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CHARLES WILLIAM WASON
COLLECTION
CHINA AND THE CHINESE
THE GIFT OF
CHARLES WILLIAM WASON
CLASS OF 1876
1918
ell University Library
hii
THE STORY OF
THE PANAMA CANAL
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PUoSaS JIT JOOP o1qNo QOO'S| JO OVA OWT VU oyLT] uNIeL) WOdy 24YoStIp BUloq Si Jaye POOL
“AVMTUdS NOALVO
The Story of
The Panama Canal
BY
LOGAN MARSHALL
Author of ‘‘ The Story of Polar Conquest; ’’
‘“‘The Universal Handbook,” Etc., Etc.
WWlustrated
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA CHiIcaGco
CoprricHut, 1913
By L. T. MYERS
COLUMBUS AND THE INDIAN MAIDEN.
This beautiful bronze statue of the Great Discoverer overlooks the Atlantic entrance to the
Canal, beholding at last the ‘' New Route to India.”
Io the
MEN ON THE ISTHMUS
WHO AMIDST DIFFICULTIES AND DISCOMFORTS HAVE DEVOTED
THE BEST THAT’S IN THEM TO THEIR COUNTRY’S WORK
PREFACE
No material work of man since the creation of the world
has had so deep and widespread an influence upon the
affairs of mankind in general as that which may cal-
culably be expected to ensue from the achievement of
the Panama Canal. The results will be seen in commer-
cial, political, social, and even religious, effects. It will
make and mar the fortunes of nations. Cousin, the French
philosopher, has said: ‘‘Tell me the geography of a country
and I will tell you its destiny.” By creating important
modifications in the geographical relations of certain com-
munities the Canal will be the means of bringing about
great and lasting changes which are beyond the range
of accurate forethought. We can, however, predict an
enormous gain to this country from the stupendous enter-
prise which has been brought to a brilliant and success-
ful conclusion.
No task has ever been undertaken before which can
compare with it either in magnitude or difficulty, and the
great waterway will stand forever a monument to the
dauntless courage, infinite resourcefulness, ingenuity and
administrative ability of the American people. Ten years
have passed since the United States undertook the work,
years of struggling against all the forces of nature, hard-
(7)
8 PREFACE
ships and disease which would have tried the patience and
resources of any other nation to the breaking point. In
that time a huge cut has been dug and blasted across the
Isthmus of Panama, a mountain range has been pierced
and a smaller range made thirty miles away in the form
of Gatun Dam. Huge locks, the largest in the world,
have been built of enduring concrete, great rivers have
been dammed and an inland sea created in what was a
tropic jungle. In short, the American people have accom-
plished the greatest and most important engineering enter-
prise in the history of the world.
All the available data at the command of the Isthmian
Canal Commission have been placed at the disposal of the
author, together with official photographs, maps, plans,
etc., and this volume is now presented as a complete his-
tory and practical exposition in simple language of the great
enterprise, covering every noteworthy aspect and feature
of the work from its inception in the days of Columbus to
its completion.
Locan MarsHALu.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGB
Tue AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN. ...... 13
CHAPTER II
CANAL EXPLORATION. . 6 6 0 5 ee ee ee es 28
CHAPTER III
THe PanaMa RaItROAD ........2.2.2.204 44
CHAPTER IV
Tue Istomtan Country ...........2.2. 59
CHAPTER V
CoLON AND PANAMA .............084 76
CHAPTER VI
Tue Frenco PanaMA CaNAL COMPANY ...... 91
CHAPTER VII
Tur New PanaMa CaNsaL COMPANY ....... 110
CHAPTER VIII
Tur AMERICAN ENTERPRISE .......2.2... 124
CHAPTER Ix
Tue HeattH PROBLEM. ..........2.2.. 137
CHAPTER X
Tur LaBoR PROBLEM. .............. 148
10 CONTENTS
CHAPTER XI PAGE
PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL ....... 157
CHAPTER XII
MILitary AND PouiticAL ASPECTS ........ 198
CHAPTER XIII
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL ...... 208
APPENDICES
I
GREAT CANALS OF THE WoRLD .......... 239
II
Economic Errects oF SHip CANALS ....... 254
III
History or TRAFFIC ON GREAT CANALS. ..... 265
IV
Tue CanaL SysTeM oF INDIA .......... 273
V
CANALS IN} OHINAS 3 4s 4. shots Ro Ee Soe. a 283
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Gatun SPILLWAY ........... . .Frontispiece
PAGH
COLUMBUS AND THE INDIAN MampEN ....... 14
Ruins or St. Anastasius, OLD PANAMA ..... 20
Tue Istamus witH CoMPLETED CANAL (Map) ... 60
PanaMA, PasT AND PRESENT ........... 85
CuuRCH OF SAN Francisco, PANAMA ... . . 86
Tue Paciric ENTRANCE TO THE CANAL AT Low Tie . 92
Outp FrenNcH MacHINERY RUSTING IN THE JUNGLE . 99
Tuer INTERSECTION OF THE AMERICAN CANAL WITH THE
OLp FRENCH CANAL AT MINDI .... . . 110
CoLONEL GEORGE WASHINGTON GOETHALS, U. , A. 134
GENERAL VIEW OF THE CiTy oF Panama .... . 189
A Room IN BacHELOR QUARTERS AT CULEBRA. . . 149
Din1nG Room IN THE MARRIED QUARTERS AT CULEBRA 151
View IN THE TOWN oF CULEBRA, CANAL ZONE . . 154
MANDINGO STOCKADE FOR ZONE Convicts ENGAGED IN
Roan “BuUInEDING 2.5. 2-5. 3 2-8 ee ee de 8
Pepro Miauet Locks ............. . 158
Map or THE CANAL ZONE ........... . 158
PROFILE OF CULEBRA CuT ........... . 160
Gatun Dam, Sprptway AND Locks ....... . 162
Gatun Upper Locks, East CHAMBER. ..... . 168
Tur HypROELECTRIC STATION AT GaTUN.... . 164
Pepro Mieuet Locks... . . 165
Tue Great Lock Gates AT Ganon DURING Ganarane:
TO Nigel eae te Lane eae oa anh a ee ee OO
(11)
12 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Gatun Dam SPILLWay . ad
DIAGRAM SHOWING LAKE REneerion
Lock GaTE OPERATING MACHINERY . eat
A CYLINDRICAL VALVE Macuine, Motor snp Baie
SWITCH ae
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE —— Wo OF A eee AND
A Srix-story BuILDING
Gate Moving MacHINERY
BERM CRANES AT MIRAFLORES 3
CuLEBRA Cur LOOKING SOUTH FROM Ben IN Bigg
BANK NEAR GAMBOA . care
CuLEBRA Cut Looxinc NorTH FROM Cansire
THe Front TowER ON APPROACH WALL OF GATUN
Locks.
STEAM SHOVEL Bape nie Race OF Bane
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ON A GIANT STEAM SHOVEL .
Gatun Locks
Gatun Locks
CuLEBRA Cut LOOKING Naas FROM its Giscunes
STEAM SHOVEL LoapiInc Rock ee
VESSEL BEING TOWED THROUGH LOCKS BY Brnerre
LocoMOTIVES
Tue Great CULEBRA Gur
STEAM SHOVELS MEETING AT CULEBRA
EXMPIRE-CHORRERA MacapamM Roap
Map or Routes To THE IsTHMUs . ara
Tur WATERS OF THE Paciric ENTERING THE pes
CANAL bo A ae.
Tue West ees en uns FROM
Toro Pornt .
166
167
168
169
169
171
172
172
177
178
181
182
184
185
187
188
191
192
198
202
209
211
222
CHAPTER I
THE AMERICAN Istamus UNDER SPAIN
On the early morning of the twenty-fifth of September,
in 1513, a small party of men made their laborious way up
the densely covered face of a steep ridge. One, keen of
eye and with determined countenance, pressed forward
eagerly ahead of his companions. When, at length, he
reached the summit, a vast expanse of water stretched
before him on either hand. Balboa had discovered the
Pacific Ocean. Vasco Nufiez de Balboa was a man of extraor-
dinary intellect, and it is not improbable that something
of the true significance of this new knowledge dawned upon
his mind even in these first moments of discovery. Per-
haps he, first of all contemporary explorers, realized that
the Tierra Firma of Columbus was not the Ultima Thule
of sixteenth century endeavor, and that the land of mystic
legend lay away toward the setting sun, beyond the spark-
ling sea whose placid waters washed the shores of the bay
below the height upon which he stood. It was an age of
splendid achievements in geographical science. Bold and
ardent adventurers were fast dispersing the haze that had
obscured more than half the earth, and disclosing new lands
almost as rapidly as geographers could map them. In the
last year of the fifteenth century, Vasco da Gama, return-
ing home from his eventful voyage to India, re-rounded the
cape which Bartholomew Diaz had discovered and which
King John had named Good Hope. A waterway to the
East was thus opened up, and this circuitous route remained
the main means of direct ocean communication between
Europe and Asia until the opening of the Suez Canal,
nearly four hundred years later. Columbus, with the
(13)
14 THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN
vaguest ideas of the extent of the globe, and with none
but the most faulty charts for guide, thought to find Cipango,
where he ran across Cuba and died without knowing that
he had added an enormous continent to the map. First
in the West Indies and later on the mainland of America
he hoped to reach the capital of the Grand Khan, to whom
he bore letters from Ferdinand of Spain. When, upon his
last disastrous voyage, Columbus beat down the coast from
Honduras to Darien seeking a strait through the massive
barrier that stayed his farther progress to the west, he
little dreamed that at a point which he passed in his dis-
heartening search a caudal cut would one day separate two
great continents and unite two vast oceans. ‘Though
Columbus was not actually the discoverer of the Isthmus,
yet his matchless courage in sailing into uncharted seas in
1492 was chiefly responsible for its subsequent discovery.
It is altogether fitting that the great bronze statue of
Columbus and the Indian maiden should stand at Cristobal
\ overlooking the Atlantic entrance to the canal which is to
\materialize his vision of a direct route to Asia. The statue
is life size and stands upon a marble pedestal ten feet
high, an imposing tribute to the great discoverer. It was
the gift of the Empress Eugenie to the Republic of Colom-
bia in 1868 and stood for a time in the railroad yards at
Colon. Count de Lesseps, however, had it removed and
placed it in front of his palace, where it now stands, behold-
ing at last the New Route to India! That to his dying day
Columbus persisted in his belief that there was a strait
through to the Western waters and the lands he sought
is shown in the map inspired by him which was published
soon after his death. Balboa, who followed Columbus,
also believed this legend of the Indians. Explorers who
followed them failed to find the strait, but out of this idea
grew the project of cutting a canal across the Isthmus
first proposed by Hernando Cortez, Spanish conqueror of
Mexico to King Charles V of Spain in 1523, about two
hundred and fifty years before the birth of the United
THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN 15
States of America, the nation destined to complete the
project.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS OF THE SPANISH MAIN
Amongst the horde of adventurers who followed in the
wake of the Great Discoverer was Rodrigo Bastidas. He
was in command of an expedition that, in 1500, coasted
the Spanish Main from some point on the Venezuelan lit-
toral to almost as far south as Porto Bello. Balboa, a lad of
twenty-five, received his first taste of adventure upon this
occasion. On the return voyage the weather-worn and
worm-eaten ships of Bastidas were barely able to make
Hispanola before they sank. Balboa, who possessed little or
no means, turned his attention to agriculture on the island.
The spirit of the rover was strong in him, however, and, in
order to indulge his desire as well as to escape his creditors,
he concealed himself in a cask and caused it to be carried
on board a ship bound for Tierra Firma. At this time
Spain had two sparsely settled provinces on the Isthmus of
Darien and an important stronghold at Cartagena.
Balboa was successful in his scheme of escaping his cred-
itors and seeking once more the new lands which had
aroused his curiosity and love of adventure. The ship
upon which his cask happened to be carried was that of
Encisco, which was bound on a relief expedition to the
Gulf of Darien. As soon as the ship reached the open sea
Balboa was discovered and had difficulty in persuading
Encisco not to throw him overboard, thus ending a very
promising career. The fact that he had previously visited
the Isthmus and would probably be of value to Encisco
through his knowledge of the country, turned the tide in
his favor, however, and he was made a member of the
expedition. During the year before, 1509, an unlucky
expedition had been undertaken by Ojeda and Niqueza,
who had been appointed governors of all the mainland
from Cape de la Vela on the Venezuelan coast to Cape
Gracias 4 Dios on the coast of Honduras. The Gulf of
v
16 THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN
Darien was the line of division between them and they
held dominion over the entire region. Ojeda had preceded
Niqueza on this expedition with four ships and three hun-
dred soldiers. When Niqueza arrived with seven ships and
eight hundred soldiers he found Ojeda suffering greatly
from attacks by Indians. Joining forces they routed the
natives and then proceeded to occupy the region, founding
several towns, among them Nombre de Dios. This town,
though unhealthful and having but a poor harbor, remained
the chief port on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus for nearly
a hundred years. Ojeda and Niqueza both died during
this enterprise and were succeeded by Pizarro, who later on
was destined for an important role in Isthmian affairs.
At the time of the arrival of Balboa and Encisco, Pizarro
was in desperate straits and the town of San Sebastian
almost destroyed. Encisco was proclaimed as governor to
succeed Niqueza and established the town of Santa Maria
de la Antigua del Darien. It had the distinction of being
the first Episcopal see upon the mainland and of containing
the oldest church on the American continent. Balboa was
made alcalde of the new town. Soon afterward he quar-
reled with Encisco and managing to gain the upper hand,
deported the former governor to Spain.
Balboa soon rose to a position of importance among the
colonists of Tierra Firma. He learned from the Indians
that a great sea lay beyond the range of mountains that
traversed the Isthmus, and lost no time in investigating
the statement. With a small force of Spaniards and Indian
guides Balboa succeeded, not without great difficulty, for
the whole way was through dense jungle and over swamps,
in reaching the ocean, of which he formally took possession
in the name of the King of Spain. During this journey
across the isthmus the Spaniards heard of a rich land to the
south abounding in precious metals. Balboa planned the
conquest of this country, and it is more than probable that
Pizarro, who was his companion on this occasion, shared
his designs. Had the former lived to pursue his energetic
THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN 17
and ambitious career Pizarro might never have found the
heroic place which he occupies in history.
In 1515, Balboa received the reward of his enterprise in
the form of the appointment of Adelantado of the Southern
Sea, as the Pacific had been named. The same ship which
brought this news, unfortunately for Balboa, carried also
the new governor, Pedro Arias de Avila, better known as
Pedrarias. Of this monster and his atrocities so much has
been written that it need not be dwelt upon here. As soon
as he arrived Pedrarias had arrested Balboa, but had failed
to convict him. So a truce was arranged between them,
giving Pedrarias the governorship of the Atlantic side and
Balboa the Pacific or “South Sea” with freedom to con-
tinue his explorations.
PREPARATIONS FOR EXPLORING THE PACIFIC COAST
In the following year he prepared to organize an expedi-
tion to the south by way of the newly discovered ocean.
The problem involved in the undertaking was one to daunt
a less bold spirit. Trees suitable to the construction of
ships were to be found only upon the Atlantic side of the
divide, which necessitated the tremendous task of trans-
porting timbers over a route that presented great difficul-
ties to the passage of an unencumbered man. The terribly
onerous labor of collecting the material and carrying it on
their backs to its destination was imposed upon the Indians,
of whom thousands were gathered together for the purpose,
and impelled to the unaccustomed work by the merciless
severity of their taskmasters. Many months were consumed
in this grim struggle for a passage of the Isthmus, which,
in many respects, foreshadowed the endeavors of the mod-
ern successors of these hardy pioneers. Hundreds of the
wretched aborigines, Las Casas says their number fell little
short of two thousand, lost their lives in the undertaking,
but it succeeded, and four brigantines were carried piece-
meal from sea to sea and put together on the Pacific coast.
2
18 THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN
The work of fitting out the ships proceeded rapidly and
Balboa was upon the eve of departure when his arrest was
effected by order of the Governor.
Pedrarias had entertained a jealous hatred of Balboa
for years and could not endure the thought of his achiev-
ing the further successes that promised to follow his expedi-
tion to the south. The Governor pretended to have received
information that Balboa purposed the creation of an inde-
pendent kingdom in the countries that he might discover.
Balboa was tried, condemned on evidence of an ex parte
character, and executed. Thus fell, in the prime of life,
the first of that trio of Spanish explorers whose brave deeds
excite our admiration whilst we deplore the cruelties with
which they were accompanied. Balboa, more than any of
the early explorers except Columbus, deserves recognition
in this day. It is altogether fitting that the name of the
Pacific entrance to the canal should have been changed
from La Boca to Balboa in tardy appreciation of his great
achievements.
THE SEARCH FOR A STRAIT THROUGH THE ISTHMUS
Three years after the death of Balboa, Magellan passed
through the Straits of Tierra del Fuego and opened up a
western waterway to the Orient. The attempts to find a
strait through the continent were not abandoned, however,
Charles the Fifth taking a keen interest in the prosecution of
these efforts. He instructed the governors of all his Ameri-
can provinces to have the coast lines of their respective
territories thoroughly examined and every river and inlet
explored. The orders addressed to Cortes were especially
explicit and urgent, for at this time the hope began to pre-
vail that a solution to the problem would be found in the
territory of Mexico. It was in accordance with this idea
that Gil Gonzales was despatched from Spain to the New
World. Gonzales had authority to use the vessels which
had been built by Balboa, but Pedrarias refused to deliver
THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN 19
them to him. Gonzales was not to be balked by this denial,
however. He immediately took to pieces the two caravels
with which he had arrived and transported them to the
Pacific coast by the route which Balboa had when out.
The reconstructed ships were soon lost and the party built
others, in which they proceeded north in January, 1522, to
Fonseca Bay. At this point the leader, with one hundred
men, continued the exploration by land. Lake Nicaragua
was discovered and a settlement was shortly afterwards
made upon its shore, the Indians having been subjected.
The new discovery awakened fresh ideas and projects
relating to the much desired interocean route. It was at
first reported that an opening existed from the lake to the
South Sea, but an immediate examination failed to reveal
any water connection. In 1529, Diego Machuca, in com-
mand of a considerable force, carefully explored Lake
Nicaragua and its eastern outlet. He found the naviga-
tion of the San Juan River, at that time called the Desa-
guadero, extremely difficult, but eventually emerged from
its mouth with his ships and continued down the coast to
Nombre de Dios. Ata later period an important commerce
was conducted over this route by vessels making ports in
Spain, the West Indies and South America. Thomas Gage,
the English priest who visited Nicaragua in 1637, mentions
this traffic as in existence at that time.
The early exploration of the Isthmus was quickly fol-
lowed by settlements and then the establishment of towns
inhabited by traders and connected by trade routes, for
this was the beginning of Spain’s golden age in her colonies,
and for more than a hundred years a constant stream of
gold, pearls, and other products of Spain’s island posses-
sions flowed across the Isthmus. The towns became
cities with royal storehouses guarded by slaves, merchants’
warehouses, great stone stables for the mules of the treas-
ure trains, beautiful convents and monasteries and resi-
dences built in the Moorish style either of stone or carved
native cedar. Soon the necessity for a permanent highway
to take the place of the Indian trails which were poorly
20 THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN
adapted to the traffic which had now begun to move over
them became apparent.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF OVERLAND COMMUNICATION
Pending the discovery of a maritime channel between
the two oceans, the Spanish authorities had decided to
establish permanent land communication across the Isth-
mus of Darien. Under Charles the Fifth a line of posts
was maintained from coast to coast. Nombre de Dios was
made the Atlantic port and the Pacific terminus was located
at Old Panama, which was created a city in 1521. A road
was at once constructed between these two points, which
crossed the Chagres at Las Cruces. Great difficulties were
surmounted in building this highway. Much of the route
lay over swamps that had to be filled in. Several streams
were spanned by bridges and vast masses of rock were
removed to facilitate the passage over the mountains. The
way was paved and, according to Peter Martyr, was wide
enough to accommodate two carts abreast. There is little
left of this road, once the richest highway in the world, but
it is still possible to catch a glimpse of it at Old Panama,
though it is quickly lost in the deep jungle before the visitor
has followed it more than a few yards. The city of Old
Panama, which is now marked solely by ruins, was erected
about five miles from the modern city of Panama.
Founded in 1519 by Pedrarias, it quickly attained the
position of the most important Spanish city in the New
World, and at the time of its destruction by Morgan had a
population of about thirty thousand.
About ten years after the establishment of this route a
modification of it came into use. Light draft vessels began
to sail from Nombre de Dios along the coast and up the
Chagres as far as Cruses, where the road met the stream,
and thence the journey was completed by land. In the
closing years of the sixteenth century, Nombre de Dios,
which had been repeatedly condemned in memorials to the
Crown, as “‘the sepulcher of Spaniards,’’ was abandoned in
favor of Porto Bello, with a location and other natural
sade auo3sdq & Jo A10]3 9Y} Jo Japuluta1
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“‘VIANYNVd C10 ‘SNISVLSVNV ‘LS dO SNINU
THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN 21
advantages decidedly superior to those of the former
terminus.
EARLY TRADE OF PANAMA
This interoceanic communication was of the utmost
value to the Spanish Crown after the conquest of Peru, and
the isthmian territory grew in importance year by year.
The vast treasure that was extracted from the mines of the
south came to Panama in the first stage of transit to the
Royal Treasury. From the Pacific port it was carried to
Porto Bello on pack-animals, and thence was shipped to
Spain. Upon the arrival of vessels from the mother coun-
try, fairs were held at Cartagena and Porto Bello. Thither
came merchants from far and near and caravans from
Panama. An extensive trade was conducted at these
periodical marts and the goods brought from Spain found
their way through Panama to South and Central America
and even to the mainland and islands of Asia. Thus was
demonstrated at an early stage the logical trend of trade
and the great advantages of a trans-isthmian route.
A CHECK TO CANAL PROJECTS
The policy of Philip the Second with regard to the
American possessions was very different from that of his
father. The former was averse to the expansion of his
empire in the New World and distinctly antagonistic to
the plans for an isthmian canal. He reasoned with astute-
ness that the existence of a water route through the con-
tinent of America would give easy access to his new pos-
sessions on the part of other nations and in time of war
might be of greater advantage to his enemies than to him-
self. This policy of Philip was maintained for two centuries
after his death by succeeding rulers.
During this period of quiescent policy on the part of
Spain the most notable event in the history of the Isthmus
was furnished by the disastrous attempt of William Pater-
son to establish a colony in the province of Darien. In
22 THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN
1695 the Scotch Parliament, with the approval of William
the Third, authorized the formation of a company to plant
colonies in Asia, Africa and America and to carry on trade.
THE ILL-FATED DARIEN EXPEDITION
Paterson cherished a scheme of stupendous colonial
commerce, the Darien Expedition being but the initial step
in the enterprise. Toward the close of the year 1698, five
vessels, having on board twelve hundred Scottish settlers,
anchored in a bight which they called Caledonia Bay, a
name it retains at this day. The colonists were received in
friendliness by the Indians and purchased from them the
land upon which the settlement of New Edinburgh was
made. It was Paterson’s design, based upon sound enough
reasoning and knowledge previously acquired from the
buccaneers of the West Indies, to extend his posts to the
Pacific Ocean and open up a trade with the countries of the
South Sea and Asia, in the manner which had been so profit-
able to Spain. He had not, however, anticipated the effect
of the climate upon his northern-bred emigrants. Before
any steps could be taken towards the contemplated exten-
sion of the operations, the colony was decimated by disease.
The misery of the settlers was increased by the loss of the
supply-ship on which they had depended for fresh provi-
sions, and, eight months after the landing, a pitiful remnant
of the original expedition abandoned the settlement and
returned to Scotland. But before this disaster had become
known at home other vessels with additional emigrants were
despatched to the new colony. These made an effort to
revive and maintain the settlement, but with no better
results than those which had befallen their predecessors.
The numbers of the later comers had become sadly reduced
when they were attacked by the Spaniards. After a feeble
resistance they capitulated. So weak were the survivors
that they could not reach their ships without the aid of
their enemies,
THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN 23
Thus ended the Darien Expedition with the loss of more
than two thousand lives and the expenditure of vast sums
of money.
In this section of the country the Spaniards completely
failed to secure the friendship of the Indians or to effect
their subjection. Their amicable reception of the Scotch
immigrants and their invariable readiness to assist the
buccaneers in their incursions against the Spanish settle-
ments indicated the persistent hatred with which they
regarded the first invaders of their land. The Darien
region was wild in the extreme and abounded in secret
passes and safe retreats. From their fastnesses the Indians
made frequent raids upon the Spanish posts and retired by
trails which were known only to themselves.
In the latter half of the eighteenth century, during the
governorship of Andres de Ariza, a determined effort was
made to establish permanent communication between the
coasts at this part of the Isthmus. Plans were laid for a
line of military posts to be connected by a road which should
run from a point on Caledonia Bay to a terminus on the
Pacific Ocean. The project was put into operation, but met
with such formidable resistance on the part of the inhabi-
tants that the Spanish authorities became convinced of the
futility of their endeavors. In 1790 they entered into a
treaty with the Indians, agreeing to disband the garrisons
and withdraw from the country.
CORTES ESTABLISHES A TRANSCONTINENTAL ROUTE
It will be remembered that in the first quarter of the
sixteenth century Cortes received implicit instructions from
the Crown to use every resource at his command in a search
for the longed-for strait. In pursuit of this object the coast
of Mexico was carefully examined and the Coatzacoalcos
River explored. Montezuma afforded valuable assistance
in this investigation by furnishing descriptions and maps
of certain portions of the country. Whilst these efforts
24 THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN
failed of their principal object, they had important results.
Cortes established a transcontinental route along the course
of the Coatzacoalcos, over the divide, and down the Pacific
slope to Tehuantepec. This line of communication soon
gave birth to an extensive trade between Spain and her
provinces on both coasts of America as well as some parts
of Asia. The Ead’s ship-railway of modern days was
planned to follow practically the same line as this early
route of Cortes.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century there were
discovered at Vera Cruz some cannon of ancient date which
bore the mark of the old Manila foundry. This discovery
aroused speculation as to how the pieces of artillery had
been brought to the Atlantic coast of Mexico. It seemed
improbable that they had been transported around the con-
tinent, especially when it was remembered that the only
commercial intercourse with the Philippines had been
through the Pacific port of Tehuantepec and over the route
established by Cortes. This trade-way had long since been
abandoned, but interest in it was at once revived by the
incident which has been recited, and a remembrance of its
former importance prompted the viceroy of Mexico to insti-
tute an investigation.
By this time it had become an accepted idea that mari-
time communication between the oceans could only be
secured by the creation of artificial waterways. Two engi-
neers were directed to explore the country from the mouth
of the Coatzacoalcos to Tehuantepec with a view to ascer-
taining the practicability of a waterway from ocean to
ocean. This was the first canal project entertained for this
region.
INVESTIGATION OF THE NICARAGUA ROUTE
The report on this exploration, which included a cursory
survey, was not such as to encourage the institution of
operations. It had the effect, however, of stimulating the
interest in the subject and in 1779 the feasibility of connect-
THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN 25
ing the Nicaragua lakes with the sea was investigated by
royal command. Manuel Galisteo, to whom the task had
been intrusted, passed an opinion unfavorable to the proj-
ect. Nevertheless, a company was formed in Spain, with
the patronage of the Crown, to carry out the undertaking,
but nothing effective ever came of it.
Galisteo’s expedition had been accompanied by the
British agents at Belize in a private capacity. Upon their
return they made highly favorable representations to their
Government, stating that the project was entirely feasible
and not accompanied by any difficulties that the engineer-
ing capabilities of the day need fear to encounter. This
report made a deep impression in England and when, in
the following year, war broke out between that country
and Spain an effort was made to gain possession of the
Nicaragua country. In 1780, an invading force was organ-
ized at Jamaica. Captain Horatio Nelson was in command
of the naval contingent, and in his despatches stated the
general purpose of the expedition as follows: ‘‘In order to
give facility to the great object of the government I intend
to possess the Lake of Nicaragua, which, for the present, may
be looked upon as the inland Gibraltar of Spanish America.
As it commands the only water pass between the oceans, its
situation must ever render it a principal post to insure
passage to the Southern Ocean, and by our possession of it
Spanish America is divided in two.” The English were
successful in their encounters with the Spaniards, but in
the climate they found an irresistible enemy that forced
them to abandon the enterprise. Of the crew of Nelson’s
ship, the Hinchinbrook, numbering two hundred, more than
eighty fell sick in one night, and only ten survived the return
of the expedition to Jamaica. The hero of Trafalgar barely
escaped with his life after a long illness.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century Spain
retained possession of the entire territory embraced in the
question of interocean communication, but she had made
no practical progress towards its settlement. Neither had
26 THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN
she added materially to the available knowledge of the
world on the subject, for the results of Spanish exploration
and survey in this direction have never been made public.
With the exception of the re-opened communication by way
of Tehuantepec, the old Spanish overland routes had all
fallen into disuse, and traffic between the mother country
and the possessions on the west coast of America and in
the Pacific Ocean was maintained by vessels sailing round
Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. Humboldt vis-
ited Mexico at about this time and recorded the ignorance
that prevailed amongst the local authorities regarding the
interior of the country. He stated that there was not a
single mountain, plain, or city from Granada to Mexico of
which the elevation above the sea was known.
DISINTEGRATION OF SPAIN’S AMERICAN COLONIES
Ere this the entire civilized world had become keenly
interested in the question of an interoceanic canal, and the
investigations of Humboldt commanded wide attention.
Amongst other effects, they aroused the Spanish Government
to action in the matter. In 1814 the Cortes passed an act
authorizing the construction of a canal through the Isthmus
and providing for the organization of a company to carry
out the enterprise. Before anything of importance had
been accomplished under this legislation the revolutions
occurred which wrested from Spain her provinces in South
and Central America. With the loss of territory went the
opportunity for profit and glory by connecting the oceans.
In 1819, the states of New Granada, Ecuador, and
Venezuela united in forming the Republic of Colombia,
under Simon Bolivar; in 1831 they separated into three
independent republics. In 1823 the Federal Republic of
the United Provinces of Central America was formed by
the union of Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, Nica-
ragua, and Costa Rica. These political changes, in what
may be termed the canal region, opened up new possibili-
THE AMERICAN ISTHMUS UNDER SPAIN 27
ties in connection with the much-mooted question of a
waterway and claimed the attention of capitalists and
statesmen of all the commercial nations. From this time
the matter is taken up with definiteness of purpose and
never allowed to rest. Plans and negotiations of various
kinds involving all the possible routes follow fast upon
each other until we arrive at the inception of the work by
the United States Government and the assurance of its
accomplishment,
CHAPTER II
CanaL EXPLORATION
Early in 1825, the Republic of Central America, through
its representative at Washington, conveyed to Henry Clay,
then Secretary of State, a desire for “the co-operation of
the American people in the construction of a canal of com-
munication through Nicaragua, so that they might share,
not only in the merit of the enterprise, but also in the great
advantages which it would produce.” Clay was fully alive
to the importance of the project, the execution of which,
he said, ‘‘will form a great epoch in the commercial affairs
of the whole world.’ He returned a favorable answer to
the proposition and promised an investigation on the part
of the United States of the claims advanced in favor of the
Nicaragua route.
CONCESSION TO AN AMERICAN FROM NICARAGUA
In 1826, the Republic of Central America, having grown
impatient of the delay on the part of the United States,
entered into a contract with Aaron H. Palmer of New York
for the construction of a canal capable of accommodating
the largest vessels afloat. The work was to be started
within a year from the date of the agreement. The contract
was to remain in force as long as might be necessary for the
reimbursement of the capitalists engaged, in the amount
of the money invested, together with ten per cent per annum,
and for seven years after such reimbursement the company
was to receive one-half of the net proceeds of the canal.
At the expiration of the seven years in question the prop-
erty was to be transferred to the Republic. It was expressly
(28)
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CANAL EXPLORATION 29
stipulated in this contract that the passage should at all
times be open to. the ships of friendly and neutral nations
without favor or distinction.
Having secured his concession, Palmer endeavored to
organize a construction company with a capital of five
million dollars. The utter inadequacy of this amount is
illustrative of the lack of explicit information which charac-
terized all similar enterprises until quite recent’ times. Pal-
mer failed both in America and in England to enlist the
necessary financial aid and the contract was never acted
upon.*
After an abortive attempt to complete arrangements
with a Dutch company, the Central American Republic
again addressed the Government of the United States with
an offer to grant to it the right to construct a canal. In
response to a recommendation of the Senate growing out
of these overtures, President Jackson commissioned Charles
Biddle to visit Nicaragua and Panama, with instructions
to examine the different routes that had been contemplated
and to gather all the information and documents procura-
ble bearing upon the matters in interest. No satisfactory
results followed this mission. A message was sent to the
Senate to the effect that it was not expedient at that time
to enter into negotiations with foreign governments with
reference to a trans-isthmian connection. The truth is that
the Government and its agents were not sufficiently assured
as to the stability of the new republics and feared to create
relations that might lead to political embroilment.
BAILY’S EXPLORATION OF THE NICARAGUA REGION
Meanwhile the active interest in the canal question was
not confined to the United States. In 1826 an English
corporation sent John Baily to Nicaragua for the purpose
of securing a concession. In this object Baily was fore-
stalled by the American, Palmer, but he remained in the
* House Report No. 145, 30th Cong., 2d session.
30 CANAL EXPLORATION
country, and about ten years later was employed by Presi-
dent Morazin to determine the most favorable location for
a cutting.
Baily threw valuable light upon the Nicaragua route
and made a very able report. He recommended a route
from Greytown to Lake Nicaragua, across the lake to the
Lajas, and thence to San Juan del Sur on the Pacific coast.
With the termini he expressed himself as well satisfied.
He proposed to utilize the entire length of the San Juan,
which would necessitate blasting the rocks at the rapids,
diverting the Colorado into the San Juan and deepening the
latter river. He found the four principal rapids within a
stretch of twelve miles, formed by transverse rocks, with a
passage on either side affording a depth of from three to
six fathoms. The river was navigated at the time by
piraguas, large flat-bottomed boats of as much as eight
tons burden, which passed the rapids without serious hazard.
Baily’s line from the mouth of the Lajas, which he pro-
posed to use for three miles of its length, was seventeen
miles. This he thought might be reduced to about fifteen
and a half miles. His summit level was 487 feet above the
lake and the canal was to accommodate ships of twelve
hundred tons with a depth of eighteen feet. He offered an
alternative plan which would reduce the summit level to
122 feet above the lake but would necessitate the connec-
tion of two of his stations by a tunnel over two miles in
length. The report frankly estimated the difficulties
involved in the undertaking, and closed with the statement
that although he could not speak confidently as to the feasi-
bility of the route, which had never been surveyed, he
believed that a continuation through the Tipitapa into
Lake Managua and thence to the port of Realejo was wor-
thy of serious consideration. Whilst these investigations
were proceeding in the north, examination of other proba-
ble routes was being made. In 1827 President Bolivar
commissioned J. A. Lloyd to survey the Isthmus of Panama
with special regard to the possibilities of rail and water
CANAL EXPLORATION 31
communication. Despite the fact that this was the first
transcontinental route, the scientific knowledge of the terri-
tory was most significant. The geography of the strip was
imperfectly known and the relative heights of the oceans
or the altitude of the mountains separating them had never
been ascertained.
THE FIRST SURVEYS OF THE PANAMA LINE
Lloyd made a careful survey from Panama to a point
within a few miles of the mouth of the Chagres. He seems
to have considered plans for a canal premature, but said
that should the time arrive when such a mode of communi-
cation might be favorably entertained the route of the Trin-
idad River would probably prove the most desirable. He
recommended for immediate purposes a combination rail
and water route to take the place of the roads then in use
from Chagres and Porto Bello to Panama. His plan con-
templated a short canal from a point on the Bay of Limon
to the Chagres, the use of that river along its tributary, the
Trinidad, to a favorable spot for a junction, and thence a
railroad to the coast. As to the terminus he was divided
in opinion on the relative advantages of Cherrera and
Panama. The former had the merit of shortening the dis-
tance, whilst the latter was the capital and an already
well-established port.
The Republic of Colombia was disrupted in the year
1831 and the Panama region became a part of New Granada.
In 1838, that Republic granted a concession to a French
company authorizing the construction of highways, rail-
roads, or canals from Panama to any desired point on the
Atlantic coast. This company spent several years in mak-
ing surveys and forming plans. The results were submitted
to the French Government with a view to enlisting its aid
in carrying out the undertaking. The project was presented
in an extremely optimistic light and as one comparatively
easy of accomplishment. The concessionnaires claimed to
have discovered a depression in the mountain range which
32 CANAL EXPLORATION
would permit of a passage at no greater height above the
average level of the Pacific than thirty-seven feet. The
company’s statements excited extraordinary interest, and
in 1843 Guizot, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, instructed
Napolean Garella to proceed to Panama, to investigate the
company’s statements, and to make an independent exami-
nation of the entire situation.
Garella’s report,* which was an able treatment of the
subject, heavily discounted the claims of the Salomon com-
pany and led to its failure. An interoceanic canal was
recommended as the only means of communication that
could adequately meet the future demands of commerce.
Garella agreed with Lloyd that the Atlantic terminus should
be in the Bay of Limon rather than at the mouth of the
Chagres. That river would be met by his canal near its
junction with the Gatun. The reported low depression
which had raised hopes of the practicability of a sea-level
canal at a reasonable cost, could not be found. Garella
suggested the passage of the divide by means of a tunnel
more than three miles in length. The floor of this tunnel
was to be 325 feet below the summit, 134 feet above the
ocean, and the water level 158 feet above extreme high tide
at Panama. The canal was to have a guard lock at each
entrance and the summit level was to be reached by eighteen
locks on the Atlantic slope and sixteen on the Pacific. The
water supply was to be derived from the Chagres through
two feed-canals. The Pacific terminus was placed at Vaca
de Monte, about twelve miles south of Panama. Garella
estimated the cost of a canal on these lines at about twenty-
five million dollars. For an additional three millions he
calculated that a cut might be made in place of the tunnel.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AS A FACTOR IN THE
CANAL QUESTION
“About the middle of the century a succession of great
events vastly increased the importance of a maritime con-
* Reprinted in House Report No. 322, 25th Cong., 3d session.
CANAL EXPLORATION oo
nection between the two oceans to the United States.
The dispute with Great Britain as to the boundary line
west of the Rocky Mountains was settled by the Buchanan-
Packenham Treaty in 1846, and in August, 1848, an act of
Congress was passed under which Oregon became an organ-
ized territory. The war with Mexico was commenced early
in 1846, and by the terms of the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty,
which closed it in 1848, California was ceded to the United
States. Before the treaty had been ratified gold was dis-
covered there, and in a few months many thousands from
the eastern part of the country were seeking a way to the
mining regions. ‘To avoid the hardships and delays of the
journey across the plains or the voyage around the conti-
nent, lines of steamers and packets were established from
New York to Chagres and San Juan del Norte and from
Panama to San Francisco, some of the latter touching at
the Pacific ports in Nicaragua. For a while those traveling
by these routes had to make arrangements for crossing the
isthmus after their arrival there, and were often subjected
to serious personal inconveniences and suffering as well as
to exorbitant charges.
THE UNITED STATES INSTITUTES NEGOTIATIONS FOR A RIGHT
OF WAY
“The requirements of travel and commerce demanded
better methods of transportation between the Hastern
States and the Pacific coast, but there were other reasons
of a more public character for bringing these sections into
closer communication. The establishment and mainte-
nance of army posts and naval stations in the newly acquired
and settled regions in the Far West, the extension of mail
facilities to the inhabitants, and the discharge of other gov-
ernmental functions, all required a connection in the short-
est time and at the least distance that was possible and prac-
ticable. The importance of this connection was so mani-
fest that the Government was aroused to action before all
3
34 CANAL EXPLORATION
the enumerated causes had come into operation, and nego-
tiations were entered into with the Republic of New Granada
to secure a right of transit across the Isthmus of Panama.’’*
This object was effected by a treaty that was ratified in
June, 1848.
In the following year, Elijah Hise, the representative of
the United States in Nicaragua, negotiated a treaty with
that republic. By its terms Nicaragua undertook to confer
upon the Government of the United States, or a corpora-
tion composed of its citizens, the exclusive right to construct
and operate roads, railways, or canals, or any other medium
of communication by means of ships or vehicles, between
the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean and through the
territory of the former state. The concessions made by
this treaty were extremely liberal, but in consideration of
them it was required that the United States should pledge
itself to the protection of Nicaragua and should hold its
army and navy and any other effective resources it might
be able to command available for the defense of the Latin-
American republic against foreign aggression. Nicaragua
was prompted in this negotiation by the desire for aid in
withstanding the policy of Great Britain, which at that
time appeared to be directed toward extending her control
of the Mosquito coast to the lower waters of the San Juan.
The United States Government was not prepared to
assume the responsibility involved in this treaty, in making
which Hise had exceeded his authority, and it was not rat-
ified. Another convention was formulated with the object
of furthering the plans of The American, Atlantic and
Pacific Ship Canal Company, composed of Cornelius Van-
derbilt and others. Although this fell through, its purpose
was effected by the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850.
THE VANDERBILT COMPANY IN NICARAGUA
This agreement required the contracting parties to sup-
port such individuals or corporation as should first commence
* Report of the Isthmian Canal Commission. Washington, 1899-1901.
CANAL EXPLORATION 385
a canal through Nicaragua. It practically insured the inter-
ests of the company in whose behalf the negotiations of
the year before had been conducted. The Republic granted
to the Vanderbilt company the exclusive right, for a period
of eighty-five years, to make a ship canal from any point
of the Atlantic coast to any point on the Pacific coast of
Nicaragua, and by any route. The contract also gave to
the company the exclusive right to construct rail or carriage
roads and bridges and to establish steamboats and other
vessels on the rivers and lakes of the territory as accessories
to its enterprise. It was also provided that in case the canal
or any part of it should be found to be impracticable, then
the company should be privileged to substitute a railroad
or other means of communication subject to the same con-
ditions. In order to facilitate the operations, the company
was incorporated by the Republic of Nicaragua in March,
1850. In the following year the arrangement was modified
for the convenience of the company, by the granting of a
new charter to enable the subsidiary operations on the inland
waters to be separated from those connected with the
canal proper. Under this charter the Accessory Transit
Company immediately established a transportation line
from Greytown up the San Juan and across Lake Nicaragua,
by steamboats, to Virgin Bay on the western shore of the
lake, and thence by stage coaches, over thirteen miles of
good road, to San Juan del Sur. In connection with this
route regular steamship communication was maintained
with New York on one side and San Francisco on the other.
This line proved a boon to the gold-seekers and was traveled
by thousands on their way to and from California. It was
obliged to close, owing to the disturbed condition created
by the Walker expeditions, but at a later date was reopened
under a new charter by another company.
The American, Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Com-
pany did not deem any of the surveys or reports that had
previously been made of the Nicaragua country sufficiently
reliable to determine their route upon, and Colonel Orville
36 CANAL EXPLORATION
Childs of Philadelphia was engaged to direct a thorough
instrumental survey of the entire region.
AN ABLE SURVEY OF THE NICARAGUA ROUTE
Colonel Childs’ report was submitted to President Fil-
more in March, 1852, and by him to two United States
army engineers, by whom the plan was pronounced as
entirely practicable, although they recommended some
modification of its details. In view of the fact that the
British Government was jointly pledged with the United
States to protect the enterprise, the plans were subjected
to examination by English experts. These concurred in
the opinion of the American engineers.
Nothing further was done by the Vanderbilt company
towards the construction of a canal, but the Childs’ report
has always been of great value to later investigators in an
examination of the subject. In 1856, Nicaragua declaring
that the company had failed in the performance of certain
clauses of the contract, revoked the concession, annulled
the charter, and abolished the corporation. The company
disputed the right of the Republic to take this action and
made several futile attempts to re-establish its status.
In 1858, despite the continued protest of the former
concessionaries, the Government of Nicaragua considered
itself free to enter into a new contract. This it did jointly
with Costa Rica. The grantee in this case was Felix Belly,
a citizen of France. The rights and privileges accorded to
him under this agreement were very similar to those which
had been enjoyed by the Vanderbilt company, and the
organization which he proposed to create for the purpose
of accomplishing the work was to be similarly protected
by the terms of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. But the con-
tract with Belly contained a clause insuring to the French
Government the right to keep two ships of war in Lake
Nicaragua as long as the canal remained in operation. This
novel feature in the agreement no sooner came to the
CANAL EXPLORATION 37
knowledge of the United States than that country lodged
an emphatic protest with the Governments of Nicaragua
and Costa Rica. The proposed arrangement was charac-
terized as obnoxious. It was pointed out that ‘‘the neu-
trality and security of these interoceanic routes constitute
a great portion of their value to the world, and that the
exclusive right to any one nation to exercise armed inter-
vention would be just ground for dissatisfaction on the part
of all others.”” No attempt was made to enforce the offen-
sive clause and, as the company failed to put its project
into execution, the grant was cancelled. More than once
negotiations have been blocked by political obstructions
and for many years American statesmen have been averse
to the idea of a waterway across the American Isthmus
under foreign control.
In the meantime the demand for transcontinental trans-
portation created by the discovery of the gold-fields of Cali-
fornia led to the building of the railroad across the Isthmus
of Panama. A concession was obtained for the road by three
Americans. This concession contained the important pro-
viso that no canal might be constructed there unless the
consent of the company be obtained. This line was opened
early in 1855 and, whilst it afforded very valuable service,
it stimulated rather than satisfied the desire for a ship
canal. Exploration and survey were actively prosecuted in
the Darien region by the governments and private citizens
of the United States, Great Britain and France. By this
time precise information was available as to the conditions
obtaining along the Nicaragua and Panama routes, but the
interior of the eastern section of the Isthmus was still
unknown except to the Indians, although it had often been
traversed by Spaniards.
EXPLORATIONS IN THE DARIEN REGION
This region had the obvious advantage of short dis-
tances between the oceans and there were good harbors avail-
able on either coast. So, when the difficulties of the tested
38 CANAL EXPLORATION
routes had been proved, attention turned to the southern
extreme of, what may be called, the canal area, in the hope
that the physical features of that region might present diffi-
culties of less magnitude than those existing in the sections
already surveyed. This hope found justification in the com-
mon report that the mountains of the interior offered a low
depression which had long been used by the Indians as a
portage for their canoes when traveling from one ocean to
the other. Indeed, there was a tradition of a long-existing
uninterrupted waterway from coast to coast which was said
to have been effected by cutting a short canal from the
upper reaches of the Atrato to a small stream, the San Juan,
emptying into the Pacific.
In the examination of this region three general lines
were followed—those of San Blas, Caledonia Bay, and the
Atrato River. Each of these names indicates the Atlantic
terminus of the route, but there were many variations in
the courses followed and the contemplated points of termi-
nation at the Pacific ranged over three hundred miles of
coast. These investigations, in which the United States
freely lent its assistance to private endeavors, had good
results in the extension of topographic and geographic
knowledge of the country and seemed to warrant further
efforts in the same direction.*
AN IMPORTANT SENATE INVESTIGATION
In the year 1866, the Senate, with a view to determining
the scope and direction of further investigation of the inter-
oceanic canal question, requested the Secretary of the Navy
to furnish all the available information pertaining to the
subject and to ascertain whether the Isthmus of Darien had
been sufficiently explored.
Secretary Welles responded, in the following year, with
a voluminous report} by Admiral Charles H. Davis. This
* Details of these expeditions in the Darien district may be found in Senate Ex, Doc. No.
1, 33d Cong., 2d session, and House Nix. Doe, No. 107, 47th Cong., 2d session.
fT Senate 0 x. Doc. No. 62, 89th Cong., Ist session,
CANAL EXPLORATION 39
document enumerates nineteen canal and seven railroad
projects in the isthmian country extending from Tehuan-
tepec to the Atrato. It excludes from consideration the
plans relating to Tehuantepec and Honduras as being
infeasible and meritless.
With reference to the eight proposed routes through
Nicaragua, Admiral Davis says: ‘‘It may safely be asserted
that no enterprise, presenting such formidable difficulties,
will ever be undertaken with even our present knowledge
of the American isthmuses. Still less is it likely to be entered
upon while such strong and well-founded hopes are enter-
tained by the promoters of the union of the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans of finding elsewhere a very much easier,
cheaper, and more practicable route for a canal in every
way suited to the present demands of commerce.”
He condemns a project that had strong advocates at the
time, with these words: ‘‘The examination of the head-
waters of the Atrato, of the intervening watershed, and of
the headwaters of the San Juan, satisfactorily proved that
nature forbids us altogether to entertain an idea cof a union
of the two oceans in this direction.”” The Admiral gives a
general description of the other lines in Panama, Darien,
and the Atrato valley. He states that ‘‘the Isthmus of
Darien* has not been satisfactorily explored,’’ and that ‘‘it
is to the Isthmus of Darien that we are first to look for the
solution of the great problem of an interoceanic canal.
For these reasons and because ‘‘there does not exist in the
libraries of the world the means of determining, even approx-
imately, the most practicable route for a ship canal across
the isthmus,’’ he recommends the further investigation of
the subject in this region.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL COMMISSION
President Grant, in his first message to Congress, rec-
ommended an American canal. That body promptly
* Until quite recently the words Darien and Panama were used interchangeably with refer-
ence to the strip of land now more generally designated_as the Isthmus of Panama. It is
in this broader sense that Admiral Davis uses the term ‘Isthmus of Darien.”
40 CANAL EXPLORATION
adopted a joint resolution providing for more extensive
exploration by officers of the Navy, and the chief of the
Bureau of Navigation was authorized to organize and send
out expeditions for this purpose. In 1872 the Interoceanic
Canal Commission was established. Its members were
General A. A. Humphreys, Chief of Engineers, United
States Army; C. P. Patterson, Superintendent of the Coast
Survey; and Commodore Daniel Ammen, Chief of the
Bureau of Navigation of the Navy. Under the directions
of this commission explorations were conducted in various
parts of the isthmian territory.
The Tehuantepec route was surveyed by a party of
which Captain Shufeldt had charge. It was found that
under the most favorable conditions a canal along the
Tehuantepec line would be more than one hundred miles
in length, with a summit level at least 732 feet above the
sea and requiring one hundred and forty locks. This report,
confirming as it did the conclusions of Admiral Davis and
other experts, put the Tehuantepec route out of the question
for all future time.
At about the same time (1872), an expedition under
Commander Edward P. Lull, assisted by A. G. Menocal, as
chief civil engineer, surveyed the entire Nicaragua route,
following the line taken by Childs, except for a slight devia-
tion in the passage of the divide beyond the lake. Com-
mander Lull’s report was favorable. It included a detailed
plan for a canal at an estimated cost of $65,722,137.
Whilst this work was progressing in the north, Com-
mander Selfridge and other officers of the United States
Navy were engaged in surveying the most promising lines
in the Darien region. In 1875 the Panama route was
minutely surveyed by Lull and Menocal. They reported
in favor of a course 41.7 miles from the Bay of Limon to
the Chagres, ascending its valley and that of the Obispo
to the divide, and descending the Pacific slope by the valley
of the Rio Grande to the Bay of Panama. The line as
marked out in this report has been followed in general in
CANAL EXPLORATION 41
subsequent plans without deviation except in minor
details.
REPORT OF THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL COMMISSION
The Interoceanie Commission now had before it the
reports of the expeditions which have been mentioned and,
in addition, plans and surveys relating to every route in
any degree practicable from one end to the other of the
canal country. Its report,* which was unanimous, was
returned in February, 1876, and embodied the following
conclusion: ‘“‘That the route known as the Nicaragua
route, beginning on the Atlantic side at or near Greytown;
running by canal to the San Juan River, thence . . . to
. . Lake Nicaragua; from thence across the lake and
through the valleys of the Rio del Medio and the Rio
Grande to . . . Brito, on the Pacific coast, possesses,
both for the construction and maintenance of a 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 suf-
ficient in detail to enable a judgment to be formed of their
respective merits.”
Meanwhile Lieutenant L. N. B. Wyse, as the representa-
tive of a French syndicate, was negotiating with the Colom-
bian Government for a concession, which he secured in 1878.
An account of this important contract and of the Panama
Canal Company, which operated under it, will be given in
a later chapter.
VARIOUS SHIP RAILWAY PROJECTS
Whilst the report of the Interoceanic Commission was
generally accepted with regard to the infeasibility of the
Tehuantepec route for a ship canal, it appeared to James
B. Eads to offer special advantages for a ship railway, and
in 1881 he secured a charter from the Mexican Govern-
* Senate Ex. Doc. No. 15, 46th Cong., Ist session.
42 CANAL EXPLORATION
ment conveying to him authority to utilize it for that pur-
pose. Eads’ plan was entirely feasible and no doubt would
have been carried to a successful conclusion had he lived,
but with his death in 1887 the project was abandoned.
In 1860 Sir James Brunless and E. C. Webb proposed
to Napoleon the Third a ship railway across the Suez
Isthmus instead of the projected canal, but the proposition
was rejected by de Lesseps. The same engineers prepared
plans for the Government of Honduras, in 1872, for a similar
transportation line from Puerto Caballos to Fonseca Bay,
to carry ships of twelve hundred tons. The Republic
failed to obtain the money necessary to carry out the
plans.
The year after Eads’ death the celebrated Chignecto
Ship-railway was commenced, after years of preparation.
It is now in successful operation over seventeen miles
between the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The projected Hurontario Railway, of a similar character,
will be sixty-six miles in length. Mere distance, however,
whilst it enhances the cost of such an undertaking, does not
necessarily increase the difficulty of it.
Eads’ proposed line adhered in general to the course
mapped for a canal. The length of the railway was to have
been 134 miles. The summit of 736 feet is reached by easy
grades, the heaviest being less than fifty-three feet in the
mile. The railway was designed to carry vessels up to
seven thousand tons, and the total cost of the line, lifting-
docks, harbors, stations, shops, machinery and all other
equipment was estimated at less than fifty millions.
In 1884 a treaty had been negotiated between the United
States and Nicaragua for the construction of a canal by the
former, to be owned by the two states jointly. Whilst it
was under consideration in the Senate the treaty was with-
drawn by the President for the reason that it proposed a
perpetual alliance with Nicaragua and, like the Hise treaty,
imposed obligations on the United States for the protection
of the former country which it was inadvisable to assume.
CANAL EXPLORATION 43
In April, 1887, Nicaragua granted a concession to A. G.
Menocal for the construction of a ship canal from Grey-
town to Brito. Thus far the story has been a recital of
plans, projects, and theories. When we take up the thread
of it in a later chapter it will be to recount active operations.
CHAPTER III
Tue Panama RAILROAD
The great migration to the Pacific coast following the
discovery of gold in ‘‘ Forty-nine” acted as a strong incen-
tive to the immediate establishment of an isthmian route
by which the long and hazardous journey across the western
territories of the United States might be avoided. In the
last chapter a brief account was given of the enterprise
conducted by the American Atlantic and Pacific Ship
Canal Company, which, although it never effected its
original purpose of opening a waterway, afforded valuable
service to the gold-seekers in the early fifties by maintain-
ing a transportation line across Nicaragua.
At the outset of the gold movement thousands made
their way to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama.
Steamships carried them from New York to the mouth of
the Chagres. The journey thence to the Pacific coast,
although no more than fifty miles by the trail, occupied
from five to ten days and was accompanied by almost as
much hardship and danger as in the days of Balboa. The
emigrants were rowed or towed up the river by natives to
a point near Cruces. The rest of the way to Panama was
covered on foot or on mules. Women, when means would
permit, were carried by selleros. These were native Indian
porters, with a kind of chair strapped to their backs. There
was, at that time, no regular steamship line between Cali-
fornia and Panama. The travelers were often subjected
to long and wearisome waits in the city. The old battery
and the adjacent ramparts were favorite resorts of impa-
tient watchers for a vessel from San Francisco, and their
names and initials are cut in the stones by hundreds. On
(44)
THE PANAMA RAILROAD 45
more than one occasion epidemics made serious inroads
among them. General Grant, in his memoirs, tells us that
he was with the Seventh United States Infantry at Panama
in 1852, en route to California, when cholera broke out.
Fifteen per cent of the regiment succumbed to the disease
and more than five hundred emigrants died of it. Cholera
is not one of the prevalent diseases of the Isthmus. An
influx of foreigners to Panama has always been accompanied
by an outbreak of yellow fever, to which the natives are
immune.
This transflux of travelers determined certain American
capitalists to undertake the construction of a railroad across
the Isthmus. A grant for the purpose had been made by
the Government of New Granada to Mateo Kline on behalf
of a French syndicate, in 1847, but it had expired by default
in 1848. In the following year, William Henry Aspinwall,
John Lloyd Stephens, Henry Chauncy, of New York, and
their associates incorporated under the name of the Panama
Railroad Company.
THE TERMS OF THE CONCESSION
Having declared all former similar concessions null and
void, the Government of New Granada extended to this
company the exclusive privilege of building a road and of
operating it for a period of forty-nine years from the date of
completion, which was to be not later than six years after
the signing of the contract.
Subsequently this agreement was modified in important
particulars, and in its present form entitles the company
to ‘‘the use and possession of the railroad, the telegraph
between Colon and Panama, the buildings, warehouses, and
wharves belonging to the road, and in general all the depen-
dencies and other works now in its possession necessary to
the service and development of the enterprise for a period
of ninety-nine years from the 16th day of August, 1867.
At the expiration of this term the Government is to be sub-
46 THE PANAMA RAILROAD
stituted in all the rights of the company and is entitled to
the immediate possession of the entire property. The
Republic is bound to grant no privilege during this term to
any other company or person to open any other railroad
on the isthmus, nor without the consent of the company to
open or work any maritime canal there to the west of a line
drawn from Cape Tiburon, on the Atlantic, to Point Gara-
chine, on the Pacific; nor to establish any such communi-
cation itself. But the company can not oppose the con-
struction of a canal except directly along the route of its
road, and the consent required is only to enable it to exact
an equitable price for the privilege and as indemnification
for the damages it may suffer by the competition of the
canal. It is also stipulated that the company shall forfeit
its privilege should it cede or transfer its rights to any
foreign government.”
THE GREAT DIFFICULTIES OF THE UNDERTAKING
When the Republic of Colombia superseded the Govern-
ment of New Granada (1867), new requirements were
imposed upon the railroad company. It was compelled
to pay to Colombia a quarter of a million dollars annually
and to “transport free of charge the troops, chiefs, and
officers, and their equipage, ammunition, armament, cloth-
ing, and all similar effects that may belong to, are or may
be destined for the immediate service of the Government
of the Republic or the State of Panama, as also their officials
in service or in commission, and those individuals who,
with their families and baggage, may come to the country
in the character of emigrants, and of new settlers with the
permanent character of such, for account of the Government
up to the number of 2,000 annually.”’ This agreement was
worked by the Colombian Government to the utmost, and
the tremendous amount of ‘deadheading”’ with which the
company was forced to put up cut into its profits seriously.
Some idea of the extent to which this abuse was carried
THE PANAMA RAILROAD 47
may be inferred from the fact that during the year 1903
the company carried 4,663 first-class passengers who paid
their fares and 11,098 passengers and 6,601 troops free.
In addition a considerable amount of freight was trans-
ported gratis under the agreement.
The Panama Railroad Company, with characteristic
American energy, attacked the difficult undertaking with-
out delay. The engineering staff was on the ground in the
autumn of 1849. ‘Their quarters were on board a sailing
ship. They worked by day, waist deep in mud and slime,
making surveys and cutting a trail, and slept at night on
their floating home. Nothing but the indomitable will and
push for which Americans are justly praised could have
overcome the terrible difficulties that met them at every
step. The country was a howling wilderness, pestilential
and death-dealing; the forests teemed with poisonous
snakes and other equally unpleasant inhabitants; night
was made hideous by the large, broad-chested, active
mosquitoes of that part of the coast, who bite through
clothing most successfully; the country produced absolutely
nothing, and every mouthful of food had to come from New
York. Despite these obstacles, that brave little band
worked ahead, and kept on with their surveys. At the very
outset they encountered the difficulty of finding a suitable
location for the line traversing the quicksands and swamps
between Colon of to-day and Gatun. It is reported that in
some of the swamps the engineers under the late Colonel
George M. Totten, and Mr. Trautwine, failed to find bottom
at 180 feet. An embankment was created for the road by
throwing in hundreds of cords of wood, rock, and more
wood. This causeway, as it may be called, cost a fabulous
sum of money; but at last it was completed and they floated
their tracks, so to speak, over the swamps.’’*
Despite its ample resources and the unflagging application
of its representatives in the field, the company at the end
of two years had completed only about one-half of the
* Five Yearsin Panama. Wolfred Nelson, M.D., New York, 1889.
48 THE PANAMA RAILROAD
permanent way, or, to be more exact, the twenty-three
miles between Colon and Barbacoas. The transportation
of passengers and baggage across the Isthmus was, however,
in operation. The railway line was used as far as it was
completed; canoes were employed upon the Chagres to
Gorgona or Cruces; and the remainder of the journey was
performed by road.
SOME FEATURES OF THE CONSTRUCTION
At Paraiso, thirty-eight miles from the Atlantic, the
line attained its greatest elevation, being 263 feet above the
mean level of the ocean. Upon the western side of the
divide the maximum grade was one in ninety; upon the
Pacific slope it was a little more. Twenty-three miles of
the road were level and twenty-five straight, but there were
sharp curves in places. There were no fewer than one hun-
dred and thirty-four culverts, drains, and bridges of ten feet
and less, and as many as one hundred and seventy bridges
from a twelve-foot span to the length of the Barbacoas.
The line was still a single one with sidings when it was taken
over by the Canal Commission in connection with the con-
struction work on the canal. The railroad was paralleled by
atelegraph line. Of this, Pim, in his ‘‘Gateway to the Paci-
fic,” says: ‘‘There are twenty-six posts to the mile, con-
structed in the following manner: A scantling four inches
square, of pitch-pine, is encased in cement, molded in a
cylindrical form, tapering toward the top, and sunk four
feet in the ground. I was assured that when once dry these
posts would last for ages. The cost of each was five dollars.
They have the appearance of hewn stone and are quite an
ornament along the line.”’
At the close of the year 1854 the construction had
arrived at the divide. The Culebra pass afforded the great-
est depression but it was practically two hundred and forty
feet above sea level. The rails were carried over at this
point and down the Pacific slope to Panama. On the 27th
THE PANAMA RAILROAD 49
day of January, 1855, Colonel Totten went over the line
upon the first locomotive to cross the American continent
from ocean to ocean.
The utmost credit is due to the promoters of this great
enterprise and to those who executed it. Aside from the
important services the road has rendered to commerce
during the past fifty years, its efficacy as a pioneer move-
ment has been inestimable. The railroad opened the way
over the Isthmus, stimulated the desire for a canal, and
afforded indispensable facilities for its consummation.
The cost of the road was considerably in excess of the
original estimate. After its opening to through traffic,
many improvements were carried out, including the expen-
sive bridge at Barbacoas, and it is probable that the outlay
in establishing the route exceeded eight million dollars.
From Colon the road ran almost due south by west for
more than seven miles until it met the Chagres at Gatun.
Its general direction thereafter was south-easterly, along
the valley of the river as far as San Pablo, the half-way point
between the oceans.
THE FINE BRIDGE ACROSS THE CHAGRES
Here the Chagres was spanned by the splendid Barbacoas,
which word itself, in the native language, signifies a bridge.
It was built of iron over six hundred feet long, resting upon
stone piers. It cost upwards of half a million dollars. Dur-
ing the dry season the river dwindles to a shallow, almost
sluggish, stream, perhaps less than two hundred feet in
width, but in the rains it becomes a torrent, sometimes far
exceeding its normal bounds. Thus in 1878 the Chagres
flooded its valley and rose to a height of fifteen feet over the
railway. The earthquake of 1882 threw the bridge slightly
out of alignment but apparently without seriously damaging
it.
From San Pablo the road hugged the left bank of the
river to Obispo, where it turned off suddenly at right angles
4
50 THE PANAMA RAILROAD
to the stream. In the vicinity of Obispo is Cerro Gigante,
the hill from whose summit Balboa is said to have gained
his first view of the Pacific. There is no historic evidence
on this point, and it seems more probable that if the exact
spot could be ascertained it would be on one or the other
of the heights that flank the Culebra pass. At Paraiso, on
the Pacific slope, the company’s engineers had an experience
that is inseparable from excavation works in this part of
the world. A cut had been made forty feet in depth and
the rails laid along its bottom, when the torrential rain
swept the earth back and covered the track at a depth of
twenty feet. A similar occurrence befell the Panama Canal
Company more than once, affording a warning to the
American engineers which they have carefully heeded.
EXTRAORDINARY LABOR DIFFICULTIES
Reference has been made to some of the difficulties
which were encountered in what Tomes (‘‘ Panama in 1885’’)
characterizes as the ‘‘almost superhuman” task of building
the railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. Not the least
of these were involved in the efforts to secure an adequate
supply of labor. It was soon found that the natives could
not be counted upon to any extent. The company con-
cluded to import Chinamen and a ship landed eight hun-
dred of them at Panama. They immediately began to fall
sick and in a week’s time upward of a hundred were pros-
trated. The interpreters attributed this to the deprivation
of their accustomed opium. A quantity of the drug was
distributed to them and had a marked effect for the better,
but, to quote Tomes, ‘‘a Maine opium law was soon promul-
gated on the score of the immorality of administering to so
pernicious a habit, and without regard, it is hoped, to the
expense, which, however, was no inconsiderable item, since
the daily quota of each Chinese amounted to fifteen grains,
at a cost of at least fifteen cents.”’ Deprived of what from
long habit had become a necessary stimulant and subjected
THE PANAMA RAILROAD 51
to the depressing effect of the unaccustomed climate, the
coolies lost all vigor and courage. In less than two months
after their arrival there was hardly one of the original num-
ber fit to wield a pick or shovel. They gave themselves up
to despair and sought death by whatever means came
nearest to hand. Some sat on the shore and stoically
awaited the rising tide, nor did they stir until the sea swal-
lowed them. Some hanged themselves by their queues or
used those appendages to strangle themselves. By various
methods hundreds put an end to the misery of their exist-
ence. The remnant, fewer than two hundred, sick and use-
less, were shipped to Jamaica.
The next experiment of the railroad company was
hardly less disastrous. A number of Irish laborers were
imported at considerable expense, but, although the mor-
tality amongst them was not so great as that experienced
from the Chinese, it is said that the company failed to secure
a single good day’s labor from one cf them. !
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PEDRO MIGUEL LOCKS.
In the upper right hand corner are the great berm cranes used t» « urry the concrete from
the mixers to the locks,
PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL 159
dations laid for the magnificent superstructure which has
been built under Colonel Goethals. For this great canal is
as impressive as Niagara with its wonderful artificial can-
yon at Culebra, its great locks, dams and lakes. The
thing is stupendous in its entirety, so let us examine it in
greater detail.
The total length of the Canal, along the channel extend-
ing into the ocean at either end, is fifty and one-half miles;
the land length is ten miles less.
Approaching from the Atlantic, a vessel enters Limon
Bay by a channel 500 feet wide at bottom, and follows
this for about seven miles to Gatun. Here a flight of three
locks raises it to the summit level at an elevation of 85 feet.
The vessel may traverse the twenty-four mile stretch of
Gatun Lake at high speed in a channel varying from 1,000
to 500 feet in width. Culebra Cut is entered at Bas Obispo
and the passage of nine miles made through a channel hav-
ing a bottom width of 300 feet. At Pedro Miguel, where the
summit level ends, a lock lowers the vessel to a small lake,
with surface at about 55 feet above the level of the sea.
At a distance of about one and one-half miles beyond, the
two-flight locks of Miraflores are encountered. Through
them the vessel descends to tide-water and continues its
way to the Pacific by way of a channel eight and one-half
miles in length and 500 feet in bottom width. The depth
of the Canal throughout is forty-five feet at least, except
for the approach channel on the Atlantic side, where the
bottom will lie forty-one feet under water at mean tide.
GATUN DAM
The approximate measurements of the Gatun Dam
are: one and one-half miles in length along the crest; one-
half mile wide at the base; 400 feet wide at the water sur-
face; 100 feet wide at the top, and its crest at an elevation
of 115 feet, or 30 feet above the normal level of the lake.
The dam is formed by the flanking hills and two rock walls,
160 PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL
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PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL 161
enclosing a mixture of sand and clay. The top and upstream
slopes are heavily riprapped.
The spillway is a concrete-lined opening, 1,200 feet long
and 300 feet wide, cut through a hill in the center of the dam,
the bottom of the opening being ten feet above sea level.
During the construction of the dam, all the water discharged
from the Chagres River and its tributaries was carried
through this opening. After construction had sufficiently
advanced to permit the lake to be formed, the spillway was
closed with a concrete dam, fitted with gates and machinery
for regulating the water level of the lake, as described below.
The water level of Gatun Lake, extending through the
Culebra Cut, is maintained at the south end by an earth
dam connecting the locks at Pedro Miguel with the high
ground to the westward, about 1,700 feet long, with its crest
at an elevation 105 feet above mean tide.
The small lake between the locks at Pedro Miguel and
Miraflores is formed by dams connecting the walls of the
locks at the latter point with the high ground on either side.
The dam to the westward is of earth, about 2,700 feet long,
having its crest about 15 feet above the surface of Mira-
flores Lake. The east dam is of concrete, about 500 feet in
length, and forms a spillway for the lake, with crest gates
similar to those of the Gatun Dam.
Lake Gatun covers an area of 164 square miles, with a
depth in the ship channel varying from 85 to 45 feet. The
channel through the lake for the first 16 miles from Gatun
is 1,000 feet in width; for the next four miles it is 800 feet,
and for the remainder of the distance 500 feet wide. The
summit level of the lake extends through the cut and to
the Pedro Miguel Locks.
SPILLWAY, GATUN DAM
The Spillway is a concrete lined channel 1,200 feet
long and 285 feet wide cut through a hill of rock nearly
jn the center of the Dam, the bottom being 10 feet above
11
162 PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL
GATUN DAM, SPILLWAY AND LOCKS.
GATUN UPPER LOCKS, EAST CHAMBER.
The view is looking north from the forebay showing the upper guard gates and emergency dam.
PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL 163
sea level at the upstream end and sloping to sea level at the
toe. Across the upstream or lake opening of this channel.
a concrete dam has been built in the form of an arc of a
circle making its length 808 feet, although it closes a channel
with a width of only 285 feet. The crest of the dam is
69 feet above sea level, or 16 feet below the normal level of
the lake which is 85 feet above sea level. On the top of this
dam have been placed 13 concrete piers with their tops 115.5
feet above sea level, and between these there are mounted
regulating gates of the Stoney type. Each gate is built of
steel sheathing on a framework of girders and moves up and
down on roller trains placed in niches in the piers. They have
been equipped with sealing devices to make them water-tight.
Machines for moving the gates are designed to raise or lower
them in approximately ten minutes. The highest level to
which it is intended to allow the lake to rise is 87 feet above
sea level, and it is probable that this level will be maintained
continuously during wet seasons. With the lake at that
elevation, the regulation gates will permit of a discharge
of water greater than the maximum known discharge of the
Chagres River during a flood.
HYDROELECTRIC STATION AT GATUN
Adjacent to the north wall of the spillway has been
located a hydroelectric station capable of generating through
turbines 6,000 kilowatts for the operation of the lock machin-
ery, machineshops, dry dock, coalhandlingplant, batteries, and
for the lighting of the locks and Zone towns and, if desirable,
operating the Panamarailroad. The building is constructed
of concrete and steel, and is of a design suitable for a
permanent power house in a tropical country. The dimen-
sions are such as to permit the installation of three 2,000-
kilowatt units, and provision is made for a future exten-
sion of three additional similar units. It is rectangular
in shape, and contains one main operating floor, with a
turbine pit and two galleries for electrical equipment. The
i164 PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL
building, with machinery and electrical equipment has been
laid out upon the unit principle, each unit consisting of
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an individual head gate, penstock, governor, exciter, oil-
switch and control panel.
Water supply is taken from Gatun Lake, the elevation
of which will vary with the seasons from 80 to 87 feet
above sea level, through a forebay which is constructed
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‘SHOOT TANOIN OUCAd
PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL 165
as an integral part of the curved portion of the north spill-
way approach wall. From the forebay the water is
carried to the turbines through three steel plate penstocks,
each having an average length of 350 feet. The entrances
are closed by cast iron headgates and bar iron trash racks.
The headgates are raised and lowered by individual
motors which are geared to rising stems attached to the
gate castings. The driving machinery and the motors
have been housed in a small concrete gatehouse erected upon
the forebay wall directly over the gate recesses and trash
racks. The gate house has been constructed for the present
requirements of three head gates, and provision made for a
future addition of three more units.
WATER SUPPLY OF GATUN LAKE
Gatun Lake impounds the waters of a basin compris-
ing 1,320 square miles. (See Map, p. 162.) When the surface
of the water is at 85 feet above sea level, the lake will have
an area of about 164 square miles, and will contain about
183 billion cubic feet of water. During eight or nine months
of the year, the lake will be kept constantly full by the pre-
vailing rains, and consequently a surplus will need to be
stored for only three or four months of the dry season. The
smallest run-off of water in the basin during the past 22 years,
as measured at Gatun, was that of the fiscal year, 1912,
which was about 132 billion cubic feet. Previous to that
year the smallest run-off of record was 146 billion cubic feet.
In 1910 the run-off was 360 billion cubic feet, or a sufficient
quantity to fill the lake one and a half times. The low
record of 1912 is of interest as showing the effect which a
similar dry season, occurring after the opening of the Canal,
would have upon its capacity for navigation. Assuming
that Gatun Lake was at elevation plus 87 at the beginning
of the dry season on December Ist, and that the hydro-
electric plant at the Gatun Spillway was in continuous opera-
tion, and that 48 lockages a day were being made, the eleva-
166 PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL
tion of the lake would be reduced to its lowest point, plus
79.5, on May 7th, at the close of the dry season, after which
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GATUN DAM SPILLWAY.
it would continuously rise. With the water at plus 79 in
Gatun Lake there would be 39 feet of water in Culebra
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PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL 167
Cut, which would be ample for
navigation. The water surface of
the lake will be maintained during
the rainy season at 87 feet above
sea level, making the minimum
channel depth in the Canal 47
feet. As navigation can be carried
on with about 39 feet of water,
there will be stored for the dry
season surplus over 7 feet of water.
Making due allowance for evapora-
tion, seepage, leakage at the gates,
and power consumption, this would
be ample for 41 passages daily
through the locks, using them at
full length, or about 58 lockages a
day when partial length is used,
as would be usually the case, and
when cross filling from one leck to
the other through the central wall
is employed. This would be a
larger number of lockages than
would be possible in a single day.
The average number of lockages
through the Sault Ste. Marie Canal
on the American side was 39 per
day in the season of navigation of
1910, which was about eight months
long. The average number of
ships passed was about 13 per lock-
age. The freight carried was about
26,000,000 tons. The Suez Canal
passed about 12 vessels per day,
with a total tonnage for the same
year of 16,582,000.
The water level of Gatun
Lake, extending through the Cul-
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168 PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL
ebra Cut, is maintained at the southern end by an earth
dam connecting the locks at Pedro Miguel with the high
ground to the westward, about 1,400 feet long, with its
crest at an elevation of 105 feet above mean tide. A concrete
core wall, containing about 700 cubic yards, connects
the locks with the hills to the eastward; this core wall rest-
ing directly on the rock surface and being designed to pre-
vent percolation through the earth, the surface of which is
above the Lake level.
A small lake between the locks at Pedro Miguel and
Miraflores has been formed by dams connecting the walls
of Miraflores locks with the high ground on either side. The
dam to the westward is of earth, about 2,700 feet long,
having its crest about 15 feet above the water in Miraflores
Lake. The east dam is of concrete, containing about
75,000 cubic yards, about 500 feet in length, and forms
a spillway for Miraflores Lake, with crest gates similar to
those at the Spillway of the Gatun Dam.
THE LOCKS
There are twelve locks in the Canal, all in duplicate;
three pairs in flight at Gatun, with a combined lift of 85 feet;
one pair at Pedro Miguel, with a lift of 303 feet; and two
pairs at Miraflores, with a total lift of 543 feet at mean tide.
The dimensions of all are the same—a usable length of 1,000
feet, and a usable breadth of 110 feet. Each lock is a
chamber, with walls and floor of concrete, and water-tight
gates at each end.
The side walls are 45 to 50 feet thick at the surface
of the floor; they are perpendicular on the face, and narrow
from a point 244 feet above the floor, until they are eight
feet wide at the top. The middle wall is 60 feet thick and
81 feet high, with vertical faces. At a point 424 feet above
the surface of the floor, and 15 feet above the top of the
middle culvert, this wall divides into two parts, leaving a
U-shaped space down the center, which is 19 feet broad at
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PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL 169
the bottom and 44 feet broad at the top. In this space is
a tunnel, divided into three stories or galleries. The low-
est of these divisions is for drainage; the middle for the
wires that will carry the electric current to operate the gate
and valve machinery, which is installed in the central wall,
and the upper division forms a passage-way for the oper-
ators. The lock chambers are filled and emptied through
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COMPARISON BETWEEN SIDE WALL OF LOCK AND A
SIX STORY BUILDING.
lateral culverts in the floors, connecting with main culverts,
18 feet in diameter in the walls, the water flowing in and
out by gravity.
The lock gates are steel structures, seven feet thick,
65 feet long, and from 47 to 82 feet high. They weigh
from 300 to 600 tons each. Ninety-two leaves are required
for the several locks, the total weighing 57,000 tons. Inter-
mediate gates are being used, in order to save water and
time, and permit of the division of each lock into two
170 PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL
chambers, respectively, 600 and 400 feet long. In the
construction of the locks there were used 4,500,000 cubic
yards of concrete, which required about the same number
of barrels of cement.
The time spent in filling and emptying a lock aver-
ages about fifteen minutes, without opening the valves so
suddenly as to create disturbing currents in the locks or
approaches. The time required to pass a vessel through
all the locks is estimated at 3 hours; one hour and a half
in the three locks at Gatun, and about the same time in
the three locks on the Pacific side. The time of passage
of a vessel through the entire Canal is estimated as ranging
from 10 to 12 hours, according to the size of the ship, and
the rate of speed at which it can travel, since the twenty-
four mile passage of Gatun Lake may be made at full
speed.
GATE-MOVING MACHINERY
The machinery for opening and closing the miter gates
was invented in the office of the Assistant Chief Engineer
by Edward Schildhauer. It consists essentially of a crank
gear, to which is fastened one end of a strut or connecting
rod, the other end of which is fastened to a lock gate. The
wheel moves through an arc of 197 degrees, closes or opens
the gate leaf, according to the direction in which it is turned.
One operation takes 2 minutes. The crank gear is a com-
bination of gear and crank, is constructed of cast steel, is
19 feet 2 inches in diameter, and weighs approximately
35,000 pounds. It is mounted in a horizontal position on
the lock wall, turns on a large center pin, and is supported
at the rim in four places by rollers. The center pin is
keyed into a heavy casting anchored securely to the con-
crete. The crank-gear has gear teeth on its rim and is
driven through a train of gears and pinions by an electric
motor in a contiguous room. The motor is remotely con-
trolled by an operator who is stationed at a center control
house near the lower end of the upper locks. > | a See eee ew ee
am 0 ro ¢ of Phe Bese
GATE MOVING MACHINERY.
This shows the relation of the bull wheel to strut and gate. A. Strut or connecting rod,
Ta wee ee we we ee ee ee eee
B. Bed plate. C. Bearing wheel.
172 PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL
pull of a small switch is sufficient to either close or open
a 700-ton gate, the operation being perfectly automatic.
No ship is allowed to pass through the locks under its
own power, but is towed through by electric locomotives
operating on tracks on the lock walls. The system of
towing provides for the passing through the locks of a
ship at the rate of 2 miles an hour. The number of loco-
motives varies with the size of the vessel. The usual num-
ber required is 4: 2 ahead, 1 on each wall, imparting motion
to the vessel, and 2 astern, 1 on each wall, to aid in keep-
ing the vessel in a central position and to bring it to rest
when entirely within the lock chamber. They are equipped
with a slip drum, towing windlass and hawser which per-
mits the towing line to be taken in or paid out without
actual motion of the locomotive on the track. The loco-
motives run on a level, except when in passing from one
lock to another they climb heavy grades. There are two
systems of tracks: one for towing, and the other for the
return of the locomotives when not towing. The towing
tracks have center racks or cogs throughout, and the loco-
motives always operate on this rack when towing. At
the incline between locks the return tracks also have rack
rails, but elsewhere the locomotives run by friction. The
only crossovers between the towing and return tracks are
at each end of the locks, and there are no switches in the
rack rail.
PROTECTIVE DEVICES
Several protective devices have been used to safeguard
the gates in the locks.
First. Fender chains, 24 in number, each weighing
24,098 pounds, have been placed on the up-stream side of
the guard gates, intermediate and safety gates of the upper
locks, and in front of the guard gates at the lower end of
each flight of locks. They prevent the lock gates from
being rammed by a ship that might approach the gates
under its own steam or by escaping from the towing loco-
Photograph, Underwoud & Underwood, N.Y.
BERM CRANES AT MIRAFLORES.
These great cranes, which are movable on the tracks at the bottom of the picture,
carry electric trolleys which transport the concrete from the mixers to the desired
point on the lock walls.
PLAN AND OPERATION OF THE CANAL 178
motives. In operation, the chain is stretched across the
lock chamber from the top of the opposing walls, and when
it is desired to allow a ship to pass, the chain is lowered
into a groove made for the purpose in the lock floor. It
is raised again after the ship passes. The raising and lower-
ing is accomplished from both sides by mechanism mounted
in chambers or pits in the lock walls. This mechanism
consists of a hydraulically operated system of cylinders,
so that 1 foot of movement by the cylinder accomplishes
4 feet by the chain. If a ship exerting a pressure of more
than 750 pounds to the square inch should run into the
fender, the chain is paid out gradually by an automatic
release until the vessel comes to a stop. Thus, a 10,000-
ton ship, running at 4 knots an hour, after striking the
fender can be brought to a stop within 73 feet, which is
less than the distance which separates the chain from the
gate.
Second. Double gates have been provided at the en-
trances to all the locks and at the lower end of the upper
lock in each flight, the guard gate of each pair protecting
the lower gate from ramming by a ship which might pos-
sibly get away from the towing locomotives and break
through the fender chain.
Third. A dam of the movable type called an emer-
gency dam has been placed in the head bay above the
upper locks of each flight for the purpose of checking the
flow of water through the locks in case of damage, or in
case it is necessary to make repairs, or to do any work
in the locks which necessitates the shutting off of all water
from the lake levels. Each dam is constructed on a steel
truss bridge of the cantilever type, pivoted on the side
wall of the lock approach, and when not in use rests on
the side wall parallel to the channel. When the dam is
used, the bridge is swung across the channel with its end
resting on the center wall of the lock.
Route To THE ISTHMUS ee
ECUADOR,
.
MAP OF ROUTES TO THE ISTHMUS.
This shows the directness of the routes from New York and New Orleans to Colon.
14
210 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
fourteen thousand miles apart, and the seriousness of this
matter was best evinced to the American people by the
spectacular voyage of the “Oregon” during the Spanish-
American war. In other words, it is necessary to maintain
two fleets, each one capable of defending the entire eastern
or western coast line without assistance from the other side
of the continent. This state of affairs is not only expensive,
but to a certain extent dangerous, unless we are able to
keep both fleets up to a standard of efficiency greater than
that of any fleet which could be brought from any eastern
or western nation to attack our ports.
By means of the Panama Canal, however, either fleet
could be reinforced within a short space of time, and thus
the mobility of both fleets will be greatly increased.
Furthermore, the Panama Canal with its enormously strong
fortifications, its dry-docks, coaling and supply stations,
will form a naval base at the sole connecting link between
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. From the standpoint of a
military expert this is a most important matter and it has
been said that the canal will double the efficiency of our
eastern and western fleets. The authorities at Washington
were keenly aware of the advantage of such a naval base,
and wisely omitted any clause in the Hay-Pauncefote
Treaty which forbade us the privilege of fortifying the
canal.
COMMERCIAL ASPECTS
So much for the military aspect of the canal. The
results of opening the waterway to commerce are far reach-
ing and complex. Since the opening of the first railway
to the Pacific, in 1869, shippers have had the choice of rail
and water routes for the transportation of their freight
from coast to coast, and, in spite of artificial restraints
upon the competition of the water routes with the trans-
continental railroads, the rates by rail between the two
seaboards have been affected by those charged by the
carriers by water. The Panama Canal will shorten and
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THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 211
improve the intercoastal water route and will greatly in-
crease the influence which the coastwise lines will be able
to exert upon the railroad services and rates. The volume
of traffic moving coastwise will be greatly enlarged by the
canal. Some goods now handled all-rail will move by water
or by rail and water lines, and there will necessarily follow
a modification of rail rates and a readjustment of the rela-
tion of the charges of rail and water lines.
What the actual freight rates between the Atlantic and
Pacific seaboards will be, by rail and water lines, after the
opening of the Panama Canal, and what shares of the total
traffic will move coastwise and by rail, can not be predicted
in advance; but inasmuch as the division of intercoastal
traffic between the water and rail carriers and the rates
charged by the competing ocean and rail routes may be
affected by the tolls charged for the use of the Panama
Canal, it is desirable that before fixing the tolls as com-
plete information as it is practicable to secure should be
obtained concerning the existing traffic and rates of both
the water and the rail lines connecting our two seaboards.
Accordingly, it is proposed to explain the nature of the traffic
now carried by water routes between the two seaboards.
It is well known that only partial information regarding
the traffic by rail between the eastern and western sections
of the United States is obtainable, but enough facts are
known as to the total transcontinental rail tonnage and
as to the seaboard and inland origin and destination of
that tonnage to give some indication of the probable effects
of the Panama Canal upon the traffic and upon the rate
policies of the eastern, southern, and transcontinental rail-
roads. It will be possible to present in sufficient detail
the traffic and rates of the coast-to-coast carriers by water
and to compare the present intercoastal rates by water
and rail lines. It will be understood that the conclusions
as to the effects which the Panama Canal will have upon the
transcontinental traffic and rates of the railroads must be
only tentative.
212 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
ROUTES AND TRAFFIC BY WATER BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC
AND PACIFIC SEABOARDS OF THE UNITED STATES
Shipments between the two seaboards of the United
States may move by three water routes that compete with
the rail lines connecting the two coasts, (1) the all-water
route around South America via Cape Horn for sailing
vessels and through the Straits of Magellan for steamers;
(2) the route by way of Panama with the transfer of traffic
by rail across the Isthmus; and (3) the route via the Isthmus
of Tehuantepec, across which, from Puerto Mexico on the
Gulf to Salina Cruz on the Pacific, freight is handled by
a railroad owned by the Mexican Government.
Traffic carried by rail lines between the Atlantic and
Pacific seaboards may move coastwise for a short distance
on each seaboard—as from New York to Norfolk or from
Portland, Ore., to San Francisco at the beginning or end
of the railroad haul across the continent. The only railroad
controlling a through route between the Atlantic and
Pacific seaboards is the Southern Pacific, which operates
the Morgan Line of steamers between New York and New
Orleans and Galveston. The steamers of the Morgan
Line extend the Southern Pacific route from the Gulf termini
of the railroad to New York, and thus enable the Southern
Pacific to compete both with the other transcontinental
railroads and with the intercoastal water routes around
South America and across the Isthmuses of Panama and
Tehuantepec. This combined rail and water line of the
Southern Pacific is called the ‘‘Sunset-Gulf Route.”
1. The oldest route between the two seaboards of the
United States is the one taken by sailing vessels around
Cape Horn. Prior to 1849, however, only an occasional
vessel, which was in most instances a whaler, undertook
the voyage between the Atlantic and Pacific, but with the
discovery of gold at the close of 1848, and for a few years
thereafter, there was a very large use of this route. In
1849, 775 vessels cleared from the Atlantic seaboard for
San Francisco and all but 12 of them were sailing vessels.
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 213
The opening of the Panama Railroad early in 1855 caused
most of the traffic between the seaboards to abandon the
long route around South America, but a considerable num-
ber of sailing vessels were annually dispatched between
the two seaboards by way of Cape Horn, and a small
amount of steam tonnage made use of the Magellan route.
The superiority of steamers over sailing vessels for
handling most classes of freight, even for such a long route
as that between the two seaboards of the United States
around South America, became evident during the 1890’s
and caused the company which was then operating the
principal line of sailing vessels between our two seaboards
by way of Cape Horn to sell its sailing vessels and to inaugu-
rate, in 1899, the American-Hawaiian line of steamers run
by way of the Straits of Magellan. Early in 1907 the
American-Hawaiian line shifted to the route via the Isthmus
of Tehuantepec, and since that date practically all of the
shipping moving between our two seaboards around South
America has consisted of chartered sailing vessels and
steamers that handle such bulky cargoes as can be eco-
nomically shipped by that circuitous route.
2. The Panama route between our two seaboards was
opened for traffic at the close of 1848, at the time of the
rush to the California gold fields. With the completion of
the railroad from Colon to Panama, early in 1855, most.
of the traffic between our two seaboards moved by way of
Panama; and this continued to be the principal highway
for transcontinental traffic until 1869, when the connection
of the Missouri River with the Pacific coast by the Union
and Central Pacific Railroads established the first rail line
across the United States. The traffic by way of Panama
rapidly fell off after 1869; and, though varying from year
to year, remained comparatively small until 1911, when
there was a sudden increase in the volume of traffic by
water between our two seaboards.
Several causes account for the relative unimportance
of the Panama route since 1869. The transcontinental
214 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
railroads, until recently, have maintained a relentless com-
petitive warfare against the Panama route. The through
rail rates between the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards are
lower than the rates for shorter hauls to and from the inter-
mediate points in the Rocky Mountain territory; and, until
the Government regulation of railroads became effective,
the railroad companies quoted shippers such rates as were
necessary to keep traffic from taking the Panama route.
Moreover, the transcontinental railroads were able to restrict
the use of the Panama route through their close relations
with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which has, for
most of the time, been the only regular line between the
west-coast ports of the United States and Panama. For
a period of 20 years, ending in 1893, the railroads, through
the Transcontinental Association, paid the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company a fixed monthly sum, or rental, for
the freight space available in its steamers, and thus com-
pletely controlled the Pacific Mail as a competitor. From
1900 to the present, the Southern Pacific Company has
owned a majority of the stock of the Pacific Mail Steam-
ship Company. The history of the relations of the Pacific
Mail to the transcontinental railroads and to the Panama
Railroad need not be presented in this account of the traffic
and rates by the various routes connecting the two sea-
boards of the United States.* It is sufficient to state that
* For the history of the relations of the Panama Railroad to the Pacific Mail Steamship
Company and for an account of the connection of the Pacific Mail with the transcontinental
railroads, the following references may profitably be consulted:
(1) Opinion of the Interstate Commerce Commission in Railroad Commission of Nevada
v. Southern Pacific Company et al. (June 22, 1911), 21 I. C. C. Reports, 329-384.
(2) Statement by Edward A. Drake, vice-president Panama Railroad, to the Committee
on Interoceanic Canals, United States Senate, Feb. 11, 1910.
(3) Report of Joseph L. Bristow, special Panama Railroad commissioner, to the Secre-
tary of War, June 24, 1905, upon the Policy to be Pursued in Management of the Panama
Railroad Company (Government Printing Office, Washington), also report of Jan. 20, 1908,
on the Advisability of the Establishment of a Pacific Steamship Line by the Isthmian Canal
Commission (S. Doc. No. 409, 62d Cong., 2d sess.).
(4) Statement by R. P. Schwerin, vice-president and general manager Pacific Mail Steam-
ship Company, to the Committee on Interoceanic Canals, United States Senate, on Senate
bill 428, Mar. 10, 1910. Also statement by Mr. Schwerin before same committee, on House
bill 21969 Mar. 1, 2, and 3, 1912.
(5) Statement by William R. Wheeler, representative of San Francisco Chamber of
Commerce, to Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals, on House bill 21969, May 27, 1912.
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 215
the transcontinental railroads by active competition and
by artificial restraint have, until recently, kept the traffic
via the Panama route comparatively small.
The development of traffic via Panama has been ham-
pered, not only by the competition and restraint of the
transcontinental railroads, but also by two other causes.
While the French company was engaged in construction
work on the Isthmus from 1882 to 1889, the use of the
Panama Railroad by commercial freight was restricted by
employment of the railroad for the transportation of mate-
rials and supplies used in construction work. Likewise,
since 1904, the construction of the canal has limited the
volume of commercial freight that could be handled across
the Isthmus. The other cause that has checked the growth
of traffic via Panama has been the competition of the
Tehuantepec route, which, since the beginning of 1907,
has afforded a shorter and better transportation route than
the one by way of Panama for the traffic between the two
seaboards of the United States. The volume of traffic
handled via Panama between our two seaboards during recent
years has been small and has tended to decline on account
of the absorption of the Panama Railroad in Canal work.
3. The Tehuantepec route was opened for traffic early
in 1907, when the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company
took its steamers off the route via the Straits of Magellan
and established regular line services on the Atlantic between
New York and Puerto Mexico and on the Pacific between
Salina Cruz and Hawaii and the west-coast ports of the
United States. In 1906 it made an agreement with the
Tehuantepec National Railway, which is owned by the
Mexican Government, stipulating that the railway com-
pany should receive one-third of the through rate. This
agreement also included a guaranty on the part of the
Tehuantepec National Railway that the net earnings of
the steamship company, per ship ton, should not be less
than the earnings had been in 1904, when the steamship
company was operating by way of the Straits of Magellan.
216 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
This guaranty, however, did not require the Tehuantepec
National Railway to reduce its share of the gross receipts
of the steamship company to less than 25 per cent. The
American-Hawaiian line has been very successful. The
fleet of the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company in-
creased from 3 steamers in 1899 to 9 steamers in 1904,
and to 17 in 1911. Five new steamers were ordered in
1911. The rapid growth in the traffic of the company
has been made possible by the sugar tonnage from Hawaii
to the eastern ports of the United States. The freight
shipments westbound between our two seaboards are larger
than those eastbound, but the exports of Hawaiian sugar
have enabled the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company
to run its steamers loaded in both directions. Indeed,
the exports of sugar from Hawaii have been much larger
than the American-Hawaiian Company could handle.
The through route between the two seaboards via the
Southern Pacific Railroad from the Pacific coast to Gal-
veston and New Orleans and from those cities to New York
by the Southern Pacific Company’s steamers (the Morgan
Line) was established in 1888. The Sunset-Gulf route
immediately began an active warfare against its com-
petitors by rail and by water lines, and secured a large
share of the traffic from coast to coast. The transconti-
nental railroads, other than the Southern Pacific, ran from
the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to the Pacific coast
and were primarily interested in the development of traffic
between the Middle West and the Pacific coast. The
rates by the Sunset-Gulf route from New York to San
Francisco were made the same as the rates by the trans-
continental lines from St. Louis and Missouri River crossings
to the Pacific. Gradually the rates by the through all-rail
lines from the Atlantic to the Pacific were made the same
as the rates from Chicago, St. Louis, and Missouri River
crossings to the Pacific seaboard. This system of blanket
rates was worked out by 1896, and has since prevailed on
west bound traffic. The establishment of the same rates
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 217
by the Sunset-Gulf route and by the all-rail lines between
the two seaboards allied the Sunset-Gulf route with the
all-rail lines as common competitors against the water routes
around South America and via the Isthmuses of Panama
and Tehuantepec. The control of the Pacific Mail Steam-
ship Company by the transcontinental railroads since 1874,
and the ownership of the Pacific Mail by the Southern Pacific
from 1890 to the present, enabled the transcontinental
railroads, as has been explained, to keep the traffic by the
water routes within small proportions, until a few years
ago, when the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company,
and later the California-Atlantic, developed a relatively
large tonnage coastwise via the Tehuantepec and Panama
routes. This development of the coastwise business dur-
ing the last few years has not been seriously opposed by
the railroads, doubtless because of the rapid development
of the rail tonnage consequent upon the industrial progress
of the Intermountain and Pacific Coast States.
The volume of traffic handled between the Atlantic
and Pacific ports of the United States by the several water
routes has been constantly on the increase for a number of
years, showing the rapidly growing need for the canal. The
total tons of freight, not including Hawaiian sugar, rose
from less than 500,000 tons in 1906 to over 800,000 tons
in 1911. If the tonnage of Hawaiian sugar be included,
the increase during the six years in total traffic was from
560,000 to 1,104,000 cargo tons. The increase during the
four years ending in 1911 was steady and rapid. The
decline during 1907 and 1908 is to be accounted for mainly
by the San Francisco earthquake and fire.
An important feature is the separation of total traffic
into that handled by regular steamship lines and that
carried by individual vessels owned or chartered by the
shippers. The traffic handled by the regular lines more
than trebled during the six-year period, while that carried
by individual vessels decreased more than 50 per cent.
In 1911, 82.8 per cent of the entire traffic, other than
218 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
Hawaiian sugar, was carried by the regular lines, whereas
in 1906 only 42.1 per cent was shipped by the established
steamship lines.
The volume and variety of the traffic between the two
seaboards of the United States have so expanded as to
render the services of established steamship lines having
regular and frequent sailings more economical than the
services of individual vessels carrying full cargoes-of single
commodities. The traffic manager of the American-
Hawaiian line stated to the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion, on January 16, 1907, that—
We carry practically everything. In the course of a year I think we
have at least 90 per cent of the articles that may be named in the trans-
continental tariffs and a great many articles not on any tariff that are
continually offered and carried.
The traffic carried by way of the Panama route also
includes a large variety of commodities. The west-bound
freight tariff of the Panama Railroad Steamship Line re-
quires 25 pages to enumerate the several articles upon
which individual rates are quoted. The east-bound tariff
of the California-Atlantic Steamship Company is a type-
written document of 20 pages.
The freight carried between our two seaboards by way
of Panama and Tehuantepec originates and terminates not
only at the Atlantic and Pacific ports, but also at interior
points. Manifests of the shipments by the American-
Hawaiian line enumerate commodities shipped from eastern
New York, eastern Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine; also
commodities from Syracuse and Buffalo, N. Y., from nu-
merous cities in Ohio, from certain cities in Michigan, and
from Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. These same
manifests show that this freight is destined not only to
Pacific coast ports, but to inland points, such as Sacra-
mento, Stockton, The Dalles, Ore., Spokane and Everett,
Wash., and Reno, Nev.
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 219
Most of the bulk cargoes handled-in vessels owned or
chartered by shippers now move by the disadvantageous
routes around Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan.
The opening of the Panama Canal will make it possible
for the individual ship to engage in intercoastal traffic
under much better conditions. It is not probable, how-
ever, that the percentage of the total traffic handled by
individual vessels will increase in the future. It is more
probable that the percentage of the entire business handled
by lines will increase. Most of the traffic from our Pacific
to Atlantic ports carried in individual vessels owned or
chartered by the shipper will necessarily consist of cargoes
of grain, lumber, and sugar. The sugar traffic is already
large and may be expected to become heavier. The ship-
ments of grain from the west coast, especially from Puget
Sound ports, to Europe through the canal will be large,
but it is not probable that the grain from the northwestern
part of the United States will find very much market at
the Atlantic seaboard. That section of the United States
will in all probability be supplied from the grain fields of
the Middle West. Barley from the Pacific Coast States
will be required in the Mississippi Valley and Atlantic
coast sections of the United States, and may be shipped
in vessel cargoes as charter traffic. However, such com-
modities as wheat, barley, wool, canned salmon, and others
of a like character that might advantageously be shipped
as full cargoes in chartered vessels will probably be carried
eastbound mainly by line vessels, because of the fact that
the tonnage of traffic westbound is normally heavier than
the tonnage eastbound. Line vessels will seek these bulk
commodities as supplemental cargoes eastbound and at low
rates. As was stated above, the American-Hawaiian line
has developed a profitable business by securing a heavy
eastbound tonnage of Hawaiian sugar. In 1911 the Ha-
waiian line transported 295,800 tons westbound, but only
162,500 tons, other than sugar, eastbound.
The lumber shipments from the Pacific coast through
220 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
the canal will comprise a large tonnage, but the destina-
tion of most of the traffic will be Europe and not the eastern
part of the United States, which will continue to be supplied
mainly from the forests in the Southern States. The south-
ern pine and hardwood forests constitute the largest lumber-
producing district in the United States at the present time.
Shipments are made economically and expeditiously both
by all-rail routes to northern markets and also by rail to
southern seaports and thence by coastwise vessels.
Upon the opening of the Panama Canal it is probable
that manufacturers and other large shippers will employ
their own or chartered vessels for shipments of some heavy
commodities to Pacific markets. Undoubtedly there will
be a good deal of coal shipped westbound in chartered
vessels. Fertilizers, heavy iron and steel, and some other
commodities may be sent as bulk cargoes in individual
ships from time to time. It is probable, however, that
most commodities, other than coal and fertilizers, will be
shipped by line steamers.
The fact that most of the traffic through the canal
between the two seaboards of the United States will be
handled by regular steamship lines and that only a minor,
and probably a decreasing, percentage of the total will be
transported in individual vessels owned or chartered by
shippers should be given careful attention in considering,
(1) what the policy of the United States should be concern-
ing the prohibition of the use of the canal by vessels con-
trolled by railroads, and (2) concerning the remission or
omission of tolls upon vessels engaged in the coastwise
business.
1. The policy of denying the use of the canal to vessels
owned or controlled by, or affiliated with, railroad com-
panies is advocated by those who favor the policy mainly
for two reasons, (a) that the competition between the
railroad-controlled and the independent steamship lines
will be disastrous to the independent lines, and (6) that
the Government regulation of the rates and services of
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 221
ocean carriers is impracticable and undesirable. If coast-
wise traffic through the canal were to be handled mainly
by individual vessels owned or chartered by shippers,
Government regulation would, indeed, be impracticable;
but the service of steamship lines operating over established
routes is not essentially different from the transportation
service of the railroads. Moreover, when several steam-
ship lines operate over the same route or over competing
routes they have fixed schedules of rates established by
agreement and their rate policy differs in no marked degree
from that of competing railroads.
The rates charged by steamship lines differ fundamentally
from charter rates, which are highly competitive and fluctu-
ate with the supply of and demand for chartered tonnage.
Charter rates fluctuate according to business conditions
and could not be and ought not to be subject to Govern-
ment regulation. The rates of steamship lines, however,
are not only made in conferences of the competing lines,
but also in many cases are fixed with reference to the rates
charged by the railroads with which the steamship lines
must compete for traffic. It is thus at least doubtful
whether it is good public policy not to regulate the rates
and services of coastwise steamship lines. Whether such
regulation is wise or unwise, it is at least not impracticable.
2. The question of exempting coastwise shipping from
the payment of Panama Canal tolls should be decided
with reference to the parties that would be benefited by
that policy. If the tolls charged coastwise ships using
the canal are added to the rate of freight paid by shippers,
the remission of tolls will benefit the shippers and possibly,
to some extent, the general public. On the other hand,
if the freight rates are not any higher because of the tolls,
the exemption of ships from the payment of tolls will not
affect the freight rates, and the exemption of the payment
of tolls will benefit the steamship company and not the
shippers. Charter rates, as has just been stated, are highly
competitive and the rates which a shipper must pay to
222 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
secure the use of a vessel for a trip through the canal will
undoubtedly be increased by the amount of tolls paid.
Shippers using vessels which they own or charter will
receive the benefit of the exemption of canal tolls. On the
other hand, the rates charged by steamship lines, being
regulated by agreements among competing companies and
being fixed with reference to what the traffic will bear,
will presumably be as high as traffic conditions warrant
regardless of canal tolls. If the tolls are charged, the
operating expenses of the steamship companies will be
increased by the amount of the tolls and their net profits
will be lessened by the same amount. In other words,
free tolls will be a gratuity or a subsidy to the coastwise
steamship lines. There are reasons for believing that the
rates of the coastwise steamship lines, which will handle
from four-fifths to nine-tenths of the water traffic between
the two seaboards of the United States, will not be affected
by the policy of the United States Government as regards
free tolls.
Estimates of the comparative costs of shipment by the
methods outlined above as against those via the Panama
Canal all point to a saving of at least one-third in favor of
the canal. The railroads charge about one-third of the
through rate upon all freight carried between the coasts,
and this on an average amounts to between $3.00 and
$3.50 per cargo ton. Against this there will be merely the
charge of $1.20 per net vessel ton exacted for the use of the
canal. Inasmuch as a vessel ton is equivalent to 100 cubic
feet of space, while a cargo ton is only equivalent to 40
cubic feet of space, these terms must not be confused. As
a rule, freight vessels can transport more than two tons of
cargo for each net ton of rating, an average of about two
tons of freight capacity for each vessel ton. On this basis
the tolls as fixed for the canal at present will only amount
to about sixty cents per cargo ton, and the saving should
be from $2.40 to $2.90 on each ton of cargo as against the
railway transfer method.
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THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 223
There are many commodities which will be shipped via
the canal which would not bear the double handling made
necessary by the old method, either by reason of their
fragile nature or the expense of double handling. Among
the latter are lumber, coal, ore and such materials which
are handled in bulk. This latter consideration will be of
the utmost importance in connection with the great ore and
nitrate deposits of the western coast of South America.
REDUCTIONS IN SHIPPING RATES
The matter of ascertaining the amount of reduction in
costs made possible by the use of the canal is not difficult
to determine. When, however, we attempt to investigate
the matter of a reduction of charges a more difficult situa-
tion confronts us. While the freight rates charged by
transcontinental railroads have been a great factor in creat-
ing a powerful demand for a canal, in the hope that water
competition would result in reducing present rates, it is
extremely doubtful if these reductions will bear a true
proportion to reductions in costs, although the idea is prev-
alent throughout the country that such will be the case.
Our industrial history has shown very clearly that it is
impossible to compel keen competition. Our railroad com-
panies have pools, conferences, mergers, road understand-
ings and agreements to such an extent that competitive
rates do not exist, and the Interstate Commerce Commission
is the only means open to the shipper of compelling a
reasonable relationship between costs of transportation and
rates. The rule of thumb by which railroad rates are fixed
is the phrase, ‘‘all that the traffic will bear,” and it seems
likely that this method will also be followed in fixing the
steamship rates through the canal, and the rates maintained
by the same methods as have been followed in the case of
the railroads. All of the great European transport lines are
bonded together in rate agreements, and it is probable that
the coastwise steamship lines using the Canal will be
224 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
operated under similar conditions, and the rates between
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts will be the same by all rival
lines. Of course there will be outside competition by means
of privately owned or chartered vessels, but inasmuch as
few shippers are able to forward in cargo lots this compe-
tition will amount to but a small percentage of the total
volume of trade, practically all of which will be handled by
the regular transport companies. These rates may be
modified, of course, by extending the power of the Inter-
state Commerce Commission, or some similar body to their
regulation, but is is probable that the same conditions
which obtain in connection with the transcontinental rail-
roads will reappear in connection with the Canal.
RAILROAD COMPETITION
From this arises the question of competition between the
transcontinental railroads and the intercoastal steamship
lines. It has been thought that the railroads would be
compelled to reduce their rates to a competitive basis with
the freight rates charged via the Canal, and it was with the
idea of compelling such competition that railway-owned
ships were forbidden the use of the waterway. Two sets of
conditions are to be apprehended: the first, that rate confer-
ences between the steamship and railroad companies will
operate to maintain a non-competitive rate schedule between
them; or, in other words, that both will continue to charge
as much as the traffic will bear. The second condition is
that only about ten per cent of the railroad traffic is billed
through from coast to coast, and if the roads should reduce
the rate on this class of traffic they would be compelled to
adjust the rates to all intermediate points on a similar basis
and thus cut heavily into their revenues. On this account
it is altogether likely that the railroads will prefer to sacrifice
the ten per cent of volume rather than revise all the existing
rates on such a basis. Summing up the situation, we must
not anticipate a heavy reduction in costs of transportation
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 225
between the coasts either by ship or railroad. Certain
reductions, however, are bound to come, for the reasons
that competition cannot be entirely eliminated, and the
insistent demands of the public for rates which bear a rea-
sonable relation to the costs of service must be taken into
consideration in fixing rates; and there are certain commod-
ities upon which the reduction is sure to be material, and a
large number on which some reduction will certainly be
made in order to fill the ships which will naturally enter
into this business.
The most direct way of estimating what the people of
the United States and of the world at large are to gain by
the opening of the Panama Canal is to estimate the tonnage
which will pass through the canal, and to divide this tonnage
among the several classes of trade. It has been estimated
that the traffic between the coasts of the United States
will amount to only about one-tenth of the ships which
pass through the canal, our trade with foreign ports will
amount to about one-third, and that one-half of the traffic
will be ships which do not touch the ports of the United
States at any point, but simply use the canal as a short cut
between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
To understand the relation of the now existing trade
routes, and those which will come into being with the
Panama Canal, a study of a route map is necessary which
shows comparative distances on all of the principal trade
routes. (See page 226.)
RESULTS FAR REACHING
It is difficult to foresee all of the results which will be
obtained by the operation of the Canal, for the reason that
they are so numerous and so far-reaching. It is probable
that in course of time trade, political and banking conditions
will be revolutionized to a degree unforeseen. The first
effect will naturally be the tightening of the commercial ties
between the eastern and western sections of the United
15
226 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
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THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 227
States, due to the greatly increased facilities for transporta-
tion between them. With the increase in commercial
relations will naturally come a greater community of
interests, not only commercial, but political and social, and
a closer welding of East and West.
DISTANCES IN NAUTICAL MILES
SAVED FROM NEW YORK VIA THE PANAMA CANAL ON TRADE ROUTES
San Francisco:
Miagellaniencta nce utee sae wpa ce aebale seo se Miacaeasnare sis 13,135
Panaaniay: o.oiteic cen ior sd oe Wien a heen a ees ey ae et ee 5,262
DAVed outa selon Metts posta era ha erecaus vans Recalave he gctaictey Seat ouedoee ss ha 7,873
Guayaquil:
Magellanic hires cies ineiata’ tmncthiate a sets encanta see tutes chant meveunieres ees 10,215
Panama cnaiegu cee yok a eee es Re Ge 8 et os tee are ea 2,810
AVEO os.o hath co micu he ictivias ies ohana uiseae: asreitituedans anpe ere tees 7,405
Callao:
Mapellans ii sc ee wa ate oesaottls gguatiel oe wee Sg accra an cela eeu iaateecines 9,613
Pai Arn tics cos es a a eS a roe at re shears Ro a EIR Se acer ee a aber 3,363
Savedivctectieta a caceus ea teennnlecntipnes baka Ree wae 2 Boerne anaes tale 6,250
Iquique:
Magellan’ cnx seins sate Se ares Roun lets ened Kole ateecent athiinieces 9,143
SPB yn na Be os as cers yenistctie Cah ea anes coon May via creeecan ee teareuavels rade 4,004
SAVE ds iciaccule satan acarnlouee eed Oa wate eee ad eee enue ares alah eit 5,139
Valparaiso:
Magellan’. cs5 caasceiiso een dh eh ois ise eat eee 8,380
Panam as. oii s cece eae ea Sia es ME Us A eee I Siecaetelers eek 4,633
Saved tie so vaiave soseeeie o ahceeve ea Seen e moeer ae a ee ces aus Gest 3,747
Honolulu:
Magellan. 2.5. 2ce cece cence bene teed ene een ee nee cee 13,312
Pam Anse acces es ee ee wiedale waeinG eae as oconnaw hehe Geta anaes aa 6,700
228 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
Manila:
DUCZ a bina arodcnys sti bearer sane Raare eR Pena eames oe 11,589
SAMUI Ghia 2 i schay eG ye te Behe oe ec bm coast me Hack caloveue, casement e Groep 11,548
DAVE Ge Arnevaes aod xictn see dean ston Main Sool Poera ene oto ants 41
Yokohama:
PUES rsicteiepssees shane ailspukeresiie wom Babe ciese acu aud oededacy ah aca crak ove yaatancberes teat 13,079
PBA UIA atte aoa eaeue vans sees Ae uaaey Ore tolelel as Rigsbol cs Guoloueiacs vooanea atzeosye 9,798
Saved: vcvwscavenara soa sieve VeRae ys ald CE RGR at eos ale ea oes 3,281
Hongkong:
UCT ee) ee ies ae atd via ata esau agary oa tenay esr ithete 4d tor Se aiauscae susie eicbebs 11,628
SP TAMA etic shat ose Recah aoa, Ration 8 Rahassees, Lae Ai aE aaa eae 11,383
BVO i ices Biegig dg weiboan di gwen 98 RPS mceTy AA weer aelln roan xorg 245
Melbourne:
Magellan ost saa icne Xe cious neko tes carte Sand Se egusnionean Sc aiat 12,852
MP ATV TUNE an css cain oi ncn tts nan a Ie Soaedak no tuen Sd Gasaded nb aalodaneiy Latuces a eet 10,030
POV. G Chess sbecaccestyt ret taster ome ures dagen aoa es roe ah een cori tO 2,822
THE CANAL AND THE COMMERCE OF AMERICA
The establishment of a waterway between the two
great oceans of the globe will more widely affect the com-
merce of the world than any single work or event in its
history. President Hayes, in 1879, declared that ‘‘an
interoceanic canal across the American Isthmus will es-
sentially change the geographic relations between the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States and be-
tween the United States and the rest of the world.” The
Panama route will effect much greater economies of time
and distance than those that are at present secured by the
use of the Suez Canal.
Colquhoun, in his ‘‘Key to the Pacific,” says: “It will
bind together the remote sections of that immense country,
assimilate its diverse interests, go far towards solving many
* Via San Francisco and the Great Circle.
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 229
difficult problems, and make the United States still more
united. . . . No greater impulse to commerce can be
given than this complement to the Suez Canal. It will
benefit America in an infinitely greater degree than Europe.
It will give an immense impetus to United States
manufactures, especially cotton and iron, and will greatly
stimulate the shipbuilding industry and the naval power
of the United States.”
Whilst the Panama Canal must prove an universal boon
it will doubtless work to the detriment of some countries
and certain industries, at least until after adjustment of
the new trade relations. America will always be the great-
est beneficiary of the advantages accruing from the use of
the waterway and we will briefly consider a few of the
changes in conditions that have been brought about by
the completion of the enterprise to which so large an amount
of American energy, intellect and capital has been devoted.
EFFECT OF THE CANAL ON THE COMMERCE OF THE SOUTH _
No region in the United States can feel the immediate
benefit of the new route to the same extent as the Southern
States and the vast Valley of the Mississippi. The latter
territory, the richest in all the world, one and a quarter
million square miles in extent, intersected by five thousand
miles of navigable waterway, with prolific soil and ener-
getic people, finds new markets and a new outlet for its
varied products no longer dependent upon expensive rail-
way transportation,’ Chicago is nearly the same distance
from New Orleans as from New York, but St. Paul, Omaha,
Dubuque, Evansville and Denver are nearer to the former
point than to the latter. It is quite probable that the
present generation will see ocean steamships coming down
from Duluth, through the Great Lakes, an inland canal,
and the Mississippi River, to the Gulf of Mexico, and pass-
ing on to Pacific and Asian ports.
The new gateway to the Pacific will give a tremendous
230 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
iinpetus to the industries of the South. Its raw cotton,
which for a decade has been making small gains, under
difficult competition with the British East Indies and China,
in the Japanese market, is relieved of an onerous handicap.
The product of its mills, a coarse fabric, such as is especially
adapted to the requirements of South American and Ori-
ental consumers, must enjoy an enlarged demand under
stimulating conditions. Heretofore almost all the cotton
goods exported from this country to Asia has gone out
through New York eastward by way of the Suez Canal.
Alabama coal will find a constant and extensive demand
at Panama, which will become the greatest coaling port in
the world. Birmingham, where iron can be produced more
cheaply than at any other place on the earth, will find new
markets in South America and Asian countries for its output.
The steel, machinery, and various hardware of Tennessee
and other Southern States, which have been reaching
Australia and China during the past few years under the
most disadvantageous conditions of shipment, can be sent
through the Canal to these and other destinations at a
cost which may defy competition. The large lumber and
wood manufacturing industries of the South will be ob-
viously benefited to a great extent by the creation of a
short route to the western coasts of Central and South
America.
, GREAT BENEFITS TO OUR PACIFIC STATES
WW
- The immense saving in the journey from our eastern
ports to the Pacific Coast will revolutionize the trade of
the latter region. / Von Schierbrand says:* ‘‘It has been
computed that on a single voyage of a 1,500-ton sailing
vessel between Port Townsend, Seattle or San Francisco
and Boston, New York or Philadelphia, the saving effected
in wages, repairs, insurance, provisions, and freight charges,
by reason of the Panama Canal will aggregate between
*Amerioa, Asia and the Pacific, Wolf von Schierbrand. New York, 1904.
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 231
$8,000 and $9,500.” Many raw products of our Pacific
Coast, which can not bear the cost of long railroad hauls,
are made available to eastern markets at prices profitable
to the producer and the manufacturer. This applies par-
ticularly to building lumber and furnishes a partial solution
to the problem with which the rapidly disappearing forests
of our middle and eastern states are confronting us. The
economies effected in the transportation of the cereal and
fruit products of California and other western regions may
easily be imagined. Millions of pounds of fish were sent
annually in ice across the continent, aside from the enor-
mous quantities that went to Europe in English sailing
vessels round Cape Horn. All this passes through the
Canal.
The Canal is the means of enabling the people of the
Pacific Coast to buy more cheaply and to secure better
prices for their products. By breaking the monopolistic
power of the railroads it will lead to the agricultural de-
velopment of the unoccupied sections of this territory, to a
vast increase in its population and to the creation of world-
wide markets for its products.
A BOON TO THE NORTHEASTERN TERRITORY
«The industries of the northeastern section of the United
States, that is to say the territory lying to the east of Pitts-
burg and to the north of the James River, consist mainly
of the manufactures of iron and steel, machinery, tools,
etc., and textiles, coal mining, and shipbuilding. The
exports of manufactured cotton from this and other parts
of the United States go principally to ports in Asia and
Oceania, where their chief competitor is the product of the
British mills. It is not necessary to expatiate upon the
advantage which the short route will give to us in this
trade. The countries of South America expend about
$80,000,000 annually in the purchase of cotton goods.
At present, however, little more than five per cent of this
232 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
large sum is paid for American cloth, but the facilities for
shipping economically that will be created by the Canal
must have, among other results, that of giving to the manu-
facturers of our Northeastern and Southern States a very
large share of this desirable business.
It is hoped that by the use of a new type of steel river
barge of large capacity and small draft the coal of Penn-
sylvania and the Southern mines may be shipped direct to
Panama at a cost of one dollar per short ton. This would
allow of its being sold at three dollars, a figure sufficiently
low to preclude successful competition. The ability to
supply cheap fuel would not only accrue to the benefit of
our coal mining interests, but would, where other consid-
erations balanced, decide shipmasters in favor of the
Panama route, for the contract price of steam coal at Port
Said is about six dollars and the current price about ten
dollars per ton.
OUR ADVANTAGE OVER FOREIGN COMPETITORS
The principal exporting competitors of the United
States in the markets for the manufactures of iron and steel
are Great Britain, Germany and Belgium. European
producers can reach the west coast of South America, and
the oriental countries in general, more readily than can our
manufacturers, but the Canal will entirely subvert the con-
dition in the favor of the latter. Few of our industries are
likely to receive such an expansive impulse from that event
as those dependent upon iron and steel for their material
and the section which will benefit most in that respect is
the coal and ore region of the South.
One of the most certain consequences of the increased
American trade due to the waterway between the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans will be the great extension of the mer-
chant marine and the expansion of the shipbuilding in-
dustry of the country. The Canal will have the effect of
largely increasing the coasting trade of the United States
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 233
and all the vessels engaged in it must be built in American
yards. Aside from this the increased foreign trade under
conditions that will make the shipping business once more
profitable, must lead to the construction of a large ad-
ditional number of American vessels, and the considerable
benefiting of American shipbuilders, who find great diffi-
culty in competing with those of Europe on account of our
higher wage scales.
A large shipbuilder responded to an inquiry by the
Isthmian Canal Commission with the following statement:
“In my judgment the opening of the Isthmian Canal and the
development of its traffic would stimulate American ship-
building to the extent of an increased demand for vessels
to be used in trade affected by said canal. As a rule in-
creased demand develops increased sources of supply and
the cost of product is invariably reduced in proportion of
increased business to fixed expenses of any manufacturing
establishment, and therefore the canal would in this case
tend to enable shipbuilders to construct ships more econom-
ically and more surely to compete with foreign builders.”
The foregoing are only a few illustrative examples of
the benefits to certain portions of the United States con-
ferred by the Panama Canal. Anything approaching a
comprehensive statement of the matter would fill a large
volume.
THE EFFECT ON OUR FOREIGN COMMERCE
But to gain a full view of all that will be accomplished
it is necessary to go farther afield. Up to within the
last few years the American people have been so largely
occupied with the development of the enormous natural
resources of this country they have had little time or neces-
sity for the development of foreign trade, and the com-
merce of the world at large is carried on by European
nations. This state of affairs cannot exist indefinitely,
however, and our foreign trade is now growing very rap-
idly. In spite of this present great total, however, the
234 THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL
effect of the Panama Canal will be to multiply it enor-
mously. For instance, our percentage of the great trade
with the western coast of South America is extremely small.
The shipments from southern Chile of nitrate, copper and
iron ores, etc., amount to an enormous tonnage each vear.
Of this the United States gets less than one-fifth. Grain
shipments from western South America are also heavy, and
practically all of this goes to Europe. With the Canal open
the United States will be so much nearer than Europe that
a large portion of this trade should eventually be diverted
to the eastern coast of the United States, where our great
manufacturing plants are located. The same conditions
apply to Australia and New Zealand, with which we will be
on a par with Europe so far as distance is concerned by the
use of the canal, and our Atlantic coast will be 4,000 miles
nearer Australia by Panama than by Suez. New York will
be 5,000 miles nearer New Zealand by Panama than around
the Cape of Good Hope.
Our traffic with the Far East, China and Japan, will
likewise be greatly benefited by the new route, although not
to such a great extent, as both China and the Philippines
will be equally distant from New York via both the Panama
Canal and the Suez Canal. From the standpoint of a
reduction of distance the Panama Canal will undoubtedly
benefit us to a very great extent.
The other considerations of costs of fuel, supplies,
facility for repairs, etc., have been taken care of by the
establishment of the great supply stations at Panama.
THE EFFECT ON OUR SHIPPING INTERESTS
The question of American shipping has been a sore
point for many years. In fact, the American flag has
almost disappeared from the world’s merchant marine.
There have been various causes for this, chief among them
the high cost of labor, which has put the cost of building
ships in the United States up to a prohibitive figure and made
THE RESULTS OF OPENING THE CANAL 235
it far cheaper to buy ships abroad and operate them under
a foreign flag than to build here. Recent legislation ad-
mitting foreign built ships to American registry, together
with the admission of necessary parts free of duty, looks
to the remedy of this matter, and we shall probably see an
enormous increase in the American registry within the next
few years. Ships, however, which are engaged purely in
the coastwise trade must still be built in the United States
to obtain the privilege of American registry.
WILL THE CANAL PAY
The question of whether or not the Canal would pay
has been one which has agitated the American people for
some time. The maximum rate which has been authorized
by Congress for canal tolls is $1.25 per ton on freight, and
$1.50 per passenger, although these rates may be reduced
by the President in case they are higher than necessary
to produce the amount required for operation and main-
tenance, which will amount to about $4,000,000 annually.
If we take into account the interest upon the investment
at the rates at which the Canal bonds have been placed,
the tolls must produce another $10,000,000 per year, or a
total of $14,000,000 annually for the Canal to be self-
supporting. It is not likely from the outlook that the
Canal will pay for some years to come.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I*
GREAT CANALS OF THE WoRLD
Ship canals connecting great bodies of water, and of
sufficient dimensions to accommodate the great modern
vessels plying upon such waters, are of comparatively recent
production and few in number. The one great example
of works of this character which has been a sufficient length
of time in existence and operation to supply satisfactory
data as to cost of maintenance and operation and practical
value to the commerce of the world is the Suez Canal, and
for this the available statistics begin with the year 1870,
while its new and enlarged dimensions only date from the
year 1896. For the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, connecting
Lake Superior with Lake Huron, statistics date from 1855.
Statistics of the Welland Canal date from 1867, though
the canal in its enlarged form has been in operation only
since 1900. The other great ship canals of the world are
of much more recent construction, and data regarding
their operation therefore cover a comparatively brief term,
and in some cases are scarcely at present available in
detail.
The artificial waterways which may properly be termed
ship canals are nine in number, viz.:
(1) The Suez Canal, begun in 1859 and completed in
1869.
(2) The Cronstadt and St. Petersburg Canal, begun in
1877 and completed in 1890.
(3) The Corinth Canal, begun in 1884 and completed
in 1893.
* The following matter is largely quoted from the monograph under this title issued by
the Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D. C.
(239)
240 GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD
(4) The Manchester Ship Canal, completed in 1894.
(5) The Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, connecting the Baltic
and North Seas, completed in 1895.
(6) The Elbe and Trave Canal, connecting the North
Sea and Baltic, opened in 1900.
(7) The Welland Canal, connecting Lake Erie with
Lake Ontario.
(8 and 9) The two canals, United States and Canadian,
respectively, connecting Lake Superior with Lake Huron.
THE SUEZ CANAL
The Suez Canal is usually considered the most im-
portant example of ship canals, though the number of
vessels passing through it annually does not equal that
passing through the canals connecting Lake Superior with
the chain of Great Lakes at the south. In length, how-
ever, it exceeds any of the other great ship canals, its total
length being 90 miles, of which about two-thirds is through
shallow lakes. Work on the canal was begun on April
25, 1859. Political, labor and financial troubles delayed
the completion of the enterprise, however, and the formal
opening of the canal was not until November, 1869.
The material excavated was usually sand, though in
some cases strata of solid rock from 2 to 3 feet in thick-
ness were encountered. The total excavation was about
80,000,000 cubic yards under the original plan, which gave
a depth of 25 feet. In 1895 the canal was so enlarged
as to give a depth of 31 feet, a width at the bottom of
108 feet and at the surface of 420 feet. The original cost
was $95,000,000, and for the canal in its present form
slightly in excess of $120,000,000.
By the concessions of 1854 and 1856 the tolls were to
be the same for all nations, preferential treatment of any
kind being forbidden, and the canal and its ports were to
be open to every merchant ship without distinction of
nationality. The formal neutralization of the canal oc-
GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD 241
curred in 1888 by the Suez Canal Convention, but was not
fully assented to until April 8, 1904.
The canal is without locks, being at sea level the entire
distance. The length of time occupied in passing through
the canal averages about eighteen hours. By the use of
electric lights throughout the entire length of the canal
passages are made with nearly equal facility by night or
day. The use of these lights, the growth in canal dimen-
sions, the increase in the number and size of passing stations
or ‘“‘lay-bys” and the straightening of curves have reduced
the average time required to pass through the canal from
48 hours 58 minutes in 1870 to 17 hours 1 minute in 1911.
The canal has accommodated the following traffic service
since its opening:
Gross
VESSELS. Tonnage.
VTS eatres come vnats ashe c eee ken Bick ee enki 9 Rane Say ema ig ora ne 486 654,915
ESC Dhoni ete be nets bedi taen nena yey h oases 1,494 2,940,708
SSO Meee eho tr eee eat tg anes 2,026 4,344,519
TS OO Pe ehenee dee Rte nie pred cee Sameer eer tine ee 3,389 9,749,129
TO Fite oe ceegeen hota tA ee alia US tan Ae te: an ee 3,434 11,833,637
FL O(N seat ents Se tar oe tego eon anteater anne! 3,541 13,699,237
WG OS aosess aescs di eu antes eet cent bn re Coe ek tee tn 4,116 13,134,105
UO 1 ces hei ic teste RN RR ae, Roce) Secret tas yanz jaan ogre Ae 4,533 16,581,898
The tolls charged are 62 francs per ton for vessels carry-
ing cargo, and 4} francs for vessels in ballast. Steam vessels
passing through the canal are propelled by their own power.
THE CRONSTADT AND ST. PETERSBURG CANAL
The canal connecting the Bay of Cronstadt with St.
Petersburg is described as a work of great strategic and
commercial importance to Russia. The canal and sailing
course in the Bay of Cronstadt are about 16 miles long,
the canal proper being about 6 miles and the bay channel
about 10 miles, and they together extend from Cronstadt,
on the Gulf of Finland, to St. Petersburg. The canal
was opened in 1890 with a navigable depth of 204 feet,
the original depth having been about 9 feet; the width
16
242 GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD
ranges from 220 to 350 feet. The total cost is estimated
at about $10.000,000.
THE CORINTH CANAL
The next of the great ship canals connecting bodies of
salt water in the order of date of construction is the Corinth
Canal, which connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Gulf
of Aigina. The canal reduces the distance from Adriatic
ports about 175 miles and from Mediterranean ports about
100 miles. Its length is about 4 miles, a part of which
was cut through granite soft rock and the remainder through
soil. There are nolocks. The width of the canal is 72 feet
at bottom and the depth 261 feet. The work was begun in
1884 and completed in 1893 at a cost of about $5,000,000.
The average tolls are 18 cents per ton and 20 cents per
passenger.
THE MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL
The Manchester Ship Canal, which connects Man-
chester, England, with the Mersey River, Liverpool, and
the Atlantic Ocean, was opened for traffic January 1, 1894.
The length of the canal is 35% miles, the total rise from
the water level to Manchester being 60 feet, which is divided
between four sets of locks, giving an average to each of 15
feet. The minimum width is 120 feet at the bottom and
average 175 feet at the water level; the minimum depth 26
feet, and the time required for navigating the canal from
five to eight hours. The total amount of excavation in
the canal and docks was about 45,000,000 cubic yards,
of which about one-fourth was sandstone rock. The lock
gates are operated by hydraulic power; railways and
bridges crossing the route of the canal have been raised
to give a height of 75 feet to vessels traversing the canal,
and an ordinary canal whose route it crosses is carried over
it by a springing aqueduct composed of an iron caisson
resting upon a pivot pier. The total cost of the canal is
given at $75,000,000. The revenue in 1911, according to
GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD 243
the Statesman’s Year-Book. was £580,841, and the working
expenses, £305,977.
THE KAISER WILHELM CANAL
Two canals connect the Baltic and North seas through
Germany, the first, known as the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal,
having been completed in 1895 and constructed largely for
military and naval purposes, but proving also of great
value to general mercantile traffic. Work upon the Kaiser
Wilhelm Canal was begun in 1887, and completed, as before
indicated, in 1895. The length of the canal is 61 miles, the
terminus in the Baltic Sea being at the harbor of Kiel.
The depth is 294 feet, the width at the bottom 72 feet,
and the minimum width at the surface 190 feet. The
route lies chiefly through marshes and shallow lakes and
along river valleys. The total excavation amounted to
about 100,000,000 cubic yards, and the cost to about
$40,000,000. The saving is 200 miles in the Kattegat
passage, and the time of transit occupies from eight to ten
hours.
THE ELBE AND TRAVE CANAL
A smaller canal known as the Elbe and Trave Canal,
with a length of about 41 miles and a depth of about 10
feet, was opened by the Emperor of Germany, June 16,
1900.
It was under construction for five years, and cost about
$5,831,000, of which Prussia contributed $1,785,000 and the
old Hanse town of Lubeck $4,046,000. This canal is the
second to join the North Sea and the Baltic, following the
Kaiser Wilhelm Canal (or Kiel Canal), built at a cost of
$37,128,000. The breadth of the Elbe and Trave Canal
is 72 feet; breadth of the locks, 46 feet; length of locks,
261 feet; depth of locks, 8 feet 2 inches. It is crossed by
29 bridges, erected at a cost of $1,000,000. There are
seven locks, five being between Lubeck and the Mollner
244 GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD
See (the summit point of the canal) and two between
Mollner See and Lauenburg-on-the-Elbe. The canal is
able to accommodate vessels up to 800 tons burden; and
the passage from Lubeck to Lauenburg occupies 18 to 21
hours. The first year it was open (June, 1900, to June,
1901) a total of 115,000 tons passed through the canal.
ELECTRIC TOWING
At this point it may be noted that the Germans began
experiments during 1900 with electric towing on the Finow
Canal between Berlin and Stettin. A track of 1-meter
gauge was laid along the bank of the canal, having one
9-pound and one 18-pound rail laid partly on cross-ties
and partly on concrete blocks. The larger rail served
for the return current, and had bolted to it a rack which
geared with a spur wheel on the locomotive. The loco-
motive was 6 feet 10 inches by 4 feet 10 inches, mounted
on four wheels, with a wheel base of 3 feet 6 inches, and
weighing 2 tons. It was fitted with a 12-horsepower
motor, current for which was furnished by a 9-kilowatt
dynamo, driven by a 15-horsepower engine. The current
was 500 volts, transmitted by a wire carried on wooden
poles 23 feet high and about 120 feet apart. The boats
were about 132 feet long and 15 feet 6 inches beam, and
carried from 150 to 175 tons on a draft of 4 feet 9 inches.
SHIP CANALS CONNECTING THE GREAT LAKES OF
NORTH AMERICA
Three ship canals intended to give continuous passage
to vessels from the head of Lake Superior to Lake Ontario
and the St. Lawrence River are the Welland Canal, orig-
inally constructed in 1833 and enlarged in 1871 and 1900;
the St. Mary’s Falls Canal at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.,
opened in 1855 and enlarged in 1881 and 1896, and the
Canadian Canal at St. Mary’s River, opened in 1895. In
point of importance, measured at least by their present use,
GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD 245
the canals at the St. Mary’s River by far surpass that of
the Welland Canal, the number of vessels passing through
the canals at the St. Mary’s River being eight times as
great as the number passing through the Welland, and the
tonnage of the former nearly forty times as great as that
of the latter. One of the important products of the Lake
Superior region, iron ore, is chiefly used in the section con-
tiguous to Lake Erie, and a large proportion of the grain
coming from Lake Superior passes from Buffalo to the
Atlantic coast by way of the Erie Canal and railroads
centering at Buffalo. The most important article in the
westward shipments through the Sault Ste. Marie canals,
coal, originates in the territory contiguous to Lake Erie.
These conditions largely account for the fact that the
number and tonnage of vessels passing the St. Mary’s
River canals so greatly exceed those of the Welland Canal.
The Welland Canal connects Dalhousie on Lake Ontario
and Port Colburne on Lake Erie on the Canadian side of
the river. It was constructed in 1833 and enlarged in 1871
and again in 1900. The length of the canal is 27 miles,
the number of locks 25, the total rise of lockage 327 feet,
and the total cost about $26,000,000. The canal will
accommodate vessels of 14 feet draught.
THE SAULT STE. MARIE CANALS
The canals at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Ontario
are located adjacent to the falls of the St. Mary’s River,
which connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron, and lower
or raise vessels from one level to the other, a height of 17
to 20 feet. The canal belonging to the United States was
begun in 1853 by the State of Michigan and opened in 1855,
the length of the canal being 5,674 feet, and provided with
two tandem locks, each being 350 feet in length and 70 feet
wide, and allowing passage of vessels drawing 12 feet, the
original cost being $1,000,000; the final, $4,000,000. The
United States Government, by consent of the State, began
246 GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD
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; also had built the Weitzel lock, 515
feet long and 80 feet wide, 60 feet at gate openings, with a
depth of 17 feet on the sills, which was located 100 feet
south of the State locks. The State relinquished all control
of the canal in March, 1882. In 1887 the State locks were
torn down and replaced by a single lock known as the Poe,
800 feet long, 100 feet wide, with a depth of 22 feet of
water on the sills. This lock was put in commission in
1896. The canal was also deepened to 25 feet. In 1908
began the widening of the canal above the locks and the
construction of a new lock 1,350 feet long between gates and
having a draught of 244 feet at extreme low water. The
Canadian canal, 14 miles long, 150 feet wide, and 22 feet
deep, with lock 900 feet long, 60 feet wide, with 22 feet on
the miter sills, was built on the north side of the river dur-
ing the years 1888 to 1895 at a cost of $7,900,000. The
commerce passing through the canals is larger than that of
any other canal in the world; the total tonnage of the
American canal in 1910 was 49,856,123, while that of the
Suez Canal was only 23,054,901.
LAKE BORGNE CANAL
The Lake Borgne, Louisiana, Canal was formally opened
in August of 1901. It affords continuous water communica-
tion with lakes Maurepas, Pontchartrain, and Borgne, the
Mississippi Sound, Mobile, and the Alabama and Warrior
rivers, and the entire Mississippi River system, and has an
important bearing as a regulator of freight rates between
these sections. The effects of the canal may be briefly
summed up as: Shortening the distance between New
Orleans and the Gulf points east of the Mississippi; bring-
ing shipments from the Gulf coast direct to the levees at
New Orleans; saving the trans-shipment of through freights,
with a consequent reduction in freight rates; enabling sea-
GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD 247
going vessels, drawing 10 to 12 feet of water, to come within
20 miles of New Orleans, saving all such craft the cost of
tonnage, and shortening, by 60 miles, direct water com-
munication between New Orleans and the deep water of
the Gulf. In addition to these effects may be enumerated
the cheapening of coal for consumption at New Orleans.
Coal had hitherto been floated down the rivers from Pitts-
burgh, a distance of 2,100 miles. The canal opened up the
coal fields in the interior of Alabama for New Orleans
consumption and reduced coal prices considerably, giving
an additional advantage to domestic industries and to
steamers purchasing bunker coal. The canal is 7 miles long
and from 150 to 200 feet in width. Bayou Dupre forms a
portion of the canal. The lock chamber is 200 feet long,
50 feet wide, and 25 feet deep, and connects the canal with
the Mississippi River.
THE CHICAGO SANITARY AND SHIP CANAL
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal connects Lake
Michigan at Chicago with the Illinois River at Lockport,
a distance of 34 miles. It was cut for the purpose of giving
to tne city of Chicago proper drainage facilities by revers-
ing the movement of water, which formerly flowed into
Lake Michigan through the Chicago River, and turning
a current from Lake Michigan through the Chicago River
to the Illinois River at Lockport and thence down the
Illinois River to the Mississippi. The canal, which is prac-
tically a sewer, is flushed with water from Lake Michigan,
and its waters are pure within a flow of 150 miles. Its
capacity, not fully utilized at first, is 600,000 cubic feet
per minute, sufficient to renew the water of the Chicago
River daily. Indeed it has been proved that the Illinois
is purer than the Mississippi at their junction.
The minimum depth of the canal is 22 feet, its width
at bottom 160 feet, and the width at the top from 162 to
290 feet, according to the class of material through which
248 GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD
it is cut. The work was begun September 3, 1892, and
completed and the water turned into the channel January
2, 1900. The flow of water from Lake Michigan toward
the Gulf is now at the rate of 360,000 cubic feet per minute,
and the channel is estimated to be capable of carrying
nearly twice that amount. The total excavation in its
construction included 28,500,000 cubic yards of glacial
drift and 12,910,000 cubic yards of solid rock, an aggregate
of 41,410,000 cubic yards. In addition to this the con-
struction of a new channel for the Desplaines River became
necessary in order to permit the canal to follow the bed
of that river, and the material excavated in that work
amounted to 2,068,659 cubic yards, making a grand total
displacement in the work of 48,478,659 cubic yards of
material which, according to a statement issued by the
trustees of the sanitary district of Chicago, would, if
deposited in Lake Michigan in 40 feet of water, form an
island 1 mile square with its surface 12 feet above the
water line.
All bridges along the canal are movable structures.
The total cost of construction, including interest account,
aggregated $34,000,000, of which $21,379,675 was for
excavation and about $3,000,000 for rights of way and
$4,000,000 for building railroad and highway bridges over
the canal.
The Illinois and Michigan Canal, which formerly car-
ried off most of the waste of the city, is used by small craft,
and the new drainage canal also may be used for shipping
in view of the federal government’s improvements of the
rivers connecting it with the Mississippi for the construction
of a ship canal for large vessels. The canal also made
possible the development of enormous hydraulic power for
the use of the city.
THE HENNEPIN CANAL
The Illinois and Michigan Canal has been supplemented
by the Illinois and Mississippi Canal, more commonly
GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD 249
known as the “Hennepin.” It completes a navigable
waterway from the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan.
The first appropriation for the project was made in 1890;
work was begun in 1892 and the canal formally opened,
October 24, 1907.
Starting at the great bend of the Illinois River, 12
miles above Hennepin, this barge canal follows the Bureau
Creek valley to the mouth of Queen River on the Rock
River, and then proceeds by the Rock River and a canal
around its rapids at Milan to its mouth at Rock Island
in the Mississippi River. The canal is 80 feet in width
at the water line, 52 feet in width at the bottom, and seven
feet in depth. The greater part of the water comes from
the Rock River, which is dammed by a dam nearly 1,500
feet long between Sterling and Rock Falls, Illinois.
OTHER CANALS
In addition to the ship canals previously mentioned,
there are a number of other important waterways worthy
of mention. The great North Holland Canal, cut in 1845
from Amsterdam to Helder, a distance of 51 miles, to
avoid the shoals of the Zuyder Zee, has a depth of 20 feet,
a width of 125 feet at the surface, and carries vessels of
1,300 tons burden, and is described as ‘‘the chief cause of
the great prosperity of Amsterdam.”
The Caledonian Canal, which connects the Atlantic
Ocean and North Sea through the north of Scotland, is
17 feet in depth, 50 feet in width at the bottom, and 120
feet at the surface, with a surface elevation at the highest
point of 94 feet above sea level. The canal proper is 250
miles long, and the distance between the terminals over
300 miles. It saves about 400 miles of coasting voyage
round the north of Great Britain through the stormy
Pentland Firth. The cost has been stated at $7,000,000,
including repairs; and the annual income is between
$35,000 and $40,000.
250 GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD
The Canal du Midi, cut through France from Toulouse,
on the Garonne River, to Cette, on the Mediterranean,
a distance of 150 miles, is 60 feet wide, 63 feet deep, has
114 locks, and is, at its highest point, 600 feet above the
level of the sea. Its cost was $3,500,000, and it is navigable
for vessels of 100 tons.
In India the canals, constructed primarily for irrigation
purposes, at a cost of about $15,000,000, are utilized to
a considerable extent for inland navigation. In Germany
the canals, aside from the Kaiser Wilhelm, are 1,511 miles
in length, and the canalized rivers 1,452 miles. In France
the length of the canals in operation is 3,021 miles.
CANADIAN CANALS
The canal systems of European countries and of Canada
differ from those of the United States in that they are
operated in conjunction with, and made complemental to,
the railway systems of those countries. Canada’s six great
systems of government canals afford, with the St. Lawrence
River connections, important inland communications. The
total length of the canals in operation is 262 miles, but
the aggregate length of continuous inland navigation ren-
dered available by them is nearly 3,000 miles. The amount
expended in the construction and maintenance of these
canals, including the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, is over
$100,000,000.
The St. Lawrence River canal system from Lake Superior
to tide water overcomes a difference of about 600 feet and
carries immense quantities of grain from the West to Mon-
treal, the chief port of summer trade on the Atlantic.
These canals have a minimum depth of 14 feet on the
sills and are open to Canadian and American vessels on
equal terms.
Numerous smaller canals bring Ottawa into connection
with Lake Champlain and the Hudson River via Montreal.
Over this route travel the logs and lumber of Ontario,
GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD 251
Quebec and New Brunswick. One group of canals, the
Trent Valley system, shorten the distance from Lake
Superior to the sea. They connect Lake Ontario with
Georgian Bay (an arm of Lake Huron) via Lake Simcoe.
Surveys have been made with a view to connecting the
Georgian Bay, through the intervening water stretches,
with the Ottawa River system and thus with Montreal.
In 1903 all tolls were removed from Canadian canals.
CANALS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
In the United Kingdom the length of canals belonging
to railways is 1,144 miles, and that of canals not belonging
to railways 3,310 miles. The paid-up capital (from all
sources) of the independent canals in 1905 amounted to
£36,973,503, according to the board of trade returns.
Including railway-owned canals, this amount exceeded
£47,000,000. The annual traffic runs about 43,000,600
tons, comparing unfavorably with the amount carried by
the railways. The improvement and development of these
internal waterways is regarded by the chamber of commerce
as a matter of urgent necessity.
CANALS OF THE UNITED STATES
The canals of the United States still used for com-
mercial purposes are 38 in number, with an aggregate
length of 2,443 miles, the total cost of their construction
being about $200,000,000. The most important of these,
aside from that connecting the Great Lakes, of course,
is the Erie Canal, 387 miles in length, with 72 locks and
a depth of 7 feet. Next in length is the Ohio Canal from
Cleveland, Ohio, to Portsmouth, Ohio, 317 miles in length,
with 150 locks and a depth of 4 feet. Next in length is
the Miami and Erie Canal, from Cincinnati to Toledo,
274 miles in length, with 93 locks and a depth of 54 feet.
The Pennsylvania Canal, from Columbia to Huntingdon,
252 GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD
Pa., is 193 miles in length, with 71 locks and a depth of
6 feet. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, from Cumber-
land, Md., to Washington, D. C., is 184 miles in length,
with 73 locks and a depth of 6 feet. The Lehigh Coal and
Navigation Company’s Canal, from Coalport to Easton,
Pa., is 108 miles in length, with 57 locks and a depth of
6 feet. The Schuylkill Navigation Company’s Canal,
from Mill Creek, Pa., to Philadelphia, Pa., is 108 miles
in length, with 71 locks and a depth of 6} feet. The
Illinois and Michigan Canal, from Chicago, IIl., to La Salle,
is 102 miles in length, with 15 locks and a depth of 6 feet,
and the Champlain Canal, from Whitehall, N. Y., to West
Troy, is 81 miles in length, with 32 locks and a depth of
6 feet.
COST OF MAINTENANCE AND OPERATION OF CANALS
There are no locks on the Suez Canal, but the channel
is through drifting sand for a great part of its length. The
entrance to the harbor of Port Said on the Mediterranean
intercepts the drift of sand discharged from the Nile and
carried along the coast by the easterly current. The main-
tenance of the Suez Canal therefore requires a large amount
of dredging and consists mainly of this class of work. The
operating expenses are also large, the great traffic involving
heavy costs for pilotage. The general expenses for admin-
istration have necessarily been greater for the Suez Canal
than for the Kiel or Manchester canals, on account of the
distance of the work from the point of central control, a
disadvantage which will also attend the operation of the
Panama Canal. The annual cost of maintenance and
operation of the Suez Canal in 1911 was $6,600,000, or
about $733,000 per mile.
The cost of maintenance and operation of the Kiel
Canal for 1910 was $12,000 per mile; of the Manchester,
$39,000 per mile. These canals have locks and other
mechanical structures, and therefore might be expected
GREAT CANALS OF THE WORLD 253
to have a higher cost of maintenance than the Suez Canal,
which has none, but this appears to be more than offset
by reduced cost of maintaining the prism and more eco-
nomical central control. The traffic being light on these
canals, the cost of pilotage and port service is small.
APPENDIX II
Economic Errects oF SHip CANALS
Much has been written concerning the ship canals of
the world as great works of engineering; much, too, on
their political and military importance; but of the part
they have played in the great economic changes, the result
of the marvelous development of transport industries dur-
ing this last half century, it is not so easy to find definite
or satisfactory accounts. At the same time vague and
indefinite statements frequently made indicate that their
economic importance has been significant; and, in fact, it
is only as they are influential in this way that they become
commercially profitable undertakings. The attempt is here
made to trace with some degree of precision these economic
effects, showing how, in consequence of the canals, impor-
tant changes have been made in business machinery, in
business methods, in producing and marketing commodities,
and in general economic development.
The ship canals do not form a connected part of the
world’s transportation system, and in consequence the
economic results of each are, in the main, independent of
all other canals. Furthermore, the economic importance
of the different canals presents the widest variations. Each
opens the way for the creation of many and extensive carry-
ing routes; but, while the influence of some has been merely
local, the consequences of others have been felt through-
out the commercial and industrial world. These conditions
suggest the natural method of treatment to be a considera-
tion of each canal separately, tracing so far as possible the
particular economic effects that have resulted from its
existence.
(254)
ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SHIP CANALS 255
AMSTERDAM CANAL
In a country as well supplied with smaller canals as
Holland is, it was natural that the idea of a ship canal
should present itself to Amsterdam, when the shallowness
of the Zuyder Zee and other difficulties of approach were
causing her to lose trade to her rival, Rotterdam. The
idea soon took practical form, and in 1826 the Helder Canal,
with an 18-foot channel, offered an easier approach to the
Dutch port. With the development of the shipping indus-
try the dimensions of this canal became inadequate after a
few decades, while its length (50 miles) and the difficult
entrance in the passes of the Texel proved additional dis-
advantages. To maintain the commercial position of
Amsterdam the construction of a new and larger canal,
built by the shortest line to the sea, was decided on, and
in 1876 the North Sea Canal, terminating at Ymuiden,
153 miles in length and 23 feet in depth, was opened for
use.
The effect of the new canal on the commerce of Amster-
dam was instantaneous. For twenty years the tonnage
statistics for shipping at that port had shown an almost
complete stagnation, while at Rotterdam the shipping had
trebled. In six years after the new canal was opened the
tonnage entering and clearing at Amsterdam had more than
doubled, rising from 802,000 tons in 1876 to 1,734,000 tons
in 1882.
Extensive enlargements and improvements were early
decided upon, and the Amsterdam Canal can now be used
by all but a few of the largest sea-going passenger vessels.
Ymuiden has become one of the leading fishing ports in
Europe.
THE SUEZ CANAL
In December, 1858, a company was formed to undertake
M. de Lesseps’ audacious scheme of connecting the Mediter-
ranean and Red seas; in the following spring work was
256 ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SHIP CANALS
commenced, and in 1869 the Suez Canal opened a new water
route to the East.
It takes but a glance at the statistics of traffic to notice
the enormous difference between the trade that has devel-
oped through the Suez Canal and that of the canals already
considered. Beginning in 1870, with 486 vessels, having a
tonnage of 436,000 tons, there was a steady increase until
1875, when it had reached nearly 1,500 ships and over
2,000,000 tons. After a few years of quiescence came a
second period of rapid increase, from 1880 to 1883, in the
latter year the figures of 3,300 ships and 5,800,000 tons
being reached. Since then there has been a slowly increas-
ing tonnage, reaching the maximum figure of 8,700,000 tons
in 1891, but falling off somewhat since that year. In 1896
the figures were 3,409 ships with a tonnage of 8,594,307.
EFFECT OF SUEZ CANAL ON SHIPPING
The development of a trade of such an extent and value
by a new route could not but have an important and far-
reaching influence on the economic interests of the world.
Perhaps the most striking results of the opening of the
canal route to the East were those on the machinery of
trade—meaning by this term both the material appliances
and the business organization of trade. One effect might
have been in part anticipated. The new route saved
nearly 3,000 marine leagues on the voyage from the ports
of western Europe to the Hast, or almost half the distance
to Bombay. The obvious result of the use of the new route
would be that half of the vessels engaged in the Eastern
trade would be out of employment. In fact, however, the
change came more indirectly. Sailing vessels did not find
it advantageous to use the canal, and continued on the old
route around the Cape of Good Hope. But the canal, by
making practicable the use of steamships in the oriental
trade, brought about an even greater revolution in the
character of the shipping business to the East. By the
ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SHIP CANALS 257
Cape route coaling places were few, and the facilities for
coaling expensive. The consequence was that the enormous
expense of coaling at these out-of-the-way places, with the
loss of freight room for the extra space needed for coal, made
the use of steamers unprofitable. But by the canal route
a steamer could coal at Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, and
Aden, where coal could be furnished at moderate rates,
while the space saved from coal could be used to carry a
larger cargo. Accordingly, a large number of new iron
screw steamers were soon constructed for the trade with
the East, and replaced a large percentage of the sailing
vessels. It has been estimated that 2,000,000 tons of ves-
sels were thus thrown out of employment, and the effect
of this can be seen in the immediate reduction in the ton-
nage of sailing vessels. In 1869 the sailing tonnage in the
British foreign trade was 3,600,000 tons; in 1876 it was but
3,230,000 tons.
GREAT ORIENTAL STEAMSHIP COMPANIES
In the construction of the new steamers for the canal
trade two lines already in existence—the Peninsular and
Oriental Steamship Company and the Messageries Com-
pagnie—took prominent parts. But new companies also
were rapidly organized, which built steamers and estab-
lished new lines to the East, among which may be noted the
British India Steam Navigation Company, the Clan Line,
the Austro-Hungarian Lloyds Company, the Italian Steam
Navigation Company, and the Rubbotino Company, of
Genoa. It is not possible to get at the amount of ship-
building made necessary by the change in the kind of ships
used in the Eastern trade, but some idea of the importance
of the change may be seen by noting the fact that the total
steam tonnage in the British foreign trade increased from
650,000 tons in 1869 to 1,500,000 tons in 1876. It would,
of course, be possible to learn the number and tonnage of
ships now engaged in the trade between Europe and the
17
258 ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SHIP CANALS
East, but to account for all of this by the Suez Canal would
be to exaggerate its effects. Improvements in marine
engines and in the construction of steamers make much
longer steamer voyages possible to-day than were possible
in 1870, as is shown by the lines to Australia and across the
Pacific Ocean. It is, therefore, certain that if no Suez
Canal had been built, there would have been by this time
steamers in the Eastern trade; but the change would have
come at a much later period, and sailing vessels would con-
tinue to carry a large, perhaps a dominant, share of the
traffic. The effect of the Suez Canal was to make the
transition from sail to steam sharp and decisive, and to
bring it about in the decade 1870-1880.
AN ANTICIPATED EFFECT NOT REALIZED
One change in the shipping industry that was expected
from the construction of the Suez Canal has not been
realized. It was predicted that the geographical advantage
given to the Mediterranean ports by the new route would
soon enable them to regain the position they had held in
the Middle Ages as the carriers of Eastern produce to the
markets of Europe. In England it was felt that the canal
would seriously threaten British maritime supremacy, but
the results have been otherwise. It was only in England
that the capital was at hand to build the large screw
steamers which alone could profitably use the canal,
and from the start three-fourths of the vessels using the
canal have been British.
But while the carrying trade is still in British vessels a
much larger and a growing share of the traffic is carried
from the East directly to the Continent, and England has
declined in relative importance as a warehousing and dis-
tributing point for Eastern goods. Under the old régime
of sailing vessels around the Cape, when voyages from
India took a good part of a year, and the time of arrival
could not be calculated on within a month or two, it was
ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SHIP CANALS 259
necessary that large stocks of goods should be kept on hand
to enable dealers to meet the varying demand for their
goods. Steamers by way of the Suez Canal make the
voyage in thirty days and the time of their arrival can be
regulated within a day. Shorter voyages and punctuality
of arrivals make it possible for local dealers both in England
and on the Continent to order directly from the East and
the change in the method of this business rendered useless
to a large extent the immense warehouses at London, Liver-
pool, and other English ports.
DIRECT EXPORTS FROM INDIA TO EUROPE
This change in the direction of trade has not been
simply the transfer of the distributing points from Eng-
land to the Mediterranean ports of southern Europe. . The
towns of Italy, Greece, and southern France have been
almost as greatly disappointed in their expectations of
becoming trade centers as in their hopes of controlling
the shipping trade to the East through the operation of
the Suez Canal. To be sure there has been a heavy in-
crease in Indian exports to Italy, Austria, and Russia;
and the Mediterranean ports, notably Genoa, have increased
in importance. But the most striking feature of the change
in the direction of Indian exports lies in the increased
traffic to France, Holland, Belgium, and, above all, to
Germany. The statistics of Indian exports to these coun-
tries show that there is no longer any one country pre-
eminent as a distributing point for Eastern produce, but
that all Europe trades directly with the East. Neverthe-
less, with this great change in the character of the Indian
export trade the imports of European goods to India con-
tinue, as in the days before the canal, to come almost
entirely from England.
The termination of the warehouse distribution system
of England was one of the forces which led to the dis-
appearance of the class of merchant princes who had
260 ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SHIP CANALS
hitherto monopolized the Eastern trade. The system of
bank discounts and commercial loans, by enabling men
of ability to secure capital at low rates of interest, also
played a large part in driving out of trade the old houses
doing business on their own capital, from which they
expected large rates of interest. But as long as large
stocks of goods had to be kept on hand for six months
or more at a time, it was difficult for the new business man
to get the credit that would enable him to supplant the
old-established houses in the Eastern trade. When, how-
ever, the new route by the Suez Canal, by bringing steam-
ers into use, enabled a cargo to be sold and delivered
within a month after the order had been sent, the advantages
on the side of the man working with borrowed capital
were decisive.
As a result of the opening of the Suez Canal, sailing
vessels, warehouses, merchant princes, dealers in six
months’ bills found their old occupations slipping away.
The old modes and channels of business were altered and
new adjustments had to be made. In the meantime the
confusion and disturbances in the business world were
so great that the London Economist has said that they
constituted one great general cause for the universal com-
mercial and industrial depression and disturbance of
1873.
EFFECT ON EASTERN PRODUCE
The effect of the opening of the Suez Canal and the
new route to the East on the production and marketing
of Eastern produce is by no means so easy to trace as the
effects on the machinery of trade. If all the necessary
statistical material were at hand it would be an almost
endless task to disentangle from the complex results of
complicated causes the exact changes that have been due
to the canal. It is possible, however, to see the effects
produced by the canal in the case of a few leading com-
ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SHIP CANALS 261
modities, and in other respects the general tendency of
the new route can be recognized.
EFFECT ON CERTAIN COMMODITIES
A few commodities will serve to show that not every
articie in the Eastern trade has been affected by the new
route and the new methods of business brought about
by it. The exports of Indian cotton have remained at
about the same figure since the opening of the canal, show-
ing that for that article the sailing vessel and the Cape
route provided as cheap a road as the canal route. The
exports of Indian wool and of spices have increased to
some extent, but with nothing to indicate that the increase
is greater than would have taken place in the ordinary
development of trade. The exports of tea from India
show an astonishing increase from 11,000,000 pounds in
1870 to 120,000,000 in 1893-94. But with an article of
such high value the direct effects of the canal through
cheaper freight rates can have had little influence here,
though indirectly the increased Indian production may be
due in part to the easier communication with the West
that was made possible by the canal. In the earlier arrival
of the new season’s teas the influence of the canal in shorten-
ing the time from India to England is clearly evident.
Tea imports to England in July, 1870, were 711,000 pounds;
in July, 1871, 4,000,000 pounds; in July, 1872, 23,000,000
pounds—the enormous increase being the direct result of
the use of steamers via the canal in place of sailing vessels
and the long Cape voyage.
Rice is a commodity the trade in which has been sub-
ject to important changes as a direct result of the use of
the canal route to the Hast. Rice is a staple Italian cereal
and a leading article of Italian export. It had formerly
been imported into European countries by the Cape route,
but by the canal route Eastern rice was enabled to reach
markets in southern Europe formerly inaccessible, and
262 ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SHIP CANALS
even to be sold in Italy itself, much to the displeasure of
the Italian producers. In the six years following the open-
ing of the Suez Canal the export of Indian rice doubled
and has continued to increase since. It constitutes the
largest single item in the export trade of India.
INDIA AS A WHEAT-EXPORTING COUNTRY
The creation of the wheat export trade of India is due
directly to the opening of the Suez Canal route to Europe.
Efforts had been made to carry wheat around the Cape,
but the liability to heat during the long voyage and the
loss from weevil in the cargo made all such attempts unsuc-
cessful. The possibility of carrying wheat by the new
and shorter route was soon demonstrated, and a trade
was established that has grown until India has become
the second wheat-exporting country in the world. In
1870 the wheat exports of India were 130,000 bushels; in
1876, over 4,000,000 bushels; in 1883, 35,000,000 bushels;
in 1891, 50,000,000 bushels.*
Under ordinary conditions the Indian product is an
important item in the wheat market of the world. It will
be observed that the great increase in this Indian export
trade did not begin until after the year 1876. The exten-
sion at that time came about through the reduction in
freight rates made possible by improved steamers. It is
nevertheless true that the establishment of the wheat-export
trade of India and the possibility of any such trade’s exist-
ing at all is to be ascribed to the Suez Canal.
On the imports into India the direct influence of the
Suez Canal seems to be striking in the case of but one
commodity—petroleum from the Russian oil fields at
Batoum. Before the discovery of these fields the imports
of oil into India were insignificant. The value of such
imports in 1869 was about $110,000 and in 1876 had risen
* According to statistics of 1911, India stood third among the wheat-producing countries
of the world. The United States stood firat, with 621,338,000 bushels; Russia in Europe,
second, with 447,016,000 bushels; aud British India, third, with 371,646,000 bushels.
' ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SHIP CANALS 263
only to $175,000. But when the Batoum oil fields were
discovered, an extensive trade to India, via the Suez Canal,
immediately developed. In 1880 the imports of oil into
India were 6,500,000 gallons, valued at $1,360,000; in
1885 this had risen to 26,300,000 gallons; in 1890, to
51,800,000 gallons, and in 1893, to 86,600,000 gallons.
For a considerable period the Indian demand absorbed
more than half the total product of the Russian oil wells,
and to-day it takes more than a quarter of their output.
As the distance from Batoum to India around Africa is
as great as that from the American oil fields, it does not
seem possible that any of this Russian oil would have
found its way to India by the Cape route. Some trade
might have arisen by the overland route to India, which,
when railroad connections from the Caspian Sea to India
are complete, would have become important, but the oil
imports of India as they stand to-day are made possible
only by the existence of the canal route.
If the question be asked, What is the total significance
of the Suez Canal on the production and marketing of
commodities? the answer can be given only in general
terms.