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A.N EXPOSITION 
 
 ERRORS AND FALLACIES 
 
 IN 
 
 Rear-Admiral Ammen's Pamphlet 
 
 ENTITIiED 
 
 " THE CERTAINTY OF THE NICARAGdA CANAL CONTRASTED WITH THE 
 UNCERTAINTIES OF THE EADS SHIP RAILWAY." 
 
 BY E. L.CORTHELL.C. E. 
 
 A.I>RI3L., 1886. 
 
 washington : 
 Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 
 
 1886. 
 
AN EXPOSITION 
 
 Errors and Fallacies in Rear-Admiral Ainnien's Pamphlet 
 
 ENTITIiED 
 
 "THE CERTAINTY OF THE NICARAGUA CANAL CON- 
 TRASTED WITH THE UNCERTAINTIES 
 OF THE EADS SHIP RAILWAY." 
 
 It is to l)e regretted that an officer of liigli rank in tlie 
 United States Navy should descend to such undignified per- 
 sonalities as appear throughout the recent pamphlet of Rear- 
 Admiral Ammen, entitled " The Certainty of the Nicaragua 
 Canal contrasted with the Uncertainties of the Eads Ship 
 Railway." 
 
 It is not the purpose of the writer to descend to such a 
 level in discussing this subject, but to point out briefly some 
 of the labored misstatements and distortions of facts that 
 everywhere appear in the pamphlet mentioned. Its exten- 
 sive circulation in Congress, for the purpose of defeating the 
 Ship Railway bill, makes it necessary to point out the Ad- 
 miral's misstatements. 
 
 The frontispiece of his pamphlet represents the American 
 Isthmus at Nicaragua as lately reconstructed to suit the plans of 
 Engineer Menocal, with its water level raised and extended 
 and its irregularities toned down by the contemplated canal 
 construction. The profile as given of the Tehuantepec Isth- 
 mus, however, shows nature in her wild state, unmodified by 
 
sion of broad valleys formed by the Jumuapa, Sarabia, Malatengo, and 
 Chichihua rivers ; between these vallej'S there are extensive table-lands, 
 with no high or prominent dividing summit between them, but they are 
 interspersed with isolated hills and detached ranges from one to five hun- 
 dred feet in height, the whole forming an extensive interior basin, having a 
 gentle inclination towards the summit, and bordered on its eastern and 
 western sides by irregular mountain ranges, spurs of the main Cordillera 
 that runs through the entire continent, and which makes at this point one 
 of the most marked depressions to be found in its whole length. From 
 this basin the line passes through a valley formed by a stream called the 
 Pozo de Agua, to the plains of Tarifa, an elevated level plateau six miles 
 in extent. Crossing these plains, the line reaches the Portillo de Tarifa, 
 the lowest and also the most accessible of the many passes through this 
 general depression in the main mountain chain. From the Portillo de 
 Tarifa the line descends to the Pacific plains (reaching them ii8 miles from 
 Minatitlan) by a uniform grade," [i foot in loo feet, or 52-/^ feet per mile ; 
 this is the maximum grade and there is only one place where it occurs] 
 " following a succession of valleys through the intervening foot-hills. 
 These valleys are generally narrow, having very abrupt slopes on their 
 sides. Fortunately, the line can be kept near the bottom of the valleys, 
 avoiding any difficult or questionable class of construction. The heaviest 
 excavations will be in cutting through spurs of the hill sides, or through 
 divides between adjacent valleys. Across the Pacific plains the line can be 
 given almost any desired direction, the surface being remarkably even and 
 uniform in character." * * * " Many varieties of valuable timber are 
 found, very durable in character, and suitable for either permanent or tem- 
 porary work in construction, throughout the entire line, with the exception 
 of about twenty miles at each end of it. 
 
 " Good building stone is found near the line at short intervals after 
 leaving the valley of the Coatzacoalcos river. Granite, limestone, sand- 
 stone and quartzite are among the varieties of stone available for purposes 
 of construction. 
 
 " The principal rock cuttings to be encountered near the summit will be 
 in a clay slate formation, limestone appearing at a lower elevation, and 
 granite in the higher ranges on each side of the line." * * * "A care- 
 ful instrumental survey of the bar at the mouth of the river shows that 
 there is at ordinary tide, fifteen feet of water over it. Surveys and 
 soundings made during the last thirty years give conclusive evidence that 
 this bar has changed very little during that time. Borings to the depth of 
 twenty-six feet encountered no other material than sand and clay, much 
 the larger portion being sand ; a stratum of clay was found at the bottom 
 of the borings. This bar has a striking resemblance to the bar at the 
 mouth of the South Pass of the Mississippi river, except that it has less 
 than one-fourth the distance across it, from twenty-six feet depth of water 
 on the inside to the same depth on the outside, and it can be deepened by 
 the same methods that gave such remarkable results at the mouth of the 
 Mississippi river." 
 
The statements made qiTite frequently by Admiral Ammen 
 tliat no actual location and profile have been made evidently 
 need no further discussion, nor do any of the arguments, 
 drawn from these misstatements, require further notice. 
 
 REVIEW OF SOME OF ADMIRAL AMMEN's STATEMENTS ABOUT THE 
 BILL NOW BEFORE CONGRESS. 
 
 In criticising the Ship Railway Bill, Admiral Ammen says : 
 " There is, however, no mention in the bill of the maximum 
 toll rate upon which vessels would be transported, it might 
 
 be fixed at $4 and $8 per ton." " Neither Mr. Corthell in 
 
 his ' Scientific Solution,' nor Captain Eads in his bill gives 
 the intended rate of toll over his proposed Ship Railway." 
 
 An examination of the bill shows that authority is given 
 to the directors representing the United States and Mexican 
 Governments to reduce the tolls whenever the net income is 
 greater than ten per cent, on the capital of the Company, 
 which is limited in the bill to $100,000,000. If Admiral 
 Ammen and his co-projectors of the Nicaragua Canal are 
 correct in the estimates they have made of the tonnage 
 likely to use an Isthmian transit-way, it is apparent that, 
 under the provisions of the bill referred to, no unreason- 
 able tolls could be exacted from commerce. But, aside from 
 this, it is absurd to suppose that the Company would, even 
 if it had the power, impose such tolls as would drive com- 
 merce away from it. Certainly ten per cent, interest on the 
 amount invested is not an unreasonable return to the capi- 
 talists whose money goes to construct the work. 
 
 Speaking of the test load of 3,000 tons, (increased by 
 consent to 6,000, and the second year to 7,000 tons,) the 
 Admiral says ; " His vessel may be constructed to weigh 
 2,900 tons, built expressly to make a land journey, with 
 a cargo of 100 tons ! " The transportation of a vessel with 
 
6 
 
 onlj 100 tons of cargo would not be considered by the Board 
 of Engineers, under whose inspection the test must be 
 made, as answering the requirements of the law. The 
 purpose of the law is to demonstrate the practicability of 
 the work, and no one, unless his antagonism to the project 
 has entirely perverted his judgment, would suppose that the 
 transportation of a vessel, especially built for the purpose 
 and of much greater strength than ordinary vessels, with a 
 few bags of grain, or a few tons of iron as a cargo, would 
 authorize or receive the favorable certificate of the engineers 
 upon which is made to depend the Government guaranty. 
 
 In speaking of that clause in the bill which relates to 
 filing a certified copy of the Mexican Concession with the 
 Secretary of State of the United States, within three months 
 after the date of the passage of the act. Admiral Ammen 
 says : " The bill recites that a favorable concession exists, 
 the terms of which are to remain unknow^n to our legislators." 
 This is another grossly inaccurate statement. A certified 
 copy of the Mexican Concession has been in the hands of 
 the Commerce Committee of the House during all its dis- 
 cussions, and it and all papers relating to it have been at 
 their disposal. The minority report of the Committee gives 
 the Concession in full. 
 
 WAR VESSELS. 
 
 On page 5, Admiral Ammen makes the statement that a 
 war vessel would not float after being transported over the 
 Isthmus on the railway. This statement is in conflict with 
 the opinion of a host of the most prominent naval con- 
 structors and shipbuilders of the world, and as Admiral 
 Ammen could no doubt command a ship much better than 
 he could build one, and as he stands almost alone in his 
 opinion on the subject, his views are not likely to have very 
 
much force. Among the many who diifer with Admiral 
 Ammen on the subject may be included the names of Com- 
 modore Theo. D. Wilson, the present Chief Constructor of 
 the U. S. Navy ; Commodore J. W. Easby, late Chief Con- 
 structor U. S. Navy ; Mr. Nathaniel Barnaby, Chief Con- 
 structor British Navy ; Sir Edward J. Eeed, late Chief 
 Constructor British Navy. These gentlemen have given the 
 most decided opinions in favor of the entire practicability of 
 transporting laden vessels on a railway. 
 
 THE HAKBORS. 
 
 Admiral Ammen refers to the " factitious presentation of 
 science in the ' Scientific Solution,' " and proffers some infor- 
 mation in regard to the harbors which is entirely erroneous. 
 He says: " The ' Scientific Solution ' assumes that good har- 
 bors either exist, or making and maintaining them is a bag- 
 atelle, and the Eads' bill presupposes the fact that a good 
 harbor on both coasts is known to all men ; has the great 
 engineer lost his faith in his knowledge of the Jetty system, 
 or has he so solved it that it gives him no concern ? " The 
 facts in regard to the harbors are fully given in a paper pub- 
 lished by the writer about the first of January, 1886, en- 
 titled, " The Atlantic and Pacific Ship Railway." Careful 
 surveys, plans, and estimates have been made of these har- 
 bors, and their exceptional advantages for both maritime and 
 strategic purposes have been fully stated in several publica- 
 tions. The writer, having spent a month surveying the bar 
 at the mouth of the Coatzacoalcos river, and having had 
 some little experience in river and harbor hydraulics, is 
 perfectly confident that the plans for deepening this bar 
 from 15 feet, {iiot 13 feet,) now existing, to 30 feet can 
 be done at the estimated expense, which is not great. The 
 " harbor " subject is a very tender one with Admiral Am- 
 
8 
 
 men, because of the total want of harbors at the termini of 
 the proposed Nicaragua Canal. What was once a harbor at 
 Greytown is now wholly destroyed. The San Juan river, to 
 the current of which was due whatever depth of water ever 
 existed at Greytown, long ago deserted its old bed, and now 
 discharges its waters, through the Eio Colorado, in Costa 
 Rican territory. There is a careful avoidance by Admiral 
 Ammen and his friends of all discussions of Nicaraguan har- 
 bors. 
 
 EARTHQUAKES. 
 
 Those informed on the Isthmian question will be surprised 
 at the Admiral bringing forward the danger from earthquakes 
 to the Ship Railway ; it being well known that the greatest 
 prevalence and most marked results of earthquakes are along 
 the line of the Nicaragua Canal. The actual perversion of 
 facts, by quoting only a part of a statement made by Rear- 
 Admiral Shufeldt, on page 106 of the latter's report, is espe- 
 cially marked. The following, on the same page, but omitted 
 by the Admiral, will show hoAV he has perverted what Shu- 
 feldt said on this subject : 
 
 "The singular freedom of this region from volcanoes, both active and 
 extinct, and, in consequence, the less probability of violent earth- 
 quakes, is certainly an important consideration in favor of the Isthmus of 
 Tehuantepec." 
 
 The Admiral brings up another objection, which was 
 brought forward by him three years ago and then refuted, as 
 to the prevalence of high winds on the Tehuantepec Isthmus. 
 He says : 
 
 " Were it to be conceded that earthquakes were exceptional, or that were 
 they to occur they would do no more harm to the vessel than would be 
 done ' to the load of hay passing over a stony road,' another difficulty pre- 
 sents itself in the ' northers,' of which Shufeldt makes mention on page 
 107 : 
 
 " 'The northers that are so common in the winter season, never bring 
 with them rain as they generally do on the Atlantic slope and on the table- 
 
9 
 
 lands, but instead clouds of dust and drifting sand are caught up bj these 
 violent winds, and are driven across the plain in a southerly direction, and 
 finally fall in the Pacific Ocean.' " 
 
 The foUomng paragraph from the report of Mr. Van Brock- 
 lin, who, as before stated, has spent several years on the Isth- 
 mus, is sufficient proof of the absence of destructive tornadoes : 
 
 " By reason of the peculiar topographical formation of the Isthmus, there 
 is an almost constant interchange of air currents between the two oceans. 
 The direction of such winds as are prevalent, coincides very nearly with 
 the line of the railway. The very frail construction of the principal por- 
 tion of the houses on the Isthmus, covered as they are with large and high 
 palm roofs, extending beyond, and generally separated from their walls, 
 the exposed places in which many of them stand, and the absence of any 
 evidence of injury to them, induces the belief that very strong winds are 
 unknown on the Isthmus." 
 
 (See also the recent letter of Mr. Yan Brocklin, page 31, 
 and that of Mr. Thayer, page 33.) 
 
 This statement agrees with the observation of the writer, and 
 of other engineers who have remained there any length of 
 time. 
 
 EXCESSIVE RAINFALL. 
 
 On page 8, the Admiral speaks of the excessive rainfall on 
 the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, saying : " I may add of rainfalls 
 of 23 inches in as many hours." If he intends by these words 
 to convey the impression that 23 inches of rain falls in 23 con- 
 secutive hours, the statement is a misrepresentation as regards 
 any part of Mexico, and shows the Admiral's ignorance of the 
 conditions existing at Tehuantepec. The actual gauging of the 
 rainfall shows the total for one year to be about 100 inches 
 near Minatitlan, the Gulf terminus of the railway. The record 
 at Nicaragua shows an annual downpour of 102 inches, with 
 nearly 6 inches in one day. The railway has the advantage 
 of being built ahove the floods, while the canal must be under- 
 neath them. 
 
10 
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF THE SHIP RAILWAY. 
 
 In reference to the practicability of constructing and haul- 
 ing ships over a railway, a question which seems to be un- 
 solved in the mind of the Admiral, it is proper to say that 
 as the Ship Railway Company agrees to construct its railway 
 and put it into successful operation before the guaranty 
 asked for attaches, the question as to whether it is practic- 
 able to build and operate it is one of little importance to the 
 Government. The report of the House Committee on Com- 
 merce contains the following : 
 
 " It is apparent that under the terms of the guarantee the question as to 
 whether a ship railway is practicable is one with which the United States 
 Government has very little concern. If any part of the guarantee was to 
 take effect before final completion of the work, the question of the practic- 
 ability of the project would be a vital one ; but inasmuch as the capitalists 
 who advance the money to construct the road assume all of the engineering 
 risks involved in its construction, and inasmuch as it must be practically 
 demonstrated to be a success before the Government becomes liable to pay 
 anything, the question of practicability is one to the consideration of which 
 it is really unnecessary for Congress to devote itself. In this connection, 
 however, it is but proper to say that in the opinion of the most able and 
 well-known engineers, naval architects, and shipbuilders of the world the 
 construction of a ship railway at Tehuantepec, in accordance with the 
 plans which have been submitted to them by Mr. Eads, is entirely prac- 
 ticable. Indeed, many of these experts go much further than this, and de- 
 clare that a railway is preferable to a canal, first, in the economy with 
 which it can be constructed ; second, in the facility with which it may be 
 enlarged when commerce demands its enlargement ; third, in the economy 
 with which it can be operated, and, fourth, in its ability to transport ves- 
 sels with greater rapidity and less delay." 
 
 ENGINEERS AND NAVAL OFFICERS WHO BELIEVE THE SHIP RAIL- 
 WAY PRACTICABLE. 
 
 On page 9, the Admiral says : " Of the many recommenda- 
 tions of the railway in the ' Scientific Solution ' there is not 
 one of a railroad engineer." The following are the names of 
 
11 
 
 a few American civil engineers and railroad managers of 
 the highest standing, who have carefully examined the 
 subject and have pronounced the ship railway entirely 
 practicable : Genl. William Sooy Smith, Henry Flad, H. 
 
 D. Whitcomb, C. Shaler Smith, T. C. Clarke, 6. Chanute, 
 late chief engineer of the Erie Eailway ; Kichard P. Mor- 
 gan, Jr., a railroad expert of Illinois, and formerly one of the 
 State Eailway Commissioners ; Clemens Herschel, of Bos- 
 ton ; Charles Paine, past president of the Am. Soc. Civil 
 Engineers ; Col. H. F. Douglass, chief engineer Baltimore 
 & Ohio E.K. Extension to New York ; Jas. B. Francis, of 
 Lowell, Mass., past president of the Am. Soc. Civil Engineers ; 
 Thos. C. Keefer, C. M. G., member Inst. C. E., London, Vice- 
 Prest. Am. Soc. C. E.; Eobt. H. Thurston, G. Bouscaren, 
 
 E. T. Jeffery, general manager Illinois Central E.E., and to 
 these we could add twenty or thirty more who have also 
 expressed by letter their unqualified faith in its success. 
 
 But not alone among engineers is found numberless be- 
 lievers in the practicability of the Ship Eailway. The Ad- 
 miral will find scores of them in the Navy. The writer refers 
 to a few of them, in addition to the two already mentioned, 
 who have expressed themselves as confident that war or mer- 
 chant vessels may be transported over land with safety on a 
 properly constructed railway : The late Captain Edward Hartt, 
 U. S. Naval Constructor ; Mr. F. L. Fernald, U. S. Naval Con- 
 structor ; Commander N. H. Farquhar ; Eear- Admiral E. W. 
 Shufeldt, U. S. N.; Eear Admiral S. P. Carter, U. S. N., and 
 many younger officers of the Navy. 
 
 MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL. 
 
 On page 11 occurs the following sentence : " Despite of 
 this assertion, the argument of our great Eads abroad that a 
 canal was impracticable, and the obstruction for years by the 
 
12 
 
 railway interests of Great Britain, the Manchester Ship Canal 
 is now in progress of construction." In this sentence are 
 two misstatements. First, Mr. Eads did not argue that the 
 Manchester Ship Canal was impracticable ; and, second, it is 
 not as jet under construction. Mr. Eads appeared before 
 the Committees of Parliament and proved that if the lower 
 ten miles of the canal was located as proposed in the middle 
 of the estuary of the Mersey, the works would rapidly re- 
 duce the tidal capacity of the estuary and ruin the Liverpool 
 docks, and destroy that port. The Committee, after hearing 
 Mr. Eads, rejected the bill unanimously, although it had been 
 reported upon favorably by two previous Committees. 
 
 During the hearing, Mr. Eads suggested, in answer to a 
 question of the Queen's Counsel for Manchester, that these 
 ruinous results would not occur if these ten miles were lo- 
 cated along either margin of the estuary. The plan was thus 
 modified, and the bill for its construction has since been ap- 
 proved by Parliament. 
 
 NO CANAL AT TEHUANTEPEC. 
 
 On the same page occurs the following : 
 
 " Section 2 of the Eads Ship Railway bill actually proposes the right to 
 substitute canalization over any sections of his route deemed desirable bj 
 him, without requiring anj stated rate of speed, or stating what the depth 
 and prism of his canal would be ! This effectually disposes of the pre- 
 tension of speed across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec." " But this 
 
 proposed canal system of Captain Eads establishes the fact that he is aware 
 that on these marshy and unsolid grounds a solid foundation for a Ship 
 Railway could not be made saye at an enormous cost, and then with yery 
 uncertain result, whilst the cost of excavating a canal prism would not be 
 great, and would inyolye no doubtful result, except as to water supply and 
 the establishment of necessary surface drainage." 
 
 This statement is doubtless due to a want of knowledge of 
 the facts upon the part of the Admiral. In the concession 
 this means a channel^ and not a canal, between the Laguna 
 
13 
 
 Superior and the Pacific. As a canal will cost about six 
 times as much per mile as a railway, it would only be 
 resorted to where the railway cannot be constructed. As 
 the Lagoon on the Pacific side will be one of the termini of 
 the railway, some work will have to be done in the nature 
 of canalization to deepen and improve it, and this is the 
 only work of the kind proposed. 
 
 In 1881, before any surveys had been made by us except 
 to examine the passes through the central division, it was 
 contemplated to locate the northern terminus on the Uspan- 
 apa, a large tributary on the right bank of the Coatzacoalcos ; 
 and fearing that within a few miles of the former the ground 
 would prove marshy, a provision was put into the ship rail- 
 way bill, then pending, providing for a canal through such 
 portion as might prove unsuited for a railway. Further ex- 
 aminations led to the abandonment of that route and to the 
 location of the line on the other side of the Coatzacoalcos river. 
 From the northern terminus at Minatitlan to the Lagoon, 134 
 miles distant, not a single foot of marshy or even doubtful 
 ground is encountered, and no canal whatever is needed. 
 
 SUEZ CANAL. 
 
 On page 12 the Admiral charges the writer with making, 
 without any excuse, unreliable statements in regard to the 
 rate of travel in the Suez Canal. What the writer stated 
 was this : 
 
 " In the Welland Ship Canal the speed is ofie mile per hour, and the 
 same on the North Holland Ship Canal to the port of Amsterdam. (In- 
 ternal Commerce U. S., 1885, p. 494.) 
 
 " In the Suez Canal — the most important ship canal in the world— the 
 time required to pass through, one hundred miles, was Jifty hours, in 
 1884, or at a rate of two miles per hour. The average time of an un- 
 disturbed passage, in 1884, was 38^ hours. About 25 per cent, of the 
 distance is through deep lakes, and 40 per cent, through shallow lakes, 
 only 35" per cent, being through dry excavations. The speed by regulation 
 
14 
 
 is limited to five knots, but this is a dangerous one for steamers, for they 
 are liable to run aground. From 1870 to [883, eleven per cent, of all ves- 
 sels went aground. 
 
 " It was stated in evidence before the Canal Committee of Parliament 
 that in 1882, the passage of ten ships through the canal would choke it.'' 
 
 The time of passage referred to is the total time required 
 to pass through the canal, in chiding the frequent groundings 
 and delays by darkness and by waiting for other vessels to 
 pass. The writer refers for confirmation of his statement to 
 the " Maritime Canal of Suez," by Professor J. E. Nourse, 
 U. S. N.; to a paper recently read before the Austrian Society 
 of Engineers and Architects, in which it is stated that " the 
 time of an undisturhed passage in 1884 was 38^ hours, while 
 the total average, since opening the canal, is 41 hours 22 
 minutest In that paper it is further stated : " The long time 
 in passing the canal is a serious objection. The maximum 
 speed allowed is five knots per hour. This and the time lost 
 in the turn-outs makes the trip a long one." Reference is 
 also made to the testimony of Mr. F. R. Conder, (who is a 
 canal advocate,) taken before the ParHamentary Committee, 
 June 21, 1883, page 127 of the report. Reference is also 
 made to Vol. Ixvi, p. 194, Proceedings of the Institution 
 of the Civil Engineers of Great Britain, where Sir Charles A. 
 Hartley says that the greatest speed through the lakes, where 
 there is open and deep water, is, however, reduced to such 
 an extent in the canal proper as to make the average through 
 the entire canal less than five miles an hour, in which state- 
 ment he refers to effective steaming, that is, the speed when 
 the steamer is actually in motion. 
 
 NICARAGUA CANAL. 
 
 On page 13 of his pamphlet the Admiral quotes the writer 
 as saying of the Nicaragua Canal : 
 
 " The most complete and careful estimate of the cost of this work, made 
 by Major McFarland, United States Engineer, is $140,000,000, witli labor 
 assumed at $1.00 per day." 
 
15 
 
 The Admiral adds : 
 
 " Mr. Corthell knows even better than the public that Major McFarland's 
 ' estimate,' if it may be called by that title, was not on the line of the 
 present location, so far as canalization is concerned, except from Brito to 
 the junction of the Rio del Medio routes, a distance of eight miles, and 
 that the actual line of canal excavation between the seas is now forty miles, 
 in lieu of the sixty-one miles then given on instrumental surveys. He 
 gives the distance from sea to sea at i86 miles, when it is 170, and the num- 
 ber of locks from 14 to 20, when there are but 7. Is Mr. Corthell really anxious 
 to enlighten the public, or to abuse its confidence ? I am quite aware that 
 he may plead ignorance; with what justice is known to him and others 
 far better than to the public." 
 
 The above is wholly unjust. The survey of Mr. Menocal, 
 establishing the length of the canal at 170 miles, and 7 as the 
 number of the locks, making also other very important modi- 
 fications in the location and plans on which Major McFarland 
 made his estimates and which were before Congress last 
 winter, was not given to the public until JVovemher 26, 1885, 
 and then only in an article without signature in the American 
 Engineer, of Chicago. The writer is charged with wilfully 
 holding back information about these surveys and plans in 
 an address delivered and printed ^w^w*^ 26, 1885, three vionths 
 before. 
 
 As to the abuse of the public confidence, what should be 
 said of Admiral Ammen for bringing forward a profile of the 
 Tehuantepec Route made from a survey of 35 years ago, and 
 putting it before the public as the route of the Ship Railway, 
 omitting entirely to mention an exhaustive survey made for 
 this railway two years ago and published for the benefit of 
 the public ? 
 
 The unfamiliarity of the Admiral with the plans of the 
 Nicaragua Canal is seen, in his statement, on page 14 of his 
 pamphlet, that the locks are designed to lift ships of ^^ feet 
 draught from the Pacific to the lake level, although Mr. 
 Menocal's table of depths shows that nearly six miles of the 
 canal on this section is to have only 28 feet depth, and that 
 over 40 miles of the Atlantic division is to have also only 28 
 
16 
 
 feet depths and that the locks themselves are to have only 29 
 feet depth. 
 
 Again the Admiral says : " Wherever the material to be 
 excavated is not fully known through borings, it is given as 
 rock and estimated for rock." He probably intended to say 
 absence of borings, as there is no record of any having been 
 made, and to consider the material as rock is really erring 
 in favor of a low estimate, for the quantity and cost 
 would be immensely greater, if it should prove to be earth 
 in a cut nearly three miles in length, of an average depth of 
 150 feet. M. de Lesseps would be very glad to find solid 
 rock in his great Culebra cut. The suppressed estimate of 
 Major McFarland, made November 18, 1874, and only given 
 to the public by Major McFarland himself, after much provo- 
 cation, incites the ire of Admiral Ammen, whenever it is 
 mentioned, for the reason probably that it is a fair estimate 
 of the difficulties to be encountered, and of the cost of the 
 work. The whole report shows a careful examination of the 
 subject, and no doubt the Major is abundantly able to de- 
 fend his estimate. 
 
 About three years ago Dr. Cardenas, the then president- 
 elect of Nicaragua, requested the writer to submit a propo- 
 sition for making the surveys and plans for the improve- 
 ment of the San Juan river and harbor, giving as a reason 
 that the government of Nicaragua had become convinced 
 that nothing could be expected of the company represented 
 by Mr. Menocal. Studies of the harbor of Greytown con- 
 vinced the writer that it was irretrievably ruined, and that it 
 was a very doubful, if not impracticable, task to permanently 
 improve it. The Avriter mentions this simply to show that he 
 has had special as well as general reasons for ascertaining the 
 natural conditions existing at Nicaragua. The knowledge 
 the writer is charged by the Admiral with having, but not 
 using, is no doubt that of the plans from time to time promul- 
 gated by Mr. Menocal, who, with some other but higher officials 
 of the United States Government, has devoted much of his 
 
17 
 
 time to this scheme for several years. Their various surveys 
 and plans, however, have not in any way modified the natural 
 conditions existiiig at the Isthmus of Nicaragua, and Mr. Men- 
 ocal and Admiral Ammen must not feel hurt if the writer and 
 others use their judgment in selecting the plans and esti- 
 mates which appear to them to be most reasonable and best 
 considered. It is not to be expected that any one can ac- 
 quire full knowledge of the various plans, surveys, and esti- 
 mates which Admiral Ammen is in the habit of making of 
 the Nicaragua Canal route. The plans of Mr. Menocal 
 should not be considered final, if for no other reason than 
 that they are periodically undergoing very important mod- 
 ifications. The examination of the plans which he now 
 brings forward shows how far from a state of perfection, and 
 how poorly adapted they are to accomplish the work for 
 which the former plans were found by Admiral Ammen and 
 Mr. Menocal to be unfitted. 
 
 It was recently ascertained that the canal planned in 
 1872-1873, and essentially the one laid before Congress with 
 the treaty last winter, would not accommodate either the 
 ships or the traffic expected. The new plans now promul- 
 gated are intended to correct these important omissions in 
 the earlier plans and to provide, it is said, an adequate chan- 
 nel for ships of 52 feet beam and for a traffic of 12,000,000 
 tons per annum, and an ultimate traffic of 20,000,000 tons. 
 Though the dimensions are much greater and the prices larger, 
 the detailed cost of the canal is less. This happy result has been 
 obtained by a hasty survey made through a densely wooded 
 country, " over ground alternately swampy and hilly, and 
 covered with a dense vegetation, through which every foot of 
 the trail had to be cut with a machette, and where travelling 
 was fatiguing in the extreme, officers and men being com- 
 pelled in many instances to go long distances buried to the 
 waist in the mud and water, with a very uncertain bottom to 
 stand upon." (See synopsis of Engineer Menocal's report of 
 recent date.) 
 
18 
 
 When this hasty and very preliminary work is compared 
 with the surveys of the Tehuantepec Isthmus for the Ship 
 Railway, occupying nearly two years, the greater reliability 
 and accuracy of the latter stand out prominently. It seems 
 proper to the writer to still rely upon the estimate made by 
 Major McFarland for the construction of the Nicaragua 
 Canal, for the reason that it appears to him to be the best 
 considered. Only one exception can be taken to it, in the 
 writer's opinion, and that is in the price of labor, which was 
 estimated at $1.00 per day. This, by recent developments 
 on the Panama Canal, has been shown to be too low. The 
 writer is informed by Mr. C. Colne, general agent (in this 
 country) of the Panama Canal, that the average cost of labor 
 employed by the Canal Company is $2.00 per day. As Major 
 McFarland's estimate of the Nicaragua Canal was $140,000,- 
 000, it does not seem unreasonable to place the cost at 
 present at $200,000,0m) if we double the cost of the labor. 
 
 INADEQUACY OF THE NICARAGUA CANAL. 
 
 Let us see if the Nicaragua Canal as now designed by Mr. 
 Menocal will accommodate a traffic of 12,000,000 tons, which 
 has to pass through rocky excavations and other dangerous 
 navigations, and 7iot through a channel excavated in sandy 
 material like that of the Suez Canal. The accompanying 
 sketch shows the cross-sections of the proposed Nicaragua 
 Canal in earth and rock cuttings, the present sections of the 
 Suez Canal, and those recommended for that Canal by the 
 distinguished International Commission of Engineers which 
 recently examined the question of its enlargement. A glance 
 at the ship for which the Nicaragua Canal is intended, and 
 the comparative sections, wiU show how utterly inadequate is 
 this proposed canal. The impossibility, practically, of push- 
 ing a steamer or towing a sailing vessel through the seven 
 miles of rock prism, whose dimensions are eighty feet at 
 
3 
 
 t 2 
 
 ^§1^151 
 
 
 
 stetDwooo 
 
 s>>nSSSS>~ 
 
 W\ 
 
 U i ! 
 
 3z t^ : : 
 
 « » -MS 
 
 
20 
 
 bottom, and eighty feet at the surface of the water ^ about the 
 width of the Erie Canal, is very plainly seen and appreciated. 
 In Mr. Scott Russell's Naval Architecture, chapters xxxi and 
 xxxii, appears the following, relating to vessels moving 
 through canals : 
 
 " The water excavated from the way of the ship causes a continual accu- 
 mulation of water in the region of the canal towards which the ship is 
 
 moving." "If this wave travel ahead of the ship only one-fourth of 
 
 the pace of the ship, the accumulation will be quadrupled; one-eighth 
 will make it eightfold, and so on, until the progress of the ship becomes 
 extremely difficult, or impossible. This is what constantly takes place as 
 the rise of the ship, and the pace in a narrow and shallow channel becomes 
 greater. Practically, working at high speed becomes not difficult or costly, 
 
 but impracticable." "The consequences of this rapid increase of 
 
 head accumulation, which takes place as the speed of the wave in ad- 
 vance of the vessel diminishes, are very serious. First, it throws the ship's 
 head up out of trim ; next, it increases the pressure of water on her bow ; 
 third, it makes her travel up-hill ; fourth, it produces a backward current 
 along her sides. And these hindrances to speed accumulate rapidly, much 
 more rapidly than as the square of the resistance, until the amount be- 
 comes insuperable ; that is, many times the resistance due to the law of the 
 square of the speed." "It is now necessary to notice the comple- 
 mentary effect to that of accumulation in advance of the vessel; it is sub- 
 sidence of water astern. It being known that the excavated water is sent 
 on in advance of the vessel, it becomes plain that the channel out of which 
 this water has been taken must have its height lowered by the subsidence 
 of the water into the vacant channel out of which the ship has been drawn." 
 
 With these principles before us, and in view of the fact 
 that this narrow prism of the canal covers a length of seven 
 miles, the reader can form an accurate idea as to whether 
 the ship will pass safely through the designed section in 
 rock excavation at any speed, much less the speed of jive 
 miles an hour, as estimated by Mr. Menocal. Attention is 
 also called to the ratio of the immersed section of the vessel 
 to the water prism of the canal as shown in the table on the 
 diagram of sections. 
 
 It is stated in Engineer Menocal's report that steamers can 
 make eight miles an hour in the San Juan river. The width 
 at the bottom in the first 28 miles from the lake is to be 
 
21 
 
 only 125 feet in many places, and the channel is often very 
 tortuous. On the western division the same difficulty exists 
 in certain parts of the crooked and narrow valley of the Kio 
 Grande. A rate of speed over three or four miles an hour in 
 these tortuous and restricted river channels would be a dan- 
 gerous one. It is extremely doubtful if the large sailing ships 
 which now go around Cape Horn could be towed through the 
 canal at all. It would be necessary for the tow boats to 
 take them astern, which would make it extremely difficult to 
 steer them through the restricted portions of the canal. 
 
 ESTIMATES OF THE CANAL NOT SUFFICIENT. 
 
 In reference to the cost of construction there is much to 
 criticise. The upper reach of the San Juan river for twenty- 
 four miles is to be dredged a mean depth of four feet. 
 The plan of 1873 required the removal of 834,832 cubic 
 yards of rock under water. Mr. Menocal estimates that the 
 present plan requires the removal of only 398,613 cubic 
 yards. Every constructive engineer of experience will 
 testify that from twenty to forty per cent, more rock is usu- 
 ally excavated than is included in the neat section of the 
 work when it is removed from below water. It will be 
 fair to assume that, to remove this 398,613 cubic yards 
 of rock under water, will require the removal of at least 
 500,000 yards. The price estimated is $5 per cubic yard. 
 In the opinion of the writer this is too low. It has cost 
 to remove submarine rock in New York harbor, where 
 every facility is at hand, and all conditions are favorable, 
 from $16.30 per cubic yard to $34.00. (See detailed report 
 of Gen. Koy Stone, in the report of the Chief of Engineers 
 on the Hell Gate Improvements.) On the Welland Canal the 
 tenders for the removal of from 15,000 to 20,000 cubic yards 
 of rock under water ranged from $9.90 to $40.00 per cubic 
 yard. The work was done at the former figures, but the 
 
quantity removed to give a clear channel depth and width 
 was 34,600 cubic yards. (See Engineering News, July 11, 
 1885, page 17.) Under the circumstances existing at the 
 San Juan river, with labor much more expensive and less 
 effective, with appliances difficult to obtain, and with work 
 scattered over twenty-four miles, $15.00 per cubic yard is not 
 too large a price for an estimate. The addition required 
 to the estimate from this cause alone will therefore be $5,- 
 506,935. 
 
 The harbor at Greytown, heretofore referred to, is so fully 
 discussed in Major McFarland's report that it is unneces- 
 sary to allude to it further, except to state that corroborative 
 testimony is found in a paper by Professor Henry Mitchell on 
 " The Terminal Points of the Nicaragua Canal," in the United 
 States Coast Survey Eepoi-t of 1874, and also in the report 
 of the Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, 1866. 
 Major McFarland's estimate for its improvement was $9,500,- 
 000. The estimate in 1873 was $2,822,630. Mr. Menocal's 
 estimate yic>w; is $1,766,625, a difference of $7,733,375 between 
 that of Major McFarland and that of Mr. Menocal. 
 
 The question of successfully improving the harbor at 
 Greytown is one of vital importance to the canal. The 
 problem to be solved is how to restore and maintain 
 a harbor that has been completely ruined and practically 
 obliterated by forces it is well nigh beyond the power of 
 man to control. Natural causes have diverted from their 
 former channel the waters of the lower San Juan, and turned 
 them into the Colorado river, which debouches into the sea 
 through Costa Rica. When it is borne in mind that our 
 engineers have failed to deepen the channel into a single 
 harbor along the whole sweep of our Atlantic and Gulf 
 coasts, except the mouth of the Mississippi, the folly is ap- 
 parent of intrusting to an amateur the design and estimates 
 for a work as difficult as that at Greytown. 
 
 Not only in this country, but also in Europe, has the im- 
 provement of harbors taxed the skiU of the ablest hydrauUc 
 
23 
 
 engineers for years, and immense sums have been expended 
 by them in improving or constructing harbors under condi- 
 tions much less compHcated than those at Greytown. One 
 of the most difficult problems ever presented in hydraulic 
 engineering is the construction of a deep and safe harbor on a 
 sandy beach exposed, like that at Greytown, to the severest 
 storms of the sea. Yet a young engineer, of very limited 
 experience, has been intrusted with this grave problem, and 
 the result of his hasty studies and his periodical plans and 
 estimates for this immense canal and its harbors occupied for 
 months the serious attention of statesmen, committees, and 
 senates. 
 
 There are several questionable and entirely novel methods 
 proposed for the Nicaragua Canal which need examination 
 by experienced engineers before they are pronounced prac- 
 ticable. As an instance may be mentioned a lock with 
 53 feet lift by the ordinary process. 30 feet is the greatest 
 lift on any constructed canal, and that on the small Lehigh 
 Canal. The tail-gate of the lock of ^%-feet lift, 88 feet in 
 height, is said to be of " novel design." We should think so ! 
 
 The impounded waters of the San Francisco river are to be 
 held back by a dam over 6,000 feet long and 51 feet in height. 
 
 The most radical and objectionable feature of the canal 
 plans is, however, the general disturbance of the regimen of 
 the rivers and the drainage of both slopes. Kivers are taken 
 out of their natural beds, from the valleys in which they have 
 run for all time, and are turned into artificial channels and in 
 entirely new directions. The Rio Grande on the Pacific 
 side, a mountain stream, and at times a torrent, is di- 
 verted from the Pacific towards the Atlantic, that is, into 
 Lake Nicaragua. 
 
 The following from the official synopsis of Mr. Menocal's 
 recent report is an illustration of the apparent ease, with 
 which the new regimen, in another instance, is to be estab- 
 lished : 
 
24 
 
 " At this point the Deseado will be diverted by a channel north of the 
 ciinal a distance of 43,000 ft. (Smiles;) the latter will be protected on 
 both sides bj drainage channels formed partly by the present bed of the 
 stream and partly by ditches. The remainder of the canal, also about 
 43,000 ft., from the Deseado to the sea, will be protected by embankments, 
 an artificial channel being cut south of the canal to divert the river San 
 Juanillo, and another north of the canal to give Laguna Bernard and its 
 tributaries an independent outlet to the sea." 
 
 Other river beds are to be dried up to give room for tlie 
 canal, and their torrents are to be turned in any direction, 
 and by any means, necessary to give the canal free " right 
 of way." These streams are to be carried long distances 
 apart from the canal, either inside embankments or in 
 channels excavated in earth or rock. The general contour 
 lines of the country do not impede the plan at all, and it may 
 be said that the whole drainage system of the Isthmus is en- 
 tirely and most conveniently rearranged. Three months' 
 time was sufficient to make surveys that entirely modify all 
 previous plans, and practically remodel the Isthmus, al- 
 though it required with other extraordinary changes, deep 
 rock excavations, one of which for about three ^niles in length, 
 has an average depth of 149^ ft., and a maximum depth of 
 204 ft., and another a maximum depth of 318 ft., almost 
 rivalHng the famous Culebra cut of the Panama Canal. 
 
 One important object of Mr. Menocal's recent survey, as 
 has been stated, was to find a location and natural conditions 
 that would permit enlargement of the previous dimensions, 
 so as to transport, unimpeded^ a traffic r?/* 12,000,000 tons, for 
 " the Suez Canal is unahle to accommodate a traffic of inore 
 than 6,000,000 tons per year, without serious delays to naviga- 
 tion, owing to its dimensions and insufficient number of turn- 
 outs." (American Engineer, November 26, 1885, presumably 
 written by Mr. Menocal.) Practically the same is stated in 
 the official synopsis of his recent report to Congress : " The 
 apparent insufficiency of the Suez Canal to accommodate a 
 traffic of more than 6,000,000 tons a year, without serious 
 delay to navigation due to its reduced sectional area and the 
 
25 
 
 inadequate number of its turnouts, shows that the dimensions 
 proposed in the previous reports for a canal across Nicaragua 
 should be considerably enlarged." The above statement is 
 correct, as far as the Suez Canal is concerned, and it was to 
 remedy this very serious evil that the International Commis- 
 sion was called together. They decided that certain dimen- 
 sions were necessary to accommodate the present traffic. The 
 Nicaragua Canal dimensions are intended to accommodate a 
 traffic twice as great, and the impression is conveyed in 
 the official report that the plans have heen Tnade with this 
 special object in view, " The constant object has been to 
 provide for a canal which should permit the passage of the 
 largest ships now engaged in the commerce of the world, and 
 a traffic of no less than 12,000,000 tons per year, without re- 
 striction, rather than, for the sake of economy in first cost, 
 propose what experience at Suez has proved to be inadequate." 
 (See American Engineer, Nov. 26, 1885, page 227.) The cross- 
 sections (see sketch, page 19; show that, in a distance of 37.6 
 miles of excavated canal, (the total length being 38.98 miles,) 
 the dimensions now proposed by Mr. Menocal must he enlarged 
 one hundred and fifty per cent, to make them as large as those 
 decided upon for tlie Suez Canal to accommodate a traffic ^;^^y 
 per cent, less than that assumed to have been provided for by 
 the Nicaragua Canal plans. The average of three sections 
 proposed for the Nicaragua Canal gives an area of 3,492 
 square feet. The paper read before the Austrian Society 
 gives the section of the Suez Canal as 3,956 square feet. 
 The average of the proposed enlargements of the Suez Canal 
 is 8,576.3 square feet. (For details, see the table on sketch, 
 page 19.) As this 37.6 miles of the Nicaragua Canal com- 
 prises the most expensive part of the work, it seems fair to 
 increase the cost proportionately if we are to modify the esti- 
 mate to produce an adequate section. The estimated cost of 
 this part of the work as at present designed is $28,546,542. 
 The cost of the same on the basis of the Suez Canal enlarged 
 section is $42,819,782, at Mr. Menocal's prices. If the chan- 
 
26 
 
 nel in the San Juan river and the nine miles of excavated 
 channel in Lake Nicaragua are enlarged from 125 feet bot- 
 tom width in the first case, and 150 feet in the second, to 
 that of the Suez Canal enlargement, which is 224 feet, the 
 increased cost in the first case will be $3,530,453, and in the 
 second case, 1189,760. To make a harbor at Brito will cost, 
 as estimated by Major McFarland, ^55,000,000. Mr. Menocal's 
 estimate is $1,611,500, or $3,388,500 less. As all who have 
 examined it call it a " harbor only by courtesy," and as no 
 essential change has occurred there in the last twelve years, 
 to the writer's knowledge, it is judicious to assume that Major 
 McFarland's estimate is quite as reliable as that of Mr. Meno- 
 cal. Summing up the several additions to the estimate, and 
 adding 25 per cent, for contingencies — which has been 
 added by Mr. Menocal to his estimate — we have a total in- 
 crease of $88,960,898. The total estimate as given by Mr. 
 Menocal is $64,043,699. The total revised estimate is there- 
 fore $153,004,597. 
 
 The very expensive work, as it certainly will be found to 
 be, of modifying the whole drainage system of the Isthmus, 
 and providing adequate channels to carry to the sea the floods 
 of an annual rainfall of 102 inches without danger to the 
 canal, have not been touched upon in this review, for the reason 
 that the topography of the country and the detailed plans 
 and estimates are not available. It should also be noticed 
 that Major McFarland's estimate was based on a canal whose 
 average sectional area was 2,309 square feet only, while Mr. 
 Menocal's area is 3,409.2 square feet, about fifty per cent. 
 greater than Major McFarland's. If we assume that it would 
 require an addition of 40 per cent, to build the canal accord- 
 ing to Mr. MenocaVs sections, the total cost, then, on Major 
 McFarland's basis would be $189,500,000, and, to build it ac- 
 cording to the Suez Canal enlarged dimensions $264,500,000. 
 
 Mr. Menocal, who was hastily despatched to the Isthmus 
 last winter without authority from or appropriation by Con- 
 gress, had a serious work to accomplish in a very inadequate 
 
27 
 
 time. It was actually necessary to design a larger canal and 
 find a location for it so favorable that the cost would not ex- 
 ceed the estimate of the canal whose plans were then before 
 the Senate. How fully he accomplished this part of his task 
 is seen by placing the two estimates side by side : The 
 estimate before the Senate was $65,722,147 ; the present 
 estimate is $64,043,699, or $1,678,448 less, while the canal 
 is fifty per cent, larger. Whether the plans and estimates 
 can be made satisfactory to intelligent men is exceedingly 
 doubtful. It cannot be successfully denied that the section 
 now designed does not give the free and unrestricted loater- 
 way that is absolutely necessary to make it favorably compare 
 with a ship railway as a means of transportation, and that it 
 does not at all compare with the adopted dimensions of the 
 Suez Canal enlargement, and does not in any sense overcome 
 the very serious emhan^assments under which the Suez Canal 
 labors at present. 
 
 PERSONAL ASSAULT UPON MR. EADS. 
 
 In an address before the American Association for the 
 Advancement of Science, the writer took occasion to refer to 
 the great works accomplished by Mr. Eads, and to speak of 
 his acknowledged ability as an engineer. 
 
 This passage has greatly disturbed Admiral Ammen, and 
 he occupies six pages of his pamphlet in personal abuse of 
 Mr. Eads and detractions of the various important works 
 that he has accomplished. According to the Admiral all of 
 these works are failures. The 14 ironclads which he de- 
 signed and built with such marvellous celerity were but poor 
 affairs and rendered no real service ; the bridge across the 
 Mississippi at St. Louis, pronounced by the British Encyclo- 
 paedia to be the finest specimen of arch construction in the 
 world, is a flimsy structure, likely at any moment to fall into 
 the stream ; and the jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi 
 
28 
 
 river will soon be choked up with sand. The motives which 
 prompt this personal attack upon Mr. Eads are so apparent 
 as to excite for their vindictive author a mingled feeling of 
 pity and regret. 
 
 Not only does Admiral Amrpen assail the works of Mr. 
 Eads, but he even goes so far as to attack his personal char- 
 acter. That character needs no defence, especially against 
 one who strives to defeat an enterprise of immense public 
 utility, by the personal abuse of its projector, and the revival 
 of stale and refuted slanders against him. 
 
 To mislead the public regarding the personal relations ex- 
 isting between General Grant and Mr. Eads, (which up to the 
 day of General Grant's death were of the most friendly char- 
 acter,) Admiral Ammen publishes in his pamphlet an ex- 
 tract of a letter written by the General in 1882, to Mr. Eads, 
 in reference to the Ship Railway Bill then pending in Con- 
 gress. This letter embodied several of the misrepresentations 
 published at the time by the Admiral and Captain Phelps to 
 defeat that bill, and was written under the evident impression 
 that their interpretation of the bill was correct. Under this 
 view he deemed it proper to write to Mr. Eads that he should 
 oppose the bill, because he had previously given him to 
 understand that he would not do so. At the same time he 
 sent a copy of this letter to Senator Miller, of California, 
 who had charge of the Nicaragua Canal bill, and who was a 
 decided advocate of that measure. On receipt of the letter 
 Mr. Eads at once sent a reply by the General's son, Mr. Jesse 
 R. Grant, pointing out to General Grant the misapprehension 
 under which he was laboring. Within two days after the 
 date of this reply, J. R. Grant wrote and telegraphed Mr. 
 Eads that his letter was satisfactory ; that a copy of it was 
 sent to Miller, and that the General had written to him, 
 Miller, explaining the error he had made. General Grant 
 therefore had sent the copy of Mr. Eads' letter and his own 
 admission of his error to Senator Miller immediately after 
 receipt of Mr. Eads' letter, for the evident purpose of cor- 
 
29 
 
 recting the wrong impression which his letter to Mr. Eads 
 would naturally produce in the mind of that Senator. Gen- 
 eral Grant soon after wrote to Mr. Eads reassuring him 
 that he would put no obstacle in the way of the passage 
 of the Ship Kailway bill. That Admiral Ammen should be 
 suppHed with a copy of General Grant's letter to Mr. Eads, 
 by either Grant or Miller, without learning from one or the 
 other anything about Mr. Eads' reply to General Grant or 
 the copy of it sent to Miller and his subsequent and imme- 
 diate admission to Miller by letter that he was in error, is 
 simply incredible. It follows therefore that Admiral Ammen 
 has been making a most discreditable use of General Grant's 
 letter, and one that must be condemned by every fair minded 
 man who will read that letter and Mr. Eads' reply. Both of 
 these will be found in the appendix to this review with 
 collateral facts relating to this part of Ammen's personal as- 
 sault upon Mr. Eads. His suppression of these facts proves 
 that he is willing to place his deceased friend and benefac- 
 tor in a false position before the public, to gratify his hate of 
 Mr. Eads for wrecking his pet scheme on which he had doubt- 
 less based his hopes of a colossal fortune and an imperish- 
 able fame. One of the noblest characteristics of General 
 Grant was his readiness to admit an error at once when con- 
 vinced that he had made one. A notable instance of this 
 manly virtue is shown by him in this correspondence, and the 
 suppression of all reference to it by Admiral Ammen places 
 the characters of the two men in strong contrast. 
 
 As Admiral Ammen has chosen to criticise Mr. Eads' pro- 
 fessional abilities and to ridicule and belittle the high expert 
 testimony we have adduced in favor of the Ship Railway, the 
 writer will be pardoned for answering the natural inquiry : 
 " Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, that he is 
 grown so great ? " We find that at the age of 41, when the 
 late war broke out, he was a lieutenant in the navy in com- 
 mand of the gunboat Seneca, which he assures us was not 
 fit to be carried across the Isthmus on a carefully prepared 
 
30 
 
 railway. If he ever commanded a fleet for a day, history 
 has failed to record it. Certain it is that his services during 
 the whole war were not sufficiently important to secure his 
 promotion to a captaincy. This tardy recognition of his 
 abilities came in 1866. Tradition has it that he had saved 
 Grant from drowning when they were boys together, and 
 Grant was not made of the stuff to forget such a favor. 
 When he came into power Captain Ammen fared better. 
 He was furnished with a good soft place as Chief of a Bu- 
 reau in the Department, a comfortable salary, and the usual 
 rations, perquisites, etc., and after decent delay he was made, 
 in 1872, a Commodore, and finally, a Rear-Admiral. 
 
 With all due respect to the Admiral the writer fails to see, 
 in the record of this officer, how he has become fitted by 
 education, experience, or any notable success whatever, 
 during his whole official career, (except in the way of pro- 
 motion,) to make him an authority on hydraulic engineering, 
 in the science of shipbuilding, or in the construction of rail- 
 roads and lifting docks. With about half of his life spent as 
 a midshipman and lieutenant on shipboard, and the remain- 
 der as a fixture in the Navy Department, he essays to ridi- 
 cule and criticise the projector of the Ship Railway, and the 
 most noted and successful experts in these various depart- 
 ments of civil engineering who gave their hearty endorsement 
 to the Ship Railway. 
 
 The Admiral and his coadjutors place much stress on the 
 fact that we have adduced no evidence from underwriters 
 that they will insure a ship in transit on a ship railway. 
 They forget that the railway company will be a cor)%'mon car- 
 rier, and wiU therefore be responsible for the safe delivery 
 of every package (that is, each ship) it receives at one end 
 of the line until it is delivered in good condition at the other 
 end. Hence the insurance companies, during this part 
 of the voyage, are reheved of all risk, (except perhaps that 
 of fire,) and a company with a capital as big as twenty or 
 more insurance companies becomes responsible for each ves- 
 sel after it undertakes to transport it on its railway. 
 
31 
 
 MR. MENOCAL'S want OF KNOWLEDGE AS TO TEHUANTEPEC. 
 
 The letter of Engineer Menocal incorporated in the pam- 
 phlet of Admiral Ammen shows such a lamentable want of 
 knowledge of the Tehuantepec Isthmus and the Ship Eailway 
 location and plans, that it is scarcely necessary to weary the 
 reader by the many flat denials needed to correct his misstate- 
 ments. The most important of them we will, however, take 
 up briefly. The larger part of his letter is based on the 
 assumption, which we have already shown to be false, that 
 there is " nothing but assertions and generalities to deal 
 with " in reference to the natural conditions existing on the 
 Isthmus. 
 
 CONTROVERTING STATEMENT OF MR. MARTIN VAN BROCKLIN. 
 
 A recent letter of Mr. Van Brocklin, taking issue with Ad- 
 miral Ammen and Mr. Menocal in reference to the statements 
 made by them, will confirm whatever the writer has said in 
 reference to the favorable conditions existing at Tehuantepec 
 for the construction of a ship railway. 
 
 " Oneida, N. Y., FeVy 26, 1886. 
 " E. L. CoRTHELL, Esq. : 
 
 " Dear Sir: I have read the pamphlet entitled The ' Certainty of the 
 Nicaragua Canal, contrasted with the Uncertainties of the Eads Ship Rail- 
 way,' by Daniel Ammen. 
 
 " The first thing presented is a profile said to be from Barnard's survey. 
 My knowledge of the topographical features of the Isthmus of Tehuante- 
 pec, gained in making surveys at intervals from 1859 ^o 1883, enables me 
 to say that a line cati be traced across that Isthm,us that will give a profile 
 as irregular in surface as the one furnished, and further, that should it suit 
 the purpose of a supposed investigator, a line showing greater irregularity 
 of surface can, I think, be obtained. What a profile of the line surveyed 
 by Barnard has to do with the line located for the Ship Railway is incon- 
 ceivable. It seems incredible that a person of the prominence of Rear- 
 Admiral Ammen would undertake to seriously discuss so important a prob- 
 lem as the practicability of the construction of a railway for the transpor- 
 tation of ships across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, while so lamentably 
 
32 
 
 ignorant of the physical conditions existing on the line located for it, and 
 of the difficulties to be encountered in its construction, as the pamphlet 
 demonstrates him to be. He should have known that jou had a complete 
 detailed survey of the route including surveys for the improvement of the 
 harbor on each side, (see page i8 of the publication of yours he quotes,) 
 and a profile of the line indicated, giving full details of the work to be 
 done, and yet for a purpose best known to himself he presents data obtained 
 from Barnard's survey made in 1851, in another locality, and for an entirely 
 different purpose, and also from a preliminary examination, by Mr. Garay, 
 of a pass through the main divide, 10 miles distant from the line finally 
 selected. 
 
 " The ' forty miles of swamp-land, more or less, from Minatitlan towards 
 the Pacific,' that forms the basis for his argument of the ' Farmer,' and the 
 ' Marine ram,' is a fiction, so far as its application to the Ship Railway is 
 concerned ; it describes no part of the ground upon which that work will 
 be built. At every place on the line of the Railway, from the river bank 
 at Minatitlan to the harbor on the Pacific side, the Railway will rest upon 
 firm, unyielding material, possessingample resistance to sustain any weight 
 that will be placed upon it. There is an aggregate distance of perhaps 
 eight miles, but dispersed in sections over the first thirty miles from Mina- 
 titlan, where the surface is covered with water during freshets in the 
 Coatzacoalcos river, but these places cannot be called ' swamp-land,' as the 
 material is a firm tenacious clay, and where not covered by a dense under- 
 growth, they afford valuable grazing ground for the large herds of cattle 
 found in that locality. 
 
 "In the appended letter from Mr. Menocal it is demonstrated, evidently 
 to his own satisfaction, that a vessel 300 feet long, and having a draught of 
 22 feet, will be exposed to an overturning moment of 4,000 foot tons, from 
 the force of winds alleged to be prevalent at Tarifa during certain seasons. 
 The authority quoted in the pamphlet shows conclusively why such winds 
 as do cross the Isthmus are confined to a given direction ; the same reasons 
 give a similar direction to the railway, and just how Mr. Menocal is to ap- 
 ply the force of the wind to the side of the vessel is not apparent. Evi- 
 dently the people living at Tarifa are unmindful of the dangers to which 
 they are exposed, as shown by Mr. Menocal's figures. 
 
 " The buildings of the hacienda of Tarifa stand in the open plain, and 
 are exposed to the full strength of such winds as cross the Isthmus at that 
 place. These buildings are covered with palm, and are, most of them, of 
 very frail construction. The roofs are usually much larger than the walls 
 of the house under them, extending far enough to give a broad veranda on 
 each side. The theoretical wind of Menocal would demolish such frail 
 structures. The fact that they stand uninjured, at Tarifa, and at all places 
 on the Isthmus as well, is evidence that the actual force exerted by winds 
 will not be a serious obstacle in the operation of the Ship Railway. 
 
 " Very truly, 
 
 "M. VAN BROCKLIN." 
 
83 
 
 The following letter from Mr. Deming J. Thayer, a civil 
 engineer of large experience, furnishes additional confirma- 
 tion of the thoroughness of the surveys for the Ship Kailway 
 and of the favorable conditions existing at the Tehuantepec 
 Isthmus. 
 
 " Newton. Kansas, March 6, i8S6. 
 " E. L. CoRTHELL, Esq., 
 
 " Ch'f Engr. Tehuantefec Ship Ry., Washington, D. C: 
 
 " Dear Sir: Rear- Admiral Ammen and Senor Menocal show, in their 
 writings contained in the pamphlet recently published by the former, en- 
 titled, " Certainties of the Nicaragua Canal Contrasted with the Uncer- 
 tainties of the Eads Ship Railway," a deplorable ignorance of the work 
 done and results obtained by the engineers in the employ of the Ship Rail- 
 way Company. The following corrections of some of their errors and in- 
 formation for ' seekers after truth,' I take pleasure in placing in your 
 hands. 
 
 " From March, 1883, to July, 1884, from five to seven engineering parties 
 fully equipped for the work they were to undertake were constantly in the 
 field between Coatzacoalcos and the Pacific Ocean. The first six months 
 in charge of Mr. Martin Van Brocklin, resident engineer, and the latter 
 months under the direct supervision of the writer. 
 
 " We surveyed in an exceptionally thorough manner a continuous line 
 from Minatitlan to the Pacific Ocean at Salina Cruz, that had no marsh or 
 svjamp-land on any part of it, no grade exceeding 52.8 feet per mile, or a 
 curve of less than twenty miles radius. 
 
 " Later, we made lateral explorations, and exhausted practically the pos- 
 sibilities for improving the line, and obtained, as a result, the present 
 location. Our lines were traced with the greatest care, check levels were 
 run over the entire rout«u and especial attention was given to the extensive 
 lateral topographical lines locating all streams and ridges of any promi- 
 nence in the section of the Isthmus where any possibility existed of its 
 being desired to trace a survey later. Maps, profiles, and reports of the 
 work done, duly revised and certified to by the engineers in charge, were 
 sent to you as frequently as possible, and I presume are in your possession 
 at present for the information of ' seekers after truth ' as j^vell as for the 
 needs of the Company. 
 
 " The hydrographic work accomplished was important. The Coatza- 
 colcos river had its banks carefully located by transit lines from the in- 
 itial point of the railway line above Minatitlan to the mouth of the river ; 
 and a detailed survey was made of the bed of the river. A large force of 
 men was employed several weeks in this work alone. 
 
 " On the Pacific coast, the Upper and Lower Lagoons were thoroughly 
 sounded, not as on previous occasions on given lines and at stated inter- 
 
34 
 
 vals, but extensively, and each sounding located from angles from carefully 
 measured base lines on their shores. 
 
 " Borings were made to ascertain the material forming the bottom of the 
 Lagoon in all important localities. In the Lower Lagoon, in a previously 
 unexplored portion we discovered a basin only separated from the ocean 
 by a sand-spit a couple of miles wide, which was two miles in diameter 
 and had a uniform minimum depth of 22 feet, with a clean sand bottom. 
 This basin is protected on the north by a rugged spur of mountains and is 
 entirely land-locked; it will make, with little relative expense, one of the 
 finest harbors in the world. 
 
 " Maps of all these surveys, as well as of the harbors of Salina Cruz and 
 Bar of Coatzacoalcos are in your possession. 
 
 " In regard to 'marshy and swampy' ground, which our cited pamphlet 
 lays such stress upon as covering a great portion of our line, let me say 
 that in the lower Coatzacoalcos Valley, near Minatitlan, in the most un- 
 favorable localities we could select, soundings with an apparatus made of 
 gas pipe with a steel point to be driven down with blows showed that 
 there exists everywhere, as a foundation for masonry, near the surface of 
 the ground impenetrable strata of sand, gravel, or hard-pan ; there was no 
 exception to this rule; the upper over lying soil was a stiff clayey alluvion 
 entirely suitable for the foundation of embankments. 
 
 " The force and effect of the ' northers,' in my opinion has been greatlj' 
 exaggerated ; they blow steadily, are not shifty, nor do they blow in gusts- 
 There exist in no part of the world more flimsy structures than the country 
 houses on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and they are loosely thatched with 
 palm leaf or grass thatch. 
 
 " I have never seen one blown down, or its roof blown off or damaged 
 in any way by a ' norther.' I have stood on a bare mountain summit on 
 the divide near Tarifa and faced the whole force of one of the strongest 
 winds of this kind ever known there. I could not have stood up in it had 
 its force been any where near 40 lbs. to the square foot, (over 90 miles an 
 hour,) as Senor Menocal estimates. It would have blown me to the plains 
 a thousand feet below. 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " D. J. THAYER." 
 
 Mr. Menocal has given reports from the statements of three 
 prominent jengineers, one of them, Mr. Garay, a prominent 
 Mexican engineer — 
 
 " Who located the line for the road across the?Jmountain ridges for a 
 distance of forty miles." * * * " The line run by him crosses the 
 range of mountains, the deepest proposed cutting being 312 feet. He adds 
 that in all the line there is no grade greater than two per cent., and for no 
 greater distance than two and a half miles." 
 
35 
 
 (See page 24 of Admiral Ammen's pamphlet.) The line sur- 
 veyed by Mr. Garay is not the " located " line of the railway. 
 It was a preliminary or trial line, surveyed to ascertain if an 
 economical line with low grades could be obtained through 
 the Chivela Pass. The located line runs through the Tarifa 
 Pass, 10 imles distant. Mr. Menocal states that Mr. Fuertes, 
 who was the engineer on the survey of the Ship Canal route 
 under Admiral Shufelctt, confirms this statement of Mr. Garay 
 by his report on the Ship Canal. The reader will see how 
 entirely unfair is a comparison of a ship canal route mth a 
 ship railway route. Professor Fuertes himself has made a 
 statement in regard to the practicability of building a ship 
 railway across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, based upon his 
 own observations there, and from this statement the follow- 
 ing quotation is made : 
 
 " I can assure you, upon knowledge of every inch of the ground, that 
 you will find no difficulty about curves, grades, or bridges. The ascent of 
 the Atlantic slope will offer no more difficulties than the Hudson River R. 
 R.; and, on the Pacific side, either one of the three passes in the neighborhood 
 of Tarifa or Chivela will require no steeper grade than 25 to 35 feet per 
 mile, to bring you down to the Pacific plains." 
 
 The above is quoted from testimony given to Congress three 
 years ago, and which Mr. Menocal has knowledge of. 
 
 Mr. Menocal refers also to another engineer, Mr. William 
 J. Mac Alpine, who says : 
 
 " I have described from personal surveys the route which his (Eads') 
 engineer has selected, and have spoken of the enormous cost and difficulty 
 of carrying his railway across the deep swamps of one-half, at least, of the 
 first sixty miles from near Minatitlan, of the south descent of the Sierra 
 Madre slope, (500 feet in four miles.)" 
 
 Mr. MacAlpine had no knowledge of the line selected. It 
 had not been surveyed at that time. His remarks refer to 
 the line run by Mr. Garay, already alluded to. 
 
 Mr. Menocal makes several misstatements in describing 
 the mechanical appliances of the Ship Railway. He states 
 that "the construction and operation of cradles weighing 
 
36 
 
 1,000 tons or more, coraposed of an infinite number of parts, 
 eacli of which must be accurately adjusted to sustain its part 
 of the load, with pumps, engines, and rams." Mr. Menocal 
 does not understand at all the plans he is criticising. The 
 cradle will be a remarkably simple structure, composed 
 of duplicated parts, which do not require adjustment, 
 and there are not to he on, or in, the cradle any pumps, en- 
 gines, or rams. They are fixtures in the dock. 
 
 INACCURATE STATEMENT OF MENOCAL ABOUT OTHER SHIP CANALS. 
 
 Mr. Menocal attempts to prove that the tendency toward 
 larger canals and greater loads exists upon canals as well as 
 upon raihvays. This no doubt, in a measure, is true, as it is 
 one of the necessities of the times, but enlargements and im- 
 provements to meet the requirements of traffic are very dim^ 
 cult and expensive upon canals, and rarely made. He states : 
 
 "Are not the Caledonia, the Amsterdam, the Languedoc, the Welland, 
 the St. Mary's Falls, the Suez, and many other canals now in successful 
 operation, and being constantly enlarged and improved to meet the rapidly 
 increasing traffic, and those under construction or about to be constructed 
 at Panama, Manchester, Cape Cod, Corinth, Baltic, &c., improvements on 
 the canals referred to by Mr. Corthell?" 
 
 This statement presents a strong array of what the reader 
 would naturally suppose were all large modern ship canals, 
 or being constantly enlarged, and with capacious channels. 
 The facts are these : The natural features of the country 
 along the line of the Caledonia Canal across Scotland are 
 quite similar to those existing at Nicaragua. Its summit is 
 100 feet above the level of the sea. It is 60 miles long, 38 
 miles being through lakes. It was built early in this cen- 
 tury, before the era of railroads, and has a capacity for ves- 
 sels of only 300 tons. Mr. Vernon-Harcourt, in his book on 
 canals, states : " Regarded merely as an engineering work, 
 the canal was a bold and successful undertaking, very judi- 
 
37 
 
 ciously planned and successfully carried out ; but it has not 
 proved a commercial success." 
 
 The Amsterdam Canal, if Mr. Menocal refers to the new 
 canal, is a short deep channel from the Baltic Sea to the 
 Zuider Zee, and has but one lock in its length of 15t^ miles, 
 and was excavated through lands reclaimed from the sea. It 
 was an absolute necessity to Amsterdam. The Languedoc is 
 an ordinary Barge Canal, and not a Ship Canal, extending 
 from the Bay of Biscay across France to the Mediterranean 
 Sea. It was built in 1667, is 171 miles long, and has a depth 
 of only 5 feet and 3 inches. It has not been enlarged, and is 
 of merely local value. The Welland Canal, although in- 
 tended to be of sufficient depth to accommodate the traffic of 
 the great lakes, and take the grain to Montreal, has been 
 found to be entirely inadequate, as there is a depth of only 
 14 feet in the locks. This mistake is almost irreparable, and 
 an adequate enlargement cannot be made, except at great 
 expense. 
 
 In reference to the Suez, once more, which is by far the 
 most important ship canal in the world, the expense of deep- 
 ening and widening it for even its present navigation is esti- 
 mated at 200,000,000 francs, or $40,000,000, by the distin- 
 guished International Commission. This estimate is the 
 same as that given by a former International Commission for 
 the original construction of this canal. 
 
 The Manchester Ship Catial, although approved by Parlia- 
 ment, has not yet been commenced. The Cape Cod Canal 
 has been in embryo for 219 years, and has been scarcely 
 commenced, work upon it being now suspended. The Corinth 
 Canal is almost over the same ground where the Athenians, 
 550 years B. C, built the " Dioclus," a veritable ship railway 
 of polished granite, which they operated for 300 years. Had 
 the Greek of the present day the skill and energy of the 
 ancient Athenian, his great ancestor, he would have con- 
 structed a neio and iniproved> ship railway, instead of digging 
 a ditch. The Baltic Canal, also alluded to by Mr. Menocal, 
 
38 
 
 has not hem decided upon, and recent information shows that 
 it has only just been presented for the consideration of the 
 Reichstag. This short paragraph, therefore, of Mr. Menocal 
 in reference to these important ship canals needs to be sup- 
 plemented by these facts to show how little weight it pos- 
 sesses. 
 
 CAPACITY OF THE SHIP RAILWAY. 
 
 The ultimate capacity of the Ship Railway is practically 
 unlimited. It is the intention of its projectors to construct 
 it at the outset for vessels weighing with their cargoes 7,000 
 tons. There are less than a dozen steamers registered under 
 the American flag that have a greater load displacement than 
 6,000, and there are no sailing vessels of greater weight. 
 There are no war vessels, either now in the service or con- 
 templated, whose weight with armament, coal, and supplies 
 on board, will exceed 6,000 tons. 
 
 The bill now before Congress requires the transportation 
 of vessels, weighing with their cargoes at least 6,000 tons, as 
 a test of its practicability, and 7,000 tons after the first 
 year. This, however, does not represent its full capacity after 
 the roadway has become well compacted and settled. It is 
 also the intention to so prepare the foundations and excava- 
 tions that the railway may at any time be enlarged to trans- 
 port still larger vessels, when commerce demands it. 
 
 One great advantage of the railway over the canal lies in 
 the fact that it can be easily and inexpensively enlarged for 
 an increasing traffic and tonnage without interruption to its 
 regular business. 
 
 The facts stated publicly by the writer during the last two 
 years going to show the marked superiority of railroads over 
 canals, and ship railways over ship canals, have not been re- 
 futed. These facts are drawn from the history of transporta- 
 tion in various countries during the last sixty years. 
 
39 
 
 From the discussion of the Nicaragua Canal in the preced- 
 ing pages it has been seen that the disadvantages of the ordi- 
 nary barge canal exist in a still greater degree with such a 
 ship canal as has been proposed for Nicaragua. The advan- 
 tages, however, of the ordinary railway are greatly enhanced 
 in the ship railway. These increased advantages arise from 
 the following conditions : the rails are straight, the track per- 
 fect, the grades light, larger loads are carried, the ratio of 
 paying to non-paying loads is greater, the frictional resistance 
 to the motive power is reduced, the speed is slower and less 
 destructive both to the track and the rolling-stock. One of 
 the most important advantages lies in the fact that it will not 
 be necessary to handle the goods. This is one great source 
 of the expense of operating ordinary railways, and it is gen- 
 erally considered that it costs as much to handle a ton of 
 freight as it does to transport it 100 miles. The immense 
 clerical force employed on ordinary railroads will be almost 
 entirely dispensed with on the Ship Kailway. 
 
 Comparing the Ship Railway with the Nicaragua Canal, 
 the following are the advantages of the former. The road- 
 bed of the railway is above the neater and is not subject to 
 the effects of the dangerous floods, or the immense slides 
 from excavations ; the road-bed to be maintained is of 
 much less width than the prism of the canal, and the material 
 required is handled with less expense. The enormous ex- 
 pense of maintaining a ship canal on the American Isthmus 
 is evidenced by the estimate of Mr. De Lesseps, that it will 
 cost $7,000,000 per annum to maintain the Panama Canal. 
 The cost of towing vessels or propelling steamers through 
 the canal is considerably greater than their transportation 
 on the railway. 
 
 THE SUPERIOR ADVANTAGES OF THE TEHUANTEPEC ROUTE. 
 
 The distance in an air-line from the mouth of the Coatza- 
 coalcos river, the terminus of the Ship Railway, to Grey- 
 
40 
 
 town, the terminus of the Nicaragua Canal, is as great as the 
 distance from the moxith of the Coatzacoalcos to New 
 Orleans, or from New York to Jacksonville, Florida, or St. 
 Louis, or Cape Breton. These comparative distances show 
 how immensely superior is the location of the Ship Kailway 
 to that of the Nicaragua Canal, especially between all our 
 Gulf and Pacific ports, as this distance of 800 miles must be 
 nearly doubled. This distance and the time required, added 
 to the long time required to pass through the Nicaragua 
 Canal, shows the immense advantage of the railway in these 
 respects. 
 
 Another advantage, not to be lightly considered, is the de- 
 fensibility of the Tehuantepec route. Both harbors are land- 
 locked ; both are easily capable of defence by fortifications ; 
 both can be reached quickly by railroads traversing the Ke- 
 public of Mexico ; the straits of Yucatan and Florida can be 
 easily defended by our Navy, and we may depend upon 
 the assistance of the strong neighboring republic in whose 
 territory the Shij^ Railway Hes, and we may also rely upon 
 her encouragement and assistance in promoting in every 
 possible way this interoceanic transit-way. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 GENEEAL U. S. GRANT AND ME. JAS. B. EADS, 
 
 REVIEW OF THE SAME BY MR. EADS, 
 
 SHOWING THE PERVERSION AND UNWARRANTED USE OF THE CORRESPOND- 
 ENCE BY ADMIRAL AMMEN. 
 
 See Page 29. 
 
 [F'rom the New York Herald, March 3th, 1 886.1 
 
 Mexican Southern Railroad Company, 
 
 New York, Jan. 13, 18S2. 
 Captain J. B. Eads, Washington., D. C: 
 
 Dear Captain : Until I met you in the city of Mexico and had conver- 
 sations with you there, and subsequently, on the subject of your Inter- 
 oceanic Ship Railroad and read some of your pamphlets upon the subject, I 
 had thought that I saw insurmountable obstacles in the way of the success 
 of your enterprise. You so far removed my doubts about the practi- 
 cability of carrying ships with cargoes securely by rail, that, while I was 
 not sanguine that it would prove a success, I yet was not prepared to say 
 that it might not be. 
 
 I am of that opinion still, but at the same time you gave me to under- 
 stand that no guarantee was to be asked from the Government until a 
 section of ten miles of the railroad was built, and had carried a vessel of 
 the capacity of 2,000 tons burden to the terminus at the rate of ten miles 
 an hour and returned at the same rate of speed, and had landed the vessel 
 safely in water, when the Government was to guarantee three per cent, 
 interest upon $5,000,000. Upon the completion of a second ten miles of 
 the railroad a vessel of 2,500 tons burden, with her cargo, was to be trans- 
 ported to the terminus at the rate often miles an hour, and again returned 
 to the water at like speed, without injury, when a second instalment of 
 $5,000,000 of bonds were to be guaranteed for a like interest and on the 
 same conditions. At the completion of each section for ten miles the like 
 test was to be applied with vessels, increasing 500 tons with each section, 
 
42 
 
 until one with her cargo of 4,ocx) tons should be transported to the termi- 
 nus of the road and into the water; and on completion and the success 
 of each section of ten miles the like interest on $5,000,000 of bonds were 
 to be guaranteed by the Government until the whole amount should reach 
 $50,000,000. 
 
 I have felt a very great interest in the matter of communication between 
 the Atlantic and Pacific oceans somewhere in North America, and which 
 should be mainly under the control of the United States Government and 
 United States capital. To that end, with the valuable aid of Admiral 
 Ammen, I had succeeded in having all of the well known lines of low- 
 level between the United States of Columbia in South America and' 
 Tehuantepec surveyed, and had submitted the result of the surveys to a 
 board of engineers, which I convened. That board, on an examination 
 of these various reports, reported that no other route was practicable for 
 a ship canal as compared with the Nicaragua route. From that time on I 
 became interested in seeing that work undertaken by an American com- 
 pany', not caring who it was done by so that it was done, but willing to 
 lend my name to the enterprise because there is no problem whatever as 
 to the practicability of the route and no difficulty in doing the work if the 
 capital can be secured for it. 
 
 But your proposed work accomplishing the object which I had in view, 
 and seeming to have followers who might be willing to furnish the neces- 
 sary capital, I was induced on your statements to say to Admiral Ammen 
 and to Captain Phelps that with money appropriated for the De Lesseps 
 canal, by the way of Panama, and the following you had for your road, 
 it was idle for us to try to enlist capital in a third enterprise of this kind, 
 and as you asked nothing from the government more than a guarantee 
 that your road earned three per cent, upon fifty millions of capital, if it 
 could carry vessels of 4,000 tons burden successfully from ocean to ocean 
 and without injury to the ships, I thought the Government was running 
 no risk whatever, and advised that we should let the matter drop until 
 either the two enterprises under construction and in contemplation were 
 exploded or proved a success. If yours should prove a success the Nicar- 
 agua Canal would not be wanted at all, at least not in the near future. 
 
 But I now have your bill — No. 430— before me, and see that its provisions 
 are so entirely at variance from what I had been led to suppose you in- 
 tended to ask that I feel it my duty to notify you that I shall oppose it in 
 its present form with all my ability. I do this because I feel that I have 
 been deceived as to what you intended to ask, and also believe that if your 
 present bill passes the Government will be made responsible for six per 
 cent, interest upon a large bonded indebtedness even if your enterprise 
 should prove a total failure. 
 
 In the first instance the speed with which vessels were to be safely trans- 
 ported is changed by this bill from ten miles to six miles an hour; the 
 rate of interest upon the bonds guaranteed is changed from three per cent, 
 per annum to three per cent, semi-annually; the vessels transported of the 
 
4:3 
 
 named tonnage are to be vessels with their cargoes weighing the amount 
 of what I supposed was to be the tonnage of the vessels. I do not think 
 the change of ten miles to six per hovir, or even to four, a serious objection ; 
 but the change in the class of vessels transported and in the rate of inter- 
 est asked are very serious changes. 
 
 Then, also, in your bill you provide what I would approve of for using 
 rivers and canals as far as it was practicable to do so, and to shorten the 
 line of railroad simply to what would be necessary to get over the elevation 
 dividing the two oceans. An examination of the map shows that by deepen- 
 ing the mouth of the Coatzacoalcos river six feet you have a navigable river 
 for all the vessels you propose to carry for thirty miles. From thence to 
 the foothills, through a flat and marshy country where the amount of ex- 
 cavation will be a minimum, you will have a still greater distance where a 
 canal can be cheaply constructed. In like manner on the Pacific side, with 
 a little deepening at the mouth of a slough or small lagoon, connecting 
 with the Pacific, and by deepening between that and another lagoon inland, 
 and a canal through a flat and low country to the foothills, in all a distance 
 of twenty to thirty miles or more, ships of the classes you propose to carry 
 can easily be transported. All this leaves the extent of ship railroad to be 
 built probably less than one-fourth of the entire distance across from the 
 Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific ocean. 
 
 Your bill provides that the same subsidy shall be guaranteed for water 
 communication that is allowed to the railroads, and the same rate of speed, 
 viz., six miles an hour, is not mandatory in the canal. 
 
 This would give you, by the terms of this bill, a guarantee of $5,000,000 
 for the first ten miles, which would be river navigation from the Gulf of 
 Mexico, and a like sum for the first ten miles from the Pacific coast, like- 
 wise of water navigation, nearly completed by nature. 
 
 The balance of the route is to be divided up into twenty sections of equal 
 length. Whenever any one pf them is completed on either side bonds to 
 the extent of $2,000,000 are to be guaranteed for each section as completed. 
 
 All this would insure to you or to the company that you represent a 
 guarantee of from thirty to forty millions before it would be necessary to 
 enter upon that portion of the work which is in any degree problematical — 
 viz., the ship railroad. The Government is bound to provide for this six 
 per cent, interest, whether the railway and canal earn it or not, for fifteen 
 years after the completion of the road. 
 
 Now it looks to me very much as if that portion of the work about which 
 thei-e can be no difiiculty might be completed, these thirty to forty millions 
 of guaranteed bonds secured and the work stop entirely, and as it never 
 would be completed, there would be a six per cent, irredeemable bond for 
 which the Government would be responsible for the interest fastened upon it. 
 
 Now, I know. Captain, that you are enthusiastic and have full faith in 
 the feasibility of the work you propose. I am satisfied, further, that if the 
 matter was left entirely to you, you not only would spend every dollar that 
 you could realize out of the bonds in proving the feasibilitj' of your plans 
 
44 
 
 of transporting ships, but jou would spend all the private means that jou 
 could in any yvay raise, bv hypothecating the second mortgage bonds, or 
 even your private estate. 
 
 But you must recollect that this is a company, will have directors, will 
 be controlled by the capital that is put in it, and even if there was a possi- 
 bility of the success of your enterprise by the expenditure of a large sum 
 of money, the stock of this company might be held by men who would be 
 satisfied with the thirty to forty millions they had already received and 
 would oppose any further progress of the work or expenditure of the 
 means, because at the expiration of fifteen years after the completion of 
 the work the Government would cease to be responsible for either the 
 principal or interest of these bonds. 
 
 I have felt it my duty to state these objections to you, because you had 
 reason to understand that while I might do nothing to favor your project 
 (because I was not entirely satisfied with its feasibility) I would not an- 
 tagonize or oppose it. Now that I have concluded that I must oppose it, 
 you should know it first. 
 
 I was somewhat surprised when I saw Senate bill No. 550, to incorpo- 
 rate the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua, was introduced. I sup- 
 posed what I had said to Admiral Ammen and Captain Phelps would 
 probably prevent anything being done in the way of inaugurating that 
 company until, as I suggested before in this letter, the other enterprises 
 for interoceanic ship communication had proved a failure, and my first 
 impulse was to write to Senator Miller, stating frankly what I had said to 
 these gentlemen, and what my ideas were on the subject; but fortunately 
 I was so pressed for time for a few days after the bill was introduced that 
 I could not take the matter up, and afterward forgot it, until I saw your 
 bill, of which I am now speaking, and I confess to you I was very glad 
 that I had not written the letter which I had contemplated writing, and I 
 shall take the liberty of furnishing Senator Miller a copy of this letter. 
 
 Assuring you that I have no pride in the establishing of any particular 
 line or route for the transportation of vessels between the two oceans, but 
 only to see the work done, and do not care by whom it is done provided 
 it is under American auspices, and that I should wish your enterprise the 
 same success that I would if my own name was connected with it if inau- 
 gurated on terms that were not going to make the Government responsi- 
 ble for any failure. 
 
 I am very truly yours, 
 
 U. S. GRANT. 
 
 [The Times-Democrat of New Orleans published the following letter 
 April nth, 1886, as the N. Y. Herald refused to print it, although it had 
 just given to the public the preceding letter of General Grant.] 
 
 Thomasville, Ga., April 3, 1886. 
 Editor of The New York Herald : 
 
 Dear Sir: During the last sixty days, a pamphlet entitled "The Cer- 
 tainty of the NICARAGUA CANAL Contrasted with the Uncertainties 
 
45 
 
 of the EADS SHIP RAILWAY, by Daniel Ammen," has been exten- 
 sively circulated in Congress and throughout the country. This pamphlet 
 is full of gross misstatements respecting the Ship Railway, which, on ac- 
 count of the high naval rank of its author, are calculated to gravely mis- 
 lead the public. About six pages of it are devoted to such offensive per- 
 sonalities and billingsgate in relation to myself, as to forbid any con- 
 troversy whatever on my part with its author. I only notice the pam- 
 phlet to correct the impression likely to be created by the following extract 
 which it contains from a private letter addressed to me by General Grant 
 on the 13th of January, 1882, relative to the Ship Railway bill then pend- 
 ing in Congress : 
 
 'I But I now have your bill — No. 430 — before me, and see that its pro- 
 visions are so entirely at variance from what I had been led to suppose 
 you intended to ask, that I feel it my duty to notify you that I shall oppose 
 it in its present form with all my ability. I do this because I feel that I 
 have been deceived as to what you intended to ask, and also believe that 
 if your present bill passes, the Government will be made responsible for 
 six per cent, interest upon a large bonded indebtedness even if your en- 
 terprise should prove a total failure." 
 
 The purpose of Admiral Ammen in publishing the above is to create in 
 the public mind the belief that I deceived General Grant in 1882, just as 
 he is now endeavoring, by grossly distorting its provisions, to make the 
 public believe that I am striving to deceive it with the present Ship Rail- 
 way bill. This pamphlet states that this private letter will soon be pub- 
 lished. Accordingly, on the 5th ultimo, it appeared in full in the New 
 York Herald, and naturally elicited many unjust comments from other 
 newspapers throughout the country. As you have given widespread 
 currency to General Grant's letter, I beg space for this communication, 
 which, owing to my recent illness, has been unavoidably^ delayed. 
 
 To enable the reader to know who deceived General Grant in this mat- 
 ter, it is necessary to state certain facts before submitting the reply made 
 to his letter. 
 
 During the last twenty-two years of General Grant's life our friendship 
 was of the most cordial character, a fact attested by his private letters to 
 me, the last of which is dated May 13th, 1884, more than two years after 
 the date of the one above referred to. During this period he gave 
 many proofs of his great confidence in my judgment and abilities as an 
 engineer. Within the last month I have received a letter from a distin- 
 guished Confederate officer, containing a reference to a conversation with 
 Gen'l Grant on the subject of the Isthmus problem as late as 1885, during 
 which he says Gen'l Grant declared that he considered Mr. Eads the very 
 highest authority upon that subject in the world. During the last days of 
 his administration I talked with him fully and freely upon the importance 
 of a ship transit across the Isthmus, and told him that on the completion 
 of the Jetties I intended to devote myself to its solution, as a legitimate 
 supplement to that work, as it would virtually extend the Mississippi river 
 into the Pacific. I referred to the immense benefit he could confer on his 
 
46 
 
 country and mankind by lending his great influence in accomplishing the 
 proposed work. I expressed no preference at that time for any one of the 
 routes, but suggested that his prominent identification with the enterprise 
 would be a legitimate sequence to the deep interest he had shown during 
 his official career in the Isthmian problem and in the opening of the Mis- 
 sissippi river. He expressed an earnest wish to aid the undertaking, and 
 said that on his return from his contemplated tour around the world we 
 should talk more definitely on the subject. 
 
 During Gen'l Grant's tour I took up the study of this problem and find- 
 ing that the distance between the mouth of the Coatzocoalcos (the en- 
 trance to the Tehuantepec route) and Greytown (the entrance to the 
 Nicaragua route) was as great in an air-line as the distance from New York 
 to the Gulf of Mexico at Tallahassee, I saw at once the immense advan- 
 tage in point of location possessed by Tehuantepec. I then satisfied myself 
 that while a canal was not practicable at Tehuantepec, it was practicable 
 to carry ships over that Isthmus by railway. Further studies satisfied me 
 that their transportation by rail would be really more economical, and for 
 several reasons more desirable, than through a canal with locks. I was 
 further convinced that there would be no advantage to American commerce 
 by this long and much more distant canal with locks, over the short sea- 
 level cut proposed by De Lesseps at Panama. I saw also that a very serious 
 objection to the Nicaragua canal existed in the fact that the harbor at Grey- 
 town, once possessing an entrance depth of about eighteen feet, had been 
 obliterated by the sands of the sea and the local drainage of the tropical 
 floods, in consequence of the almost total abandonment of that harbor by 
 the San Juan river, which had been gradually directed into another channel, 
 (the Rio Co orado,) which nowconveysalmostthewholeflood waters of Lake 
 Nicaragua through Costa Rica to the sea about twenty miles further east than 
 Greytown. The restoration of this obliterated harbor on the sandy coast 
 of Nicaragua is therefore a very different problem from that of the im- 
 provement of any existing harbor on the Atlantic seaboard. It is, in fact, 
 the creation of a new harbor where none exists. Natural harbors on sandy 
 sea coasts are always kept open by the flood discharges of rivers, or by the 
 tidal discharges from estuaries, sounds, or other tidal basins. From New 
 York to Mexico nearly all of our harbors are of this kind, and the almost 
 fruitless attempts to improve them after years of study and the expendi- 
 ture of many millions attest the uncertainty of such efforts. To under- 
 take the creation of a harbor among sand banks where none exists, and 
 where neither of the two natural forces are present to aid such eff"^rt, and 
 to maintain the harbor intact afterwards, must necessarily be still more 
 uncertain. 
 
 Seeing Gen'l Grant's name announced before his return, as the probable 
 president of the Nicaragua canal company, I wrote to him soon after his 
 arrival, and pointed out these objections to the proposed canal, and urged 
 him to have nothing to do with it, assuring him that they would certainly 
 prevent its construction during this century, and that I did not want to see 
 
47 
 
 him couple his name with what I felt sure would be a failure. In the let- 
 ter I assured him that a ship railway would be made across Tehuantepec, 
 and that for many reasons it would be preferable to a canal. Subse- 
 quently, in Mexico, in New Orleans, and in New York, during personal 
 interviews in 1880 and 1881, I impressed upon him these views and my 
 conviction that he would never live to see the building of the Nicaragua 
 canal. 
 
 General Grant knew but little of the principles of mechanics, or of hy- 
 draulic engineering, and was not qualified by experience or education to 
 judge of the practicability of a ship railway, nor of the engineering diffi- 
 culties at Nicaragua. His son Jesse was educated as an engineer and 
 quickly recognized not only the feasibility of the ship railway, but its ad- 
 vantages over the canal. He greatly regretted the use of his father's name 
 in opposition to the ship railway, the success of which he thought certain. 
 No doubt his arguments, coupled with the opinions I had expressed, in- 
 duced his father to assure Hon A. G. Cochran, the counsel of the Ship 
 Railway Company, about the ist of January, 1882, that he would write to 
 Senator Miller to take his name off the Nicaragua canal bill. Soon 
 after this promise, the letter Ammen has published was received by me. 
 I immediately sent, by Mr. Jesse R. Grant, the following reply : 
 
 Willard's Hotel, 
 
 Washington, D. C, Jan. 21, 1882. 
 General U. S. Grant, 
 
 New York City : 
 
 Dear General : I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter 
 of January 13th, in which you inform me that you feel it your duty to op- 
 pose the Ship Railway Bill. * * * 
 
 Appreciating the deep interest which you had alwaj's taken in the ad- 
 vance of American Commerce, and remembering your great anxiety, both 
 in public and private life, to bring about a solution of the Isthmian prob- 
 lem, I felt very desirous that you should fully understand my project, what 
 I proposed to do, and what aid from the Government I regarded as neces- 
 sary. Hence it was that when I met you in Mexico, and afterwards on 
 our journey home, I discussed the whole matter freely with you. I need 
 hardly say that when I succeeded in removing your doubts as to the 
 practicability of the work I was greatly gratified. 
 
 You point out in your letter certain objections to the bill recently intro- 
 duced before Congress which, you say, have decided you to oppose its 
 passage. 
 
 You will no doubt remember that when returning home on the steamer, 
 I handed you a copy of the bill reported by the Interoceanic Committee to 
 the last Congress. You read the bill and I had no reason to suppose 
 that you failed to fully understand it. The Government guarantee therein 
 provided for, was a three per centum semi-annual guarantee, not of inter- 
 est upon bonds, but of stock dividends. 
 
48 
 
 There were also provisions as to a canal, and payments for the same as 
 in the case of the Railway. You remarked at the time that you did not 
 think I would have much difficulty in passing the bill as it left no risk on 
 the part of the Government in relation to the practicability of the rail- 
 way. I now enclose you a copy of the bill I then showed you, and am 
 satisfied that when you compare it with the bill more recently introduced, 
 you will find that they substantially agree. If there be any difterence I 
 think that the latter bill is, in some respects, even more favorable to the 
 Government. 
 
 As I understand it you have two serious objections to the bill, and they 
 are as follows, viz : 
 
 istj That the Company might never complete the work, and in this case, 
 under its guarantee, the Government would be required to pay for an in- 
 definite period. 
 
 2d, The liability of the Government might be made to attach to a large 
 amount, for the construction of a canal merely, and without the practica- 
 bility of a Ship Railway ever having been demonstrated. 
 
 I am unwilling to admit that the bill can be fairly made to bear this 
 construction, but will not stop to argue the point, because I freely concede 
 that the existence of the slightest doubt upon the subject renders a proper 
 amendment imperative. I certainly never intended that any such con- 
 struction should be placed upon the bill and shall see that the language is 
 so changed as to make this construction impossible. I am willing that 
 positive provisions shall be put into the bill to the effect that under no 
 circumstances shall the Government pay upon its guarantee for a longer 
 period than twenty years from and after the date of the testing of the first 
 ten miles of railway and that no portion of the guarantee shall apply to 
 any canal until the practicability of the project shall have been demon- 
 strated by the successful transportation of a loaded vessel over ten miles 
 of the railway. 
 
 I never contemplated the construction of a canal over any considerable 
 distance of the route, and am very sure that under no circumstances will 
 all portions of the canal, taken together, (if indeed any canal at all be con- 
 structed,) equal a distance of ten miles. 
 
 The bill certainly does not provide that the improvement of the river 
 shall entitle the Company to the benefit of any part of the guarantee. I 
 am satisfied that no such construction could be sustained for a moment, 
 and yet I am entirely willing that a provision shall be incorporated into 
 the bill concerning the matter in express language. 
 
 There are other minor matters mentioned in your letter, but as you have 
 informed me verbally that you do not regard them as important, I will not 
 weary you by referring to them. 
 
 Will you kindly advise me, by early mail, whether, if the bill be amended 
 in accordance with the suggestions herein contained, you will not be wil- 
 ling to withdraw all opposition to it.? 
 
49 
 
 I feel satisfied that 1 shall build the Ship Railway, and I know that I 
 can, and will, make it a complete success. Believe me, I would be unwil- 
 ling to stake my reputation upon a doubtful experiment, or identify the 
 closing years of my life with a failure. I am deeply anxious that when 
 the Railway is in successful operation you shall be classed among its 
 earliest and strongest friends. 
 
 Soliciting an early reply, I am, dear General, 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 (Signed) JAS. B. EADS. 
 
 Two days after the date of this letter I received the foUowmg : 
 
 New York, Jan. 23, 1882. 
 Dear Sir : I showed your letter to father, and he expresses himself as 
 satisfied with the letter, and I have just wired you to that eflfect. He has 
 written to Miller explaining the error he made. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 (Signed) J. R. GRANT. 
 
 To J B. Eads, Esq^. 
 
 On the same day I received the following telegram : 
 
 " Letter received. Satisfactory. Sent copy to Miller. J. R. G." 
 
 Soon after this I received a brief letter from Gen. Grant (now mislaid) 
 assuring me that he would not oppose our bill. 
 
 The letter of General Grant of Jan. 13, 1882, is a rehearsal of the mis- 
 constructions and misrepresentations published at the time by Ammen and 
 Phelps regarding the ship railway bill then pending. As Ammen had a 
 copy of his letter it is not to be supposed that he was ignorant of my re- 
 ply, or of General Grant's admission thiit he was in error ; and the fairness 
 of Ammen's methods may be inferred from the fact that he has continued 
 to use this letter to give color to his misrepresentations of the bill, after 
 Grant had written to Senator Miller explaining the error he had made re- 
 garding it. J. R. Grant's letter proves that his father did this immediately 
 after receiving my letter, which fact Ammen has carefully suppressed. He 
 says in his present pamphlet he read the letter to Hon. A. H. Stephens, 
 of Georgia, who said in reply : 
 
 " Now I understand it all. Captain Eads would, under his bill, construct 
 his ship railway without any cost, and indeed with a very considerable en- 
 dowment, and then without ever attempting, or indeed intending to pass 
 a ship from sea to sea, would have several lines of railway and harbors for 
 small vessels, and a very profitable traffic in grain and other merchandise." 
 
 If Mr. Stephens ever said anything so unjust it simply proves that he 
 never examined the bill and was grossly deceived by Ammen, for the bill 
 was, soon after the date of Grant's letter, unanimously reported hy the 
 Senate committee on commerce to the Senate, with a strong report in its 
 favor; and an equally favorable report was made by the House committee 
 on Inter-oceanic Canals on this same bill which Ammen would lead the 
 
60 
 
 reader to believe was such a transparent fraud. These committee reports 
 were made, too, in defiance of the utmost efforts of Ammen and his coad- 
 jutors to prevent them. The most that they did accomplish was to divide 
 the majority who were in favor of some one or other isthmian transit for 
 ships, and thus prevented action upon either bill during the 47th Congress. 
 Two or three weeks after this correspondence I wrote to Jesse R. Grant 
 as follows : 
 
 "The sub-committee (five members of the committee of commerce 
 of the Senate) have agreed to report unanimously in favor of the Ship 
 Railway bill, and the full committee have authorized the printing of their 
 report before final action is taken on it. * * * In the meantime, Am- 
 men is doing all he can to defeat us. You will see by the enclosed slip, 
 cut from the latest New Orleans newspaper, that U. S. Grant, Sr., and U. 
 S. Grant, Jr., still constitute the Alpha and Omega of his forces, and are 
 to share the honor of opposing the Ship Railway bill so long as he can 
 keep them thus prominently before Congress and the country. Of course, 
 I regret this for several reasons: ist. Because I do not like to see the 
 honored name of General Grant so prominently identified with a pro- 
 ject which will inevitably prove a failure, even should Congress fail to pass 
 my bill. 2d. Instead of occupying the impregnable position of a patri- 
 otic promoter of an isthmian highway for ships, whose great influence, 
 official power, and high position were directed to the solution of the ques- 
 tion, it places him in the attitude of a partisan, opposing a project for solv- 
 ing the problem which is supported by an overwhelming mass of expert 
 testimony, and which avails of a location not only admitted by every one 
 to be much superior to Nicaragua, but in a territory in which he has al- 
 ready important individual interests, whose inhabitants are his friends, and 
 who are earnestly desiring to see the consummation of the enterprise which 
 he seems to be opposing. 3d. I regret it because it gives color to the num- 
 berless misstatements that have been published throughout the country, 
 to the effect that I had received a letter from General Grant upbraiding me 
 with having deceived him as to the terms of my proposition, in conse- 
 quence of which he had withdrawn from the directory of my company [in 
 which he was never interested.] No less than three difflerent articles to 
 this effect were shown me yesterday, cut from recent newspapers. 4th. I 
 regret it, because having assured me in his last letter that he would throw 
 no obstacle in the way of my measure, this use of his name by Admiral 
 Ammen keeps in its way the most serious obstacle which it has to encoun- 
 ter, and furnishes to Ammen the only possible means with which he can 
 hope to defeat my bill. He totally disregards the advice of your father and 
 is determined to use his name as long as he will permit it. 
 
 " As the Ship Railway becomes more and more popular, some of the 
 blackmailers become more and more desperate and vicious. I send you a 
 slip referring to the republication of a scandalous letter published two or 
 three years ago ; to-day the same paper republishes the libellous statement 
 published by a New York paper against me about three years ago, and 
 which it afterwards retracted." 
 
 The reader can judge of the spirit which prompts Admiral Ammen now, 
 from the fact that he refers in his last pamphlet to this stale slander, long 
 since refuted and retracted, and which, if true, could not possibly affect 
 the merits of the canal or the ship railway. 
 
 Gen. Grant says in his letter of Jan. 13, 1882 : 
 
 " I was somewhat surprised when I saw Senate bill No. 550, to incorpo- 
 rate the Maritime Canal Co. of Nicaragua. I supposed what I had said to 
 
51 
 
 Admiral Ammen and Capt. Phelps would probably prevent anything being 
 done in the way of inaugurating that company until, as I suggested before 
 in this letter, the other enterprises for interoceanic ship communication 
 had proved a failure." 
 
 In bill No. 550, Gen. Grant's name was placed at the head of the list of 
 incorporators, and the above extract proves that this use of it was made 
 without his knowledge or consent by Ammen and Phelps, who were then 
 interested with Menocal and other officers of the Government in the con- 
 cession from Nicaragua. 
 
 The following additional extracts from the letter prove that he had no 
 pecuniary interest with these parties at that time in their concession, if 
 indeed he ever had : 
 
 " I have felt it my duty to state these objections to you because 
 you had reason to understand that while I might do nothing to favor your 
 project (because I was not entirely satisfied with its feasibility) I would 
 not antagonize or oppose it. * * * Assuring you that I have no pride 
 in the establishing of any particular line or route for the transportation of 
 vessels between the two oceans, but only to see the work done, and do not 
 care by whom it is done provided it is under American auspices, and that 
 I should wish your enterprise the same success that 1 would if my own name 
 was connected with it, if inaugurated on terms that were not going to 
 make the Government responsible for its failure. 
 " I am very truly yours, 
 
 " U. S. GRANT." 
 
 The following reply of Admiral Ammen to a Senator who wanted Gen'l 
 Grant for the third term, gives the secret of this persistent use of his name 
 by the holders of the Nicaragua concession. It will be found in the North 
 Am. Review, Nov., 1885. I have italicised a portion of it : 
 
 " Senator, There are a great many who would make good presidents, you 
 among the number; I will be glad to vote for you if nominated, but Gett'l 
 Grant only in my belief can speedily bring about the construction of the 
 Nicaragua Ca?tal." * * * 
 
 The closing sentence of Gen'l Grant's letter expressed his true position 
 on the Isthmian question. He had no pride in establishing any particular 
 route between the two oceans, but only to see the work done; he cared 
 not by whom, so it was inaugurated on terms that would not make the 
 Government responsible for its failure. These are the utterances of a 
 true patriot actuated by no pride of opinion or self-interest, but anxious 
 that his country and the world should enjoy at the earliest mo- 
 ment the benefit of a ship transit somewhere across the Isthmus. While 
 he was living. Admiral Ammen strove to place him in an entirely different 
 position before the world. Now that he is dead, he makes an unwarranta- 
 ble use of a private letter written four years ago under a total misappre- 
 hension of facts (which he promptly acknowledged) to make the public 
 believe that he was opposing the Ship Railway bill in 1882, when in fact he 
 had verbally assured Mr. Cochran that he would not oppose it ; had writ- 
 
52 
 
 ten to me that he would place no obstacle in the way of its passage, and 
 had given the same assurance to his son Jesse. 
 
 He would make the country believe, even now, that Gen'l Grant was, 
 like himself, and his partners, Phelps, Menocal, Merry and other less 
 prominent owners of the concession to Menocal, an interested advocate of 
 a canal scheme, (of questionable feasibility and merit,) and the leading 
 partner of a party of impractical government officers, said to be nine in 
 number, (with other associates less creditable,) who had used their offi- 
 cial influence to have their route surveyed and resurveyed at the public 
 expense, without authority of Congress to increase, if possible, the cash 
 value of their concessions from Nicaragua. Now that their project has 
 totally failed, their concession having expired, the chagrined and embit- 
 tered Admiral strives to defeat the Ship Railway bill by misrepresenting 
 the true sentiments of the dead hero, and by the suppression of facts 
 would now lower him to the same selfish and unenviable level with him- 
 self and his less prominent coadjutors. The final wrecking of their 
 scheme in May, 1884, is thus related by one of them, Capt. Merry, of San 
 Francisco, according to the Chronicle of that city : 
 
 " A syndicate of New York and San Francisco capitalists had been 
 formed to aid the construction of the canal under the Menocal concession, 
 of which syndicate Gen'l Grant, Mr. Fish, the president of the bank, and 
 others interested in that institution, were members. Admiral Ammen had 
 taken up his pen to affix his signature to a construction contract, when a 
 boy rushed in and announced the failure of the Marine Bank. Foresee- 
 ing the consequences of that failure. Admiral Ammen laid down his pen, 
 and being unable to obtain the necessary financial aid our concession was 
 allowed to expire." 
 
 " St'c transit gloria fnundi.^' 
 
 JAS. B. EADS. 
 
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