The experience of the Panama Canal Company, has only been a repetition, on a large scale, of that of the Panama Railway projectors. That line was commenced in 1850 and completed in 1855. The distance which it traverses, between Aspinwall and Panama, is 47½ miles, and the cost of construction was 48,600l. per mile, as compared with an average cost of under 12,000l. per mile for the railways of the United States as a whole. The great summit-level was attained at a height of 264 feet above the mean tide of the Atlantic, and the ascent required gradients of 1 in 18. The greatest source of the heavy expense of the Panama Railroad was the labour difficulty, resulting from the influences of the climate. Of this Dr. Otis[187] says:—

“The working force was increased as rapidly as possible, drawing labourers from almost every quarter of the globe. Irishmen were imported from Ireland, coolies from Hindostan, Chinamen from China, English, French, Germans, and Austrians, amounting in all to more than 7,000 men, were thus gathered in, appropriately, as it were, to construct this highway for all nations. It was now anticipated that, with the enormous forces employed, the time required for the completion of the entire work would be in a ratio proportionate to the numerical increase of labourers, all of whom were supposed to be hardy, able-bodied men. But it was soon found that many of these people, from their previous habits and modes of life, were little adapted to the work for which they had been engaged. The Chinamen, 1000 in number, had been brought to the isthmus by the company, and every possible care taken which could conduce to their health and comfort. Their hill-rice, their tea, and opium in sufficient quantities to last several months, had been imported with them; they were carefully housed and attended to; and it was expected that they would prove efficient and valuable men. But they had been engaged upon the work scarcely a fortnight before almost the entire body became affected with a melancholic suicidal tendency, and scores of them ended their unhappy existence by their own hands. Disease broke out among them, and raged so fiercely that in a few weeks scarcely 200 remained. The freshly-imported Irishmen and Frenchmen also suffered severely, and there was found no other resource but to re-ship them as soon as possible, and replenish from the neighbouring provinces and Jamaica, the natives of which, with the exception of the northmen of America, were found best able to resist the influences of the climate.” The proposed Panama Canal locks.—The original plans of the Panama Canal provided for a waterway that should be 28 feet below the mean ocean level throughout its entire length. It has since been found that this design would involve an enormous expenditure and a serious delay, and hence the decision in 1888 to provide a series of four locks on the Pacific, and four locks on the Atlantic side. On the Atlantic side, two of the locks were to have a fall of 8 metres (26 feet 5 inches), and two others a fall of 11 metres each (36 feet 3 inches), while on the Pacific side, three locks were to have a fall of 11 metres each (36 feet 3 inches), and one a fall of 8 metres (26 feet 5 inches). The height of the water level on the Pacific side would, therefore, be 41 metres (135·6 feet), and on the Atlantic side it would be 38 metres (125·7 feet). The width of the lock gates was to be 18 metres (59·5 feet), and the length was 180 metres (595·5 feet). The locks and their gates were to be constructed in iron, and it was estimated that 20,000 tons of cast, and 15,000 tons of wrought, iron would be employed in their construction. The effect of this modification of the original plans would, of course, be to reduce the amount of excavation necessary in the Culebra cut by at least one-third, but it would also obviously alter the entire character of the canal as first projected.

The opinion of some engineers appears to be that the frequent opening and shutting of the sluice-gates, with such a considerable pressure of water, would not be without a certain amount of danger. The pressure would be increased little by little until it had been raised to a breadth of 10 metres, and even as much as 15·40 metres. It is not unusual to find a pressure of this extent at dock gates, but in the largest canals hitherto constructed with locks, the pressure has seldom exceeded three to four metres. In order to meet similar cases, it has been proposed, where there was a constant use of a canal at all hours of the day and night, to employ a very large number of small sluices adapted to the slopes of the canal. This expedient has been put in practice in the case of the eight successive sluices known as Neptune’s Staircase, on the Caledonian Canal, and, on the Canal du Midi in France, in the case of the seven sluices of the staircase of BÉziers. It is, however, held by Le GÉnie Civil that such small sluices, although more easy to open and offering perhaps greater resistance, are, nevertheless, not well adapted to the necessarily rapid and constant working of a canal like that of Panama. This expedient having, therefore, been abandoned, there remained that of movable caissons suspended by the upper part, which is known as the Eiffel system. This system, with its movable gate shut, and the recess into which it fits when open on the right, is illustrated in one of the drawings attached to this chapter, while another drawing shows the lock gate open.

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The proposed modification of the original plans has been so designed as to enable the works of the tide-level canal to be continued without interruption. The lock canal was to be at sea-level from Colon to the fourteenth mile, where the first lock with a lift of 26¼ feet would be placed. The second lock with the same lift was to be placed 23¹/₉ miles from Colon, and the third and fourth locks, with lifts of 36¹/₁₁ feet each, at 27¼ and 28¾ miles respectively, making the summit-level 124? feet above the Atlantic. The canal was to descend to the Pacific by three locks of 36¹/₁₁ feet drop, situated at 35½, 35⁹/₁₀, and 38? miles respectively from Colon, and one lock of 26¼ feet drop at 36¾ miles, thus making up the difference in level of 134½ feet between the summit-level and low-water of spring tides at Panama. It has been suggested that in the event of difficulties occurring in the excavation of the Culebra cutting, the summit-level might be raised to 160¾ feet, by inserting a lock with a lift of 36¹/₁₁ feet on each slope of the Cordilleras, whereby time might be gained by a further reduction in the amount of excavation. The section adopted for the level canal was to be maintained in each reach. The width of the locks was to be 59 feet, and their available length 590 feet. At the Colon entrance, the canal was to have a bottom width of 590 feet for 1·86 mile, and at the Panama end, 164 feet for 3¼ miles; whilst the channel in the Pacific, from the shore at Boca to Naos, was to be 164 feet wide. Allowing a speed of 6¼ miles per hour in the long reaches, and 2¼ miles in the short reaches, and one hour for passing through a lock, a single ship would traverse the canal in seventeen hours twenty-eight minutes, and in a convoy in twenty-eight hours twenty-five minutes. Accordingly, ten vessels, or 25,000 tons, could pass through the canal in twenty-four hours, so that, if necessary, 9,125,000 tons of traffic could be accommodated annually. The water supply required for this traffic was estimated at 1,050,000 cubic yards per day, which could be obtained from the Chagres, the Obispo, and the Rio Grande. With the summit-level at 124? feet above the sea, it could be supplied from the reservoir created by the large dam at Gamboa; but if the summit-level was raised to 160¾ feet above the sea, pumps not exceeding 3600 h.p. would be needed for lifting the supply the additional height. The gates for the locks were designed to be hollow-iron counterbalanced caissons, suspended from a frame with rollers, running on a roadway supported by a swing-bridge across the lock, and continued above the recess at the side, into which the caisson was to retreat for opening the lock.

The watertight compartments at the lower part of the caisson, as well as the bottom portion, arranged to serve as a working-chamber, were to communicate with the outer air by shafts, provided with air-locks, so that water or compressed air could be introduced at pleasure. This arrangement would enable the counterpoise of the caisson to be readily adjusted, the different chambers to be easily reached for repairs, and the working-chamber at the base to be used for cleaning the sill from silt or dÉbris. The caisson gates, in a lock of 36¹/₁₁ feet lift, would be 69 feet high, 71 feet long, 13? feet broad at the tail, and 32¾ feet high, 71 feet long, and 9? feet broad at the head of the lock. The locks, being situated in rock, would have the sides of their chambers formed of the natural rock, with a slight facing of masonry where necessary; but the side walls below the gates were to be iron caissons, 18 feet broad, filled with concrete. The swing-bridges, of iron or steel, were to be 18 feet wide, and 112 feet long, the swing portion being 78 feet; and the recesses for the caissons were to be 98½ feet long; and 23 feet wide at the top. The filling and emptying of the locks were to be effected by two cast-iron pipes, each 9? feet diameter, and it was calculated that the required volume of 52,300 cubic yards of water could be admitted or shut out in fifteen minutes.[188]

Special Features of the Enterprise.—Probably no great engineering or constructive work of either ancient or modern times has been of such a gigantic and difficult character as that of the canalisation of the Isthmus of Panama. It is not that the length of the canal is exceptional; it is, on the contrary, shorter than that of many existing canals, some of which are of very small account indeed—being less than one-half the Suez Canal, less than one-third that of the canal of Languedoc, and less than one-fourteenth that of the Grand Canal of China. It is probable, also, that the building of the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Egypt, and several other works of antiquity that might be named, extended over a much longer period, and involved the employment of a greater number of men. The Royal or Grand Canal of China, which was completed in the year 980, is said to have occupied the labour of thirty thousand men for forty-three years.[189] But none of the great works of previous epochs have been environed with so many difficulties as the Panama Canal. The scheme, on the face of it, does not look so formidable. It is only when we come to look into its details, and compare them with those of other similar undertakings, that we realise its magnitude. And it is only when we, in like manner, compare its engineering features with those of the other great engineering works of the world that we can appreciate the vast energy, enterprise, and resource that has ventured to essay so colossal a task.

The first and the most serious difficulty to be encountered was that of controlling the waters of a torrential stream, almost equal to that of some of the chief rivers of Italy, through which the canal was to run. This stream, which crosses and recrosses the line of the canal twenty-seven times, as shown in the drawing attached hereto, has several different levels, and would, if left to itself, be certain to destroy the canal in a very short time. It had therefore to be dealt with by constructing an enormous embankment raised 45 feet above the waters of the Chagres, so as to allow of their gradual escape. In this dam there are 26 millions of cubic yards of cutting; in the Culebra Col, a channel cut right through a mountain more than 300 feet above sea level, there were estimated to be 37 millions more; and in the entire line of the canal there were calculated to be about 75 to 100 millions of cubic yards of excavation, to accomplish which a serious writer in the Edinburgh Review maintained that it would require the labour of 20,000 men for forty-two years.

Worse than all, however, was the dreadful and deadly climate. Five months of the year are continually wet. There are few fine days in the other seven months. The annual rainfall is twelve to fifteen times that of Europe. The mortality is excessive. The cost of labour is consequently high,[190] but pay what they may, the company could not command the amount of labour it was anxious to employ. For the most part the labour has had to be imported from Europe and the West Indies. The men were brought to Panama at the expense of the Company, but a very large proportion of them left again immediately, for various reasons, so that the company has not been able to keep up the proper quotas of men with which they undertook to provide their contractors, who were left at liberty to throw up their contracts when they ceased to be remunerative. The cost of the undertaking was thus enormously increased beyond the original estimates. The difficulty of procuring ways and means, and the high prices that had to be paid for borrowed money, have also seriously added to the expenditure. Another serious element of cost has been the outlay incurred in providing hospital and other facilities, and the maintenance of the usually very considerable numbers who were stricken with illness, induced by their unhealthy surroundings. These and other difficulties have so seriously weighed upon the undertaking that its accomplishment has been pronounced impossible, and M. de Lesseps and his colleagues have been denounced for following a “will-o’-the-wisp.” They have, however, persevered with their task for about eight years, and have made heroic, and almost superhuman efforts to keep the enterprise on its legs. In this effort they have had to depend absolutely upon their own countrymen, although they have much less maritime interest in the matter than the people of England and the United States of North America. In the latter countries the canal has all along been regarded with disfavour, not to say declared hostility. In the United States especially, M. de Lesseps has been told again and again that he was “beating the wind,” and that nothing but failure could come of his project. For the time being it looks as if his candid friends were right, and M. de Lesseps was wrong.

As might be expected, there have been very conflicting calculations made as to the amount of traffic which an interoceanic canal on the American isthmus would be likely to carry. The Geographical Congress, held at Antwerp in 1871, did not venture to go beyond 4,000,000 tons per annum. When the Canal Company was started, the expected tonnage was raised to about 6,000,000 tons annually. In 1887 M. de Lesseps, in his letter to the French Premier, put the quantity at 7,500,000 tons. A writer in the Revue-Gazette Maritime et Commerciale (Paris) has estimated that if the Panama Canal had been opened in 1884, there would have passed through it the following tonnage:—

	Ships.	Tonnage.
Europe	4,226	4,650,390
Asia	2,255	1,212,178
America	2,987	3,441,598
Totals	9,468	9,304,166

This latter estimate appears to be greatly exaggerated. It is apparently founded on the assumption that the greater part of the Australasian trade would pass that way. But the fact is that the geographical distance to Sydney does not differ by quite 500 knots between any of the four routes that are, or would be, available—that is, the Cape of Good Hope, the Suez Canal, Cape Horn, and Panama, the distances increasing in the order stated. Nautical distance, moreover, as has been properly remarked, “is only one element in determining choice of route; prevailing winds and currents, avoidance of stormy seas or of rock-bound coasts, have all to be studied by the mariner; and the comparatively trifling difference in the length of the course from the Thames to Sydney by four such different routes is enough to show how important it is to have this question of routes illustrated by the experience of the skilled navigator. This consideration is enhanced by the remark that the dues for the passage of the canal would amount to as much as the cost of more than 800 knots of additional voyage.”[191]

A much more reasonable and modest estimate than that of either of the foregoing, is that made in a recent report on the proposed Nicaraguan Canal. This estimate, based ostensibly on the United States Treasury Reports, puts the total tonnage that would have made use of the canal in 1885 at 4,252,000 tons, which is stated to be an increase of 53 per cent. in six years. At the same rate of increase, the tonnage available in 1892, when the canal was expected to be completed, would be 6,506,000 tons.[192] The diagrams attached hereto show the enormous difficulties that have just been referred to in a much more graphic way than any mere description could do. It will be observed from the illustration (p. 298) that the Rio Chagres crosses the course of the canal no fewer than five times in little more than five kilometres, and that the Rio Obispo also steps in to add to the complications of the situation. On the San Pablo section again, within a distance of three kilometres, the river crosses the line of canal three times.

The Chagres river, which is so great an obstacle in the project of the Panama Canal, rises on the western slopes of the Cordilleras, and runs through a broken and irregular country, to the north of the auriferous granite hills which branch off to Cruces and Gorgona. This river and its affluents is said to drain an area of about 1550 square miles.[193] From Matachin, where the Panama canal parts company with the valley of the Chagres, to the sea, there is a total distance of twenty-eight miles, in the course of which the river falls about 35 feet.[194] The rain of a single day is said to raise the waters of the Chagres from 35 to 40 feet, and below Matachin there is a cataract of 50 to 60 feet. It was part of the project to abandon at this point the valley of the Chagres, and to cut through the Cordilleras. The level of the bottom of the canal is here 100 feet below that of the bed of the Chagres, or 140 feet below the mean level of the nearest indicated points on the section of the plans above and below the intersection. In a length of nine miles, at the foot of the ascent of the Cordillera at Matachin, the lowest point is 166 feet, and the highest 333 feet above the bed of the canal. A tunnel of 7720 metres in length was at one time proposed to be cut through this section, but M. de Lesseps stood out for a cutting Á ciel ouvert, and it has been remarked that according to the plans there has been an assumption that the sides of this vast cutting will stand so nearly perpendicular as to slope only one foot horizontal in every ten feet vertical. In a dry climate, with good firm clay or rock, this might not involve difficulty or danger, but the climate of Panama is exposed to a tropical rainfall. A rainfall of six or seven inches in a few hours is not uncommon.

The flood volume of the river Chagres has been estimated at 1600 metric tons of water per second, which is four times the volume of the highest flood ever measured on the Thames, and the rainfall, as a whole, has been known to exceed 120 inches in a single year. Besides all this, it was reported by M. de Lesseps himself,[195] that the borings on the Culebra range, had reached the depth of 100 feet without having met with rock. Some engineers have therefore condemned this part of the plans as faulty, arguing that such a cutting could not be expected to stand at a slope of one to one, even in a much drier climate—which means that the cutting through the Culebra would require to assume greatly larger dimensions, if it were to be of any value.

One of the most serious undertakings connected with the Panama canal was the proposal to retain the flood waters of the Chagres, by means of the enormous embankment already referred to, between the Cerro Gamboa on the south, and the Cerro Barneo on the north, thus raising the level of the waters from 40 to 45 feet above the river, in order to allow of their escape. Other two projects were submitted to meet this difficulty—the first, that of constructing a canal for the flood waters of the Chagres alongside of the navigable canal; and the second, that of tapping the Chagres at Matachin, and diverting its waters to the Pacific. As regards the first of these two alternatives, it was objected that, as large affluents flow into the river below Matachin, three parallel canals of large size would require to be constructed, in order to make the alternative of any real value; the second alternative, it was held, would afford no relief to the floods of the Trinidad, the Gatun, and the smaller affluents of the Chagres below Matachin, while it would be likely to increase the difficulties of construction at the one end as much as it reduced them at the other. Nor is it admitted by some authorities that the Gamboa dam would be likely to answer its purpose. It is contended that many embankments would be required, instead of only one, and that the construction of such an embankment from such a cutting could hardly by any possible effort be completed in twenty-six years, so that it would not be until after that time had elapsed that the canal could be commenced between Chagres and Matachin, with its bed 30 feet under sea level.

The low-water flood of the Chagres river, just below the site of the proposed Gamboa Dam, is 209 feet wide by 7 feet 6 inches deep, the bed being triangular in cross section. In November 1885, a flood occurred here, under the influence of which the river was swollen to a width of 1560 feet, with a maximum depth of 28 feet, so that it was twelve times as wide as the canal and almost as deep at its deepest point. It is stated that the last four feet of the rise took place in four hours, and in thirty-six hours the water had risen about 20 feet. The general consensus of opinion among engineers appears to be that this immense flood has to be provided for in some way. M. de Lesseps originally proposed to meet the difficulty by constructing a dam, or embankment, two-thirds of a mile long, 1300 feet wide at the base, and 164 feet in height. This dam was to be designed so as to retain the floods which descend the Chagres river, storing the water and allowing it to escape gradually. The only alternative was to provide the flood waters with such a rapid means of escape to the ocean that they could not flood the canal.

From considerations of economy, it was recently determined to abandon the lock gates at the port of Panama. It was intended in the original scheme to provide these gates in order to control the rise and fall of the tide at this end of the canal. This movement of the tide varies from 20 to 27 feet, being at least twelve times as much as at the other end of the canal. Obviously, therefore, the canal would be seriously affected by a tidal movement of so considerable a character, and leading engineers have not hesitated to say that without the lock gates at Panama the canal is an impossibility.

American Views of the Enterprise.

“American engineers,” we are told, “have never had but one opinion of the canal. As a general thing they have never believed that it could be built on the lines, within the time, nor for the money specified by M. de Lesseps.” The same writer adds that “M. de Lesseps, having won fame by scooping out some sand hills and connecting some lakes and streams at Suez, thought it was a simple matter to make a canal anywhere. He has persistently refused to see any difficulties, or to squarely look the undertaking in the face, and to estimate the chances for and against its completion, and the collapse of all this will simply be a question of time.”[196]

Another American writer adopts much the same view, in even more emphatic language, when he says[197] that, “of the final cost of M. de Lesseps’s sea-level canal at Panama, if there could be anything about it save utter failure, nothing can be known, except that it will be a fabulous amount.... The great difficulties and expense of excavation are still before them, and the knotty, perhaps impossible, problem of the Chagres river is still unsolved.”

Further light on the difficulties in the way of the enterprise was thrown upon it in a report made by Lieut. Kemball, in 1887, to the United States Government. He found on the Pacific slope, a short distance west of the summit, that the route of the canal was here crossed and recrossed by the Rio Grande, which had been trained in a straight line down the north side of the valley, at a considerable height above the level of the canal.[198] It was found, however, when the rainy season had set in, that in different places the hillside began to slide into the cutting made for the deflection of the river, and that one bank moved almost intact across the cut, with the top surface unbroken, and without any disturbance of the vegetation. The existence of a substratum of a greasy clay bank was the cause of this trouble. Such a foundation is, of course, not to be relied on. It is ready, as has been pointed out, to “swell upwards, or glide sideways, on the slightest provocation, and it may easily develop into a difficulty of the most formidable character, requiring the river to be carried round the back of the hills away from the canal.”[199]

In the summer of 1887, Lieut. Rogers, of the United States Navy, visited the canal works, and made a report on them. He declared that in 1886, 11,727,000 cubic metres of excavation had been done, bringing the total quantity completed up to that date at 30 millions of cubic metres. This had, however, been done in the face of tremendous odds. An American dredger of greater power was steadily engaged on the same spot for weeks, the pressure of the material laid on the bank forcing up the soft spongy bed of the cut so rapidly that the machine could do little more than merely hold its own. The canal bed had here and there been destroyed by floods. Lines and trucks had been buried under two metres of silt. In the Culebra cut, the mountain to the left hand of the cut was found to be moving towards the canal, at the rate of 11 to 12 inches per annum. Seeing that this was the case when not one-third of the excavation had been completed, the query is naturally suggested, What will be the rate of movement when the bed of the canal is 250 feet or more under the level of the surrounding country?

Nor have English writers been slow to condemn the project both from its economic and from its engineering points of view. The following quotation is given as typical of much that has been written elsewhere:—

“We cannot avoid the remark that if the Inter-oceanic Canal be regarded, not as a Bourse speculation, but as an excavation which it is proposed to make by human agency, the question of its actual feasibility has not yet been really entered upon. An excavation which, if the last accounts of the borings be correct, would contain at least twenty times the bulk of the great pyramid; an embankment holding more than a third of the contents of that excavation, and requiring twenty-six years for its execution at the wholly unprecedented rate (from one end) of a million cubic yards in a year; a canal displacing for its execution a torrential river of four times the volume of the Thames in its heaviest flood, and with its bed at a depth of thirty feet below sea level—all this to be done while as yet the preliminary observations of rainfall, river discharge, and cross section of country have to be made—the proposal of such an enterprise seems rather worthy to adorn the name of Alexandre Dumas, or of the author of the tales of the Arabian Nights, than that of any person familiar with the practical execution of engineering work.”[200]

With reference to the actual state of affairs at the Panama Canal in 1887, Mr. Froude has written in the following unmeasured terms[201]:—

“If half the reports which reached me are correct, in all the world there is not perhaps now concentrated in any single spot so much swindling and villainy, so much foul disease, such a hideous dungheap of moral and physical abomination, as in the scene of this far-famed undertaking of nineteenth century engineering. By the scheme, as it was first propounded, £26,000,000 of English money were to unite the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to form a highway for the commerce of the globe, and enrich with untold wealth the happy owners of original shares. The thrifty French peasantry were tempted by the golden bait, and poured their savings into M. de Lesseps’ lottery box. Almost all that money, I was told, has been already spent, and only a fifth of the work is done. Meanwhile, the human vultures have gathered to the spoil. Speculators, adventurers, card sharpers, hell keepers, and doubtful ladies have carried their charms to this delightful market. The scene of operations is a damp tropical jungle, intensely hot, swarming with mosquitoes, snakes, alligators, scorpions, and centipedes; the home, even as nature made it, of yellow fever, typhus, and dysentery, and now made immeasurably more deadly by the multitudes of people who crowd thither. Half buried in mud lie about the wrecks of costly machinery, consuming by rust, sent out under lavish orders, and found unfit for the work for which they were intended. Unburied altogether lie skeletons of the human machines which have broken down there, picked clean by the vultures. Everything which imagination can conceive that is ghastly and loathsome seems to be gathered into that locality just now. I was pressed to go on and look at the moral surroundings of ‘the greatest undertaking of our age,’ but my curiosity was less strong than my disgust.”

The time has not yet come when the true history of the Panama Canal Scheme can be written. It may have been an ill-judged project, or it may not. It has, however, had enormous difficulties to contend with. Those difficulties began with the climate, continued with the administration and finances, and concluded with the open hostility of very many individuals and interests that were never very friendly to its success. The enterprise was essentially French, alike in its conception, initiation, engineering, and finances. The phenomenal success that attended the Suez Canal probably led the majority of the unfortunate people who put money into the Panama Canal to suppose that it was to be another Egyptian Canal “writ large;” but there has also been a strong feeling of esprit de corps, which we cannot fail to admire, however disastrously it may have turned out for themselves, which the French have put into this matter. The truth is that the French people have come to regard themselves as a royal race in canal construction. The Languedoc Canal, which they constructed in the reign of Louis XIV. cost 14,000,000 livres, and marked a new epoch in the history of canal construction.[202] Of the Suez Canal, the leading features of which are so well known, it is unnecessary to say more than that its success has not only been phenomenal, but has been achieved in the face of the most discouraging attitude on the part of the engineers of other countries, including England. At the time that the Panama Canal was being promoted, M. de Lesseps was able to point his countrymen to the fact that the shares in the Suez Canal, which had been issued at 500 francs, had risen to a value of 2200 francs, while the debentures issued at 300 francs were worth 565. The impressionable French people did not stay to recollect that the two enterprises were totally different in character, in cost, in accessibility, in practicability, and in prospects. And it is only fair to recollect that the original estimate of the cost of the canal has been largely exceeded by circumstances that were hardly capable of being foreseen. The repeated attacks made by inimical interests, led to the company having to borrow on higher terms, as well as to the suspension of work on the isthmus for nearly a year. A much larger amount and higher rate of interest has had to be paid to share and debenture holders than was ever expected. The Company have also had to contend with a want of navvies, and with labour disturbance, that told unfavourably on their interests.

The Report of the Special Commission appointed in 1889 to inquire into the affairs of the Panama Canal was published in May, 1890, and describes in detail the position of the undertaking. It is estimated that some 30 millions will be required to complete it, so that its ultimate construction does not appear at present very probable.

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One of the most important and costly of isthmian canal projects that now looms on the horizon is that which is designed to afford a communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans vi the Lake of Nicaragua. This is a purely American project. It is put forward by American citizens, it has been drawn up by American engineers, and it is in favour with the American people. After the Nicaraguan Canal project had been before the world in one shape or another for many years, and after many different routes had been proposed and considered, the plans for a canal have now been definitively adopted, and the work of construction has, it is stated, actually begun. It has not yet been announced whether the capital required has been subscribed, but the United States, which approves the scheme, and has raised from first to last some 9000 millions of dollars for railway enterprise, is perhaps hardly likely to allow the canal to drop for want of the 20 millions sterling required to complete it.

None of the many schemes for a canal across the American isthmus has obtained more extensive support, both in America and in Europe, than that vi the Lake of Nicaragua. It had the very earnest support of the Emperor Napoleon between 1845 and 1848. In 1846, the Emperor, then Prince Louis Napoleon, wrote a pamphlet on the subject,[203] in the course of which he pronounced against the Panama route, and he once declared, as regards the rival Nicaraguan scheme that, “from the embouchure of the river San Juan to the Pacific Ocean the canal would run in a straight line about 278 miles, enhancing the prosperity on either bank of more than a thousand miles of territory. The effect that would be produced by the annual passage through this fine country of two or three thousand ships, exchanging foreign produce with that of Central America, and spreading everywhere activity and wealth, would be almost miraculous.”[204]

The expense of the Nicaraguan Canal was estimated by Napoleon at only four millions sterling; but it is obvious, from the Prince’s own statements, that such a passage as he contemplated would only have afforded draught of water for vessels of 300 tons. Napoleon’s object was, however, quite as much to promote emigration, trade, and civilisation in the State of Nicaragua, as to open a communication between the two oceans.[205]

The river San Juan de Nicaragua directly connects the Atlantic with the south end of the lake of the above name, from the northern end of which but a few miles intervene to the Pacific. Various surveys have been made of the river, with a view to the construction of a canal. In 1837-8 Lieutenant Baily[206] was employed by the Central American Government to explore the route. He found that the surface of the lake of Nicaragua is 121 feet 9 inches above low water in the Atlantic. The river San Juan, in its course of 79 miles from the lake, varies in depth from 9 feet to 20 feet, and its course is broken by various rapids, some of which are of considerable length. The summit-level of the mountain chain which divides the valley of the lake from the Pacific is 487 feet above the lake, and a tunnel of nearly 16 miles long would have to be pierced through this wall in order to reach the port of San Juan del Sur on the Pacific. The total length of navigation, through river, lake, and canal, according to Mr. Baily’s plans, would be 190 miles.

The port of San Juan del Sur is narrow at the entrance, but widens within the harbour. It is surrounded by high land, except from W.S.W. to W. by S. The depth of water at the entrance is 3 fathoms, and the width 1100 yards. Ships could thence go up for a mile and a half, but the amount of excavation required for a canal 30 feet deep and 50 feet wide was estimated at not less than 162 million cubic yards, which has been stated to be more than that required for the construction of 2000 miles of English railway—a figure quite conclusive against this scheme.

In 1852 the route was surveyed by Colonel Childs,[207] who proposed to descend from the lake by fourteen locks to Brito, on the Pacific, where, however, there was no harbour. The length of this route was given as 194 miles.

To avoid the difficulty of cutting through the ridge, it has been proposed to continue the navigation from the extreme north of the Lake of Nicaragua, by the Estero de Panaloya and the river Tipitapa to the Lake Leon, or Managua, and thence to the port of Realejo, on the Pacific, or, yet more to the north, to the Estero Real, an arm of the Gulf of Fonseca. But it has been pointed out that the length of the navigation would thus be increased by a hundred miles, and it is doubtful whether Lake Leon could furnish the water necessary for lockage, in both directions, which it would have to supply.

The Nicaragua route, therefore, whatever may be its advantages, if any, over that of Panama, is liable to the objections of great length, large works, numerous locks, and the no less formidable danger, to use the words of Humboldt, that “there is no part of the globe so full of volcanoes as this part of America, from the 11th to the 13th degrees of latitude.”[208]

The distance from ocean to ocean by the route that has recently received the approval of the United States Government, and is now in course of apparent realisation, is 169·8 miles. Of actual canal there will be 40·3 miles, the remaining 129·5 miles being free navigation through Lake Nicaragua, the Rio San Juan, and the valley of the Rio San Francisco.

Beginning on the Pacific side, the canal starts from the port of Brito, situated about 12 miles north-west of San Juan del Sur, the Pacific terminus of the famous gold-fever transit route, where there is a broad channel, 342 feet wide at high water, reaching inland about 1½ miles to the tidal lock. This lock lifts the canal 24·2 feet above high tide of the Pacific.

From this lock, which is really the beginning of the canal—the portion between the lock and Brito being in reality an extension of the harbour—the canal ascends the broad gently-sloping lower valley of the Rio Grande, which is to be diverted into the lake by an artificial channel, rising by means of three or more locks of from 26 feet to 29 feet lift, till, at a point 8¾ miles from Brito, it reaches the western end of the summit level, 110 feet above mean tide; thence it proceeds through the upper valley of the Rio Grande and across a moderately rolling country to the summit or “divide,” between the Pacific and the lake, 41·4 feet above the level of the water in the canal; then through the valley of the Guscoyol, a tributary of the Lajas, and along the bed of the diverted Lajas to the lake, a total distance of 8½ miles from the last lock and 17·27 miles from Brito.

Between the lake and Brito one small stream is taken into the canal by a receiving weir. The river Tola and several small streams coming from the north are to be passed under the canal, and along its lower portion there will be ditches to intercept the surface drainage, which is inconsiderable, and convey it to the sea.

The material to be excavated in this division is sand, gravel, clay, and in the “divide” cut rock, which will be utilised in the construction of the breakwater at Brito, in pitching the canal slopes, and in concrete for the locks, culverts, weirs, and the dam across the Rio Grande. The location of the canal in this division is the same as that proposed by the engineer Menocal on his return from Nicaragua in 1880. The prism, however, has been increased, the number of locks reduced, and their location changed. The enlargement of the terminal section is also a new feature.

The canal enters Lake Nicaragua, an inland sea, 40 miles wide, and over 90 miles long, which forms its summit level, and with the Chontales Mountains on the left, the route is continued to Fort San Carlos at the outlet of the lake into the Rio San Juan. Throughout this distance of 56½ miles, 28 feet of water can be carried to within 2400 feet of the mouth of the Lajas on the west shore of the lake, and within eight miles of Fort San Carlos on the south-eastern shore. In the former distance some dredging and rock excavation under water will be necessary, and in the latter, dredging in soft mud to an average depth of 3½ feet. From Fort San Carlos the route proceeds 64 miles down the San Juan river, which, with the exception of the 28 miles from the lake to Toro Rapids, has a depth varying from 28 feet to 130 feet, to the dam thrown across the river at Ochoa just below the mouth of the Rio San Carlos. Throughout this stretch of river, the only work to be done is dredging in mud and gravel, and some rock excavation under water to an average depth of four feet along a distance of 24 miles, below Fort San Carlos, and light excavation above water on some points in the lower river in order to flatten the bends.

The dam just mentioned is located between two steep, rocky hills, at a point where the river is 1133 feet wide between the banks, with an average depth of 6·6 feet. Its length on the crest will be 1255 feet, its height 52 feet, the depth of foundations 20 feet below present water level, and it is to be constructed entirely of concrete, with timber-lined crest, front, and apron, and rip-rap protected back, forming a monolith wedged between rock abutments. This dam will back the water of the river the entire distance to Fort Carlos and into the lake, maintaining the water of the latter at the proposed level of 110 feet, and will convert the upper San Juan into an extension of the lake, with a fall of ¾ inch per mile.

The valley referred to, flooded by the back water from the dam, affords an excellent basin at the entrance of the canal, free from the influence of the river current, and the latter forms a natural, ready-made canal, 3300´ long, needing only slight excavation on the points of two or three spurs for rectifying the channel. From the head of this valley, a canal 1·82 miles long extends across a broken country of moderate elevation, intersecting one deep narrow ravine, debouching towards the San Juan, across which a short embankment will be necessary, and enters the valley of the river San Francisco. This river San Francisco flows east, north-east, and east, approximately parallel to the San Juan, and separated from it by a range of hills to a point about nine miles (in straight line) from the dam, then, receiving a considerable tributary (the Cano de los Chanchos) from the north-east, turns abruptly to the south-east and south, and enters the San Juan. Its valley thus forms an irregular flattened Y, with its foot or stem resting on the San Juan, one arm extending westerly to within a short distance of the dam, and the other easterly in the direction of Greytown.

Across the stem of this Y, just below the junction of the two arms, will be built an embankment 6500 feet long on the crest, and having a maximum height of 51 feet. This embankment will retain the water of the San Francisco and its tributaries, flooding the whole upper valley (the arms of the Y) to a depth of from 30 to 50 feet, and forming a large lake at the same level as the river above the dam—in other words, a continuation of the summit level.

Proceeding from the end of the short canal already described, the main canal passes down the westerly arm of this broad, deep, crescent-shaped basin, past the embankment, then up the easterly arm to the western foot of the divide between the San Francisco and the San Juanillo, 12·55 miles from the dam, and within 19·48 miles of Greytown. Here the eastern division of the canal is entered, beginning at the Saltos de Elvira, whence it proceeds nearly due east, through the broad, flat upper valley of the Arroyo de las Cascadas, cutting a spur here and there to the “divide,” less than one mile from the Saltos, and 280 feet above the sea. Then curving gradually to the south-east, across the little plain at the summit, it cuts a steep, narrow spur, enters the valley of the Deseado, a stream flowing into the San Juanillo, follows its bed a short distance, then crosses to the left bank, and reaches the site of the upper lock of the eastern flight, 14,200 feet from the Saltos. The average cut for this distance is 149 feet.

At this lock, excavated in the rock foundations of a spur of the northern hills, the summit level, reaching back through the San Francisco basin, up the San Juan, and across the lake to the first lock on the west side, a distance of 144·8 miles, ends, and the canal, lowered 53 feet by the lock, passes by easy curves down the widening valley of the Deseado to the next lock, less than a mile beyond. Here another drop of 27 feet occurs, and then the canal follows the still widening and gradually descending valley in a north-easterly direction for less than three miles to the third and last lock at the mouth of the valley. This lock lowers the canal to the sea level, and from here it takes a direct course across the flat low basin of the San Juanillo and the Lagoon region, to the harbour of San Juan del Norte, or Greytown, about 11½ miles distant.

The surface drainage to be provided for in this division is not extensive, and it is especially small on the western slope of the “divide,” where three short artificial channels will divert it all into the San Francisco Lake at some distance from the canal. Across the “divide,” and as far as the first intersection of the canal and the Deseado, the natural drainage is away from the canal. From this point to the San Juanillo the canal will be protected on both sides by drains formed partly by the present bed of the Deseado, and partly by artificial channels. The remainder of the canal, through the lowland from the San Juanillo to Greytown, will be protected by embankments formed by the material deposited by the dredgers, an artificial channel being cut on the south to divert the San Juanillo, and another on the north to give Laguna Bernard and its tributaries an independent outlet to the sea. From the last lock to Greytown the canal is enlarged, as at Brito, on the west side, forming an extension of the harbour 11½ miles inland. The material to be excavated in this division is sand, gravel, and alluvial soil (all dredgable material) for a distance of 12 to 15 miles from Greytown, then clay, gravel, and rock in the deeper cuts, and finally, in the “divide,” cut rock, which will be utilised as on the west side, in the construction of the embankment, in the breakwater at Greytown, in pitching the canal slopes, and in concrete for the dam and locks.

About 27 miles of the actual canal will be ordinary excavation, and it is proposed that the remaining 13 miles will be largely, if not entirely, excavated by dredgers. In the western division, the excavation of the portion of the canal between the last lock and the Pacific by dredgers will solve the problem of the drainage of the work for that division, as on the remaining excavation, being above sea-level, the question of drainage will be perfectly simple.

In the eastern division, as in the western, the portion of the canal between Greytown harbour and the first lock, a distance of 11½ miles, will be dredged.

The “divide” cut from the basin of the San Francisco to the upper lock, 14,200 feet in length, and with an average depth of 149 feet, is admitted to be a serious work; but with the neighbouring streams offering water at a high head for removing the surface earth by hydraulic mining, with a large plant of power drills worked by compressed air from the same source, and the use of modern explosives to loosen the rock, with a large proportion of the excavated rock to be used in the construction of the locks and the dam, and in pitching the slopes of the canal, a still larger quantity utilised in the construction of the harbour at Greytown, and convenient dumping-grounds for the remainder, the engineers claim that the work can be accomplished.

The following description of the proposed locks is taken from the report of Mr. Menocal, one of the engineers:—

“The locks proposed have a uniform length of 650 feet between the gates, and at least a width of 65 feet between the gate abutments. Locks Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 have lifts of 26, 27, 26·4, 29·7, and 29·7 feet respectively. No. 3 has a lift of 53 feet, and No. 7, being a combination tide and lift lock, its lift will vary between 24·2 and 33·18 feet, depending on the state of the tide. It is believed that Nos. 1 and 7 will rest on firm, heavy soil, but timber and concrete foundations have been provided for in the estimates. Nos. 2 and 4 are estimated to rest on solid rock, and as for Nos. 5 and 6, the borings taken in 1873 show that stiff clay, compact sand and gravel will be met with. No. 3 is proposed to be cut out of the solid rock in the eastern slope of the ‘divide,’ by which the maximum strength will be secured with the least expense, concrete will be used only to the extent required to fill cavities, to give the proper dimensions to the various parts, and to give a surface to the blasted rock. The other locks it is proposed to build of concrete, and all of them, No. 3 included, will have a heavy timber lining in the chambers and bays, extending from the top of the walls to 15 feet below the low-water level.

“Cribs on firm bottom, or fender piles, when piles can be driven, have been provided at the approaches to the locks for the protection and better guidance of ships into the locks. Provision has also been made for making ships fast to the lock walls, so that the lines will, by means of floats, rise or fall with the ship, thus preserving the same tension on the lines while the vessel is kept in the axis of the lock. Each lock will be filled or emptied by conduits extending from the upper to the lower reach of the canal, and branch culverts connecting the main conduit with the lock chamber. The only operation required for either filling or emptying the lock will be, irrespective of the movements of the lock gate, the opening and closing of the upper and lower main culvert-gates. The time required to fill or empty lock No. 3, of 53 feet lift, will be fifteen minutes, and for the other locks an average of eleven minutes. The question of the best style of gates for these locks has been a subject of much consideration. It is desirable to combine strength, economy in construction, rapid and simple movements, facilities for repairs or for renewing the gates, and the least danger of accident by vessels entering or leaving the locks. The necessary machinery for moving the locks and culvert-gates, for hauling ships in and out of the locks, for electric lights, and other purposes, will be worked by hydraulic power furnished by the locks themselves.”

The chamber width of the locks will be 80 feet, so that these structures will contain almost any merchant vessel afloat.

In the plans proposed for the canal, not only have enlarged prisms been provided for, but large basins are proposed at the extremities of the locks. These basins, the enlargement of the canal at each end, with the lake, the river and the San Francisco basin, will permit vessels to pass each other without delay at almost every point on the route. Mr. Menocal states that—

In 22·37 miles, or 57 per cent. of the canal in excavation, the prism is large enough for vessels in transit to pass each other, and of a sectional area in excess of the maximum area in the Suez Canal; the remaining distance in which large vessels cannot conveniently pass each other is so divided that the longest is only 3·67 miles in length; with two exceptions, those short reaches of narrow canal are situated between the locks, and can be traversed by any vessel in less time than is estimated for the passage of a lock; consequently, unless a double system of locks be constructed, nothing will be gained by an enlargement of the prisms. The exceptions referred to are the rock-cuts through the eastern and western ‘divides,’ 2·58 and 3·67 miles, respectively, in length. The possible detention in the transit, due to those narrow cuts, which should not in any case exceed 45 minutes, would not justify the necessary increase of expense involved in an enlargement of the cross-section proposed. Both the bottom width and the depth of the proposed canal are larger than those of the Suez Canal.

In the lake and in the largest portion of the San Juan River vessels can travel almost as fast as at sea. In some sections of the river, and possibly in the basin of the San Francisco, although the channel is at all points deep and of considerable width, the speed may be somewhat checked by reason of the curves.

Estimated time of through-transit by steamer.

	Hrs.	Mins.
38·98 miles of canal, at 5 miles an hour	7	48
8·51 miles in the San Francisco basin, at 7 miles an hour	1	14
64·54 miles in the San Juan River, at 8 miles an hour	8	4
56·50 miles in the lake, at 10 miles an hour	5	39
Time allowed for passing 7 locks, at 45 minutes each	5	15
Allow for detention in narrow cuts, &c.	2	0
Total time	30	0

The experience of the Suez Canal shows that the actual time of transit is more likely to fall under than to exceed the above estimate.[209]

The traffic of the canal is limited by the time required to pass a lock, and on the basis of 45 minutes (above estimated), and allowing but one vessel to each lockage, the number of vessels that can pass the canal in one day will be 32, or in one year 11,680,[210] which, at the average net tonnage of vessels passing the Suez Canal, will give an annual traffic of 20,440,000 tons. This is on the basis that the navigation will not be stopped during the night.

With abundant water power at the several locks and the dam, there is no reason why the whole canal should not be sufficiently illuminated by electric lights; and with beacons and range lights in the river and lake, vessels can travel at all times with perfect safety. The estimated cost of the canal is 64 millions of dollars, or 13,000,000l. including electric lighting, &c., and it is calculated that the work can be completed in six years.

ESTIMATES OF COST MADE IN 1888.

TABLE OF PRICES.	Per cubic yard.
	dols.
Excavation in earth	0·40
Excavation in rock	1·50
Excavation in rock (submarine)	5·00
Dredging	0·20 and 0·40
Concrete	6·00 and 9·00
Stone pitching	2·00
Stone in breakwaters	1·50
Puddle	0·75
Timber	0·50
Western Division:—	dols.
Excavation and embankment	8,496,292
Diversion of Rio Grande and Rio Lajas	1,870,447
Other auxiliary work, including R. R.	753,329
Locks (four)	4,762,480
Harbour of Brito	1,611,500
Total	$17,484,048
Middle Division:—	dols.
Lake Nicaragua	379,520
River San Juan	3,074,791
Valley of R. San Francisco	1,112,413
Dam across R. San Juan	1,858,975
Embankment across R. San Francisco	1,331,262
Embankment near Ochoa	45,578
Railroad	240,000
Total	$8,042,539
Eastern Division:—	dols.
The “Divide”	11,982,938
From the “Divide” to Greytown	8,077,294
Locks (three)	3,561,515
Railroad	320,000
Harbour of Greytown	1,766,625
Total	$25,708,372
RECAPITULATION.	dols.
Western Division	17,484,048
Middle Division	8,042,539
Eastern Division	25,708,372
Total	$51,234,239
Surveys, hospitals, shops, &c.;
management and contingencies,
25 per cent.	12,808,740
Grand total	$64,043,699

The Canal Company has received from the Nicaraguan Government a concession which allows a period of 2½ years from 1887, within which to begin operations, a grant of 1,000,000 acres of land, and immunity from taxation and import duties for 99 years. The Canal Company estimate that by 1894, shipping to the amount of 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 of tons would avail itself of this route. The leading commercial bodies of New York, New Orleans, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Indianapolis, and San Francisco, have expressed themselves favourable to the project, which has also been supported by the Legislatures of California and Oregon.

The great majority of the people of the United States are only interested in the construction of a canal across the American isthmus, in so far as it will tend to make them independent of the Pacific railway companies, which have of late years shown a disposition to work together and pool their traffic at the expense of the traders. There is, perhaps, very little to complain of in this respect, so far as the average range of American railway rates is concerned. But the Americans are ’cute enough to know that if they could play off the steamship against the railway, the ultimate result, though it might be disastrous to both transportation agencies, would be favourable to the trader so long as the competition lasted. The actual present sea distance from New York to San Francisco, with an isthmian canal opened, would be shortened by 8000 miles. The distance, therefore, would not be materially greater by canal than by railway. The ship, however, all other things being equal, will always carry more cheaply than the locomotive.[211] Whether the difference would be very material when the canal company’s tolls have been paid remains to be seen.

It is probable, that with the opening of the canal, a great stimulus would be given to the coasting trade of the United States, and especially between the two ports of New York and San Francisco, to the probable detriment, at least for a time, of the trans-continental railways. The very large trade that is now being cultivated between the United States and Central America, the republics of Peru, Chili, and Ecuador, and something like one-half of Mexico, would be equally benefited by the new means of communication. With all this to depend upon, the promoters of the canal are probably not over-sanguine in expecting that its financial results would be fairly satisfactory. The experience of the Suez Canal at least encourages that hope, although it is to be remarked that the cost of the Nicaraguan canal, will probably, when completed, have been more than that of the Suez waterway.

The local advantages of the Nicaragua route for a ship canal are generally recognised in the United States. A recent writer[212] on the subject states that—

“The range of what in other parts of Northern and Central America are mountains, and at Panama has proved one of the obstacles that have wrecked the French Company, on the Nicaragua line, dwindles to its lowest elevation, as if inviting a junction between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The western shore of Lake Nicaragua is but fifteen miles from the Pacific, and the ‘divide,’ which north and south at this point assumes mountainous proportions, is less than 50 feet above the level of the lake, and about 150 feet above the mean level of the Pacific Ocean. Although so close to the Pacific slope, and with so slight a barrier holding back its waters, the great lake of Nicaragua drains through the river San Juan to the East into the Caribbean Sea. The lake itself is deep and unobstructed, and that portion of the river San Juan needed for navigation purposes requires but little work to adapt it for the heaviest draught vessels. The Lake of Nicaragua is undoubtedly the key to the situation, forming the summit level, and supplying the immense amount of water required to operate a lock canal on the large scale projected.”

The route from Greytown, on the Atlantic, to Brito, on the Pacific, a distance of 170·099 miles, has been divided thus:—

	Free navigation.	Canal in excavation.
East side	..	16·048
West side	..	11·160
Six locks	..	0·759
Deseado basin	4·220	..
San Francisco and Machado basins	11·368	..
Tola basin	5·504	..
River San Juan	64·540	..
Lake Nicaragua	56·500	..
Total miles	142·132	27·907

The minimum radius of curvature is 2500, and the principal dimensions of the canal in excavation are as follows: rock, width, bottom, 80 feet; top, 80 feet; depth, 30 feet; earth—width, bottom, 120 feet, top, 180 feet; depth, 46 feet; sand and loose material—width, bottom, 120 feet; top, 360 feet; depth, 30 feet.

The most important parts of the work are the construction of the harbours—Greytown on the Caribbean Sea, and Brito on the Pacific; the damming of the San Juan river, for the purpose of raising and maintaining the level of Lake Nicaragua and the river at about 110 feet above mean tide level; the formation of artificial basins at different levels by means of dams, and the use of locks to pass from one level to another.

The harbour of Greytown is now closed by a sand bar, and nothing of greater draught than six feet can enter, but it is said that in three months or less from the commencement of the work vessels drawing 15 feet of water will be able to land materials. It is proposed to make this opening through the sand bar by means of a temporary jetty of brush and pile, to furnish protection to a dredger cutting through the bar. This jetty will also give the necessary protection for the maintenance of the passage by diverting the shore current which has deposited the sand.

The branch mouth of the river San Juan, which at present empties into the harbour, and is constantly, with every heavy rain, adding to the accumulation of silt in it, will be cut off, and, by a short canal, diverted so as to empty by the principal mouth of the San Juan some miles to the south.

The heaviest piece of work on the canal is a rock cut through the “divide” on the eastern portion of the summit level, commencing about four miles to the west of lock No. 3. This cut is about 2·9 miles long and the average depth is about 150 feet, involving a removal of about 2,150,000 cubic yards of earth, and 7,500,000 cubic yards of rock.

Lake Nicaragua has a watershed of 8000 miles. The only outlet of the lake is the San Juan river, which discharges, at its lowest stage, near the close of the dry season, 11,390 cubic feet of water per second. For thirty-two double lockages, it is estimated that 129½ million cubic feet of water will be required, being little more than one-eighth of the total supply of the lake alone. It is claimed that as this supply is from the summit, a dry summit level is almost impossible, while importance is attached to the fact that the canal will be a fresh-water one.

The principal distances to be saved by the Nicaraguan Canal, as compared with the only existing alternative route by Cape Horn, are said by the Company to be:—

	By Cape Horn.	By Nicaraguan Canal.	Distance Saved.
	miles.	miles.	miles.
New York to—
San Francisco	14,840	4,760	10,080
Hong Kong	18,180	11,038	4,163
Yokohama	17,679	9,363	6,827
Melbourne	13,502	10,000	3,290
Sandwich Islands	14,230	6,388	7,842
Liverpool to—
San Francisco	14,690	7,508	7,182
Guayaquil	11,321	5,890	5,431
Callao	10,539	6,461	4,078
Valparaiso	9,600	7,448	2,152

The promoters of the Nicaraguan Canal appear to have got fairly to work. A considerable quantity of machinery, as well as a number of surveyors and engineers, have been forwarded to the scene of operations, and the latest reports are favourable to the prospect of the enterprise being carried out. It will necessarily, however, involve several years of close work before it is available, even under the most favourable circumstances, for the commerce of the world.

---

Whether we regard the magnitude of the enterprise, the importance of the district it is intended to serve, the difficulties and opposition that have had to be surmounted, or the many and varied influences that it is likely to exercise upon the future of transport in the United Kingdom, the Manchester Ship Canal is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable undertakings of modern times.

It is not that the canal is unique in point of the expenditure involved, or in so far as the engineering problems to be dealt with are concerned. The Suez Canal is at once a much more costly and a much more extensive work, its actual cost having been about 20,000,000l. sterling, as against less than half that sum for the Manchester enterprise; and its length having been about 100 miles, as against 35. The Panama Canal, again, although approximately about the same length as the ship canal between Manchester and the sea, has cost, up to the present time, about 60,000,000l. sterling, including the expenditure on financing. The Nicaraguan Canal, again, which is now about to be undertaken in real earnest, is estimated to cost from 13,000,000l. to 20,000,000l., and will involve the cutting of some 28 miles of canal, in addition to the almost equally serious work of canalising the St. Juan River. But these are all works of a different character, and having a different object in view. The Suez, Panama, Nicaraguan, and Corinth Canals are isthmian waterways, intended, or constructed with the view of connecting together seas or oceans that Nature had divorced, and thereby carried out with the primary, if not with the sole, object of abridging distance. The Welland and the St. Mary’s Falls Canals, in Canada and the United States, are of much the same character, their object being that of uniting waters that were originally kept apart by natural barriers. But the Manchester Ship Canal has but few antetypes. The canals already in existence that most nearly correspond to it in character are the Erie Canal, which connects Buffalo with New York, and thereby secures an unbroken line of water communication between Chicago and New York, a distance of over 1000 miles; and the Poutiloff Canal, 38 miles in length, which connects Cronstadt with St. Petersburg, and has converted the latter city into a seaport. The design of the Manchester Ship Canal is to transform that large centre of population and industry from a landlocked city into a seaport, and to confer the same facilities on a number of other towns in the neighbourhood.

There is no district and probably no community that appears to offer better facilities for making the experiment of providing a great inland waterway of this description. Manchester and Liverpool, with their immediate suburbs contain at least a million and a half of souls. But the trade and industry of the two towns are even more important than their population, relatively to other districts. The cotton trade of the world is carried on in this part of Lancashire. Manchester and Liverpool together have obtained and maintained a great repute as the centre of large industrial operations of almost every kind: engineering works, shipbuilding works, alkali works, tobacco factories, chemical and copper works, and many others. Liverpool has to-day a larger export shipping trade than any other port in the world, and is only eclipsed by the Thames in the matter of imports. But this great business of imports and exports is not originated in Liverpool herself. She is only the distributing centre for a very large and a very populous district, and a centre moreover that did not appear to offer to that district the economical facilities and advantages to which it was entitled. The port and harbour dues at Liverpool were heavy and onerous, and the rates charged by the railway companies for the transportation of traffic between the Mersey and the interior of the country were deemed to be much higher than they should have been, having regard to the importance of the traffic.

The proposal to construct a canal is by no means a new one. Manchester, as every one knows, has for more than a century and a quarter been the foremost in all plans and operations designed to secure economy and facility of transport. Many years ago it was proposed to convert the Irwell into a navigable river, and this, of course, would have connected Manchester with the Mersey and so with the sea. But the Irwell—a tortuous, narrow, and in many respects unsatisfactory stream—did not readily lend itself to a grand proposal of this kind, and the little that was done to make it a maritime highway was never attended with any real advantage to trade and commerce. The Bridgwater Canal was a larger and more ambitious venture. It also connected Manchester with the sea by the Mersey, as well as with many inland towns by auxiliary canals—Bolton, by the Manchester, Bolton, and Bury Canal; Rochdale, by the Rochdale Canal; Blackburn and Accrington, by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal; Ashton and Huddersfield, by the Manchester and Huddersfield Canal; and so with some other large towns. The truth is that Manchester is, and has been for more than a century, the centre of a vast network of canals, whereby water communication was made possible with nearly every other important town and district in the country. But this possibility was one that could only be taken advantage of to a very limited extent. The canals surrounding Manchester have been of small size and depth, admitting of the passage of small boats and barges only, so that they could not be utilised for sea-going craft. For most practical purposes, such waterways were therefore of little use. What was felt to be necessary was a canal sufficiently broad and deep to admit of the passage of large ocean-going steamers right up to the warehouses and mills of Manchester and the neighbouring towns. This necessity was all the more keenly felt, and all the more readily acted upon, that the railway rates between Manchester and Liverpool were generally onerous and oppressive.

It was under the circumstances just stated that a meeting was held at the house of Mr. Daniel Adamson, in June 1882, to discuss the question of constructing a canal from Manchester to the sea.

The outcome of this meeting was the appointment of Mr. Hamilton Fulton and Mr. E. Leader Williams as engineers, with instructions to investigate the subject, and to submit separate schemes to a provisional committee showing the best means of carrying out such a work. Mr. Fulton’s scheme was to improve the existing navigation through the estuary of the Mersey by dredging and retaining walls, and to excavate, straighten, and improve the Mersey and Irwell Navigation to Manchester, leaving, when completed, a tidal canal to Manchester, with a depth of 22 feet at low water spring tides. Passing places were to be left every 3 or 4 miles, and the traffic was to be worked as on the Suez Canal. Docks were to be constructed, and all necessary works. The gross estimate, including water and land, was 5,072,291l.

Mr. Williams’s proposal was to construct a canal 22 feet deep and 100 feet wide, with three locks. The channel through the estuary was to be confined between training walls from Garston to Runcorn, and from there the channel was to be improved and straightened to Latchford (first lock), and be practically a tideway. Between Latchford and Manchester it was to be a canal with locks, the existing navigation to be improved and utilised where practicable, otherwise to be filled up; while docks were to be made at Latchford, Irlam, and Barton. The water-level in the docks at Manchester were to be 8 feet below the level of the quays. The estimate of cost, including works, water, and land, was about 5,160,000l.

Mr. Williams argued that were the tide to be brought to Manchester, the bottom of the dock would be 92 feet below the surface of the ground, and therefore most inconvenient for working. The docks and canal ending abruptly, would, moreover, form a depositing place for silt brought up by the tide, and the tide flowing up or down would materially affect the passage of vessels proceeding the reverse way.

Mr. Abernethy, who had, in the meantime, been appointed consulting engineer, considered both of these proposals, and reported favourably on Mr. Williams’s scheme, practically endorsing his views, but suggesting an additional dock at Warrington, and some deeper dredging, and estimating the cost of the work at 5,400,000l., or 240,000l. more than Mr. Williams had provided for. Mr. Abernethy also expressed the opinion that if the work was carried out with energy, it could be completed within four years from the commencement. Upon the basis of the report of Mr. Williams, endorsed by Mr. Abernethy, the committee decided in the end to proceed with the scheme.

The promoters had to secure the power to acquire “all the easements, rights, powers, authorities, and privileges of the company of the proprietors of the Mersey and Irwell Navigation,” as the ship canal, if constructed, would clash with and extinguish these. The Bridgwater Navigation Company were possessed of the foregoing rights, and were a wealthy corporation, owning a going and paying concern, with a capital of over 1,300,000l. Notice had to be served that power would be sought to absorb this company also. Then, again, the powers sought by the ship canal were certain to clash materially with the dock and other interests in Liverpool, as well as with the several lines of railway at present dominating the carrying trade of Manchester. The property owners along the route, and many other interests, joined together to oppose the new enterprise.

After the most arduous and prolonged struggle in the annals of private bill legislation, the Manchester Ship Canal Bill became law, and received the Royal Assent as an Act of Parliament on the 6th August, 1885.

The inquiries of the six Parliamentary Select Committees appointed to investigate into the merits of the project extended over a period of 175 days. The total number of individual witnesses (including both promoters and opponents) was 285, and the number of repeated witnesses (including those on both sides) was 543. As illustrating the exhaustive character of these inquiries, it may be mentioned that no less than 87,936 questions were put and answered.

The Right Honourable W. E. Forster, Chairman of the Commons Select Committee, which was the last to deal with the Bill, in announcing that their decision was favourable, said, “The conclusion we have come to is unanimous,” the Committee considering the preamble proved, subject to certain obligations being imposed upon the promoters, but none of an onerous character.

The House of Commons Select Committee, before which the first inquiry was made, acting entirely upon its own initiative, inserted the following clause in the Bill, a proceeding said to be without precedent:—“And whereas it appeared from the evidence adduced that if the scheme could be carried out with due regard to existing interests, the Manchester Ship Canal would afford valuable facilities, and ought to be sanctioned.”

It is worthy of remark that though two Select Committees declined to take the responsibility of passing the Bill absolutely in the form in which it was presented to them, all the six Committees were satisfied as regards the necessity of the undertaking.

The Manchester Ship Canal Company is incorporated by 48 and 49 Vict. cap. 118, for the following amongst other purposes:—

To construct a ship canal from the river Mersey at Eastham, near Liverpool, past Ellesmere Port, Weston Point, and Runcorn, to Warrington, Salford, and Manchester, available for the largest class of ocean steamers, with docks at Manchester, Salford, and Warrington, and other incidental works.

To purchase the entire undertakings of the then existing Bridgwater Navigation Company (Limited), including not only the Bridgwater canals and the Runcorn and Weston canal, but the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, the Runcorn docks, the Duke’s dock in Liverpool, and all that company’s warehouses, wharves, buildings, lands, rents, rights, and privileges, as a going concern.

A further Bill, authorising the payment by the Manchester Ship Canal Company of interest at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum to shareholders during the construction of the works, became law and received the Royal Assent as an Act of Parliament on 26th June, 1886.

During the progress of this Bill, on a division in the House of Commons on a motion by a Liverpool member for reference to Committee and locus for opponents, the motion was negatived by 375 votes as against 61 votes.

The authorised share capital of the Manchester Ship Canal Company is 8,000,000l., with borrowing powers to the extent of 1,812,000l., making the total authorised capital 9,812,000l., a sum sufficient to enable the company to complete the construction of the works, to pay interest during their construction, and to carry into effect all the objects of the Act and leave an ample surplus.

The Act provides that the Bridgwater Navigation Company shall sell the whole of the Bridgwater undertakings for the sum of 1,710,000l.

These undertakings earn a net revenue of nearly 60,000l. per annum.

Under the auspices of the Manchester Ship Canal Company, a considerable development of the traffic on the Bridgwater canal system is expected to result from the abolition of the bar tolls, which obstruct traffic, and from throwing open the canal to general carriers.

Description of the Canal Works.

A brief description of the canal works may here be introduced. The engineering journals, from which we have mainly borrowed our facts, have dealt with them so fully as to render a detailed statement quite unnecessary.

The Manchester Ship Canal begins at Eastham, on the south bank of the Estuary of the Mersey, and about midway between its mouth and head near Runcorn. The canal follows this bank for 13½ miles, the greater portion being in entirely solid ground, but, sometimes going below high-water mark, it is confined by embankments and retaining walls until reaching Runcorn, where it leaves the waters of the Mersey, and takes an independent and almost direct course to its terminus in the docks at Salford and Manchester.

The total length of the canal is slightly over 35½ miles. This is practically one continuous cutting, but it has been subdivided into thirty lengths or sections, each with a local name and number; these vary in cubical contents from 223,000 cubic yards in the smallest, to 3,345,000 cubic yards in the largest. The total quantity of earthwork to be moved is 44,428,535 cubic yards, composed of 6,970,815 cubic yards of rock, and 37,457,720 cubic yards of soft materials. Of the rock, 1,591,570 cubic yards will be utilised for lock and river wall work, abutments of railway bridges, facing slopes of the canal in soft ground, and other operations, the remainder going to spoil. Of the soft excavations 3,603,690 cubic yards are to be used in forming the embankments of the canal, 5,176,278 cubic yards for forming embankments on railway diversions, 1,555,000 cubic yards in filling up what will be the disused bed of the Irwell and other water-courses; 552,000 cubic yards in raising quays and making roads; 800,000 cubic yards are to be stacked along the canal banks for future use in maintenance; and the remainder, amounting to 31,149,997 cubic yards, will go to spoil.

The carrying of the Bridgwater Navigation across the Manchester Canal at the distance of 32 miles, will be one of the most interesting works in the contract, because an entirely new departure will be undertaken in the aqueduct. It was on this navigation that Brindley made his famous viaduct, the precursor of the more splendid structures of Rennie and Telford.

As the level of the Bridgwater Navigation has to be maintained, and as the saving of water is a consideration, Mr. Williams proposes to make the aqueduct in the form of a swing bridge, which may be opened, swung, and closed again without losing any water either from the swinging portion or from the canal. Here also, parallel to the aqueduct, will be constructed a hydraulic lift, to lower barges and boats from the waters of the navigation, to the canal, where they will cross on its level to a similar lift, there to be raised to their former waters and level. A similar lift has been at work for some years with satisfactory results at Anderton on the Weaver Navigation, of which Mr. Leader Williams was formerly the engineer.

Throughout the entire length of the canal, hard red sandstone forms the bedrock, and the formation, of course, varies according to the nature of the stratification. For instance, at 1½ miles distance, where the canal works are inside high-water mark, all layers of deposit have been washed away, and only from 2 feet to 4 feet of black sludge overlies the rock. Occasionally the rock dips and leaves the bottom of the canal in the softer deposits, in some places beds of what has been termed black river sludges, but which are, in all probability, peaty deposits, are sandwiched in, and underlie deposits of from 15 feet to 16 feet of clean river sand. At 5½ miles between Stanlow Point and Ince Lighthouse, large beds of blue loam are met with, varying in depth to 25 feet; and at 6 miles black sludge comes in again, about 20 feet in thickness. At 6½ miles there is a peculiar erosion of the underlying sandstone, apparently from some creek having cut across the line of canal. At 8 miles the section overlies a bed of gravel, and at 9 miles the bottom of the canal runs into a large deposit of sand. From about 10 to 10½ miles the strata becomes very soft, being sludge, sand, and gravel mixed. At 11 miles 45 chains the bottom of the canal is again very soft ground, the sandstone suddenly dipping and not appearing again until about 12 miles.

At 13 miles 70 chains the first of the deep cuttings begin, the bottom of the canal being 67 feet below the surface of the ground, and the strata is much less complex than along the estuary. It is near to this place that the canal leaves the waters of the Mersey, and takes an independent and almost direct course to its terminus.

From 15 miles, 50 chains to 16 miles there is again a very considerable alteration in the strata, the rock dipping sharply, and softer deposits coming in. At 15 miles 68 chains, where a bore was put down, no rock was encountered to a depth of 88 feet. Following along from 16 miles, where the bedrock rises, a fairly even contour of its surface is maintained, together with overlying strata of soil, sand, and gravel, to near 18 miles 20 chains, where the London and North-Western main line, and the Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire Junction railways are crossed.

From this point the surface rises gradually to 19 miles, opposite the Warrington Dock entrance, where the cutting is 50 feet deep. Near Warrington the existing river bed will be shortened by a cut-off and diverted from the course of the canal. At 21 miles 20 chains Latchford Lock is reached; the section through it is very similar to that in the preceding 5 miles. At 21 miles 70 chains the bedrock again disappears, giving place to a deep bed of quicksand and marl. The Mersey is twice crossed between 22 miles 10 chains and 22 miles 35 chains. There is another cut-off and diversion of the river near 22 miles 50 chains, where the bottom becomes soft brown sandy clay, and sludge, being in a bed 24 feet thick, which reaches 18 inches or 20 inches below the bottom of the canal; this runs into gravel and clay at 23 miles 10 chains, which again dies into a large bed of quicksand from about 23 miles 25 chains to 75 chains. At 24 miles 2 chains the rock is again struck by a bore at a depth of 12 feet below the bottom of the canal. The Mersey is again twice crossed at 23 miles 40 chains, and 70 chains, and the river is to be diverted through the existing channel, called the “Butchersfield Cut.” At 24 miles 20 chains the Mersey joins with the Bollin; from there the canal will become practically the river to Manchester, and the old river bed will be filled up. A sand and gravel formation continues to about 25 miles, where a bed of marl is reached, overlaid by hard and soft shale, but from the point where this runs out, about 25 miles 40 chains to Manchester, the canal follows more or less the bed of the river, wherein a much more complicated strata is met with than along the line of route which is away from the influence of the river, at between 14 and 25½ miles. Loam and streaks of sand, overlying hard red sand are met with from 25 miles 60 chains, to 26 miles 20 chains, where gravel and red rock come in, to 25 miles 15 chains, between which points the bottom of the canal by a strange coincidence follows almost parallel with the upper surface of the bedrock. At 27 miles 15 chains the rock dips and is not met with again for nearly half a mile. The Irlam locks are at 28 miles 50 chains; just at the entrance, rock again crops up and forms the bottom of the canal. At 29 miles a wedge-shaped layer of brown clay comes in which runs about half a mile, reaching a depth of 20 feet at the Manchester end; this suddenly ends in a deep bed of loam which it partially overlies—evidently it is a deposit from the river which flows above—then loam, sand, and gravel make the strata to about 29½ miles, when rock again appears, and runs almost to the surface at 29 miles 68 chains. At 30 miles 30 chains the rock runs out again from the bottom, and a heavy bed of loam, 36 feet deep, covers it, the cutting at this point being entirely in loam. A little further on, the rock bottom again rises, and from there sand and rock are chiefly met with to 31 miles 10 chains, where the rock dies out again, and blue loam comes in, forming a deep bed overlying sand, sludge, gravel and marl; near the Barton Locks this runs into heavy beds of loam near 33½ miles. At 34 miles soil, clay, and rock are the formations met with, each in nearly equal beds of 10 feet deep, until about 34 miles 50 chains, when much sand shows; at 34 miles 55 chains the bedrock dips, and sand over clay and loam form the strata to the terminal dock entrances at Throstle Nest. This completes the course of the canal proper.

The canal is to be constructed with a minimum width of 120 feet on the bottom. From Barton to the terminus, a distance of 3½ miles, the width on the bottom is to be increased to 170 feet; on the Salford side of this increased width of waterway, one mile of wharfage is to be built, giving a total length of 4½ miles of quay or wharfage frontage at the Manchester end, and leaving 2½ miles of frontage available for mooring lighters or vessels along this portion of the canal.

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The sections of the canal are compared with those of other large ship canals in the diagrams at pp. 340-41.

The total rise from the level of the mean tide at Eastham to the Docks at Manchester is nearly 60 feet. This is overcome by the average rise of 15 feet at each of the locks. The water level in the Manchester Docks is to be the same as the present river level at this point.

The depth of the canal throughout is to be 26 feet, but the sills of the docks are to be put in at a depth of 28 feet, so as to allow for a deepening throughout should the traffic demand it.

As compared with existing large canals, the Manchester Ship Canal will be capable of carrying much the greatest traffic. The widths on the bottom, and the depths are: Ghent Canal 55 feet 6 inches, depth 21 feet 2 inches; Suez Canal, 72 feet, depth 26 feet; and Amsterdam Canal, 88 feet 7 inches, depth 23 feet. On the Suez Canal it has been necessary to provide passing places, otherwise the traffic could only be worked in one direction at a time, but on the Manchester Canal there will be ample room for two large size vessels to pass at any point

The estimates for the canal works include large docks in Manchester, Salford, and Warrington, as sanctioned by the Company’s Act, with a water area of 114½ acres, containing more than five miles of quays, the area of quay space being 152 acres. There will also be a mile of quay space near Manchester on the Ship Canal, in addition to wharves at many places alongside its course. The docks will be of the most approved construction, and special provision will be made to secure the rapid loading and discharging of vessels. Extensive shed accommodation will be provided at the docks, and the cost of some fifty hydraulic cranes is included in the estimates.

The level of the docks at Manchester, which is 60 feet 6 inches above the ordinary level of the tidal portion of the canal, will be reached by four sets of locks. The locks will be of a size sufficient to admit the largest merchant steamers afloat. Each set comprises (a) a large lock, 550 feet by 60 feet; (b) a smaller lock 300 feet by 40 feet for ordinary vessels; and (c) one lock 100 feet by 20 feet, for small coasters and barges. All will be capable of being worked together.

Each set of locks will be worked by hydraulic power, enabling vessels to be passed in 15 minutes. It has been ascertained by careful gaugings that the rivers Irwell and Mersey (which will be diverted into the upper reaches of the canal) will supply more than sufficient water for the locks, even in the driest season.

There will be tidal gates at the entrance to the canal, which will be worked as locks at low water, so that large vessels can enter and leave at almost any state of the tide, instead of only during a period of 40 minutes of each tide as at Liverpool. Small vessels will be able to enter and leave at any time.

It is claimed that vessels will be able to navigate the canal with safety at a speed of five miles an hour, and it is estimated that the journey from the entrance at Eastham to Manchester will be accomplished in eight hours, which is less time than is now taken to cart goods from ship to rail in Liverpool, and to carry them thence by rail to Manchester.

One of the most interesting operations to be carried out in connection with the canal works, will be the removal and rebuilding of the aqueduct which Brindley constructed for the Bridgwater Navigation in 1765. The aqueduct and the neighbouring viaduct (shown in the old print at p. 344) pass over the Mersey and Irwell Navigation at such a height as to allow the passage through the archways of small vessels. To accommodate the larger vessels that will pass up the Ship Canal, the archways of the aqueduct and viaduct would have to be more than double the height. This was the engineering difficulty which the Ship Canal promoters had first of all to encounter and by many it was regarded as insuperable. The suggestion was made that the Ship Canal should end at a point below the aqueduct. Mr. E. Leader Williams, the engineer of the company has, however, proposed to construct a short diversion of the Bridgwater Canal immediately over the line at which it would cross the Ship Canal. The length of the Bridgwater over the Ship Canal will then be formed in the manner of a long movable iron caisson or trough, somewhat deeper in the centre than at the two ends, supported by and turning (when required) upon a circle of live rollers. This caisson is to be filled with water to a depth equal to that of the canal itself, and is to be fitted at either end with watertight gates, which are also to be fixed at either end of the approaches from the canal.

Upon the completion of this work, the central portion of Brindley’s aqueduct will be removed, the ends being allowed to remain. The manner of working the new aqueduct will be as follows:—The operator in charge of the machinery will, on descrying an approaching steamship, cause the four watertight gates at the ends of the caisson and of the approaches to be closed, and will then, by means of hydraulic machinery, cause the caisson to revolve for a quarter of a circle upon the live roller which will support it, thus leaving a perfectly clear passage for the vessel. Through this passage, up- or down-going vessels will be able readily to steam, and when clear of the aqueduct the process will be reversed—that is to say, the attendant will cause the caisson to turn back into its original position, and will have his watertight gates opened once more, when the line of the Bridgwater traffic will be clear again, after a very brief interval, and without any loss of the water in the canal.

At the ends of the existing line of the canal (after the removal of Brindley’s old aqueduct) it is proposed to construct hydraulic lifts as already stated, by means of which it will be competent to lower barges with full cargoes (the barges remaining afloat throughout the whole operation) from the Bridgwater to the Ship Canal, or, vice versÂ, to raise them from the Ship Canal to the Bridgwater, thus making Barton a point of interchange of traffic between the high and the low level navigation.

The works on the Manchester Ship Canal were commenced in 1886, and are to be completed, under contract, in 1892. The estimate of the promoters is that the canal will have a traffic of 3,000,000 tons per annum, from which a net annual income of 709,000l. may be expected. This estimate, however, did not include any coastwise traffic, nor such goods as coal, salt, and iron, and took no account of the future expansion of trade. Another estimate, submitted to Parliament, which included these items, calculated on a revenue of over 9½ millions of tons, and a net revenue of over a million and a half sterling.

Whatever the financial results of this great undertaking may be, its future can hardly fail to be well assured, and Lancashire has reason to be satisfied with the energy, capacity, and public spirit that have placed such a valuable means of communication at the disposal of its principal industrial centres.

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One of the many schemes that have been put forward from time to time, with a view to affording a more direct communication between the Ægean and the Black Sea, appears likely to become an accomplished fact by the cutting of the Isthmus of Corinth, which at the point where the ship canal has been undertaken, is about 3¾ miles in breadth. The scheme now being carried out, is understood to have originated with General Tarr, who obtained a concession from the Greek Government for the purpose. The required capital was estimated at some 30,000,000 francs, and this sum was readily subscribed. The undertaking does not present any very considerable engineering difficulties, although it has involved a considerable amount of excavation, the earthwork requiring to be removed being estimated at 10,000,000 cubic metres.

The Isthmus of Corinth obliges vessels passing from the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas to the Archipelago and the Black Sea to make a considerable bend to the south. The idea of piercing the isthmus originated several centuries before the Christian era, and the works were actually commenced before the reign of Nero. The route across the isthmus will shorten the distance between the PirÆus and Marseilles 11 per cent.; Genoa, 12·2 per cent.; Venice and Trieste, 18·4 per cent.; and Brindisi, 32·4 per cent. The probable traffic through the canal has been estimated at over 4,500,000 tons. The works were commenced in 1882, following the straight course indicated by the traces of Nero’s canal. The canal will have a depth of 26¼ feet, and a bottom width of 72 feet, like the original section of the Suez Canal; but, as the Corinth Canal has a total length of only about four miles, the transit of vessels through it will be effected without the aid of passing places. The principal mass of the excavation is concentrated within the central 2½ miles, and the greatest depth of cutting is 285 feet. Alluvial soil is mostly found for about two-thirds of a mile from each end; but the central portion consists of close chalk underlying hard calcareous conglomerate and compact sand, necessitating blasting and the use of the pick. Depths of 33 feet are reached within 550 yards of the coast, both in the Bay of Corinth and the Gulf of Egina, and the dredging required at the entrances of the canal is not large. The west entrance, at Poseidonia, is protected by two converging jetties, forming a roadstead; and the east entrance, at Isthunia, is sheltered by a single curved jetty on the northern side. These three jetties, formed with natural blocks, are nearly completed. The canal will be open throughout, as the variations in the level of the sea are very slight; and the only large work of construction is the metal bridge of 262 feet span, which crosses the canal at a height of 170 feet above the water level, and will carry the PirÆus and Peloponesus Railway and the road to Corinth over the canal.

It is not a little remarkable that both the Greeks and the Romans proposed to make a canal across the Isthmus of Corinth, in order to obtain a navigable passage by the Ionian Sea into the Archipelago. Demetrius Poliorcetes, Julius CÆsar, Nero, and Caligula renewed the attempt, but without success.[213] Before their time, the Cnidians had made the same endeavour, which called forth the famous reply of the Pythia—a reply that may be translated thus—

The Isthmus of Corinth Canal has been cut through the tongue of land which is situated between the gulfs of Athens and Lepantus and unites the classic mainland with the shores of the Morea. By its geographical position, this isthmus, as we have seen, bars the union between the Adriatic and the Archipelago, and obliges all vessels passing from the one sea to the other to round Cape Matapan. Its existence materially lengthens the voyages of all ships bound from the western parts of Europe to the Levant, Syria, Asia Minor, and Smyrna. The last-mentioned port is the emporium to which the numerous caravans from the interior of Asia, from Persia, and the Caucasian regions have long transported the rich products of oriental countries still more distant. In a similar manner it lengthens the route from Europe to the Black Sea, which is a matter of serious importance, as from the ports on the latter are shipped the enormous quantities of wheat and other cereals which supply a considerable portion of Western Europe. The junction of the waters of the Adriatic with those of the Archipelago is expected to effect a saving in time of two days in the voyage from the harbours of Brindisi, Ancona, and Trieste, to the Levant. It will also greatly facilitate the establishment of local traffic, and probably lead to the adoption of a regular system of steam communication, of which Greece is much in want. At present, the coast is not particularly well furnished with harbours, but those that do exist are said to be easily capable of extension, and there is some inducement to construct new ones, as the adjoining bays are deep, and afford a secure anchorage for vessels of heavy tonnage.

The extreme points of the Isthmus of Corinth are Heapolis and Kalamakis, and supposing them, like Suez and Port Said, to represent the respective mouths of the canal, its length would not exceed three miles at most—an insignificant cutting, so far as the actual lineal dimensions are concerned. It was anticipated, and experience has now demonstrated, that the nature of the material through which the Suez Canal is excavated will constitute the principal and possibly the sole difficulty to be contended with in future. As it is, the reduction of the present batter of the side slopes is imperative. If not performed by excavation, the operation will proceed spontaneously by the gradual sliding of the sand into the water, whence it will be removed by the dredgers, which, under any circumstances, will have a busy time of it for some years to come. Fortunately this difficulty does not exist in the canal in the Morea. The earth is of a tenacious character, which will offer a better resistance to the disintegrating action of the water agitated by the passage of ships, and the motion of screws and paddles, and thus reduce the cost of maintenance and repair. It was estimated that this important work could be carried out at the moderate cost of half a million sterling. Without taking into account the number of contingent steam and sailing ships which would avail themselves of the passage vi the Corinth Canal, a regular traffic of the boats of the Messageries ImpÉriales, of the Company of Marseilles, of those of the Austrian Lloyd’s, and of those belonging to the Italian service was looked for. With the canal completed, Kalamakis, which at present is but a village, was expected to speedily become a maritime town of importance, and numerous cities, long since abandoned, and, as it were, buried, were to be disinterred, restored to life, and ultimately to become commercial centres, from which the mineral wealth with which the country abounds may be exported.

On the 19th February, 1870, the concession for the construction of the Isthmus of Corinth Canal was given to M. Maxime Chollet, on the understanding that the works should be commenced within eighteen months, and completed within six years. The Hellenic Government granted to the concessionnaires all the land required for the canal, and 12,350 acres on each side, as well as the privilege of working the mines, quarries, and forests of the State, within a distance of 19 miles of the canal.[214] It was not, however, until 12 years afterwards that the work was actually proceeded with, so that the terms of the original concession were not carried out.

The canal was not formally commenced until the 23rd of April, 1882, the first mine being fired by Her Majesty Queen Olga, in the presence of His Majesty King George, the Diplomatic Corps, and the principal Greek Government officials.

According to the plans ultimately adopted, the entrances to the channel will be 100 metres in breadth, diminishing to 22 metres, and the depth will be 8 metres.

The nature of the ground through which this channel has to be cut is composed, according to the report of the engineers of the company, of three distinct kinds:—

Firstly.—From the Gulf of Corinth, through a plain, consisting of sand and alluvial soil, for the distance of 1¼ kiloms.

Secondly.—Through a mountain range, varying in height from 40 to 80 metres, of the length of 4½ kiloms.

Thirdly.—Beyond the mountain range to the sea, in the Bay of Kalamaki, the canal will traverse a little plain of the length of 600 metres, composed of alluvial soil and rocks.

The excavation of those parts of the canal situated in the plains presented no difficulties, but this was not the case as regards the mountainous part, where a mass of 8,000,000 metres of solid rock has had to be excavated and transported to a distance, which labour, according to the contract, had to be done within the comparatively short period of three years. The following plan of executing the works was decided on by the engineers of the company, M. Gerster and M. Kauser:—[215]

As regards the system of excavating the rock, M. Gerster’s plan was to sink vertical shafts to the level of the canal, by means of machines constructed for the purpose, for which cartridges of dynamite were to be employed at distances of 2 to 3 metres from each other, which were to be exploded simultaneously.

The execution of this enterprise was confided to the SociÉtÉ des Ponts et Travaux en Fer (ancienne maison Joret et Cie), in conjunction with L’Association des Constructeurs. These two companies engaged to undertake the cutting of the canal for the sum of 24,600,000 fr., under forfeit if it is not completed within the prescribed time.

The annexed general and sectional diagrams (p. 351) explain the method by which it was proposed to carry out the execution of the enterprise.

The Isthmus of Corinth Canal Company was compelled, in consequence of unforeseen delays in their works, to obtain in 1887 an extension of three years for their completion. The canal was to have been opened in 1888. The geological strata to be passed through in excavation does not appear to have been accurately ascertained, and as a consequence of having to work to some extent upon rock, instead of in sand or gravel, the progress made was less than had been anticipated. For this reason also it has been found necessary to raise additional capital to the amount of double the original capital; that is to say, by an issue of 60,000 additional shares of 500 francs each, bearing 6 per cent. interest. In order that the canal may become a remunerative undertaking, it is calculated that 3½ million francs of net revenue must be realised annually. Whether the canal will ever realise this financial result is doubtful, but, if it is ever completed, it will be of undoubted advantage to commerce in saving 100 to 250 miles in the passage from the Ægean to the Black Sea, and in avoiding the dangers of the coast of Southern Greece.

Meanwhile, the canal works, for which the capital was chiefly found in France, have been abandoned, pending the acquisition of additional funds. There are those who hold that it is little likely that the canal will ever be consummated, and the unfortunate issue of the works on the Panama Canal appears to justify the view that the French nation, who are almost alone concerned, will hesitate before they put their hands very deeply into their pockets in order to carry to completion an undertaking which is by no means certain to be a financial success.

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The river Thames is in many respects one of the most remarkable in the world. No other river has so large a commerce, no other river can boast such a display of shipping, no other river is the highway for such a large population, no other river has such a romantic and interesting history. The Thames is, however, eclipsed by many other waterways as regards natural advantages for maritime commerce. It has an extremely tortuous, irregular, and dangerous channel; it is subject to great fluctuations of tides; it is liable to be silted up with the deposits of sand and sewage from its lower reaches; and it is inadequately provided with artificial light to enable the mariner to find his way up the stream after nightfall. These disadvantages have again and again been the subject of serious accidents to life and limb, heavy losses to shipping and marine insurance companies, complaints and proposals on the part of the shipping interest, and representations to the Trinity House, the Board of Trade, and other constituted authorities. Only quite recently, the Chamber of Shipping sent a deputation to the Board of Trade, in order to urge that the Duke of Edinburgh channel should be better lighted, and it was then stated that the shifty and temporary character of the channel made the lighting of the Thames difficult at this point. For this reason, and owing to the influence of the tides, steamers have generally to cast anchor off Gravesend, if they reach the Thames after darkness has set in. This is so unpleasant an alternative for passenger steamers that they frequently brave the dangers of the river—much more serious, as a rule, than the dangers of the ocean—and run the risk of grounding or collision, in order that they may reach their destined berth or dock. Those who have had the misfortune to be on board a vessel under such circumstances must have felt devoutly thankful that they ever reached their destination without accident, and must have registered a vow that they would never repeat the experiment. Within the last few years, search lights have been shown from some of the docks, which, although intended to assist the navigator to his intended haven, have been found to produce the opposite effect, inasmuch that they cast into deeper shadow a great part of the intermediate channel. These dangers and difficulties are increasing, as it is natural they should do, when no adequate provision is made to overcome them.

The importance of this matter can only be fairly appreciated by giving an idea of the magnitude of the trade that is now carried on between the Thames and other ports. The largest amount of tonnage that entered and cleared from the Thames in any recent year was as under:—

	Entered.	Cleared.	Total.
Foreign	6,591,225	4,127,045	10,718,270
Coastwise	5,025,724	1,756,565	6,782,189
Totals	11,616,949	5,883,610	17,500,559

This represents nearly one-fifth of the total shipping trade of England in the same year, and an average of about 48,000 tons of shipping per day. The total value of our imports from, and exports to, foreign countries and British possessions has in some recent years amounted, for the port of London alone, to upwards of 200 millions sterling. The value of our coastwise trade is not recorded, but it will probably be sixty or seventy millions more, which would bring up the total annual value of the shipping trade of the Thames to close on 300 millions. The extent to which this trade has increased within the last twenty-five years has been quite phenomenal. In 1860 the total entrances and clearances of the port of London amounted to only 9,506,000 tons, so that the trade has nearly doubled within twenty-seven years. The tonnage entered and cleared over the last few years represents an average of over four tons per head of the population of the metropolis—taking the latter at, say, 4 millions over the four years ending 1887.

For a considerable period, the population of London has been increasing at the rate of about half a million in each decade. If the same rate of increase is continued, the shipping entering and clearing from the port of London in twenty years should amount to five millions additional, which would bring the annual total up to about 22½ millions of tons. Will the river Thames be equal to carrying on this enormous traffic without serious inconvenience and danger? This is at least doubtful, and that being so, the duty is cast upon us of considering what steps should be taken, in order to meet the requirements of a possible congestion of traffic, and to minimise the dangers of river navigation. This is all the more important and urgent that the tendency now is to provide much larger vessels than formerly, both for the foreign and the coasting trades. A few years ago, the average size of the vessels that entered the port of London did not exceed 300 tons. In 1860, the average was not over 210 tons. But in 1886, the average was not less than 620 tons. In about twenty-five years, therefore, the average size of the vessels using the Thames has been increased by about 200 per cent. There is little doubt that this movement will continue. It has been established as the result of the experience gained in the navigation of ships of large size that, all other things being equal, the larger vessels are the more economical. The average size of the ships now entering the port of Liverpool has risen to over 1000 tons, where a few years ago it was not over one-half of that tonnage. Probably the average size of the ships frequenting the Thames would be materially increased if larger vessels could be admitted with safety at all states of the tide. But the condition of the tide, except at high water, does not admit of ships of very large size coming far up the river. There have been cases of the tide ebbing so low that it has been possible to walk across at London Bridge. This occurred in 1114, 1158, and 1717. Since the removal of Old London Bridge, there has been a much greater scour, and the systematic dredging of the river has permitted of a moderately good depth of water from the bridge downwards in ordinary times. But the depth is not uniform, it is liable to fluctuation, and it would be difficult to adapt the river for the entrance of vessels of the largest size at any state of the tide. The consequence has been that Liverpool has been leaving London somewhat behind in the competition that has for many years been carried on between the two towns. In 1825 the aggregate foreign tonnage of Liverpool was only one-half to five-eighths that of London. In 1850 the two ports were nearly abreast, and in 1870 Liverpool exceeded London. From that date the two ports have been running a nearly equal race, London having had the start for some two or three years past. But when the enormous distributive facilities of London are considered, it seems remarkable, and almost unnatural, that Liverpool, with only about one-sixth the population, should be in the running at all, and it is extremely probable that London would have a much greater start if the Thames navigation were only made equal to the requirements of the trade.

The question of how far it would be expedient to construct a ship canal that would relieve the congested traffic of the river, and permit of vessels entering the docks at all times, has been mooted, but has never been very seriously entertained. It is not, however, improbable that this may, after all, be the true solution of the problem. Ship canals are now the order of the day. They are being either projected, as we have already seen, or constructed for the purpose of aiding navigation to an extent that is quite remarkable, not in this country only, but in most continental countries as well. A ship canal has been proposed to connect Birmingham with the river Trent; another to connect Bristol with the English Channel; a third to connect Sheffield and Goole; and a fourth to connect the Thames and New Haven. The Manchester Maritime Canal will soon be an accomplished fact. On the Continent canals are actually under construction across the Isthmus of Corinth, to connect the Adriatic with the Archipelago; and in Schleswig-Holstein, to connect the North Sea and the Baltic, not to speak of the great enterprises of Panama and Nicaragua, designed to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific. In Russia, a canal has recently been constructed between Cronstadt and St. Petersburg, whereby the latter city has been converted into a seaport, and a canal is now being talked of to connect the Volga and the Don. In the United States ship canals are being promoted to connect Lakes Michigan and Erie, and the Gulf of Mexico with the Atlantic Ocean, through the Florida Peninsula. In India, it is proposed to connect the Gulf of Manaar with the Palk Straits, by a maritime canal, and in other countries the same movement has been apparent. In most of these cases the object has been to save distance and time. In others it has been to facilitate navigation generally. Both ends would be served by a canal to connect London with the English Channel. It is more than a hundred years since a similar project was recommended by Brindley to the Corporation of London, who employed the great engineer to make a survey of the Thames above Battersea, with the object of having it improved for purposes of navigation. Brindley’s recommendation was not adopted, although he declared that a canal would cost less than the improvement of the river, that it would give the command of cheaper transport, and that it would reduce distance and economise time.[216] Probably Brindley’s scheme would have been adopted long before now, but for the construction of the Grand Junction Canal.

It is likely to be objected to the suggested Thames canal that the necessity for it has recently been obviated by the construction of the docks at Tilbury, opposite to Gravesend, and within a few miles of the estuary of the river. The Tilbury Docks have no doubt been a great relief to the congested condition of the traffic, and they are entitled to every consideration. But they do not by any means meet the case, any more than the port of Cronstadt met the requirements of St. Petersburg previous to the construction of the Poutiloff Canal, or the docks at Havre or Rouen now meet the requirements of Paris, which it has been proposed to convert into a seaport. The Tilbury Docks are about 20 miles from the centre of the metropolis. They are 30 miles from the western and southern limits of the city, being, indeed, almost exactly the same distance as that which separates Cronstadt from St. Petersburg. In the latter case, it was found that the cost of transporting goods over this distance was often as great as the cost of carrying them to or from England, not to speak of the inconvenience and delay which were involved.

It may not, possibly, be quite so bad as this in the case of the Tilbury Docks, but it is obvious that the traffic unloaded there must, to a very large extent, go through two subsequent breakages of bulk—the first, from the ship to the railway truck, and the second from the truck to the wagon or van that is to deliver the goods at their ultimate destination. It would be difficult to fix an average sum that would fairly represent what this process adds to the ultimate cost of the traffic, but if it is put at 10s. per ton all round it is not likely to be much under the mark; and 10s. per ton, as we know, represents the full amount that is frequently charged for the conveyance of a ton of goods from Antwerp or Liverpool to New York.

There is no good reason why the people of London should continue to pay as much for the carriage of their food and fuel from the ship’s side at Tilbury to their own doors as they would pay for its transport across the Atlantic. It may now be unavoidable, but the necessity is not imperative.

If a canal were carried alongside the Thames, into the heart of the city, the west end and the southern suburbs, a great deal of this outlay might be avoided. The vessel carrying the traffic could be stopped at any one of twenty places on the route of the canal, in order that she might be enabled to unload, and the relatively short distance for which the traffic would thus require to be transported from the ship’s side to the ultimate destination of the traffic would not add much to the cost of its water transport.

The question that those interested in this question would be likely first to ask themselves would be—At what cost could such a canal be constructed? The next question would be—Could it be made to pay? On both points there is much that is reassuring.

If we take the cost of the Suez Canal as a criterion, we find that for a distance of about 100 miles the expenditure actually incurred in construction proper was 11,653,000l. The total outlay appearing in the yearly balance-sheet at the end of 1886 was 19,782,000l., but a great deal of the difference was expended in financing, in interest on shares during the eleven years that the canal was under construction, in transit, telegraph, and sanitary services, and in other items that would only be necessary, if at all, to a much more limited extent in the case under consideration. The actual outlay in construction represents an average of about 116,530l. per mile, and at this rate a Thames Navigation Canal could be built for a length of twenty-five miles for, approximately, about three millions sterling. This would, of course, be the cost of a canal capable of taking the largest vessels like the Suez Canal, and constructed on the same principle—that is, without intermediate locks, and at tide-level.

It will, however, be fairly objected that the Suez Canal is not a parallel case. The land was given by the Khedive, and the labour of the fellahs, which was largely corvÉe or forced labour, cost very little. In the neighbourhood of London, on the contrary, the price of land is high, and labour is much more expensive, although, at the same time, much more efficient. This would no doubt greatly modify the force of the application of the experience gained in the construction of the canal at Suez, although the item of land, for a considerable distance in the county of Essex, would be comparatively trifling—land being exceptionally cheap in that county—while higher wages would be counterbalanced by the more general and effective use of labour-saving machinery. Let us, however, rather be guided by the more recent, and more parallel experience of the Amsterdam Ship Canal, which was constructed in 1870-76, for the purpose of affording a direct outlet from Amsterdam to the North Sea, through Lake Y and Lake Wigker Meer (inlets of the Zuyder Sea). The distance from Amsterdam to the sea by way of the North Holland Ship Canal, which was completed in 1825, was 52½ miles, while the Amsterdam Ship Canal reduced it to 15½ miles. Saving of distance and time was not, however, the only reason for adopting the latter project. The growing size of the ships frequenting the port, and the frequent interference with navigation by ice, rendered a new waterway necessary, apart from the considerations of saving time and shortening distance. The total cost of the undertaking was about three millions sterling, including all incidental expenses. This is approximately about 200,000l. a mile, and at the same rate of cost, the Thames Navigation Canal could be completed for 5,000,000l. as against 2,913,000l. in the case of adopting the mileage cost of the Suez Canal. The conditions of the problem in Amsterdam were not greatly different in kind to those of the Thames. The land had to be purchased, and the price of labour did not much differ from what would be paid in England. The quantity of material to be excavated would be relatively much the same, and the works of art required in the form of locks, sluice-gates, cofferdams, &c., would probably not be much more, if any more, onerous and difficult. It is probable that some of the heavier works required in the case of the Amsterdam Canal would be unnecessary for that on the Thames, such as the large dam that had to be built to keep the waters of the Zuyder Zee from overflowing, and washing away the banks of the canal; but, on the other hand, there would be heavier expense incurred in providing passing places, docks, &c.

Whatever its necessity, the canal would not be undertaken if capitalists were not assured that it was to be a “good thing” financially, unless, indeed—which is very unlikely—the Government put a hand somewhat deep into the public purse. The revenue of the canal would be derived from several different sources: from tolls, which would probably take the form of a through rate; from haulage, by means of tug-boats; from warehousing; and from delivery of goods ex ship at the different quays on the route. It is, of course, impossible to say at present what proportion of the total number of ships now using the Thames would prefer to take the canal, if constructed. If, however, it were only one-third of the whole, in ten years’ time from now that would be about seven millions of tons per annum. The revenue that would thus be obtained, if a uniform charge of a shilling per ton were made, would be 350,000l. a year, which would, after deducting 10 per cent. for working expenses, yield a net revenue of 315,000l., equal to more than 6 per cent. on the larger estimate of 5,000,000l. If, however, the canal were carried right into the heart of transpontine London, a large revenue might be expected from the delivery of goods. The principal docks are now such a long way from the west end and the southern and south-western suburbs that a very heavy charge is made for delivery of merchandise, whether by railway or by van. In many cases, indeed, as we have already pointed out, the delivery charge is higher than the ocean freight, and instances are not uncommon in which a parcel which has been carried from a port 400 or 600 miles distant for a charge of 4s. or 5s., cost double that amount between the docks and the houses of the recipients. This is a serious grievance with the people of the metropolis, and one that they would gladly get rid of. A long step would be taken in that direction if water communication for large steamers could be brought nearer to the west end. For such a purpose the river Thames above London Bridge is practically useless. The only considerable traffic that is carried on in the upper reaches of the river is the transport of coal in barges from the Great Western Railway Company’s depots at Brentford to the docks, and this is about as unsatisfactory as it could well be, involving the repeated breaking of bulk, and the damage of the coals from frequent handling. A well organised and economical system of delivery between the point of the receipt of shipping traffic in London, and the point of its ultimate consumption, would be certain to prove both successful and remunerative, whether undertaken by a canal company or otherwise.

But the lower reaches of the Thames are not more in want of some artificial relief of the kind suggested than the upper reaches.

The Thames, as we have seen, is commercially the most important river on the earth’s surface, although far from being the largest, the broadest, the deepest, or the longest. It takes its rise in Gloucestershire, about 375 feet above sea level. As the crow flies, the length of the river is about 119 miles, but as the river runs it is about 193 miles from its source to the sea. About 74 miles of its actual length are therefore made up of windings, the character of which will be appreciated by the plan on the opposite page.

The river is only navigable for large vessels up to London Bridge, which is about 18 miles from Gravesend. Above London Bridge a good deal of traffic is carried on by means of barges. The only steamers, however, that navigate the river above that point are the shallow-draught passenger steamers that ply between the various piers that lie alongside the banks up to Chelsea, with occasional trips in the summer months to Kew and Hampton Court. Above Hampton Court a small part of the river is canalised, and it has also been necessary to construct a small canal at Teddington, where the first lock occurs. Small craft may navigate the Thames as far as Oxford, but above Hampton Court there are numerous locks and weirs that have to be overcome, and navigation is tedious. The influence of the tide extends from the outer boundary line of the Thames Conservancy, near Southend, to Teddington lock, a distance of 57 miles. The Conservancy Board, however, control the river as far up as Lechlade, in Gloucestershire, a distance of 173 miles from its estuary.

Practically the whole of the large population on the river Thames above London Bridge are shut out from the benefits of the navigation, except by means of barges. Above Hampton Court the navigation is difficult, even for these, especially when propelled by a tug-boat. The difficulty is increased by the fact that there are over thirty locks and about twenty-two mills on the river between Oxford and the sea.

It has been suggested more than once that the Thames should be made navigable for a much longer distance, and there is, indeed, no insuperable obstacle in the way of the navigation being carried up as far as Oxford. Between that city and London there is only an average fall of about 1 foot in 4100, which interposes no obstacle. The cost of cutting canals through the most obstructive windings of the river would not be serious, and it is more than probable that it would be cheerfully borne by those whom it would be most likely to benefit.

There would probably be an outcry raised that the upper reaches of the river, which are now largely consecrated to rural sports and pastimes, and are in many cases remarkable for their sylvan beauties, would be threatened. But in this utilitarian age—when steamers ply on the Grand Canal of Venice, when railways are carried up Vesuvius and the Righi, when the Alps are pierced by tunnels, and engineers are drawing the water supply of our great towns from the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland, heretofore the chosen retreat of our poets and philosophers—the test of most things is that of use and convenience; and, after all, the passage of steamers up the river Thames above Hampton Court, if it would disturb the inmates of the house-boats, and interfere with the dolce far niente fancies of a favoured few, would more than compensate for such drawbacks by bringing to the masses who cannot afford to gratify such luxurious tastes, more abundant commodities at a cheaper rate, and, what is quite as necessary, by getting rid of the weirs which at the present time are a great hindrance to navigation, by deepening the river, and by improving its channel generally.

The latter important requirement could probably best be met by diverting the course of the river, where it is most tortuous, or by constructing canals which would at the same time allow of the navigation being shortened, and the flood-water (which now and again plays sad havoc with the surrounding country) being carried off. By either diverting or canalising the Thames between Tadpole in Berkshire, and Sutton Pool, near Abingdon, the distance could be shortened by some 16 miles. Another saving of fully 13 miles could be made by a new cut between Reading and the river above Staines, while a third saving of 11 miles could be effected by a cut between Staines and Brentford.

The effect of giving to the numerous Thames-side towns and villages above London such facilities as those indicated would be almost certainly to develop trade and industry in the counties of Oxford, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, and Middlesex, through which the river flows. In those counties there is a population bordering on the Thames, which can hardly be put at less than two millions. It is, perhaps, of still more importance that the course proposed would secure for them immunity from the devastating floods to which they are now habitually exposed. Four great floods have overtaken the folks that dwell by the Thames since 1821. The most recent of these occurred in 1876, and caused damage which has been estimated at 300,000l. to 400,000l., not to speak of the terrible hardships, inconvenience, misery, and disease which were entailed on those whose dwellings were inundated. If the ideas and proposals now put forward should contribute, in how small so ever a degree, to obviate the recurrence of such disasters, the writer would be abundantly satisfied.

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