great diversity of opinion on these points, and particularly in reference to the drainage of stiff clay soils; some of the most intelligent and practical farmers in this country hold to the opinion that, on such soils, the maximum depth should not exceed three feet, and the distance apart sixteen to twenty feet. On clay loams, having a subsoil more or less free, the general practice is, to make the drains three and a half to four feet deep, and at twenty-one to thirty feet apart. On lighter soils, having a free subsoil, four feet deep and forty feet apart are the usual limitations. This farm may be taken as a fair average of the land in Ireland, as a test for drainage; the soil is a deep clay loam; the subsoil a compact mixture of strong clay and calcareous gravel, almost free from stones. Thirty miles of drains have been made on the farm, the least distance apart being twenty-one feet, and the greatest distance thirty feet; the depth in every case, three and a half to four feet for minor drains. This drainage has given the greatest satisfaction; for although the greatest part of the work was performed by the Agricultural pupils, in training here, we have not had occasion to re-make a single drain, except in one instance, where the tiles got choked, and which I shall explain hereafter. _Tiles: Size, Shape, Draining, Capacity, &c._ We use circular pipe tiles, of inch and a half bore, for all parallel drains whose length does not exceed one hundred yards, and two-inch pipes for any additional length up to one hundred and fifty yards, the greatest length, in my opinion, a parallel drain should reach before discharging into a main or sub-main drain. We do not find it necessary to use collars on this farm, as we have _firm_ ground to place the tiles on, and we can cut the drain to fit the tiles exactly. As regards the size of tiles for main and sub-main drains, _that_ can only be regulated by the person in charge of the drainage at any particular place, after seeing the land opened up and the minor drains discharging. As a general rule, a circular pipe of three inches internal diameter will discharge the _ordinary_ drainage of five or six statute acres, and give sufficient space for the circulation of air. It should be observed, however, that this applies to a district where the annual rain-fall is from twenty-six to thirty inches, that of all Ireland being about thirty-five inches; besides, we have not the immense falls of rain in a _few hours_ that occur in other countries. All these points should be carefully considered in estimating the water-way for drainage. I have said that collars are not used with the tiles on this farm, as the bottom of the drains is quite firm and even; but, where the bed for the tile is soft, and the subsoil is of a _shifting_ nature, then collars should be used in every case. Collars cost about half the price of tiles, which they are made to connect, so that the use of them adds one-third to the expense of the sewering material; and, as I have already pointed out, I think it quite unnecessary to use them where the subsoil is _firm_, and where the drain can be bottomed to _fit the tile_. Where large pipes are not to be had conveniently for sewering main or sub-drains, I find a proportional number of pipes of lesser diameter to answer perfectly. It is very desirable to provide _branch pipes_ for connecting the minor with the main drains. The branch should be socketed to receive the end of the last tile in the minor drain, and the point of attachment to the main pipe may be on the top or on the side of the latter. If the branch be made to lead the water into the side of the main pipe, then it should join the latter at an acute angle, that both streams may meet with the least possible opposition of forces. _Fall necessary in Tile Drainage._ I consider one foot in one hundred yards the _least_ fall to work upon with safety. _Securing Outlets._ All the outlets from main-drains should be well secured against the intrusion of vermin, by a wrought-iron grating, built in mason-work. The water may flow into a stone trough provided with an overflow-pipe, by which the quantity discharged may be ascertained at any time, so as to compare the drainage before and after rain, &c. _Traps, or Silt Ponds._ Where extensive drainage is carried on in low-lying districts, and the principal outlet at a considerable distance, it may be found necessary to have traps at several points where the silt from the tiles will be kept. These traps may be of cast-iron, or mason-work, cemented; and provision should be made, by which they can be cleaned out and examined regularly--the drainage at these periods also undergoing inspection at the different traps. _Plow-Draining._ We have no draining-plows in use in Ireland, that I know of; the common plow is sometimes used for marking off the drains, cutting the sides, and throwing out the earth to a considerable depth, thereby lessening the manual labor considerably. Efforts have been made in England to produce an efficient implement of this description; but it would appear there is ample room for an inventive Jonathan to walk in for a profitable patent in this department, and thus add another to the many valuable ones brought out in your great country. _Case of Obstruction in Tiles._ Some years since, one of the principal main-drains on this farm was observed not discharging the water freely, as it hitherto had done, after a heavy fall of rain; and the land adjoining it showed unmistakable signs of wetness. The drain was opened, and traced to the point of obstruction, which was found to be convenient to a _small poplar tree_, the rootlets of which made their way into the tiles, at the depth of five and a half feet, and completely filled them, in the direction of the stream, for several yards. We have some of the tiles (horse-shoe) in our museum here, as they were then lifted from the drain, showing clearly the formidable nature of the obstruction. Another serious case of obstruction has come to my knowledge, occasioned by frogs or toads getting into the tiles of the main-drain in large numbers, on account of the outlet being insufficiently protected. In this case, a large expenditure had to be incurred, to repair the damage done. I have not observed any case of obstruction from the roots of our cultivated plants. It has been said by some that the rootlets of mangold will reach the drains under them; and, particularly, where the drains contain most water in rapid motion. I took up the tiles from a drain on this farm, in '54, which had been laid down (by a former occupier), about the year '44, at a depth not exceeding two-and-a-half feet, and not one of these was obstructed in the least degree, although parsnips, carrots, cabbages, mangolds, &c., had been grown on this field. Obstructions may occur through the agency of _mineral_ springs; but very few cases of this nature are met with, at least in this country. I would anticipate this class of obstruction, if from the nature of the land there was reason to expect it, by increasing the fall in the drains and having _traps_ more frequent, where the main outlets are at a distance to render them necessary. In my opinion, the roots of trees are the great intruders to be guarded against, and more particularly the _soft_-wooded sorts, such as poplars, willows, alders, &c. The distance of a drain from a tree ought always to be equal to the height of the latter. _Tiles flattening in the drying process._ With this subject, I am not practically familiar. In most tile-works, the tiles, after passing through the moulding-machine, are placed horizontally on shelves, which rise one above another to any convenient height, on which the tiles are dried by means of heated flues which traverse the sheds where the work is carried on; or they are allowed to dry without artificial heat. I prefer the tiles prepared by the latter method, as, if sufficient time be given them to be well dried, they will burn more equally, and be more durable. The tiles will flatten more or less for the first day or two on the shelves, after which they are _rolled_. This is done by boys (who are provided with pieces of wood of a diameter equal to the bore of the tile when made), who very soon learn to get over a large number daily. The "roller" should have a shouldered handle attached, the whole thickness of which should not be greater than that of the tile. The _shoulder_ is necessary to make the _ends_ of the tiles even, that there may be no _very open_ joints when they are placed in a drain. Once rolled, the tiles are not likely to flatten again, if the operation be performed at the proper time. As good tiles as I ever saw were dried in a different way, and not rolled at all. As they were taken from the machine--six at a time--each carrier passed off with his tray, and placed them _on end_ carefully, upon an _even floor_. When five or six rows of tiles were thus placed, the whole length of the drying-house, a board was set on edge to keep them from falling to one side; then followed five or six other rows of tiles, and so on, till the drying-ground was filled. This was the plan adopted in a tilery near Dublin, some years ago. It is only a few days since I examined some of the tiles made at these works, which had been taken from a drain, where they had been in use for nine years; and the _clear ringing sound_ produced by striking them against each other, showed what little effect that length of time produced upon them, and how well they had been manufactured. _Cost of Tiles._ We have recently paid at the works-- For 1-1/2 inch pipes 17s. 6d. per thousand. " 2 " 25s. " " 3 " 45s. " Each tile one foot in length, and the one and one-half-inch pipes weighing 16 cwt. per thousand. One of the great difficulties in connection with tile-making is, in many districts, to procure clay sufficiently free from lime. Tiles are very often sold by sample, sent a considerable distance, and it becomes necessary to test them, which we do (for lime) by placing them in water for a night; and, if lime is present in the tile, it will, of course, swell out, and break the latter, or leave it in a riddled state. I have now endeavored to answer the queries in your postscript, and I have carefully avoided enlarging on some points in them with which your readers are already familiar. If I shall have thrown a single ray of additional light on this subject across the Atlantic, I shall be amply repaid for any attention I have given to thorough-drainage during the past twelve years. I should here observe that I mislaid amongst my papers the portion of your letter containing the queries (it was a separate sheet), and it has not as yet turned up, so that I had to depend on a rather treacherous memory to keep the queries in my mind's eye. It is highly probable, therefore, that I have overlooked some of them. This circumstance was the chief cause of the delay in writing. You are quite at liberty to make any use you please of this communication. WILLIAM BOYLE. INDEX. Absorption of moisture; 303, 304, 322 " Fertilizing substances; 268 Aeration; 269, 276 Albert Model Farm; 375 American experiments; 367 Anderson, J. F.; 112 Arrangement of drains; 173 Artesian Wells; 83 Attraction, adhesive; 301 " capillary; 302 " of soils for vapor; 304 Auger, Elkington's; 35, 246 Bache, Prof.; 65 Back water; 181 Barn cellar; 356-359 Bergen, Mr.; 199 Birmingham spades; 240 Bletonism; 36 Blodgett, Lorin; 51, 59 Bligh, Captain; 24, 27 Bogs; 91 Boning-rod; 234 Bore, form of; 129 Boring; 35, 365 Boring tools; 35, 346 Boyle, Wm.; 375 Branch pipes; 196, 378 Bricks, draining; 121, 144 " cost of; 204 Brush drains; 104, 105 Capacity of pipes; 131, 132, 134, 201 Capillary attraction; 302 Cellars, drainage of; 351-359 Challoner's Level; 235 Clay soil; 167, 329 Clays, drainage of; 322-332 Clays, cracking of; 275, 324-331 Collars; 47, 126, 127, 128, 219, 316, 320, 378 Cold from evaporation; 63, 272 Cost of drainage; 211-224, 309, 376 " tiles; 201-205, 381 Count Rumford; 272, 273, 287 _Country Gentleman_; 16, 198, 329 Crisp, Thomas; 203 Custis, G. W. P.; 18 Dams; 333, 347 Deanston system; 37 Delafield; 46, 76, 168 Denton, J. Bailey; 21, 161 " Letter from; 200 Depth of drains; 164-173, 326, 328, 377 Directions how to lay drains; 252-258 Dew, cause of; 305 " increased by drainage; 284, 306 " imparts warmth; 307 Dew-point; 65, 66, 306 Dickinson, A. B.; 108 Direction of drains; 146-155 Distance " ; 155-164, 377 Ditch diggers; 247-251 Drainage acts; 349 " companies; 333 " effects of; 258-276 " methods of; 99-120 " water of; 60, 61, 339 Drainage, will it pay? 95 Drain bricks; 121, 144 Drains of brush; 104 " larch tubes; 111 " plug; 106 " of poles; 113 " rails; 112 " stones; 114-119 " wedge; 110 " run before rain; 269, 270 Drought, drains prevent; 281-286, 300 Dry Wells; 197, 198 Durability of drains; 141-145 Elkington's system; 27, 33, 240, 365 Embankment; 18 Emerson, R. W.; 15, 23 Engineering; 163, 213 England; 19, 340 " wet land in; 89 English tools; 243 Evaporation; 48, 61, 62, 293-297 " cold from; 63, 272, 293-297 " from land; 62, 69, 72 " " water; 62, 69, 73 Excavation; 165 " cost of; 165, 201, 214 " table of; 216 Experiments, American; 367, 376 Factory reservoirs; 341-343 Fall in drains; 174, 378 Fences; 211, 346 Filtration; 41, 60, 61 Filtration tables of; 70, 71 Fitzherbert; 23 Flat-bottomed tiles; 129 Flowage, effects of; 333, 341, 343, 346 Flushing drains; 186 Freezing out; 75, 262 " of pipes; 171 French's plan; 373 Friction of water; 131, 133 Frost; 67, 143, 170, 172, 297, 299 Fruit trees; 298, 374 Furrows; 195 Gauge; 246 Germination; 276-281 Gillis, Lieut.; 65 Gisborne; 122, 126 Gravitation; 131 Grading drains; 233 Gratings at outlets; 183 Great Britain; 89 " wet lands in; 89 Greeley, Horace; 88 Haarlaem, Lake; 19 Headers; 153, 154 Heat in wet land; 288-290 " water; 272, 273 Hobbs, Doctor; 51, 54, 56 Holyoke, Doctor; 62 Horse-shoe tiles; 124 Implements; 225, 252 Indications of moisture; 93 Injury by drainage; 308, 313 Ireland, drainage in; 376 Irrigation; 14 Irish spade; 238 Johnson, B. P.; 17 Johnston, John; 46, 168, 256, 262, 328, 329 Johnstone; 28, 31, 120 Joints, how covered; 255 " spaces at; 134, 140 Junction of drains; 195, 196 Keythorpe system; 40 Klippart, J. H.; 16 Land Drainage Companies; 349 Larch tubes; 111 Lardner, Dr.; 270 Laying out drains; 213, 253 Laying tiles; 219, 252-258 Legal rights to water; 85, 86, 346 Legislation; 340 Levelling instruments; 229-235 Lincolnshire fens; 19, 310 Lines, use of; 233, 253 Lord Lincoln's Act; 347 Madden, Doctor; 276 Mains, position and size of; 190-194 Mangolds, obstruction by; 316, 317, 379 Mapes, Prof.; 16, 167 Massachusetts, laws; 347 Mechi, Sheriff; 260, 339 Methods of drainage; 99 Mice; 104, 116, 315 Mill dams; 340-344 Mill streams; 89, 333 Minors; 194 Moisture, sources of; 78 Moles; 104, 116 Mole drains; 107 Mole Plow; 108 Moon, influence of; 306 Morris, Edward; 60 Nash, Prof.; 199 Nene River; 337 New York Park; 47, 219 Nourse, B. F.; 285, 299, 367 " statement and plan of; 195, 367, 372 Obstruction of drains; 313-320 " by sand; 313, 321 " by frogs, &c.; 183, 315, 379 " per-oxide of iron; 317 " roots; 315, 316, 379 " filling at joints; 319 Open ditches; 99, 263 " objections to; 101, 102 Opening ditches; 252 Outfalls; 345 Outlets; 176-183, 219, 252, 257, 315, 378 Over-draining peats; 309, 366 Parkes, Josiah; 25, 38, 40, 128 Paul's ditcher; 250 Peat tiles; 113 Peats, over-draining of; 309, 366 Peep-holes; 187, 188, 321, 373 Per-oxide of iron; 317 Pettibone, J. S.; 329 Picks; 245 Pipes; 47, 122, 123, 144 " capacity of; 131-138, 159, 191, 193 " cost in England; 201, 204 " " United States; 202-205, 218 " position of; 190-194 Pipe layer; 244, 245 Plans of drains; 195, 372, 377 " importance of; 161 Plow, use of; 253, 379 Plow, Fowler's drain; 247, 248 " Shanghae; 109 Paul's ditcher; 250 Routt's; 251 Plug drains; 107 Pole drain; 113 Pratt's Ditch digger; 248, 249 Pressure of water; 131, 132, 331, 332, 356 " water of; 84 Process of draining; 252-258 Puddling; 198, 266, 323 Pulverization; 260, 282, 299 Rain; 48, 158, 159, 284 Rain-fall; 50, 158, 378 Rain-fall, tables of; 53-60, 70-73 Relief pipes; 184, 186 Reservoirs; 341, 343 Ridge and furrow; 195 Rolling pipes; 205, 380 Roots, length of; 258, 259, 283 " obstruction by; 315, 316, 379 Round pipes; 47, 122 Rumford, Count; 272, 273, 287 Ruffin, Edmund, Esq.; 29, 364 Rye and Derwent; 344 Saturation; 66 Scoops; 244 Screens at outlets; 183 Season lengthened; 261 Shallow drains; 168 Shanghae plow; 109 Shedd and Edson; 21, 51, 372 Shoulder drain; 110 Shovels; 236, 237 Silt basin; 186, 379 Sinkholes; 198 Size of tiles; 190, 201, 377 Smith, of Deanston; 26, 37 Snow, fall of; 59 Sole-tile; 125 Spades; 235, 236, 240-242 Spirit level; 230 Springs; 78-83 " drainage of; 34 " run before rain; 270-271 " how to preserve; 189 Staff and target; 231 Stagnant water; 93 Stone drains; 114-119, 377 " cost of; 114, 222 Stones above tiles; 118 Streams affected by drainage; 333-340 Subsoil plow; 169 Subsoiler, Marcus and Co.'s; 107 Surface washing prevented; 261 Swallow-holes; 197, 198 Swamps; 91, 360 " drainage of; 360-363 Swamp-lands; 17 Swan, R. J.; 168 System, importance of; 160, 173 Tables of evaporation; 72, 73 " excavation; 216 " filtration; 70, 71 " rain-fall; 53-59, 71-73 " of tiles to acre; 220 " number of rods; 220 " capacity of pipes; 135-138 Talpa; 23 Temperature; 67, 189, 280, 287-300 " underground; 187, 288, 291 " for vegetation; 271 Thermometer, wet and dry; 64, 65 Thomas, J. J.; 229 Tile-drainage; 120 Tiles, cost in England; 201, 212 " " United States; 201-205 " forms of; 122-130 " length of; 221 " size of; 130-138 " weight of; 219 " number to the acre; 220 Tile machines; 46, 202-210 Tile-works; 47, 121 Tools; 225-246 Tops and bottoms; 140, 319, 379 Traps; 185, 186, 379, 380 Velocity of water; 131 Vermin; 104 Virginia; 18, 364 Warder, Doctor; 346 Water, how it enters; 138, 314, 320 " stagnant; 93 " of drainage, uses of; 189, 339 " velocity of; 131 Water passage; 129 Water-line; 51, 139 Water-powers; 333, 335, 341-345 Water of pressure; 84, 161 Water, pressure of; 84, 140, 141 " rights in; 85, 86 Wedge drain; 110, 236 Weight of tiles; 219, 381 Wells, drainage into; 197-199 " dried by drains; 85, 366 Well and relief-pipe; 184-186 Well with silt trap; 186 Wharncliffe system; 44 Width of ditches; 215-218, 226 Wright, Gov.; 17 Yeomans, T. G.; 46, 108 * * * * * Transcriber's Note: Summarized here are the corrections applied to the text. List of Engravings: Drain Gauge "Gauge" was printed as "Guage" H. F. French's Drainage 376 the page number was printed as "374" unmindful of their obligations to him "unmindful" was printed as "unmindul" of gauging the quantity of water traveling along an important drain "gauging" was printed as "guaging" were removed, a pond would remain "would" was unreadable in the Original knowledge of the subject "knowledge" was printed as "knowlege" That drains will long continue to be opened in this vast country by hand labor "vast" was printed as "fast" the greater permanency of tiles "permanency" was printed as "permanancy" have come to our knowledge "knowledge" was printed as "knowlege" lay drains deep enough to be beyond the danger of water bursting in "bursting" was printed as "brusting" people of Great Britain "Britain" was printed as "Britian" The farmer sees his thousand bushels of potatoes submerged "potatoes" was printed as "potatos" the temperature at the latter depth "the" was printed twice representing the cellar referred to "cellar" was printed as "celler" and another outside "another" was printed as "auother" becomes necessary to test them "to" was printed twice