BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
No. 37, 
 
 JULY, 1880. 
 
 Vol. IX. 
 
 ir 
 
 ox 
 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 MAJOR A. M. BRANDRETH, R.E., 
 
 PRINCIPAL, THOlfASON CIVIL ENGINEERING COLLEGK, B.OOUKHK. 
 
 ROORKEE : 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED AT THE THOMASON COLLEGE PRESS. 
 
 1880. 
 
 *1 LU r 
 
 [All rights reserved by the Secretary of State for India in Council"]. 
 
LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED 
 
 AT THE 
 
 THOMASON CIVIL ENGINEERING COL 
 LEGE PRESS, ROORKEE. 
 
 flfiftMFfl TRFATIflfl HIM PHUT MPT \lflflRTWf 1 TIVI IHTOU 
 HUUlmliU InEiJillMi Ul\ tlVlL MuliibMlIib li\ lliUlAi 
 
 In three Vols., containing over 1500 pages, Royal 8vo., with numerous Plates. 
 Price, neatly lound in cloth, Rs. 87-8. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VOL. I. [3rd edition, Reprint, 1879.] 
 
 Section I. BUILDING MATERIALS. Section II. EARTHWORK. Section III. 
 
 rice. 
 
 ADS. 
 
 (AND 
 
 Price. 
 
 11. ^irengin or materials (5th edition), - - - i o 
 
 III. Examples of Applied Mechanics (b y j. 
 
 Eliot, Esq., B. A.), - - ...30 
 
 IV. Earthwork (4th edition),- . . . - > i o 
 VI. Construction of Buildings (3rd edition), --14 
 
 Do. do. (4th edition), - 2 
 
 VII. Surv eying (by Lieut. Fii-ebrace, R.E.), (3rd edition),- 3 8 
 
 VIII. Roads (2nd edition), - '. -20 
 
 IX. Bridges (2nd edition), ... - - - 3 12 
 
 X, Irrigation Works (2nd edition),- - - - 3 12 
 
 XI. Carpentry (2nd edition),- - 1 4 
 
 XII. Railways, - '. * - - - - i 4 
 
 XIII. Drawing (by Lieut. R. Pulford,R.E.), - - 11 
 
 XIIlA. Drawing, First Principles of Geometri 
 
 cal (by Do.), (2nd edition), -.-.-14 
 
Price. 
 
 XIV. Simple Explanations of some Engineering 
 
 Formulae. By Major A. M. Brandreth, R.E., - - 112 
 
 XV. Examples of Estimating. Comprising a pro 
 gressive series of Estimates (with plans of Buildings 
 and Bridges, worked in detail), (2nd edition). By (the 
 late) P. Keay, Esq., Head Master, 3 8 
 
 XVI. Earthwork Estimating, with Practical Tables 
 
 and Diagrams. By Major A. M. Brandreth, R.E., - 1 
 
 XVII. Specimens of Printing, use d in the College 
 
 Drawing Course and Entrance Examinations, - -04 
 
 Scantlings of Timber for Rbofs. Tables and investi 
 gation of formulae, for determining size of timbers for Flat Roofs 
 from 8 to 22 feet span, and for Trussed Roofs from 16 to 50 feet 
 span (2nd edition). By (the late) P. Keay, Esq., Head Master, -18 
 
 Useful Rules and Tables, relating to Measure 
 ment of Timber. Rules for Computing the cubic con 
 tents of Round Logs, as well as of Sawn Timbers, with Tables, 
 giving at sight the above contents, for round Logs up to 240 
 inches girth, and 50 feet length, and Sawn Timbers of Scantlings 
 from i* X i" to 24" X 20' ; together with Tables of Cubic Con 
 tents of Round, Octagonal, and Hexagonal Posts, and Superficial 
 Contents of Sawn Wood, in ordinary use. By Rai Kunhya Lai, - 2 8 
 
 Cardboard Diagram for obtaining at sight the 
 
 Scantlings of Timber Beams for all spans and loads. By Colonel 
 
 W. H. Mackesy, -" '- - - - -' . '- 4 
 
 Rules for Calculating the Velocity and Discharge 
 
 of Rivers and Open Canals. By Rai Kunhya Lai, - 12 
 
 A Vocabulary of French and Italian Irrigation 
 
 Terms, -- -24 
 
 Blasting under Water, (2nd edition,) - - - -012 
 O'Callaghan's Earthwork Tables for India, i n 
 
 one large sheet, 8 annas j mounted on cloth, to fold up, - 1 12 
 
 Tables for Computing Earthwork i n Distributaries and 
 
 small open Channels, in use in Irrigation Department, N. W. 
 Provinces, ......--.-14 
 
 Examples Of Brick Bond. By Sergt. G. Booley, - - 12 
 
 Tables for Calculating Contents of Timber, - - o 4 
 
. ^ 
 
 PROFESSIONAL PAPERS 
 
 ON 
 
 INDIAN ENGINEERING. 
 
 [SEOCOSTD 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 MAJOR A. M. BRAND RET H; R. E . , 
 
 PRINCIPAL, THOMASON C. E. COLLEGE, ROORKEE. 
 
 No. XXXVILJULY 1880. 
 
 ROORKEE : 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED AT THE THOMASON COLLEGE PRESS. 
 
 1880. 
 
 [All rights reserved by the Secretary of State for India in Council."] 
 
ROORKEE t 
 
 THOS. D. BONA, SUPERINTENDENT, 
 THOMASON COLLEaE PRESS. 
 
As no Loose Copies of the Professional Papers are now 
 kept in Stock, Subscribers wishing extra copies of any 
 separate Articles in the present Number, should make early 
 application to the SUPERINTENDENT or THE PRESS, so as to 
 reach him before the type is broken up. The price of 
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 received before the type is broken up. To facilitate this, 
 the following list of Articles received for publication is 
 issued. It will not, it should be remarked, bind the Editor 
 to issue all Articles entered in case more interesting matter 
 is received : 
 
 1. Chambal Bridge, Indore. 
 
 2. Experiments on best form of Notch for Canal Falls. 
 8. Alluvion and Diluvion. 
 
 4. Alfred Nobel's Dynamite. 
 
 Subscribers wishing to be supplied 
 with Covers for Volume No. VIIL, are re 
 quested to send notice at once with price, 
 i.e., Re. 1-0-0. 
 
 NOTE. A Supplement to this Quarterly Number will be 
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 A. M. B, 
 
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 f 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 CCCXXVIII. Inter-oceanic Canal Projects,- - 223 
 
 CCCXXIX. James Cleminson's " Flexible Wheel-base" or 
 
 Radiating Axles, - - 259 
 
 CCCXXX. Clip Calliper for lifting Waste Weir Planking. 
 By A. Hayes, Esq., Assistant Engineer, Cos- 
 sye Division, - - - - 263 
 
 CCCXXXI. Electrical Inter- Communication in Trains. By 
 G. K. Winter, Esq., F.R.A.S., M.S.T.E., 
 Telegraph Engineer, Madras Railway, - - 267 
 
 X 
 
No. CCCXXVITI. 
 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 [Vide Plate.] 
 
 EDITOR'S NOTE. In last quarterly number I published a paper about 
 the Inter-Oceanic Canal by Mr. Menocal, imagining it was a plain state 
 ment of the advantages of the various routes. The discussions on the 
 paper in the two following numbers of the Transactions of the American 
 Society of Engineers show very decidedly that this view is not accepted 
 generally by the members, no less than twelve gentlemen having " offered 
 remarks" of considerable length. As these Transactions are not in 
 general circulation, I reprint the first " discussion " by Mr. "Walton 
 W. Evans, as the most complete view of the through sea level advocates, 
 and at all events it will be allowed to be amusing reading. Of the other 
 members some are for one some for the other. The general opinion 
 seems to be that Mr. Menocal's estimate is much too low for the 
 Nicaraguan route, and one member, Mr. Edward P. North, states 
 that none of the estimates give the total cost, he writes " It is well 
 known that in addition to the engineers' or absolute cost of any work, 
 there are other expenses some perfectly legitimate which depend so 
 largely on the honesty and discretion of the board of direction on the 
 one hand, and on the confidence of the public in the scheme on the other, 
 that it is almost impossible to correctly estimate them. 
 
 " An analysis of the cost of the Suez shows that the two items were 
 
 in round numbers- 
 Absolute cost, $48,000,000 
 
 Expenses of administration, 50,000,000 
 
 Total, .. .. $98,000,000 
 223 2 H 
 
2 ISTER-OCEAN1C CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 " As in the present case there are rival projects in the field, and no 
 route is now known that does not present complications, which though 
 doubtless surmountable, will tend to alarm timid investors, and as the 
 work is much further from the accumulated capital and low rate of in 
 terest of Europe, it may be assumed that even under Count de Lesseps 
 experienced guidance, these administrative expenses will amount to at 
 least 115 per cent, in place of the 104 per cent, of the Suez Canal. 
 
 " As a careful location has been made only on one route, and that is now 
 generally admitted to require revision in the matter of curves, locks, &c. t 
 no estimate of the absolute cost can be advanced as more than a rough 
 approximation, but the general impression seems to be that it will be in 
 the neighbourhood of $120,000,000; if to this $138,000,000 (115 per 
 cent.) be added for administrative expenses, we will have the cost at 
 completion $258,000,000. 
 
 " It can hardly be expected that on the completion of this canal the 
 routes of commerce will immediately change, and even if that were prob 
 able, the investors must wait for an increase born of the facilities afforded 
 by the canal before they can hope to receive a satisfactory income from 
 their expenditure. 
 
 " As even a small railroad enterprise, shortly after completion, passes 
 through the various phases of floating debts and ingeniously-named 
 mortgages if happily it escapes the hands of receivers, this canal, if 
 ever built, must probably see its immense capital nearly if not quite 
 doubled before its dividends can equal 15J millions or 6 per cent, on the 
 cost at completion." 
 
 The point noticed above that the surveys and data for any of the 
 estimates are most incomplete is insisted on by most of the other 
 members. 
 
 Mr. Julius W. Adams takes an entirely different view from all, and 
 advocates a canal through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, vide Plate. 
 His argument is that the canal should be first for America, and should 
 be entirely in the hands of America " no European co-partnership." 
 " The desire to make the Gulf of Mexico a closed American sea is as 
 natural to us as a similar policy to other powers in regard to the Black 
 Sea, the Caspian, the Zuyder Zee, and others." " There is no more 
 reason why foreign nations should be allowed to guarantee the neutrality 
 of an American thoroughfare than that the United States should be a 
 
 224 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 5 
 
 party to defend the British Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar or the Isth 
 mus of Suez." " A 'canal terminating in the Gulf of Mexico would be 
 easily protected in time of war, and by making, in case of need, the Gulf 
 a closed sea, our merchant marine would be safe from all attack, and our 
 relations with the Pacific could be sustained without any interruption." 
 But while starting on this basis as the most important point, he gives 
 tables of routes, results of which are somewhat shown in the Plate, to 
 show that independently of this, the upper is the better route. He 
 states there is ample material and excellent climate on the upper route, 
 but says there are no surveys on which to base an estimate. Comparing 
 however by length and lift with Mr. Menocal's estimate for the Nicara- 
 guan at the same rates, he runs out a rough estimate of 58 million dol 
 lars, against the Nicaraguan 66 millions. He allows that the transit will 
 be 67 hours against Mr. Menocal's 38 J, and he concludes as follows: 
 
 " Whatever may be the advantage in point of time of a transit at Pan 
 ama over that at Nicaragua, as we are dealing with the latter entirely in 
 this comparison, we have to state that the passage of the Tehuantepec 
 Canal will require one day more than the canal at Nicaragua, or, at the 
 outside, two days. As regards the objections to locks whatever route 
 be adopted, even the through cut, so called, if it can be built, will require 
 a tide-lock, at least, on the Pacific. In admitting that mean tide on either 
 side would be at the same time the rise on one side of 20 odd feet, and on 
 the other of 1^ feet, would require a tide-lock for adjustment of current. 
 The fact that the Red Sea level was traditionally some 30 feet above the 
 Mediterranean, and results demonstrated in a canal of 90 miles in length, 
 connecting the two, that the difference was really inappreciable, has no 
 bearing whatever upon this question. 
 
 " The route which, as we have seen, while giving all proper facility to 
 European commerce through American water-ways, still from its geo 
 graphical position gives a proper preponderance to our domestic com 
 merce, requires the use of lift-locks. Shall 24 or 48 hours additional 
 time for its passage, and the bugbear of the danger of such transit, which 
 differs but in degree, and not in kind, from the most favorable route 
 which European interests can point out, deter American enterprise from 
 carrying out what the interests of her growing domestic commerce calls 
 for, and leave her to gat/her such crumbs as older nations have deter 
 mined shall be her share ? 
 
 225 
 
4: INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 " Public opinion is beginning to express itself, in a manner not to be 
 mistaken, adverse to any foreign occupancy among the small States of 
 Central America, where a question of the infringement of the rights of 
 such occupants by the local government could so easily be made the 
 pretext for the interference of a foreign power, ostensibly for the pro 
 tection of the rights of its own citizens, but virtually to deprive this 
 Government of the control of her own domestic trade. This feeling has 
 been aroused by the late movements of a French company at Panama. 
 But, indeed, either at Panama or at Nicaragua, if a ship canal should be 
 built under circumstances of control nominally favorable to this country, 
 and in accord with the spirit of the Monroe doctrine, as we construe it, 
 yet its location, although endorsed by high officials, would, as we have 
 seen, be so much more favorable to foreign than to American commerce 
 that the legitimate growth of the latter would be completely crippled ; 
 and to prevent such a consummation we must go still further, and refuse 
 countenance or support, in any way, to the construction of a ship canal 
 located at any point south of the Peninsula of Yucatan ; or, in other 
 words, south of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. And the importance of 
 enlightening our people as to the national bearing of this question of 
 the location of a ship canal cannot be over-estimated. It is no longer 
 who shall build it, nor how, but where it shall be built, that interests us 
 as American citizens." 
 
 Discussion by WALTON W. EVANS. 
 
 I beg to offer a few remarks in discussion of Mr. Menocal's paper on 
 the much-vexed project of the Inter-Oceanic Canal. I wish to give, 
 first, my reasons for venturing an opinion : 
 
 1st. I have served for seven years as an engineer in the construction 
 of canals. 
 
 2nd. I have had an experience in the construction of public works of 
 ever forty-two years. 
 
 3rd. I have crossed the Isthmus many times partly by foot, by mule, 
 by canal, and by rail. 
 
 4:th. I have been detained on the Isthmus for weeks by rains, revo 
 lutions, and want of transportation before the railway was built. 
 
 6th. I have witnessed the heavens open their flood-gates, and seen 
 the terrible washings the railway was subjected to. 
 
 226 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 5 
 
 6th. I have lived in earthquake countries for eleven years, and have 
 witnessed the convulsions of Nature on the Isthmus as well as in Peru 
 and Chile. 
 
 7th. I have, for over thirty years, made a study of this most interest 
 ing problem of cutting a canal for the largest ships through the narrow 
 strip that divides North from South America. 
 
 8th. And I have read with care most of the public documents pub 
 lished in reference to it, and am clearly of the opinion that the " San 
 Bias " route for. a sea-level canal is far preferable to the Nicaragua route, 
 with locks, or any other route ever reported on. 
 
 I beg to present some axioms in reference to this great problem : 
 
 1st. A canal thirty miles long is preferable to one a hundred and 
 eighty-one and one-quarter miles long. 
 
 2nd. A canal without locks is preferable to one with locks. 
 
 3rd. A canal that has good harbours at its termini is preferable to one 
 with no harbour at either end. 
 
 th. A canal built in a healthy region is preferable to one it an un- 
 healthly region. 
 
 5th. A canal that can be navigated in ten hours is better than one 
 requiring one hundred hours. 
 
 6th. A canal that will call for very small repairs is preferable to one 
 requiring immense repairs. 
 
 7th. A canal that has a small " water-shed," but a sure supply of 
 water, is preferable to a canal having a great " water-shed." 
 
 8th. A canal that is not on a line of drainage is preferable to one on 
 a line of drainage. 
 
 3th. A canal that can pass a ship of any length is preferable to one 
 that limits the length to far below that of many existing ships. 
 
 IQth. A canal that is virtually a straight line is preferable to one 
 with many curves, some of them very objectionable. 
 
 I have read with care Mr. Menocal's clever paper, and beg to take 
 issue with him on some points. He starts off with the assertion 
 that the matter is narrowed down to two routes the Panama and the 
 Nicaragua. I should have been better satisfied if he had said the San 
 Bias and the Nicaragua, for I look on the Panama route for a sea-level 
 canal as simply ridiculous. I intimated the same, but with less 
 forcible words, to Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, in Paris. After many 
 
 227 
 
6 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 years of study of this matter, and after for a time believing in the 
 Nicaragua route as the proper one, I came to the conclusion that 
 the San Bias route had many features in its favor that placed it far 
 in advance of all others. I refer to the foregoing axioms for those fea 
 tures. I beg to say a word in defence of Count Lesseps. I have an 
 impression that he is thoroughly honest, and find that is the opinion of 
 all my friends in Paris who know him well. I think he was, in the 
 conducting of the Congress, influenced by men who hoped to grow rich 
 through the use of his name. He will soon see the error he has made 
 when he reaches the Isthmus, and is made acquainted with the terrible 
 destruction of the late floods. He said to me in Paris : " There is one 
 point in this matter we must observe : wherever the canal is built it must 
 be a sea level canal" In this I fully agree with him ; and I will add 
 one more important engineering feature : it must not be built on any line 
 of drainage, or across any line of drainage. What we require what 
 the world requires is a perfectly reliable canal, that cannot by any accident 
 run itself dry ; that is perfectly secure against the accidents that can 
 occur and do occur to all canals depending on dams and locks as working 
 features, no matter how well and costly they may be built ; if we cannot 
 give the trade of the world such a canal we had better give it none. 
 
 I would not propose to run the San Bias canal into the Rio Bayano, 
 but turn that river off into the Bay of Panama by a cut made expressly 
 for it ; this could not be done for the Chagres River, except at an expense 
 of many millions. It it proposed to build the Nicaragua Canal in the 
 Valley of the San Juan, and in close contact with the river for many 
 miles. I would suggest to the advocates of that route, and to the capi 
 talists who I am told stand ready and eager to put their money in it, to 
 first visit the Valley of the Lehigh, in Pennsylvania, and view the ruins 
 of what was, within my recollection, a canal that received the praise and 
 admiration of everybody ; it was built by skilled engineers ; the money 
 furnished by the most careful and long-headed Quakers of Philadelphia ; 
 it had locks of thirty feet lift, the greatest ever put on a canal ; the 
 water-shed of the Lehigh is very insignificant ; all the owners slept, no 
 doubt, quietly in the possession of what they supposed to be a very safe 
 investment ; but a storm came a flood was the result ; this little lamb 
 like river became a great, fierce tiger, bent on destruction; a weak point 
 was found in the upper dam, the tiger poked his nose in it, a little leak 
 
 228 
 
IKTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 7 
 
 was started, and away went the whole structure ; with it went every dam 
 and lock on the whole 7 river, and hardly left a wreck behind ; no one ever 
 had the courage to rebuild that canal. There are many among us that 
 recollect the destruction of the Croton River Dam ; placed at the initial 
 point of the Croton Aqueduct, it was built under the plans and direction of 
 that Nestor in American engineering, John B. Jervis ; he was an old and 
 skilled canal engineer. Who have we at the present day who is his 
 superior ? That dam was built on rock, where the best of materials and 
 skilled workmen were to be had in profusion ; but it went carrying 
 havoc in its course and destroyed every bridge, dam, mill, factory, and 
 building it could reach down to the Hudson River. I well remember this 
 river above the dam, and its lamb-like character in summer, for I built a 
 railway on its banks, and have many times crossed it on stepping-stones 
 without wetting my boots. The European news of the past two days 
 tells us of floods in Hungary, and that many dams have been carried 
 away on branches of the Danube. I for one would rather trust to a 
 tunnel than a dam. I have had a good deal to do with dams, and I feel 
 towards them as Robert Stephenson once told me he felt toward railways, 
 that he was afraid of them. 
 
 There are other things that I would be afraid of in the construction 
 of a canal with elevated reaches on the side of a valley where such rains 
 occur as are frequent in the San Juan region, I mean the melting and 
 running of the embankments. Once on arriving at Panama on my way 
 home I was told I could not cross the Isthmus, as there was a wash-out a 
 few miles from Panama. I took a hand-car, went to see it, and found 
 Col. Totten there making an embankment of sleepers. This same em 
 bankment had been washed out three times before, and every time it had 
 been, when rebuilt, reinforced by a row of piles, close together, on 
 the down-hill side. Col. Totten said to me, " You see this embankment 
 could not go out down hill this time, so it has gone up hill" It had 
 actually squashed out on the up-hill side, and had run very much as 
 molasses would run; a horse or man going into it would soon have gone 
 out of sight. To know the Isthmus and its rains, and what rains can do 
 in the way of making running mud out of embankments, it is necessary 
 to go there and see it, for no one can imagine it from any pen sketch. I 
 have an impression that all the arguments that can be urged against 
 the Panama route will hold good against the Nicaragua, while the Panama 
 
 229 
 
8 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 route, adapted to have locks, has the advantage over the Nicaragua in the 
 matter of length and harbours at the termini. 
 
 Mr. MenocaPs estimate of cost appears to be made as many other 
 estimates of cost of public works have been before his time, by dealing 
 in too small figures, and making omissions. His estimate for drains 
 (I suppose this covers aqueducts over side rivers, culverts over streams, 
 changes of channels, waste- weirs, sluices, &c., &c.) is magnificently 
 deficient, and I see no items for protection walls, inside and outside, 
 puddle walls, lining to prevent leaks, gravel facings, &c., &c. Also 
 draw bridges over the canal, light-houses, machine-shops, and whole 
 villages of buildings for residences, &c., store-houses, &c., &c. I sup 
 pose these are all in the twenty-five per cent, for contingencies. I have 
 found in practice that after estimating every item I could think of, the 
 twenty-five per cent, for contingencies came in as a most comfortable 
 assistant at the end. Captain Young, who built the Utica Railway, 
 used to say that the only safe way to make an estimate, was to take 
 the largest quantities you could get from the profiles, carry them out 
 with the largest prices you ever heard of, add twenty per cent., and then 
 double the whole. When the first estimate of the Hudson River Rail 
 way was made, there were many arguments offered to show that it could 
 be built for about " half of nothing," the engineer gave the size and 
 number of every arch and culvert required on the whole 145 miles, for 
 each division. I, having a love of statistics, counted them, and found 
 there were about sixteen or eighteen in all. Now, this same engineer had 
 just before built the Croton Aqueduct over forty miles of the same route, 
 and close to it, and had forgotten that he had built over three hundred 
 culverts, arches, and bridges, on that forty miles. The protection walls 
 for this railway, amounting to over 400,000 cubic yards, were estimated 
 to cost fifty cents per cubic yard, and it was forgotten that the protection 
 walls of the Croton Aqueduct (now nearly all, inside of forty years, 
 replaced by better walls) cost $1'75 per cubic yard. I mention these 
 things to show how errors creep into engineers' estimates, even among 
 the most conscientious their zeal, their desire, their anxiety to see 
 their project go down the throats of somebody, overrides their judgment 
 and stores away in oblivion for a time all their hard-earned experience, 
 making true at this day the old Roman motto, " Men try to believe what 
 they wish to be true." 
 
 230 
 
INTKR-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 9 
 
 The Nicaragua route calls for the construction of artificial harbours at 
 each terminus. This is a most unfortunate feature of this route. Such 
 things have to be approached with fear and trembling, and a pocket full 
 of money, and after they are built and handed over as something to be 
 proud of, they, or their parts, very often go on excursions up and down 
 the coast, through the alluring enticements of the wind and the sea. 
 Some have their usefulness nipped in the bud by a failure to find funds 
 for their completion, as was the case with the Dover Harbour, in England. 
 I had occasion to examine those works in 1853, and then came to the 
 conclusion that although " John Bull's" purse was long and large and 
 full, that he had better leave that work alone, and since then he has left 
 it severely alone. The one long wall which I saw in 1853, I was again 
 on in June of this year, and found it had neither grown higher, longer, 
 nor more complete, and its partner had never been attempted. In March 
 of this year I walked, or rather clambered, out for a short distance on 
 the concrete breakwater for the harbour of Port Said, at the northern 
 terminus of the Suez Canal, found that it was far from finished, and un 
 less finished would in a few years be knocked to pieces and rendered use 
 less. In November of 1878 I had a chance to examine the concrete works 
 of the harbour at Algiers, built by the French, evidently at great cost. 
 The waters of the Mediterranean had quietly or unquietly, as the case 
 may be, just knocked a considerable part of it into a " cocked hat," and 
 the Algerines were, in their faith, no doubt, praying to " Allah" to knock 
 the "cocked hat" into "pi." 
 
 Artificial harbours are contrivances to be avoided, if possible: they are 
 apt to give engineers sleepless nights, to deplete plethoric pockets, and 
 vanish when called on by the winds and the waves. 
 
 I have some experience in sleepless nights produced by things of this 
 kind, for I built out into the Pacific Ocean the first pier ever built on the 
 whole coast of South America, that a big ship could haul alongside of. 
 The " Brave south-west winds " as Maury called them, were my friends 
 for thirty days out of thirty-one, then " ^Eolus" sent " Boreas" down to 
 make things lively with his " big guns," and at the same time make an 
 engineer's heart sink into his boots. During construction I often saw 
 the northers rolling in the waters, which went over my pier from 20 to 30 
 feet high, and bid fair at times to carry the whole structure, with its 
 80,000 tons of stone, on to the beach. 
 
 231 2 i 
 
10 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 Mr. Menocal estimates the locks between gates to be 400 feet long ; 
 a lock of this length will pass a vessel of only 360 feet. Thirty years 
 ago vessels of 360 feet long were scarce articles ; we have now lots of 
 vessels of 450 feet, and vessels of over 500 feet are being built. Who 
 can say what will be the length of vessels in another thirty years ? The 
 locks of the Erie Canal of 1825 could not pass boats of half the size 
 that are now locked through. 
 
 The locks of the Delaware and Earitan Canal had not been in use 
 thirty years before they had to be doubled in length. I came through 
 the Suez Canal in March in a Peninsular and Oriental Royal Mail 
 steamer from Hong Kong and Bombay, that was over 400 feet long ; 
 other steamers of that line are over 450 feet long. I saw a number of 
 steamers in the canal, and judge that most, if not all of them, were 
 over 400 feet long ; it would be a sorry mistake to build a canal with 
 locks that cost over $300,000 each, and find that they could not pass 
 these giant craft, for they are the cream of the business a canal com 
 pany would seek. 
 
 The Suez Canal is virtually a straight line. When I arrived at Lake 
 Timsah we found a huge steamer stuck in the mud in the lake, and a 
 crowd of Arabs unloading her ; the canal ahead was blocked ; I took a 
 steam pilot- boat, went ahead to see the difficulty, and found that a pass 
 ing steamer had run into and sunk one of their large dredging machines ; 
 this once clear, the next day our Leviathan attempted the passage to 
 Port Said, but we had hardly run in the canal a mile before our vessel 
 run her bows into the right bank, her stern slewed around and went 
 into the left bank ; there we stuck for two hours, and in two hours more 
 our craft was laid along side for the night, that being her second day in 
 the canal; this steamer entered the canal at 4 p. M., March 22nd, and 
 arrived at Port Said at 10 A.M., on the 24th, taking 42 hours to run just 
 100 miles in a sea-level canal, virtually one straight line. The very 
 next mail steamer of the P. & 0. line that came through after I did, ran 
 into the bank, her stern swung into the opposite bank, and broke off two 
 of the blades of her propeller. Accidents like this, of running into the 
 banks, being apparently common on straight lines, it would be well to 
 examine carefully into the manner of working these long steamers around 
 the sharp curves of the proposed Nicaragua Canal. 
 
 We in America know that the English locomotives have a very un- 
 
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INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 11 
 
 mannerly habit of jumping the track at sharp curves, which habit we in 
 America have almost entirely eradicated from their vicious propensity by 
 rendering them subservient to the ameliorating influences of a " Bogie," 
 a mechanical persuader which accomplishes the object in a most satis 
 factory manner ; if this admirable invention could be applied to a ship, 
 we might overcome the difficulty ; as yet I see no manner of making the 
 application, but the Yankee brain is prolific, and some genius may work 
 out the conditions of this important problem. Old canal men and sailors 
 accustomed to handling these huge vessels will look with a smile on the 
 estimate of 38^ hours to pass through a canal 181^ miles long, with 
 many sharp curves and 22 locks ; also the estimate of 20 minutes to a 
 lock ; to fill or empty a lock in 12 or 14 minutes would not be a difficulty, 
 but that is only a small part of the time required to pass a lock ; it must 
 be recollected that a vessel has to be " slowed down" long before she 
 reaches a lock, and in most cases come to a dead stop before she enters 
 the lock, then to be hauled in slowly and with care, for if a large steamer, 
 weighing with cargo 8,000 or 9,000 tons, enters or approaches a lock 
 with any amount of headway on her, she will probably walk through 
 the lock without asking permission, and in much less than 20 minutes. 
 If any such trade as would certainly be offered to a sea-level canal were 
 offered to a canal with locks, there would, most undoubtedly, be great 
 detention at the locks, by one vessel finding another vessel in the lock, 
 other vessels ahead of her, gates shut, lock empty, &c., &c. If any one 
 thinks these large vessels can be started and stopped, and turneH like 
 children's toys, let him go down to the piers in New York and see one of 
 these large steamers arrive and get berthed. I arrived in July in the 
 Britannic, and we were full one hour from the time we touched the dock 
 until the ship was hauled into her berth. Taking my trip on the Suez 
 Canal as a base for calculation, I would make the time of passing the 
 Nicaragua Canal as follows : the speed was a mile in 25-2 minutes ; 
 181-25 miles at 25-2 minutes per mile, 76 hours; 22 locks at 1J hours 
 a lock, 33 hours; total 109 hours; or, say 4^ days, and this may be put 
 in opposition to one single day of ten hours in passing the clear, straight, 
 unobstructed 30 miles of the San Bias route. 
 
 Mr. Menocal estimates the cost of the Nicaragua Canal at 66 millions 
 dollars. Men with experience and analytical brains have criticised this 
 estimate and found it deficient. I agree with them, and further believe 
 
 233 
 
12 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 that the dimensions estimated are not such as a world's Canal calls for and 
 should have, particularly in available width and depth, and more par 
 ticularly when carelessly handled ships are to be encountered. In going 
 out of Marseilles harbour just one year ago in a straight channel of double 
 the width of the canal proposed, our French captain had all his yards 
 squared ; he met an incoming brig, his vessel did not touch the brig by 
 fifteen feet, but his main-yard struck the foremast of the brig and 
 snapped in the middle, broke the fore-top mast of the brig, and down it 
 came with all its spars close to the spot where I was standing with 
 some ladies. 
 
 In pushing and preaching the merits of the Nicaragua route, there 
 appears to be a fixed intention to ignore the San Bias route entirely, 
 and " pooh-pooh " it out of sight ; they may knock it down, but it will 
 come up again ; they may throw cold water on it, but it will come out of 
 the fire brighter than ever ; they may build the Nicaragua Canal, but 
 the San Bias will be built too, and then it will require no very wise 
 man to tell which will be the one used. In the papers and estimates 
 made out to compare the different routes, I see nothing said of compara 
 tive cost of repairs and maintenance ; leaving the Panama route out as 
 an absurdity, the lengths of the San Bias and the Nicaragua are as 1 
 to 6, but when it is considered that one is a sea-level canal, with good 
 harbours and without locks, cut for a large part of its length through 
 solid rock, the southern half in an open " savanna " country, the whole 
 easily made safe from the ravages of floods and drains ; while the other 
 route is on and parallel to a tremendous drain, where floods occur that 
 may and probably would sweep the whole works to destruction in a few 
 hours ; where earthquakes may and probably would twist the locks so 
 that the gates could be neither shut or opened ; where side streams, with 
 their floods, must cross the canal to get into the main drain ; where the 
 time of transit compared to the San Bias is as 5 to 1 ; where there are 
 no good harbours at either terminus, and where one terminus is a notori 
 ously unhealthy place. I think any careful and critical mind would put 
 the ratio of conservation of the two routes not as 1 to 6, but as 1 to 20 
 or 30, or more. 
 
 A five-inch rain falling in twelve hours is a thing not unknown in 
 the Nicaragua lake region ; as the water-shed of the San Juan River 
 is 12,500 square miles, a five-inch rain is represented by over 4,000 
 
 234 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 13 
 
 millions of tons of water, a greater part of which has to find its way to 
 the sea by the San Juan river, and not take a great length of time 
 either ; it was undoubtedly after one of these great rainfalls that the 
 San Juan River, rising above its banks, overflowed, and cut the Colorado 
 River into the territory of Costa Rica. Those who are curious in the 
 matter, might calculate the foot-pounds of energy or force developed by 
 4,000 millions of tons of water falling 107 feet, and its power for doing 
 mischief. 
 
 Apparently the only objection to the San Bias route is its cost growing 
 out of a long tunnel, and the inability to say what kind of material would 
 be found in the tunnel. Let us examine this great bugbear, the tunnel, 
 and compare it with other works. 
 
 The " Desaguadero" in Mexico, cut by the Spaniards, as a matter of 
 precaution against floods, two hundred years ago, required about three 
 times as many cubic yards of rock to be removed as would be required to 
 cut a ship-tunnel 8 miles long, 180 feet high, and 80 feet wide. Now, if 
 the Spaniards could do that two hundred years ago, should we, who have 
 steam drills and wonderful explosive compounds, shrink in fright from a 
 work of only one-third the size? 
 
 The St. Gothard Railway, now nearly completed in Switzerland, to 
 connect the northern railway system of Europe with that of the South, 
 is a work that involves immense difficulties. It has on its line forty-six 
 tunnels, one of them at the summit being over nine and one-fourth miles 
 long; one of them the engineer pointed out to me as being cut to secure 
 the railway line from being buried by avalanches. Seven of these tunnels 
 in complete circles of 1,000 metres diameter, are cut merely to get distance, 
 and keep the gradient down to their fixed standard of 1 in 40 (132 feet 
 per mile), and this tremendous work is being built for the very limited 
 business of a railway. With this example staring us in the face, are we 
 Americans, who boast ourselves of doing things with a bigger " auger" 
 than our neighbours use, to turn tail and run away from a tunnel that 
 would, if built, command the trade of the world, give us a grip on the 
 trade of the whole Orient, allow us to manufacture all our own cotton 
 and find a market for it in China, connect our Pacific possessions by a less 
 expensive route than any railway can supply, consolidate our Union in 
 stronger bonds, and lead in time to our becoming the most central and 
 most powerful people in the world. 
 
 235 
 
14 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 It has been objected to this tunnel, and reiterated by Mr. Menocal, 
 that the rock found in it may be too soft, or of a character not fitted to 
 support its sides and roof. This is all " moonshine." We know from 
 mines and cuttings over all that country, and from surface rock that crops 
 out everywhere, just what we may expect ; there is but one material 
 existing that we may be afraid of, and even that was successfully 
 overcome in the Box-tunnel of the Great Western Railway of Eng 
 land I mean quicksand, and that we know we will not find under 
 the rocks of the Isthmus. Mr. Menocal thinks we have not the data 
 by which we can calculate the cost of the San Bias Canal as fixed and 
 clear as they have for the Nicaragua Canal. If they have not these data 
 it is their fault; they should have got them ; but I contend that we have 
 all the data required, and more reliable than any data ever can be, on a 
 line parallel to and close to a line of drainage, that Domine Sampson 
 might call with truth, " prodigious : " we have the length of the whole 
 route: we know what is tunnel and what open cutting; we know to a 
 certainty that we can turn off all the streams and the one river, the Chepo 
 or Bayano, and render them harmless to do evil. We know that we 
 have good harbours on this route ; we know that we have rock to contend 
 with in fixed quantities, and by estimating it as granite, we know that 
 the estimated cost cannot be far wrong. It has been intimated that 
 earthquakes might make a tunnel unsafe and dangerous ; in answer, I 
 would say that we have sixty-two tunnels on the line of the Oroya 
 Railway in Peru, that many of them are completed and have been run 
 through for years, and to this day I have never heard of any injury done 
 to a tunnel on that line from earthquakes, which are much more frequent 
 there than on the San Bias route. 
 
 We need not be afraid of striking a great vein of gold or silver, for in 
 a case of that kind, unless the tunnelers become demoralized, such a vein 
 might be coaxed into paying all or a part of the expense of the tunnel. 
 This is not a speculation, unprecedented in facts, for my old friend, Genl. 
 O'Brien, when forced by San Martin, the Liberator, to accept the 
 Salcedo mine, in Peru (the richest mine at that time that had ever been 
 worked), for his services in the wars of independence in Buenos Ayres, 
 Chile, and Peru, struck a rich vein of silver in cutting an adit level from 
 Lake Titicaca that paid all the expenses of cutting the tunnel for a long 
 time. If some of the Bonanza kings of California could be induced to 
 
 236 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 15 
 
 suspect another Comstpck Lode on the line of the San Bias tunnel, they 
 would cut the tunnel for the fun of the thing, and thank you for the 
 chance. But if we throw out the silver speculation and return to the 
 " hard-pan " of a hard-hearted contractor's prices we may have the 
 following estimate to stare in the face : 
 
 14 millions of cubic yards of rock in the tunnel above the 
 sea level (the tunnel being 8 miles long, 150 feet high 
 above the sea, and 80 feet wide), at say, $3 per cubic 
 yard, $42,000,000 
 
 4 millions of cubic yards of work in tunnel below the 
 level of the sea (this part being 80 feet wide and 30 feet 
 deep), at say, $8 per cubic yard, 32,000,000 
 
 22 miles of open (earth and rock cutting) canal at the 
 same price Mr. Menocal estimates his line from Del 
 Medio to Brito, where it is all rock, at, say, one million 
 per mile, 22,000,000 
 
 Diversion of the Rio Bayano, say six times as much as 
 Mr. Menocal estimates for the diversion of the San 
 Carlos, $283,578 x 6 1,700,000 
 
 2,400 acres of grubbing and clearing, at $100 an acre, the 
 same as Mr. Menocal estimates an acre at, this gives a 
 width of 875 feet for 22 miles, say 240,000 
 
 Diversion of other streams, all small ones, say, . . . . 1,000,000 
 
 Light-houses, piers, store-bouses, buildings of all kinds, 
 say, 1,000,000 
 
 Total, .. $109,940,000 
 
 Say, 110,000,000 
 
 Add for contingencies 25 per cent., . . 27,500,000 
 
 Grand Total, .. $137,500,000 
 
 The above estimate is considerably above the estimate of Mr. Menocal 
 for the Nicaragua route, but I will here venture to predict that it is very 
 much nearer the truth of what the Nicaragua Canal will cost, if ever 
 built, than Mr. Menocal's estimate. We may as well stare the truth in 
 the face now as at any other time ; it is the most honest way. 
 
 The people of the United States have had too much to do at home to 
 look with much enthusiasm on works in distant countries or study with 
 care the vast interests wrapped up in foreign trade ; but the day is fast 
 coming when they will be forced to know and value this matter, and 
 then they will cut a canal through the Ishmus on the shortest route 
 that can be found, no matter if there is a Nicaragua Canal or not. I am 
 
 237 
 
16 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 glad to find that all of the old canal engineers that have ever visited the 
 Isthmus, and made a study of this problem, join me in the opinion that 
 the San Bias route is the best for a sea-level canal, and the proper one 
 to construct. And Mr. Keiley, who has spent his life and a fortune in 
 surveys and study of this matter, and who has as clear an understand 
 ing of the whole subject as any man living, also most enthusiastically 
 gives his adherence and support to that route as the only one that can 
 satisfy the coming demands of trade, which is doubling up on us much 
 faster than any one but those who study statistics could imagine. 
 
 As I feel convinced that the indirect benefit to the nation to be reaped 
 from this canal is far greater than any direct benefit to any company, 
 I would propose that the canal be cut, not on the line that is found to 
 be the cheapest in first cost, but on the line that can be worked the 
 easiest and quickest, and in the most reliable manner as regards line, 
 level, repairs, and freedom from accident, even if it cost double the 
 amount of the cheap and unreliable line. And in view of this end, I 
 would, if I were the Government, offer to any company that would 
 undertake this great enterprise, to give them one-half of the entire cost, 
 and let them enjoy the rights, immunities, and profits of the whole 
 thing, free of interest, for one hundred years ; but reserving to the 
 Government the right to take the whole at the end of one hundred years 
 by paying one-half the original cost. It may not be out of place in this 
 discussion to bring to the notice of the people of this day the prophetic 
 writings of some who have preceded our time. Gouverneur Morris, the 
 statesman, in a long letter, written in January 1801, to John Parish, in 
 Europe, says : 
 
 " As yet, my friend, we only crawl along the outer shell of our coun 
 try. The interior excels the part we inhabit in soil, in climate, in every 
 thing. The proudest empire in Europe is but a bauble compared with 
 what America will be, must be, in the course of two centuries, perhaps 
 
 in one." 
 
 Robert Stephenson, the engineer, in writing to his brother-in-law (in 
 London), when he was here in 1853, after speaking in the most enthu 
 siastic terms of the progress and development of this country, says : 
 
 " Considering these circumstances, and looking at the boundless rich 
 territories which are being opened and extended daily, I confess I am 
 entirely at a loss to figure to myself the part which the United States 
 
 238 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 17 
 
 are destined to play in the world's theatre ; their influence must daily 
 increase, and when her inhabitants reach the coast of the Pacific their 
 power must become predominant as a commercial nation." * * * 
 " Coal which has hitherto given England her commercial superiority, is 
 possessed by the States in almost incredible quantities; it has as yet 
 scarcely been touched, because other sources of profit have presented 
 themselves ; but the day must arrive when, like England, the Americans 
 will become a powerful manufacturing nation. If this be anything like 
 the truth, how strangely must the relations between the civilized nations 
 of the earth be changed and then arises the question, so full of interest 
 to an Englishman : Will England still maintain a good position in the 
 struggle of countries, or will she, like other empires that have dropped 
 into the past, begin to decline, and in her infirmity, like an aged parent, 
 be obliged to look to her trans-Atlantic children for aid and support ?" 
 
 We are fast arriving at the point predicted by Mr. Stephenson. We 
 must have outlets for our products. In what direction can we turn for 
 a market for our manufactured goods but to the shores washed by the 
 Pacific and the islands of that great ocean ? China and Japan, Australia 
 and New Zealand, invite us to a close intimacy. The Spanish republics 
 of the South American West coast offer us many tempting chances for 
 trade enjoyed at present almost solely by England. The Orient and 
 Occident of our own country wish to shake hands over a cheaper route 
 of transport than any railway can supply. Let us mingle the waters of 
 the Atlantic with those of the Pacific on the best, shortest, and most 
 reliable route that Nature has furnished, or let us leave it entirely undone, 
 for others of greater courage to accomplish. 
 
 I find in some of the discussions on this important problem that the 
 San Bias route is called impracticable, but in no case is an attempt made 
 to demonstrate the impracticability. Surely it cannot be because it is so 
 short, so straight, so free from floods, locks, dams, and aqueducts, or can 
 it be that it is rejected on account of its having good harbours, and in a 
 healthy region, free from swamps and lagoons. What can the claim of 
 impracticability spring out of that blinds the Nicaragua promoters to the 
 many points of merit of the San Bias route unsurpassed and unsurpassable 
 by any other route ; there is but one point on this route that the objectors 
 can fix their harpoons into, with any shadow of a chance of bringing it home 
 to the minds of men as a dead fish. It is the tunnel; that is the bugbear, the 
 
 239 2 K 
 
18 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 stumbling block, that narrow minds and unprofessional minds cannot climb 
 over, creep under, or swallow whole. I am inclined to think that the tunnel 
 is one of the best features of the whole route ; it will cost, no doubt, a rousing 
 big sum, but the amount will be a mere bagatelle to its value and import 
 ance, and when built it will be the surest and safest portion of the whole 
 route; it will be through solid rock, and remain for ever intact, requir 
 ing little or no repairs. The heading, a very insignificant part of the 
 whole, would cost as much per cubic yard as any railway tunnel, but the 
 balance down to the sea-water level could, in that region, be done cheaper 
 and quicker than an open cut of the same dimensions, where the average 
 haul was the same, for the reasons that the men can work continuously 
 without being driven off by the great rains that are so common on the 
 Isthmus, and they can work, as in all tunnels, night and day. This 
 tunnel can be cut cheaper per cubic yard than any railway tunnel could 
 be in the same region, and for the reasons that the great width of 
 the tunnel allows the men abundance of room to work in, and use all 
 classes of labor-saving machinery ; the force of the explosive compounds 
 can be utilized to a greater extent, as there is more room for expansion. 
 Any contractor can afford, and will afford, to take such an immense work 
 at much less per cubic yard than he would think of asking for a small 
 tunnel, such as are built for railways, for he can afford to procure and 
 use the most perfect, extensive and efficient machinery ever used on any 
 tunnel ever cut. I was shown at the St. Gothard Tunnel steam drills 
 that by slow motion and high pressures would walk into granite as a 
 knife would into cheese ; there was nothing used on the Mount Cenis 
 Tunnel to approach them in efficiency. I was shown air compressors 
 that kept their great reservoirs night and day under pressures of 110 
 pounds to the square inch, and without difficulty ; it was with difficulty 
 and uncertainty that the air compressors of the Mount Cenis Tunnel 
 could keep the pressure up to 60 pounds to the square inch. We 
 are clearly a progressive race, and it would be a wise brain that could 
 predict with certainty what advance may be made by some live Yankee 
 in tunneling machinery when we come to cut a ship tunnel. I have copies 
 of the entire maps and profiles of the St. Gothard Railway, and I have 
 no hesitation in saying that they show the most complete and perfect sur 
 veys yet made for any public work ever attempted by man. There were 
 400 engineers and their assistants employed on these surveys, many of 
 
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INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 19 
 
 them highly educate4 and experienced men ; their estimate of the cost 
 of this great work, 109 miles long, was 187,000,000 of francs ; that was 
 the sum placed before the public at the time the International treaty (of 
 Germany, Italy and Switzerland) was signed, and a company formed to 
 build the works, but they were only started when it was discovered, that, 
 as usual, the works had been under-estimated, and the cost was going to 
 be swelled to 289,000,000 of francs, showing an error in the first 
 estimate of 102,000,000 of francs. "Where was this tremendous error 
 made in the great tunnel ? No, for the estimate of that was 70,000,000 
 of francs. Monsieur Favre took the contract to build it at 50,000,000 
 francs, and if he had lived would have completed it in the coming year, 
 without asking favors or assistance. There is an inference to be drawn 
 from this statement of amounts, regarding estimates and costs of work 
 in tunnels, and general work, which the intelligent reader will quickly 
 see. Mr. Menocal estimates his great canal, 18 1J miles long, at 
 $66,000,000; the St. Gothard Railway is to cost, for 109 miles, about 
 $58,000,000 ; now, if the canal costs only as much per mile as this rail 
 way, it will cost about $97,000,000. The railway costs about $532,000 a 
 mile, while Mr. Menocal estimates this great canal, with artificial harbours, 
 great locks, but not large enough for great ships, great excavations of 
 rock under water, great aqueducts and great dams, all liable to be swept 
 out by the first great flood, and great embankments (sustaining a 
 hydraulic head of 26 to 30 feet) perched upon side hills, all of which may 
 be washed out through the never ending labors of rats and roots in bor 
 ing holes, all complete and ready to accommodate the trade of the world, 
 at $340,000 a mile. 
 
 It may be claimed that the rock excavation under sea-water level is 
 the impracticable point. If so, are not the excavations under water on 
 the Nicaragua route equally or more impracticable. Let us stare some 
 of the facts of this matter in the face. Nearly all of the excavation of 
 rock under sea level on the San Bias route will be in still water, not 
 affected by currents or winds or tide, while the same class of excavations 
 on the Nicaragua route, in the beds of the San Juan and Rio del 
 Medio, and in the bed of the lake, will be severely affected by currents 
 in the river and waves and winds in the lake. To excavate rock in a 
 wift current, such as is to be seen in the San Juan, is a species of 
 fun engineers do not much covet. General Newton preferred to burrow 
 
 241 
 
20 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 under rather than attack the current at Hell Gate. Then, as to the 
 work to be done out in the lake, I have an impression that this feature 
 has been very much under-estimated. Suppose we subject this to a few 
 figures, from known data, at one point. It is to be regretted that there 
 is no good hydrographic survey of this lake, so we must be content with 
 such data as we can pick up. The history of this lake and river show 
 that, some years ago, a certain Captain Sheppard took his schooner from 
 the gulf up into the lake during a flood. He did this with great labor, by 
 taking off his false keel and taking out his cargo, reducing the draft 
 to about three feet. Once in the lake, he put on the keel, and, with 
 the vessel loaded drawing seven feet he could not, in the dry season, 
 get within two miles of San Carlos, at the upper end of the San Juan 
 River. Now, taking this little piece of history to calculate by, and 
 knowing the material to be rock, I make it that a canal only 100 feet 
 wide (I call it 100 feet wide, not because that is enough, by three or 
 four times, for the passage of a ship subject to the buffetings of winds and 
 waves in a great lake and the canal out of sight, but because 100 feet is 
 sufficient for the demonstration I wish to make), cut from the mouth of 
 the river out into the lake, so as to have 28 feet of water all the way to 
 deep water, will call for the excavation of about 1,100,000 cubic yards, 
 which, at $8 a yard, will come to $8,800,000 ; but, for the sake of being 
 generous and accommodating, suppose we call it the half of the above 
 sum, and then it is six times as much as Mr. Menocal estimates as the 
 cost of all the work to be done in the lake division, including mud and 
 gravel, which, it is admitted, has to be dredged, and also the rock under 
 water at the western end. Heaven only knows how much is required to 
 be cut for a channel to get into the mouth of the Rio del Medio. 
 
 Let us return for a moment to the San Bias route, and take a fair, 
 square look at the rock to be excavated there below the sea level. In 
 the tunnel, where the great mass will be found, it may be dry, and it may 
 not. Take it on the side of the " may not," and allow it to be as wet as 
 ever was seen, is it supposable that any engineer in his senses, with but 
 a smattering knowledge of hydrostatics, would attack it under water, 
 when he can so easily build bulkheads, pump out the water, and work out 
 the rock just as he did above the level of the sea. With this system of 
 working kept fairly in view, I have a fancy that any intelligent man can 
 see that this rock in the tunnel will come out more quickly and cheaply 
 
 242 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 21 
 
 than will the rock in the bed of the lake, when the winds and the waves 
 will be playing " hob " with the drilling machinery, and at times driving 
 the men from their work. But suppose the work finished who can esti 
 mate the distress of mind of a captain when he finds his ship in a great 
 lake with a wave-swell of 8 to 10 feet and only 2 feet of water under his 
 keel ; and that, too, only in a canal out of sight. 
 
 In my estimate of cost I dealt in big figures, and estimated for a depth 
 of 30 feet of water. To bring this to the 26 feet of Mr. Menocal's 
 section, there should be deducted over $4,000,000. Then again the tun 
 nel, on more accurate surveys being made, may be reduced to six miles 
 instead of eight. This would reduce my estimate again by $15,000,000, 
 and then the ii5 per cent, for contingencies would come down some 
 $5,000,000, making in all some $24,000,000 of reductions. But I 
 prefer to let it stand as I had it, at $137,500,000, and time will show who 
 comes nearest to the truth, for it is in my eyes a sure thing that a great 
 world's canal will some day be cut on the San Bias route. 
 
 As the transit of any of these canals will have to be suspended 
 during the night, and as the San Bias route is so short that it can be 
 navigated from end to end in ten hours, or less, and as one passing place 
 (at south end of tunnel) only is required, the whole of the rest of the canal 
 can be made, and should be made, much narrower than would be allow 
 able and required on the Nicaragua route, where passing places must be 
 frequent and provided between all the locks. 
 
 As sailing vessels are destined to form a great feature in the traffic of 
 this Isthmus Canal a feature that the Suez Canal is entirely deprived 
 of I beg to refute the claim made by the Nicaragua projectors, that the 
 Bay of Panama is difficult to get in or out of on account, of calms. I 
 have been at Panama for weeks I have been a guest on board of a 
 United States war vessel for two weeks in that bay and I never saw a 
 day when a vessel was detained there, or prevented from coming in by 
 either calms or storms. 
 
 New Yorkers would feel very indignant if told that their port should 
 be shunned on account of its being difficult to get in or out of, and yet, 
 I suppose, they all know that sailing vessels have often been for days 
 outside, afraid to come in, and for days, in the lower bay, afraid to go 
 out, during times of storm and fog two hygrometric and meteorological 
 features never met with in Panama Bay. Let us place the "calm" claim 
 
 243 
 
22 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 alongside of the " impracticable" claim, and send them both to the safe 
 keeping of croakers. Intelligent men of this age are not going to take 
 much stock in those two articles of Nicaraguan faith. 
 
 It getting from our shores to China and Japan, the great objective 
 points, we as a growing commercial nation should look with much respect 
 and admiration on the pacific character of the Pacific Ocean. The 
 Spaniards of old used to say that all a " skipper " had to do on leaving 
 Panama for the Philippine Islands was to set his course, tie his rudder 
 fast, go to sleep, and not wake up until he reached the end of his voyage. 
 Ships going from Panama to China can take a trade wind going and 
 a trade wind returning. When the canal is cut, and we have a new 
 highway to the East, this feature will play an important part in assisting 
 us to the largest share of the trade and traffic of the Orientals a trade 
 which for centuries heaped wealth into the coffers of the Greeks the 
 Jews, and the Armenians of the Mediterranean a trade that England 
 seized and grew her wealth and power out of, when Vasco de Gama 
 showed her a new way to the East by the Cape of Good Hope, four 
 hundred years ago a trade that is destined to fall into our hands and 
 give us wealth and power such as no nation ever held, as soon as we can 
 muster courage enough to cut an Isthmus Canal on the shortest route 
 that can be found, and throw it open for all the world to enjoy as best 
 they may. 
 
 It may not be inopportune to mention in connection with this discussion 
 that a late commanding officer of the United States Navy, now living in 
 Washington a gentleman well acquainted with Nicaragua, Panama, 
 and the Pacific Ocean once said to me : "I should be very loath to allow 
 any ship I commanded to be run in a canal and locked up a hundred feet 
 above the ocean. I should be afraid of never getting down again." 
 
 In connection with the risks run by placing a big body of water on 
 the side-hill slopes of a river valley (in a region of great rains) in a 
 prism made of cuts and embankments, crossing spurs of hills and ravines, 
 and also to show the fallibilty of man's estimates, I beg to mention a little 
 incident that occurred on the line of the Oroya Railway in Peru, in the 
 Valley of the Rimac. The final location had been made, and for some 
 time the construction of this railway had been going on in a region 
 almost rainless. At a point in the valley where the line crossed the 
 mouth of a ravine we had left an opening to be filled by a bridge of 100 
 
 244 
 
INTER- OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 23 
 
 feet span. At the head of this ravine some poor peons had been cultiva 
 ting the soil on the top and side of the mountain by bringing the water of 
 melted snow from other and higher mountains for irrigating the land, as 
 water in many parts of Peru is valued like gold. The peons, with great 
 labor, puddled and protected the edges of their " chacras " so as to pre 
 vent loss by waste. The water sunk into the soil, and permeated down 
 deep through stratas of alluvium, gravel, clay, and loose rocks. This 
 was close to and on the side hills leading down to the Valley of the 
 Rimac. This gradual permeation of rock and gravel, clay and sand, with 
 water had, no doubt, been going on for a long time. The water was 
 trying to find its lowest level. The rocks and the earth were only waiting 
 to be released from the bonds of cohesion that had held them on the 
 mountain side for ages to show what attraction of gravitation could do. 
 Day by day this insinuating element, water, was doing its work, in the 
 dark and in the night. Ceaseless, unopposed, all powerful, it was 
 cutting and severing the bonds of cohesion. The people in the valley in 
 front of the ravine rested in quiet content. The peons of the mountain 
 imagined no evil genius underlying their crops, but in a moment when 
 no one suspected danger the whole mountain side started for a race to 
 the valley. Five millions of cubic metres (about ten millions of tons) 
 of rock and earth, gravel, mud, and water came rushing into the valley, 
 crossed its whole width of 1,400 feet, surged up against the opposite 
 side, rolled over and crushed out of sight all the houses in its annihilat 
 ing course, and filled the valley with a dam 1,600 feet wide on the bottom 
 and 108 feet deep. The average vertical fall of this vast body of earth 
 was about 1,500 feet, and the horizontal movement over 5,000 feet. Surely 
 water has power, and we are entitled to place it with its sister element, 
 fire, as good servants but dreadful masters. Gouverneur Morris, the 
 projector of the Erie Canal, proposed that it should be built without 
 locks, and on a line that would give it a uniform descent per mile from 
 Lake Erie to the Hudson River. What a magnificent idea. It was too 
 magnificent for the time. A line of this kind would carry the canal to 
 the south of Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. With fifteen millions of tons 
 of surplus grain in the far West seeking a market on the Atlantic sea 
 board, it would soon make New York the imperial city of the world, if 
 it could find its way by water lines, without one check or hindrance, 
 from the great grain fields to the great city. 
 
 245 
 
24 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 A canal built as Morris proposed would not have a greater descent per 
 mile than is now existing in the Ganges Canal in India, which has a fall 
 of fifteen inches to the mile, and is navigated in either direction with 
 facility and certainty. I mention this canal and its gradient to show that 
 even a guard-lock is not a necessity at the south end of the San Bias 
 route to provide for the current that would be created in the canal at 
 extremes of high and low tide of the Pacific, but a guard-lock there 
 would be a convenience and an economy. 
 
 Since the above was set up, another number of the Transactions has 
 come to hand, containing an account of the special meeting to welcome 
 M. Ferdinand de Lesseps. M. Lesseps, it will be observed, states that he 
 went out to examine the route selected at the Paris Conference, i. e., the 
 Panama, but he is equally s.trong in his condemnation of either lift locks 
 as on the Nicaraguan or Tehuantepec routes, or tunnels as on the San 
 Bias route. I think, however, I shall not err in printing the Proceedings 
 in extenso, and it therefore follows here. I may remark also that M. 
 Lesseps' estimate is 120 million dollars, but little under the figure pre 
 dicted by Mr. Evans. 
 
 Introduction by 0. CHANUTE. 
 
 Vice-President 0. Chanute was in the chair, and after calling the 
 meeting to order, said : 
 
 This is a special adjourned meeting of the American Society of Civil 
 Engineers, held for the purpose of welcoming to the United States the 
 distinguished Engineers who have just arrived from Central America, 
 and of hearing what they wish to say concerning the American In 
 ter-Oceanic Canal. We shall first be addressed by M. de Lesseps. 
 As, much to his regret, he does not speak English, his communication 
 will be made in French, and, at his request, a synopsis of each portion 
 of it will be made in English by Mr. N. Appleton. M. de Lesseps will 
 also answer any questions which may be asked. After he has termi 
 nated, we shall have an account of the works proposed, by Mr. J. Dirks, 
 Chief Engineer of the canal from Amsterdam to the sea. 
 
 The American Society of Civil Engineers has heretofore endeavoured 
 to contribute its share toward the understanding of the subject of the 
 Inter- Oceanic Canal, by gathering information concerning the various 
 
 246 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJRCTS. 25 
 
 routes, the plans proposed for the canal, their probable cost, and the 
 commercial bearings of the project. 
 
 This it has done, not with a view to revising the plans of what is, 
 after all, a private enterprise, nor to pass judgment upon them, for the 
 Society commits itself, as a body, to no views, and neither for nor against 
 any project, but rather to collect the data required, that its individual 
 members might form an intelligent opinion concerning the merits and 
 probable results of an important undertaking, in which the American 
 public is to be invited to take a share. 
 
 Beginning in November last, with the reading of a paper upon " Inter- 
 Oceanic Canal Projects," by Mr. Menocal, member of the Society, and one 
 of the delegates to the Paris Congress, the discussion has been participa 
 ted in by many prominent members of the Society, as well as by several 
 gentlemen who promote particular routes, and we have been fully informed 
 concerning the San Bias, the Nicaragua, and the Tehuantepec routes. 
 
 But little has yet been said in those discussions concerning the Panama 
 route ; it being generally felt, that pending the proposed revision of the 
 location and of the plans for the canal, by the very able engineers who 
 had the matter in charge, it was desirable, before any opinions were ex 
 pressed, to await the announcement of the results. 
 
 We are now able to learn these results, as well as the facts and plans 
 upon which they are based, in the most direct, certain, and satisfactory 
 manner; for we have among us to-night, as a guest, the chief manager 
 and promoter of the enterprise ; a gentleman of world-wide fame, as 
 the builder of the Suez Canal, who, having already accomplished labors 
 which to other men would be the work of a lifetime, having connected 
 in the face of the most strenuous difficulties, two great seas across the 
 trackless sand of the desert, now proposes to perform the still greater 
 feat of cleaving the American Isthmus asunder, to connect the two great 
 oceans of the world. Gentlemen, I have the honor to introduce to you 
 M. Ferdinand de Lesseps. 
 
 Discussion by M. FERDINAND DE LESSEPS. 
 
 Mr. President and Members of the American Society of Civil Engi 
 neers, Ladies and Gentlemen : I am very happy to be here this evening, 
 not only because it gives me an opportunity to set forth my views on the 
 great project which I have so much at heart, and which I think when 
 
 247 2 L 
 
26 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 completed will be so great a blessing to mankind, but also at finding my 
 self immediately upon my arrival in America, the much honored guest 
 of this Society of Civil Engineers, before which, above all others, I con 
 sider it proper that I should first address myself. I am not an engineer 
 by education, having been for so many years in the profession of a diplo 
 matist, yet I am happy to be received as an engineer, and I am happy 
 on that account as well as for the personal honors which have been paid 
 me and the many opportunities afforded me for seeing in the short time 
 I have already spent on shore what were to me most interesting and in 
 structive illustrations of American engineering, skill and science. 
 
 I desire to begin at the beginning. In 1870, soon after the comple 
 tion of the Suez Canal, and after that work had begun to be put into 
 regular use, I began to think seriously upon the question of an inter- 
 oceanic canal across the narrow land separating the two oceans in the 
 Western Hemisphere. The first difficulty was the supposed difference in 
 the levels of the two seas. An impression that there was such a differ 
 ence had gone out and in many quarters was seriously believed, though 
 for what reason I could not find out. Upon a careful examination it 
 was discovered that this difference of sea-level was a myth, and that the 
 only basis of the myth was the ebb and flow of the tide, which differed 
 on the two sides of the Isthmus, but which would make no difficulty in 
 the construction of a sea-level canal for that from the first was the 
 sort of a canal on which I had set my heart, and which I will build or 
 abandon the project. I will not take up the various steps through which 
 we passed in the consideration of this problem, for I can assure you that 
 there were much study and many investigations during the years interven 
 ing between my first determination on the subject and the present time. 
 
 I determined not to occupy myself with political opinions, but from 
 the moment I began the enterprise to devote myself to the practical part 
 of the undertaking. I looked at the subject from a commercial view. 
 
 I am convinced and persuaded that the enterprise will be not only for 
 the great advantage of commerce, affording an easy route to the Asian 
 continent or India or Japan, but will produce results which will develop 
 the shipping interests of the United States to the place they occupied 
 twenty-five years ago. 
 
 I had the honor of the acquaintance of Senator Sumner when he 
 visited France, and he gave me many valuable figures on the state of 
 
 248 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 27 
 
 American shipping at that time. He stated that the tonnage of American 
 commerce at that time was about 5,500,000 tons. England at the same 
 period had about 5,000,000 tons. All the commerce of the earth could 
 have been divided into three sections, America owning one, England 
 another, and all other nations together having an amount about equal 
 to that possessed by each of these. Since that time America has fallen 
 away as regards maritime commerce, and especially since the opening of 
 the Suez Canal. Its commerce is very low, much more so than it should 
 be for a people so great and powerful as the Americans. But I reflected 
 that this was not to remain so ; it cannot remain so with the Panama 
 Canal open to encourage American shipping, as it certainly will do. 
 
 The Suez Canal has had the effect of changing the commerce of the 
 whole world, and improved its shipping to an extent altogether unantic 
 ipated. It has caused the building of large steam vessels, which have 
 supplanted the sailing ships. You will see that a similar metamorpho 
 sis will follow the opening of a Panama Canal. American shipping has 
 fallen off since the war, and the mercantile marine, I am informed, is 
 now in a deplorable condition. The opening of such a canal would give 
 a fresh impetus to the building of American shipping and assist you in 
 regaining the position that you have lost. To-day I say to the Ameri 
 can people, prepare yourselves in six or seven years to see your commerce 
 extended from the North Pole to the South. When you shall have 
 comprehended the importance of the canal, you will see that your com 
 merce will be benefited according to your large population, and that no 
 other country will have pre-eminence over you when the canal is opened. 
 I work not for selfish motives, but for the interests of humanity. Should 
 you not, therefore, concur in the project as other countries have done ? 
 
 I will compare the Suez Canal with that proposed at Panama, and 
 show, as I hope, that the one across the Isthmus would be an easier 
 matter than that joining the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. In the 
 first place, there was no precedent for the Suez Canal in modern times. 
 The ground had been a battlefield of nations since the commencement of 
 historic times. In the time of the Pharaohs, there were fresh water 
 canals in Egypt, in the construction of which the natural watercourses 
 were often utilized. 
 
 The first canal proposed for crossing the Isthmus of Suez was in the 
 time of Phillip II. He at first acquiesced in the idea, but being a very 
 
 249 
 
28 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 jealous monarch, and afraid that other nations might profit by the canal, 
 he afterwards insisted that the project should be abandoned. An edict 
 was issued declaring all men impious who should propose such a canal. 
 Even if they spoke about it they were to be put to death. This was his 
 order, and as they knew he had the power to carry it out, the subject of 
 the canal was quickly dropped. I hope the example of Philip II. will 
 not be followed in America. It would be very inconvenient for some of 
 us to have such an edict in force. 
 
 Since the time of Columbus there have not been wanting those who 
 thought that the American Isthmus could be traversed. It was first 
 thought feasible by using the natural ports, lakes and rivers. The re 
 gular study of the question of the inter-oceanic canal began in 1875. 
 There was then at Paris a universal geographical congress, and there I 
 talked with Professor Nourse, from your Government offices in Wash 
 ington, and I discovered how much interest was felt in the canal in 
 America. I was charged to preside over the inter-oceanic section, and I 
 obtained from Washington all the plans of proposed routes. Of all 
 countries the most concerned was America. Some said that America 
 did not want the canal, but I replied, " You deceive yourselves. America 
 wants to develop commerce in the entire world." To prove that America 
 wanted the canal, perhaps I exaggerated a little, but I said that she had 
 spent already about $1,000,000 in exploration and in the attempts to 
 find out how to start right in this great work. I said at the Conference 
 that America having built a line of railroad across the Isthmus, it was 
 a good argument in favor of crossing it at that point. The American 
 engineers chose this route thirty years ago, and built their railroad there. 
 
 A new congress was proposed, to which that special question of the 
 canal was to be referred. I wrote a number of letters to leading engi 
 neers in Europe and America, inviting them to come to Paris to discuss 
 the scheme. Every one came at his own expense, and the first engineers 
 of Europe were there. Over one hundred persons were present, the 
 elite of the entire engineering world. We were divided up into sections, 
 one on engineering, one on navigation, one on statistics, one on the 
 movement of commerce, and one on finances. Each committee com 
 menced its work without wasting any time. I said we should go to work 
 a VAmericaine. " How is that?" they asked. " Quickly," I said. And 
 after what I saw yesterday, I can say that I never before knew fully 
 
 250 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 29 
 
 what it was to speak of anything being a V Americaine. Now I know 
 what it is when I see your bold street elevated road and your magnificent 
 bridge and your other works of freedom in science. 
 
 At it we went for fifteen days, night and day. All our deliberations 
 were afterward printed. I remember that in connection with the Con 
 gress something was said to the effect that the American delegation was 
 not treated with due consideration. This was an erroneous idea. Ad 
 miral Ammen was made First Vice-President. I do not think any dis 
 cussion was started that the Americans were not in courtesy first called 
 upon to speak upon it, and when it came to the final vote, every man 
 could vote as he pleased, and also give in writing his reasons for the 
 vote. There was not only no disfavor shown the Americans, but 1 was 
 even charged with showing partiality to them, and this charge will be 
 found in the printed report of the proceedings. At the final vote, 78 
 voted for the Panama route and 8 against, 12 declining to vote. I did 
 not expect until the last day to occupy the place I now do at the head 
 of this gigantic work, but when I heard the exclamations of the Con 
 gress, and saw there before me, as I see it now, the face of my wife, I 
 felt that I ought to put myself at the head of this work, and the com 
 pletion of the circumnavigation of the globe. 
 
 I thought, moreover, I had not the right, after having gone so far, to 
 refuse to see the work through. It would have been cowardice not to 
 continue, so I advanced in spite of the opinion of Mme. de Lesseps. It 
 has brought now the pleasure of a visit to America, and the enjoyment 
 of the hospitalities which are now showering upon me, and which I should 
 not otherwise have enjoyed. 
 
 The first thing after this was to get the concessions from the Compag- 
 nie Civile, which that body had secured from the State of Colombia. 
 My plan was to offer the company $1,000,000 in cash when the sub 
 scription for our undertaking should be taken up, and $1,000,000 in the 
 stock of the new company. This new company has not succeeded, partly 
 on account of the opposition of the press, and the press is a great power 
 and deserves to direct public opinion when it is managed by honest men. 
 The subscription was not a success, and I paid back the money to all 
 who had subscribed. Thereupon some of my friends came together, 
 and placed $400,000 in my hands to enable me to verify the surveys, and 
 to pay the deposit required by the Colombian Government. I could not 
 
 251 
 
SO INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 have done this with iny own means. I am not ashamed to say that I 
 have no fortune. I have passed twenty years in diplomacy and thirty 
 years in engineering, but I did not profit by any of the enterprises which 
 I began. It is not my trade ; I make it a principle not to gain anything 
 from others. I have only the shares which I pay for myself. Those 
 who invested their money in the enterprise have taken a great risk and 
 have a fair right to the fruits of success. Now my work has commenced 
 of executing the enterprise. It is a work of the entire world, not only 
 for other nations, but especially for America. 
 
 Let us talk of the technical part. Determined to make a verification 
 of former surveys upon which I had based my scheme, I repaired to 
 Panama with a party of ten well-known engineers. The expedition to 
 the country has been safely accomplished, notwithstanding the dangers 
 forboded to us. Much has been said against the climate of Panama ^ 
 but we did not suffer from it at all. The climate of Suez is infinitely 
 worse. The heat at Panama is from 23 to 33 Centigrade ; at Suez 30 
 to 35. We all came back in safety. The country was not dangerous 
 at all, and was much more favorable to such an undertaking than that 
 surrounding the Suez Canal, which I will now tell you of. The most 
 celebrated engineers of France and England did not expect such a great 
 success. I was treated as a fool because I simply desired to cut away 
 the earth, whereas they had expected I would make a canal with the 
 assistance of the Nile. I took engineers there and we occupied the ter 
 ritory. There was no water near, no houses, and it was nothing but a 
 great plain of sand, containing nothing that could be of use to us. We 
 used camels, and our laborers were divided in companies, some going in 
 search of water while the others worked. There are no rains at Suez ; 
 it never rains there. The difficulties were almost insurmountable. There 
 were battles with workmen, water had to be carried sixty leagues, we 
 had fierce storms to encounter, and for the first two or three years we 
 scarcely got a foothold. The sand did not frighten me as it did the 
 public. It did not take much trouble to remove it, of course, and most 
 of it was done by hand, before we had machines. But the taking out of 
 clay was a more serious undertaking ; in some respects it was more diffi 
 cult to deal with than stone, because it could not be blasted or removed 
 in blocks. Suez was far worse than Panama can be. We remember 
 how we were told most solemnly that Suez could not be built, but 
 
 252 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 31 
 
 we went, I shall say again, a I' Americaine, and did it, and now we pro 
 pose to do it again. I have shown you the difficulties at Suez ; at 
 Panama there are no such difficulties. 
 
 Now (referring to a model in relief, of the proposed line of the Pana 
 ma Canal), I will briefly sketch the route for the canal : It begins on the 
 Atlantic side, at Colon ( Aspinwall), and joins the valley of the River 
 Chagres, a little south of the bay of Limon. The River Chagres how 
 ever, does not empty into the Bay of Limon, but into the sea at the old 
 town of Chagres. The canal follows the valley of this river to a point 
 near Matachiu, where the river has a sharp turn towards the north-east, 
 and runs between two mountains. Here the canal leaves this valley, and 
 it is proposed to construct a dam between these two mountains to pro 
 vide for the storage of the flood waters of the river. This dam will be 
 forty metres in height, and will retain about one thousand millions cubic 
 metres of water. There are at least three dams in the world, which are 
 of equal magnitude with this, and which have stood for many years ; 
 one in Spain is higher, and has endured three centuries. 
 
 The canal, leaving the valley of the Chagres, cuts through the moun 
 tains at Culebra, where the extreme depth of cutting will be about 270 
 feet, almost exactly the same as that of the towers of your great Brook 
 lyn bridge, which you have just kindly shown us. Thence the canal will 
 follow the valley of the Rio Grande to the Pacific, which it enters near 
 the City of Panama. 
 
 Another advantage possessed by the Isthmus of Panama over that 
 of Suez is its fertility, being a perfect paradise ; there is no botanical 
 garden in the world which could surpass it in beauty. The stations on 
 the American railroad are surrounded by villages, and there is plenty of 
 game in the mountains. I leave to the engineers with me the explana 
 tion of the details of the proposed plan, who will report as to the country 
 which they have passed through, and after they have finished I will be 
 at the disposal of the public to respond to all questions which any one 
 may choose to ask. 
 
 Now, I beg to present this model to the Society of Civil Engineers, 
 and to thank them for this opportunity of addressing you. 
 
 Discussion by J. DIRKS.* 
 In the first place I beg to call your attention to the fact that neither 
 
 * Chief Engineer of the Canal from Amsterdam to the Sea. 
 
 253 
 
32 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 the English nor the French is my native language. For this reason I 
 invoke your kindness in overlooking any mistake as regards pronuncia 
 tion; also grammatical errors. M. de Lesseps, the great mind who 
 pulled down the Suez barrier, and therefore deserved, as well as earned, 
 the thanks of mankind in general came to America with the object of 
 removing a second barrier, in joining together both oceans by a great 
 ship canal through the American Isthmus. Allow me, ladies and gentle 
 men, to explain, in a few words, why M. de Lesseps deemed it convenient 
 to invite me to join, not alone the Paris Congress of May last, but the 
 scientific and technical survey of the canal line between Colon (Aspin- 
 wall) and Panama, which took place during the last few weeks. I have 
 the advantage of being the engineer of the ship canal going from Amster 
 dam to the sea, which canal is fully described by your esteemed country 
 man, General Barnard, and was visited as well by himself as by other 
 engineers of this great country, among them Captain Eads, the renowned 
 builder of the St. Louis Bridge and of the wonderful works at the mouth 
 of the Mississippi. When the general plan of the Amsterdam Canal was 
 proposed, about 1860, only very few engineers believed in its feasibility, 
 and the majority of scientific men were of opinion that a sea harbour in 
 the shifting sands of the broad and shallow beach at the North Sea, as 
 well as the dredging of a canal in the very soft mud of the lake through 
 which it ran, were to be considered as quite impossible. Belonging to 
 the small minority who were convinced that the Amsterdam Canal could 
 be made and would fully answer the purpose, I was charged with the exe 
 cution of the whole, in conjunction with Sir John Hawkshaw, from 
 London, who acted as consulting engineer. 
 
 It is a great satisfaction to me that the Amsterdam Canal has been 
 constructed ; that the dark forebodings of a large majority never were 
 realized; that the canal, at a cost of about $16,000,000, is a complete 
 success, and that the largest vessels, even to a draught of twenty-four 
 feet, easily enter and leave the new North Sea Harbour and get to Amster 
 dam within four or five hours. If not for the results of this proportionally 
 smaller, but nevertheless very important scheme, M. de Lesseps would 
 very likely never have known even my name. I have to thank him here 
 for his kind opinion regarding the little experience in canal matters that 
 I may have got, and I beg to state at the same time, as recorded above, 
 that I was not alone in my quality of acting chief engineer, but that the 
 
 254 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 33 
 
 great mind of my friend, John Hawkshaw, was there also, in order to 
 avoid or to put aside many difficulties of planning and construction. As 
 regards the technical possibility of a level ship'canal between both oceans 
 at Panama, I am happy to say again what I told a few days ago to some 
 very competent men, namely, that I would like to write down my very 
 favorable opinion in very large characters and put at stake my reputation 
 as an engineer that s the* difficulties of this enormous work will be not 
 greater perhaps even less important than those of the Suez Canal and 
 of so many other great works completed with full success in America and 
 in Europe. I want to state that the making of a deep cutting is just as 
 possible at Panama as in the United States ; that the blowing up of 
 rocks may be done there even with greater facility than at Hell Gate, 
 near this city, and, finally, that the only serious technical question to be 
 solved isjthat of the floods of the River Chagres, through the alluvial 
 and present bed of which a great part of the ship canal will have to be 
 led. But even that difficulty can be surmounted. The result of the 
 studies of Colonel Totten and Mr. Dauzats, who went into the question 
 with the utmost~care, was set forth in the international report recently 
 published, and known, as I presume, to the members of this scientific 
 body. 1 may therefore confine myself to the renewed expression of ray 
 heartfelt thanks to the chairman and the members of the American So 
 ciety of Civil Engineers, as well as to many other citizens of this great 
 city. They show their regards and kind sympathy not only for the en 
 gineer but also for the Dutchman. They talk feelingly about the old ties 
 between my country and the United States. The same old blood is run 
 ning through the veins of many on both sides of the Atlantic, and what 
 happened in past times may lead toward what may occur in the future, 
 the relations between both peoples and the other nations will be progress 
 ing for ever, and each barrier pulled down on the broad way of commerce 
 and industry will largely contribute toward such a blessed prospect. 
 
 0. CHANUTE. M. de Lesseps is now prepared to answer questions, and 
 I will begin by asking him, what are the estimates of the probable cost 
 of the undertaking, and the probable returns ? 
 
 M. DE LESSEPS. One hundred and sixty-eight millions of dollars. 
 Of this $20,000,000 are for the large dam to keep the waters of the River 
 Chagres in. It would not be necessary to have the work entirely com 
 pleted before vessels could be sent through. I am satisfied, too, that the 
 
 255 2 M 
 
34 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 
 
 final operations will show a considerable reduction. This is the reason 
 that induces me to fix the capital at 600,000,000f. or $120,000,000. But 
 should my hopes in this direction not be fulfilled, the difference neces 
 sary to make up the estimate can be supplied by bonds or otherwise. 
 
 According to the returns of the Congress at Paris, it was calculated 
 by M. Levasseur, the Chairman of the Committee on Statistics, that 
 6,000,000 tons would pass through the canal' in a year, and that within 
 ten years they would rise to 7,250,000. At Suez the tariff was 10 francs 
 or $2 per ton, but at Panama it could be raised to $3, which would give 
 a gross yearly revenue of $18,000,000, which would be a very large re 
 turn for a capital of $200,000,000, which is much more than the canal 
 is estimated to cost, including the running expenses and the interest on 
 the money. And as this tonnage is greater than that which was estima 
 ted to pass through the Suez Canal, the canal on this continent would 
 be a better investment than the other, and the stock and bonds of the 
 Suez Canal are very much above par. 
 
 0. CHANUTE. What proportion of the necessary capital will be raised 
 in Europe, and how much do you propose to raise in this country ? 
 
 M. DE LESSEES. The original capital will be $120,000,000. One- 
 quarter has to be paid up before a company can be formed under the 
 French law. One-half of the capital stock will be allotted to the United 
 States, and the other half to Europe. But in case it is not taken up by 
 the United States I will try and have the sixty millions taken up in 
 some other way. But I wish to have it understood that one-half the stock 
 may be subscribed for in the United States, as the United States have an 
 interest in the enterprise equal to all the rest of the world put together. 
 
 HORATIO ALLEN. Past President of the Society : I would like to 
 ask a question, so that we may have a little clearer conception of the 
 subject. I understand that the length of the canal from ocean to ocean 
 will be forty-five miles ; that a certain portion of that canal will be a 
 deep cut, and that a certain other portion will be ordinary canal work. 
 I would like to ask how many miles are to be cut through, and how many 
 will be a deep cut ? 
 
 V. DAUZATS. The deep cutting extends for about six and a half or 
 seven miles. The deepest excavation will be about ninety metres ; and 
 for this distance of seven miles the cutting may average about 180 feet. 
 In other parts of the canal the cutting will not be of very great depth. 
 
 256 
 
INTER-OCEANIC CANAL PROJECTS. 35 
 
 HORATIO ALLEN. Is the deep cutting entirely in rock ? 
 
 V. DAUZATS. Not entirely in the rock. There is earth over the rock. 
 Col. Totten thinks that the earth may be twenty feet in depth, but in 
 order to be safe the estimate was based on a depth of earth of twelve 
 feet and the remainder rock. 
 
 Q. A. GILLMORE. Will yon give some details as to the proposed dam 
 for the Chagres River ? 
 
 J. DIRKS. The height will be 40 metres and the length 1,600 metres. 
 It will form a reservoir capable of holding more water than the greatest 
 flood known on the river. Before a second flood arrives the reservoir 
 could be emptied by the main and the secondary canals. The dam can 
 be sufficiently well built to make it perfectly safe. 
 
 ASHBEL WELCH. Why go to the enormous expense of making a sea 
 level canal across the Isthmus when a canal with two or three locks on 
 each side of the deep cut could be made so much more cheaply ? 
 
 M. DE LESSEPS. If the Commission of Engineers which had gone 
 down to Panama had reported in favor of a canal with locks I should 
 have put on my hat and left the whole project and would have had noth 
 ing to do with it. That plan may do for small ships, but when we have 
 vessels now afloat 500 feet long and others on the stocks 600 feet long, it 
 is impossible to say for what you would have to build the locks. Single 
 locks would be slow, and double locks though quicker would be very 
 expensive and require constant repairs. At Nicaragua they intended the 
 use of locks, and with the earthquakes which prevail there the repairs 
 would be ruinously expensive, and even at Panama, where earthquakes 
 do not exist, they would be fatal by reason of the loss of time. I would 
 not have anything to do with a locked canal except for little ships. It 
 is not the proper idea for a grand inter-oceanic canal. 
 
 C. BUTLER asked why the San Bias route has not been examined. 
 
 M. DE LESSEPS. The object of the Commission was to examine the 
 line accepted by the International Congress ; but in reference to the route 
 referred to by the gentleman, I would say, that although the port on the 
 Atlantic side is very good, that on the Pacific side is not. This line 
 would make necessary a tunnel of, say, seven miles in length, and as the 
 Commission had already rejected a route in which there would be a tunnel 
 of three or four miles, why adopt one having a tunnel so much greater in 
 length? 
 
 257 
 
35 
 
No. CCCXXIX. 
 
 ^ 
 
 JAMES CLEMINSON'S "FLEXIBLE WHEEL-BASE" OR 
 
 RADIATING AXLES. 
 
 I Vide Plate]. 
 
 As carriages are now being fitted on this principle on the Scinde, Pun 
 jab and Delhi Railway, the following extract from- the Engineer, Febru 
 ary 15th, 1878, may be interesting. The plan seems to have been 
 extensively tried in England, America and the Continent of Europe, 
 during the last three years, and to have met with very general approval, 
 and to work practically perfectly up to curves of 70 feet radius. 
 
 It is not clear from the description or figures how " the central axle 
 is at liberty to slide under the main frame " of the carriage, but this 
 is a matter of detail. The main, frame probably rests and slides on the 
 corner plates shown on each minor axle frame, and the only other connec 
 tion is the two swivel pins of the end frames. 
 
 " Though the desirability of using some arrangement of the under 
 carriages of railway rolling stock, by which the axles would be free to 
 depart from rigid parallelism when traversing curves, has been felt for 
 many years, it is only recently that much has been done in this direc 
 tion as regards passenger coaches in this country. Previously all the 
 stock, and even now on most of our lines practically all was, and is, 
 fitted with wheels whose axles are rigidly parallel, a condition which 
 could not have been allowed to exist so long had it not been possible 
 to obtain the requisite engine power and strength of the parts of the 
 vehicles and permanent way which such a system of construction entails. 
 On a straight line a vehicle with parallel axles may be considered to 
 need very little guidance by the flanges or rails ; the tendency of such 
 a vehicle in motion is to pursue obstinately a straight course, and from 
 
 259 2 u 
 
2 FLEXIBLE WHEEL-BASE OR RADIATING AXLES. 
 
 it is only caused to depart by side pressure on flanges and rails. The 
 intensity of that pressure may be imagined wben the amount of skid 
 ding on any curve is remembered. For instance, a train passing round 
 90 of a curve of, say, 10 chains radius, is actually skidded through 
 not less than 60 or 70 feet; the actual amount of skidding depend 
 ing to some extent upon the length of the vehicles. The Americans first 
 endeavoured in a practical manner to remove this defect by the application 
 of the bogie, but even that very useful invention only partly removes it, 
 as each bogie is in itself a vehicle with parallel axles, but with a short 
 wheel-base. It is only recently, however, that even a bogie has been 
 much used in this country, though it has for several years been known 
 that long carriages run much more steadily than those of the ordinary 
 length, and the proportion of dead weight, or non-paying load, may be 
 made to decrease with increase of length. Carriages of increased length 
 have been built, most of them running on six wheels with parallel axles, 
 a certain amount of transverse play being allowed in the central axle. 
 Even with this, however, the position of the wheels on a sharp curve is 
 as illustrated in diagram, Fig. 4, from which the tendency of the wheels 
 to mount the rails, and the increased power necessary on a curve as 
 compared with a straight line, to pull such a carriage along, may be 
 estimated. By the use of the bogie the strongest objections to long 
 carriages have been overcome, but others have been imported by which 
 the object of using long carriages has been partly defeated. The bogie 
 car being supported only at or near the ends, its motion is little better 
 than an ordinary short carriage, while the distance between the supports 
 involves the use of very strong and heavy framing, and the bogies of 
 themselves are of such weight that the paying proportion of the load, 
 instead of increasing with the increased length, has in most instances 
 decreased. The parallel axles of the bogies have, moreover, the objec 
 tions which are attached to short carriages with such axles, so that, 
 although it, as far as itself is concerned, permits the construction of 
 long carriages, the grinding and waste of power on curves is as great as 
 with ordinary short carriages, for the direction of pull of the long carriage 
 on a curve causes a thrust on the inner rail at the foremost end and on 
 the outer rail at the rear end. 
 
 " Our object here is to place before our readers a system of construction 
 invented by Mr. James Cleminson, of Westminster, which overcomes 
 
 260 
 
FLEXIBLE WHEEL-BASE OR RADIATING AXLES. 3 
 
 these difficulties in * satisfactory manner, its chief recommendation 
 being that while securing other advantages it provides the means of 
 passing round the sharpest curves with the axles always normal and 
 radial thereto, whatever its radius, as shown in Fig. 5. 
 
 " This result is achieved by so attaching the axles to the carriages and 
 to each other as to permit them to adapt themselves automatically and with 
 perfect truth to the varying conformations of a railroad. This is effected 
 as follows : The axles, with their axle-boxes, guards, and springs, are 
 mounted in frames BCD, Figs. 1* and 2, separate from the main under- 
 frame E. The end frames B and D have central pivots H, around which 
 they swivel freely, whilst the middle frame C is at liberty to slide trans 
 versely to the main underframe E through a range equal to the versed sine 
 LM of an arc NLO, the chord of which equals the wheel-base NMO see 
 fig. 6 and finally the frames are connected to each other by the articu 
 lated radiating gear IK. The action of the combination is simply 
 thus . When a vehicle enters a curve, the middle axle and frame C move 
 transversely through the versed sine of the wheel-base arc, and, in doing 
 so, cause the end axles and frames B and D to swivel around their pivots 
 H, so that all the axles assume positions of radii of the curve. 
 
 " There is, it will be noticed, nothing of a special nature, beyond the 
 axle-frames, required in the application of the invention, either in build 
 ing new carriages, or converting old stock, these frames entailing very 
 little extra cost, for as the main underframe E is relieved of the strains 
 ordinarily due to curves, it is said that it may be reduced in strength to 
 such an extent as to compensate for the cost of the axle-frames. All 
 standard fittings, such as axle-boxes, guards, and bearing springs, are 
 retained without alteration. 
 
 " It will be seen that the system permits the construction of vehicles 
 of any length, and secures the unattained objects of the bogie with the 
 advantage of support throughout the length of the carriage. In very 
 long carriages, say 80 feet, eight wheels would be employed, with a 
 modification of the arrangement illustrated. 
 
 " The carriage illustrated by Fig. 1* is the new Royal Saloon carriage 
 constructed by the South Western Railway Company, and was briefly 
 described in the Engineer of the 30th of November last. Brief reference 
 to the steadiness and ease with which the carriage passes round sharp 
 
 * Not reproduced. 
 
 261 
 
4 FLEXIBLE WHEEL-BASE OR RADIATING AXLES. 
 
 curves was made on page 75 of the current volume. Carriages on the 
 system described have been running for about a year on the- London, 
 Chatham, and Dover Railway, and any passenger travelling from Chatham 
 to London will be able to make the journey in the old and new carriages, 
 and prove for himself the great difference in the comfort of the two 
 systems, especially when travelling by the boat express from Chatham 
 to Herne-hill. The line is notoriously crooked, but it is on such lines 
 that the new carriages show their great superiority in steadiness and 
 smoothness in running. 
 
 " Besides being in use on the lines referred to, a number of pairs of 
 short Metropolitan carriages are being converted into single long carri 
 ages on the new system by splicing, and a large quantity of stock is 
 running on the Campanhia Paulista Railway of South America. Several 
 English companies are making up whole trains, and a somewhat re 
 markable example of the application of the system is its use on the 
 North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway. The gauge is 1 foot 11^ inches, 
 and an official trial of a whole new train was recently made at a speed 
 of twenty miles per hour, which, on a line which may be almost consi 
 dered as a continuous set of curves of two chains radius, would be 
 attended with the greatest danger with any other stock. The stock 
 has hitherto been of the bogie class, the carriages being 25 feet in 
 length, carrying 30 passengers, and weighing 5J tons. The new car 
 riages are 30 feet long, carry 42 passengers, and weigh 4J tons each. 
 The latter have thus 33 per cent, more accommodation and weigh 20 per 
 cent, less than the former. The bogie carriages rock very much in 
 passing round the two chain curves, but this is not the case with the 
 new carriages, which have a wheel base of 23 feet, or more than one- 
 sixth the radius of the sharpest curve. The economy in weight in this 
 instance is, it will be seen, very great, and is illustrative, for though 
 on the stock of full size railways the gain is not so much, it is very 
 large in all cases. In proof of the merits of the system, we may point 
 out that it is being regarded with much favour by many locomotive 
 and carriage superintendents, who are necessarily not the least easily 
 satisfied. The facts that the carriage is so thoroughly supported 
 throughout its breadth and length, and that the existing frames, springs, 
 hornplates, &c., are all applicable, as well as the general simplicity of 
 the arrangement, very strongly recommend it." 
 
 262 
 
- .- - 
 
 Ift 
 
 
No. CCCXXX. 
 
 CLIP CALLIPER FOE LIFTING WASTE WEIR 
 
 PLANKING. 
 
 [Vide Plate.] 
 
 BY A. HAYES, ESQ., Assistant Engineer, Cossye Division. 
 
 THE accompanying drawing represents a clip calliper for lifting waste 
 weir planking, designed by Mr. E. Raynean, Sub-Overseer, Cossye Di 
 vision, formerly Dehree Training School Apprentice. During irrigation 
 season, when it is necessary for the regulation of the supply to the 
 various reaches to the pretty constantly raising and lowering the planks 
 on the canal calingulahs, it has hitherto been necessary to send a khal- 
 lasy down into the water to attach the loops of the lifting ropes to the 
 wooden pins, driven for this purpose through each end of the planks, and 
 this has been always rather a hazardous proceeding. 
 
 The present arrangement obviates any such necessity, for two khal- 
 lasies standing on the one bridge each with a calliper, can grip the planks 
 and raise or lower them as may be desirable. 
 
 The following description of their action, in addition to the plan, 
 will clearly explain the method of working the calliper. 
 
 Raising. The two jaws of the calliper weighted at the upper ex 
 tremities with two cylindrical weights when opened out for the purpose 
 of gripping a plank, are retained in position by a bent hook catch A. 
 The calliper is provided with two sockets BB, in order to allow of its 
 being attached to, and sliding on, a guide rod. When used in still water 
 the guide rod is not required, and the calliper can be lowered fairly on 
 to the plank, attached to a rope, but in an overfall of 2 to 4 feet or 
 
 263 2 o 
 
2 CLIP CALLIPER FOR LIFTING WASTE WEIR PLANKING. 
 
 more, the use of the guide rod is indispensable. The guide rod is pro 
 vided at its lower end with an elbow iron point, which, as the rod is car 
 ried down by the stream, catches on the face of the planking, and allows 
 of the rod being brought to a vertical position in the current. 
 
 The rod being dropped well ahead of the planking and brought ver 
 tical (Fig. 1), the calliper with jaws open and set, and the upper catch 
 inverted, is lowered by a line down the rod until the convex portion of 
 the bent hook A, coming in contact with the planking the catch is freed, 
 and the jaws close in an immoveable grip, the calliper assuming the po 
 sition of the dotted lines. Both rod and calliper can now be hauled 
 up with the plank or the rod detached, and the calliper and plank raised. 
 
 Lowering. When it is desired to lower a plank, the plank is gripped 
 as per Fig. 2, and the calliper lowered, the upper catch C being slipped 
 up above its notch. On the plank reaching its place, the lowering rope 
 is slackened, and the upper extremities of the jaws opening the upper 
 catch C falls down into its notch, retaining the jaws open and the plank 
 is freed, the calliper assuming the position of the dotted lines. It is 
 generally found in a current that an additional blow or two with a ram 
 mer from above is necessary to overcome the friction of the plank 
 against the grooves and drive it fairly down. 
 
 The main dimension and weight of a calliper is as follows : 
 
 Weight. 
 
 Jaws, flat iron (over all) 1' 6" x Ijf X T 
 Sockets, pins and other parts, ............. .. 8 fl5s. 
 
 2 Leaden weights, ...... ... ........ . ... 7 
 
 Total weight of calliper, 15 
 
 The dimensions of the calingulah planks are 5' X 1' X 2J V . The 
 head lock stop planks to prevent silt getting into the lock in flood time, 
 dimensions 20' X 6" X 4" are also lifted with a pair of callipers. The 
 planking should be slightly notched to enable calliper jaws to obtain a 
 securer hold. 
 
 A. H. 
 
 EDITOR'S NOTE. Practice with a simpler tool, see Fig. A, produces a 
 fair result. The Dadupur dam, West Jamna Canal, over the branch of 
 the Jamna, has 60 openings of 10 feet breadth, 4 to 6J feet deep, closed 
 
 264 
 
CLIP CALLIPER FOR LIFTING WASTE WEIR PLANKING. 3 
 
 by about 290 planks. ' On approach of flood, about 230 of these are taken 
 out and carried to banks by 45 men in two hours. The carrying is of 
 course the heavy work requiring the number. Only 8 men are employed 
 in lifting planks. The lower planks are of course lifted under 4 to 6 
 feet head and rush of water. Two hours is the night time, one and a 
 half is sufficient in day light. This is rather smart practice, and I enter 
 
 Detail of end of plank at A. 
 
 it here more as a bit of information as to what can be done, than to 
 detract from the invention alongside. This is useful in cases of very 
 deep water where a rod would be long and unwieldy, but the fact that 
 the catch on the plank is in the groove in the pier makes it easy to find. 
 
 265 
 
Fro 
 
 POSITION 111 
 
 ' dotted lines thus 
 
 ition of the Callipers 
 ig released by the wtit 
 nlank the claws take the 
 
 lead Weight 
 
 1 ^^a 
 
 SECTION THROUGH A B. 
 
 Socket 
 
No. CCCXXXI. 
 ELECTRICAL INTER-COMMUNICATION IN TRAINS. 
 
 [ Vide Plate]. 
 
 BY G. K. WINTER, ESQ., F.R.A.S., M.S.T.E., Telegraph Engineer, 
 Madras Hallway. 
 
 AMONGST the numerous applications of Electricity, the rapid communi 
 cation of intelligence from one place to another is that which has 
 received the greatest development, and it is certainly the use to which 
 this wonderful agent appears to be most specially adapted. In the early 
 days of its employment for this purpose it was thought uncertain and 
 capricious, but as time went on, difficulties one after another disappeared ; 
 its action, before uncertain, became more and more under control, and 
 its very caprices have been found subject to law, and have been converted 
 into some of the most useful of its attributes. 
 
 Inter-communication in trains, or the communicatipn of intelligence 
 from one part of a train to another, has received a large amount of 
 attention, and much ingenuity has been devoted to the solution of the 
 problem. The fact, however, that no system has been universally adopt 
 ed would tend to show that no system hitherto brought forward is practi 
 cally perfect. Captain Tyler has said that electricity offers the best 
 promise of success, and in this view most men acquainted with the present 
 state of electrical science would probably concur. 
 
 In looking carefully into the question of the merits and demerits of 
 the various existing electrical methods, with a view of discovering the 
 best system for adoption on the Madras Railway, I found that the use 
 of the wheels and rails as an " earth " or return circuit, and the use of 
 special electrical couplings, were nearly universal. A few experiments 
 were sufficient to convince me that in India, at least, we could not make 
 
 267 2 P 
 
2 ELECTRICAL INTER-COMMUNICATION IN TRAINS. 
 
 this use of the wheels and rails, for even, supposing the electrical contact 
 between the framework and the axles to be perfect, that between rail 
 and rail could not be relied on, especially in dry weather ; and with 
 regard to the special electrical coupling, a little consideration was suffi 
 cient to show that any system which involved any extra labor or attention 
 in forming or shunting trains, was unsuitable to our mixed and ever- 
 changing traffic. There seems also to be little doubt that any difficulties 
 which have been found to attend the application of the electrical systems 
 hitherto proposed have been due to negligence or forgetfulness in forming 
 the extra coupling, or to the imperfect earth formed by the wheels and 
 rails ; a coating of snow for instance over the rail would destroy commu 
 nication even in England. The motion and consequent vibration of a train, 
 on the contrary, presents no difficulty which cannot be easily over 
 come. 
 
 My endeavours have therefore been directed to the adaptation of the 
 existing couplings to the purposes of communication, and to doing away 
 with the necessity of using the wheels and rails as an earth. The result 
 is a system which has been well tried on the Madras Railway, and has, 
 I believe, given satisfaction to all who have seen it. It is impossible for 
 any mistake to be made by the porters in forming or shunting a train, 
 for they have only to do the work they have been always accustomed to, 
 and it is impossible for any quantity of dust, tar, dirt, or grease on the 
 surfaces of the hooks to damage in the slightest degree the integrity of 
 the circuit, for the hooks are self-cleansing, and the weight of the chains 
 is sufficient to insure the perfection of the contact. 
 
 Having abandoned the use of the wheels and rails as an earth, we 
 require two conductors, insulated from each other, running from one end 
 of the train to the other. This is simple enough as far as the carriages 
 themselves are concerned, but the most difficult as well as the most im 
 portant point is the mode of connecting electrically the conductors of one 
 carriage, with the corresponding conductors of the next. This connec 
 tion I accomplish by means of the side or safety chains in the following 
 way : 
 
 A strong and flexible cable is passed through the links of the chain ; 
 the conductors of this cable form a continuation of one of the insulated 
 conductors of the carriage, and are fastened electrically to the hook at 
 the end of the chain. 
 
 268 
 
ELRCTRTCAL INTER-COMMUNICATION IN TRAINS. 3 
 
 The cables are made by winding galvanized iron binding wire, weigh 
 ing about 100 Bbs. to the mile, helically round 1^ inch tarred hemp rope, 
 in the grooves between the strands. The end of this cable, which is to 
 be attached to the hook at the end of the chain, is close bound with the 
 same binding wire for a length of about 3 inches, and the ends of the 
 wires projecting beyond the hemp rope are twisted together into a wire 
 rope. 
 
 Two holes are drilled through the shank of the hook about 1^ inches 
 apart, and into these holes tinned iron eye bolts are soldered. The ring 
 of the eye bolt nearest the end of hook is only large enough to admit the 
 wire rope projecting beyond the cable, while the other is large enough to 
 admit the cable together with the extra binding. The bound end of the 
 cable is passed through the large eye bolt and carried as far as the small 
 one, through which the wire rope is passed, and to which it is firmly 
 soldered ; the rope is then unwound and spread radially over the ring of 
 the bolt, and again firmly soldered on to its surface, the ends of the wire 
 being cut off if too long. The lower end of the cable being thus firmly 
 fastened to the shank of the hook, the cable is passed through the links 
 of the chain in the most convenient manner, and finally passed through 
 a hole in the buffer plank of the carriage, the wires of the cable are then 
 soldered to the end of one of the wires running underneath the vehicle. 
 The chain and cable are well coated with tar, except on the inner surface 
 of the hook. 
 
 The next point to be considered is the best mode of securing good 
 electrical contact between the hook of one chain and that of the next 
 carriage, when they are coupled. On the electrical condition of this con 
 tact depends the success or failure of the system, I have therefore spared 
 no pains to ensure its perfection. The shape of the hook is first altered 
 from the ordinary form shown in Fig. 1 to that shown in Fig. 2. To 
 secure uniformity and correctness of figure, a steel or iron die is made of 
 the shape shown in Fig. 3. The hooks are made red-hot, and are easily 
 altered into the required shape by first driving the die between the jaws 
 of the hook, and then completing the alteration by means of the hammer, 
 keeping the die in its place during the operation. The bearing surface 
 of the hook is then coated with a piece of sheet copper which is brazed 
 on, and finally a small rib of gun-metal of semicircular section is soldered 
 on to the inside of the outer jaw of the hook. Fig. 4 is a drawing of 
 
 269 
 
4 ELECTRICAL INTER-COMMUNIOATION IN TRAINS. 
 
 a complete chain with cable, &c., and Fig. 5 is an enlarged drawing of 
 the hook with its copper lining, and gun-metal rib. 
 
 It has been found that with hooks prepared as above, neither grease, 
 tar, nor dust, are able to impare the contact of hook with hook, and the 
 small stones, which are occasionally thrown upon the chains from the 
 ballast, are unable to insinuate themselves between the acting sur 
 faces. 
 
 The method of working adopted on the Madras Railway is very simple, 
 and might be still further simplified could a battery be conveniently 
 placed on the engine. 
 
 A battery is placed in each brake van, and all batteries are so con 
 nected that they always tend to send a current in the same direction. The 
 circuit is always open except when closed by pressing a plunger in the act 
 of signalling. The disposition of the apparatus in a train will be under 
 stood from Fig. 6. 
 
 All that is necessary is to have a brake van between the passenger 
 carriages and the engine, and even this rule would be rendered unneces 
 sary, if we could place the battery on the engine, instead of in the 
 vans. This system has been working exceedingly well on the Madras 
 Eailway, since the 1st January 1879, the daily train mileage worked 
 being about 1,776 miles. The fitting of the whole stock of the Railway 
 is being rapidly proceeded with, and at an early date the whole of the 
 trains running on the Railway will be provided with an efficient means 
 of communication between the Guards and Passengers and the Driver. 
 The arrangements are tested on leaving or passing through each station^ 
 by the Guard in the rear van giving an all right signal to the Driver, 
 and any failure or irregularity in the working of the apparatus is entered 
 in the Guard's and Driver's Journals, and is reported to the Heads of 
 their respective Departments, so that the letters that have been given me 
 by the Traffic Manager and Locomotive Superintendent are written with 
 full knowledge of the manner in which the system has worked. 
 
 It has not been thought necessary hitherto to apply a break-away 
 signal to the system on the Madras Railway, and the author does not re 
 commend its adoption, owing to the complication necessarily involved : 
 it can however be applied in several ways, of which the following 
 arrangement is probably the cheapest, simplest, and most easily ap 
 plied. 
 
 270 
 
ELECTRICAL INTER-COMMUNICATION IN TRAINS. 5 
 
 The closed circuit is 'used, and signals are made by breaking or open 
 ing the circuit, so that if a train parts a signal is given automatically in 
 consequence of the break in the circuit, caused by the parting of the 
 train. The difficulty which has hitherto prevented this system from 
 being adopted is that during shunting, or when the engine is separated 
 from the train, the engine bell would be continually ringing, unless 
 some act were performed to stop the ringing ; and, in this case, there is 
 always the danger of the apparatus not being re-adjusted for ringing, 
 when the train is made up again. This difficulty I propose to overcome 
 in the following simple manner. 
 
 A relay is used on the engine to complete the circuit of a local bat 
 tery through the bell. This relay has two contacts, the armature making 
 contact with the one when the train circuit is complete (that is when the 
 constant current is flowing through the coils of the relay), and with the 
 other when the train circuit is broken (that is when no current is flowing 
 through the relay coils). A switch attached to the apparatus is arrang 
 ed to join one contact with the battery and bell, when the switch handle 
 is in one position, and the other contact with the battery and bell, when 
 the handle is in its other position. Thus, suppose when the train is 
 joined up, and the train circuit closed, the bell is silent when the switch 
 handle is at A, and that it rings when the handle is at B ; then, when 
 the train is divided, and the train circuit broken, the bell will be silent 
 when the handle is at B, and it will ring when the handle is at A. Thus 
 on arriving at a station at which shunting is to be performed, directly 
 the train is divided the bell will ring, and will continue to ring until 
 the Driver turns the handle to B. Again, when the shunting is com 
 pleted, and the train joined up again, the bell will ring until the Driver 
 turns the handle back to A. So that, whether the train is being form 
 ed or broken, the Driver is reminded of the change to be made in the 
 position of his switch handle, by the ringing of the bell, and there is 
 consequently no chance of the proper adjustment being forgotten. The 
 arrangement is shown in Fig. 7. 
 
 It will be seen that signals may be given to the Driver by simply divid 
 ing the circuit in any part of the train, and keys arranged to do this 
 may be fixed in any or all of the vehicles. Also should any part of the 
 train become separated, the act of separation will break the train circuit, 
 and cause the bell to ring. 
 
 271 
 
ELECTRICAL INTER-COMMUNICATION IN TRAINS. 
 
 XT n 
 
 No. C 7 ~r 
 A. &M. 
 
 From H. E. CHURCH, ESQ., Traffic Manager, Madras Railway 
 Company. 
 
 To G. K. WINTER, ESQ., Arconum. 
 
 Madras, 9tk October, 1879. 
 
 In reply to your enquiry as to our experience of the practical working 
 of your electrical communication in trains, I have much pleasure in in 
 forming you that since its introduction, on the 1st January last, in the 
 mail trains, it has worked most satisfactorily, and the comparatively few 
 interruptions we have experienced have been found on enquiry to be due 
 to carelessness on the part of the Train or Station staff, and not to any 
 defect in the system. 
 
 The communication has been made use of by the public on more than 
 one occasion, when a spark from the engine had set fire to clothes, or 
 bedding, and there can be no doubt that it is much appreciated by the 
 Train staff. 
 
 XT 3224 
 
 No. 
 
 4626 
 From F. H. TREVITHIOK, ESQ., Locomotive Superintendent, Madras 
 
 Railway. 
 To G. K. WINTER, ESQ., Telegraph Engineer, Arconum. 
 
 Perambore Works, 27th November, 1879. 
 
 In compliance with your request that I should express an opinion 
 upon the working of your electric inter-communication apparatus, I have 
 much pleasure in testifying to the success with which it has been worked 
 during the last 11 months on this Railway. 
 
 The apparatus is now fitted to nearly all the engines on this line ; it 
 has done good service to passengers on the occasions when it has been 
 needed by them, and as far as I know, has not once failed from any de 
 fect in the apparatus. 
 
 The bell on the engine always rings, and so clear and strong in 
 answer to the Guard's touch on the key in his van, that it has often oc 
 curred to me that the use of the apparatus ought to be extended by 
 the adoption of some simple Code, so as to enable the Guards to com 
 municate much more than an order to stop, or a signal that all is right 
 
 272 
 
ELECTRICAL INTER-COMMUNICATION IN TRAINS. 7 
 
 behind. It would be most useful as a starting signal, especially for long 
 goods trains on dark and stormy nights. 
 
 As there is no machinery to get out of order ; as it requires no 
 special couplings between the vehicles, and admits of easy application 
 to foreign stock mixed up in the trains, and as, above all, it has now 
 stood quite successfully the practical test of a year's working, I have no 
 hesitation in asserting it to be the best inter- communication scheme yet 
 brought out. 
 
 Extract from a letter from the Agent and Manager, to the Secretary, 
 Madras Railway Company, No. 1388, dated the \th of October, 1879. 
 
 From the 1st of January last the mail trains have been provided 
 with electrical inter-communication between Guards and Passengers and 
 the Drivers, and since the 1st of February the 7 A.M. and 6-15 A.M. 
 passenger trains have also been similarly provided, the working of which 
 in all cases has been satisfactory. 
 
 G. K. W. 
 
 273 
 
ELECTRICAL INTER-COMMUNICATION IN TRAINS, 
 
 Fio. 1. 
 
 FIG. 2. 
 
 Fm. 3, 
 
 FIG. 4. 
 
 FIG. 6. 
 OPEN CIRCUIT CIRCUIT CLOSED BY PRESSING KEY 
 
 REAR BRAKE VAN PASSENGER CARRIAGE FRONT BRAKE VAN ENGINE 
 
 0= 
 
 0= 
 
 =05= 
 
 iagMca 
 
 =00= 
 
 ot**= 
 
 bOO= 
 
 =0 
 
 KEY NEAREST THE ENGINE TO BE PRESSED 
 
 FIG. 7. 
 CLOSED CIRCUIT CIRCUIT BROKEN BY PRESSING KEY OR BREAK AWAY 
 
 ~\ Switch ^ Tl _ 
 
 =0 
 
 =n 
 
Price. 
 
 99 
 
 39 
 
 Wooden Bridges and Designs. By Kai Kunhya Lai 
 
 Bahadur, . * - . - . --40 
 
 Practical Astronomy for Surveyors (containing con 
 cise directions for determining the True Meridian, Latitude, Time 
 and Longitude), - - - -. ' -08 
 
 Waugh's Instructions for Topographical Survey 
 ing, - . . . ;=> ..... i 4 
 
 Slope Tables,- - - o 4 
 
 Boileau's Tables of Wages and Rent, &c., (4th ed.,) 2 o 
 
 Tables Of Log Sin 2 \ P (for computing time,) - 8 
 
 Cape's Logarithms, with Tables of Squares,Cubes, &c., i 4 
 Geometry, .....--. 18 
 Mechanics, ..-- --24 
 
 Elements of Hindustani Grammar, - - - o 4 
 
 Technical Dialogues English and Urdu, - - i 4 
 A Vocabulary of Common and Technical Words 
 
 in English- Urdu, -...-.-..14 
 
 English and Urdu Words, . . . . . . . o 8 
 Note Books, Blank, Large, - - - ....14 
 Surveying Field Books (ruled), -." - - - . i o 
 
 Levelling Field Books (English Pattern and Canal Pattern), 
 
 each, ----- .--...18 
 
 D. P. W. Note Book, - i 4 
 
 Measurement Book, ----- i 4 
 
 Molesworth's Pocket Book, 38 
 
 College Calendar for 1872-73, . . . -.30 
 1877, . . . -.38 
 
 99 99 99 1878, 4 12 
 
 99 99 ,9 1880, . . 4 12 
 
 Examination Papers, Engineer Class, Entrance, 
 
 Monthly and Final, 10 
 
 Do. do. Upper Subordinate Class, 
 
 Entrance, Monthly and Final, - 1 
 
Price. 
 
 Thomason College Library Catalogue, ... 4 4 
 
 Supplement to dit<io, corrected to 1st April, 1869, - - 1 
 
 Ditto. ditto. 31st August 1871, - - 1 
 
 Description of Venemous Snakes (extract from 
 
 the " Thanatophidia of India "), 10 
 
 Tyndall's Handbook of Specifications, &c., - - 10 o 
 
 Lithographed Plans of the Cantonments and Re 
 gimental Lines in the different Military Stations of India. Drawn 
 to a uniform scale, lately prepared for the Government of India, P. W. 
 Department. (Useful for Executive Engineers and Superintending 
 Engineers' Offices). 
 
 Detailed Catalogues of English and Vernacular Works, may be had, 
 free, on application to the CURATOR, Thomason College Book Depot. 
 
 THOMASON COLLEGE PRESS. 
 
 Orders for Printing Professional and Scientific Publications and Miscel 
 laneous Works, also for Lithography, Bookbinding and Wood Engraving, 
 will be received by the SUPERINTENDENT of the Press, of whom estimates 
 may be had on application. 
 
 COLLEGE LIBRARY. 
 
 Professional Works may be borrowed by Government Engineers on 
 application to the Librarian, and by other Members of the Profession, on 
 proper security being given against loss or damage. 
 
 COLLEGE REGISTER. 
 
 A Register is open at the College for the names of Passed Students 
 and others belonging to the Profession, who may be in want of situations, 
 and persons desirous of engaging their Services should apply to the Under 
 signed. Full particulars should in both cases be furnished. 
 
 A. M. BRANDRETH, MAJOR, R.E., 
 
 Principal. 
 
CONTENTS OF No. 37. 
 
 CCCXXVIII. Inter-oceanic Canal Projects. 
 
 CCCXXIX. James Cleminson's " Flexible Wheel-base" or Radia 
 ting Axles. 
 
 CCCXXX. Clip Calliper for lifting Waste Weir Planking. 
 CCCXXXI. Electrical Inter-Communication in Trains. 
 
 IT THE " PROFESSIONAL PAPERS os INDIAN ENGINEERING," are published as nearly al 
 possible on the loth of January, April, July, and October.