possibilities of a canal along the line of the Panama Railroad. After a careful survey, a line forty-one and seven-tenths miles in length was recommended, which, in the main, followed the course that was ultimately adopted by the French.

An Interoceanic Canal Commission had been created, with the authority of Congress, in 1872. After a careful study of all the data available, this body unanimously reported in 1876 as follows:

"The route known as the Nicaragua route,' beginning on the Atlantic side at or near Greytown; running by canal to the San Juan River; thence. . . to . . . Lake Nicaragua; from thence across the lake and through the valleys of the Rio del Medio and the Rio Grande to Brito, on the Pacific coast, possesses, both for the construction and the maintenance of a canal, greater advantages and offers fewer difficulties from engineering, commercial and economic points of view than any one of the other routes shown to be practicable by surveys sufficient in detail to enable a judgment to be formed of their respective merits."

The year before this report was issued an irresponsible speculator, named Gorgoza, had

secured from the Colombian Congress a concession for a canal through the San Blas country in which the Atrato and Tuyra Rivers were to be utilized. A number of speculators and politicians were attracted by Gorgoza's proposition and a company was formed under the title of "La Societé Civile Internationale du Canal Interocéanique." Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, whose fame as the projector and constructor of the Suez Canal was then undimmed, General Etienne Türr, and his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse, were the most distinguished of the early promoters of the scheme.

Lieutenant Wyse was despatched to the Isthmus for the purpose of surveying the proposed route. It was not found satisfactory, nor was any feasible alternative route discovered in the territory covered by the concession.

In this dilemma Wyse turned to the Panama route, but a serious obstacle was in the way. The contract of the Panama railroad with the Colombian Government gave to the former the exclusive right of transit in that territory. Nevertheless, Wyse proceeded to Bogotá and laid before the authorities there a proposition to commence work on a canal through the Isth

mus of Panama in two years' time and to finish it within twelve years after the date of commencement. He secured a concession conditional upon his obtaining the consent of the Panama Railroad to it.

At this time there was pending before the Legislature of Nicaragua a bill to authorize the construction of a canal in that territory by another French company. After carrying his point at Bogotá, Wyse went to Nicaragua and succeeded in defeating the efforts of his rivals to gain a concession. He then went on to New York and effected an agreement with the Panama Railroad Company.

Whilst Wyse was engaged in these negotiations, Lieutenant Reclus made a perfunctory survey of the proposed route. On the return of these officers to Paris, they submitted a roseate report to their principals and the Societé Civile promptly adopted the route.

The contract with the Colombian Government provided that whatever route the Societé might propose should have the endorsement of an international body of engineers and other scientists. In accordance with this requirement, De Lesseps convened at Paris in May, 1879, the "International Scientific Congress." It con

sisted of one hundred and thirty-six members, of whom seventy-four were Frenchmen. The body was largely composed of men friendly to De Lesseps and his scheme. Fewer than fifty of them were engineers, or scientists, a greater number being speculators and politicians. De Lesseps presided over the gathering and dominated its proceedings.

Fifty-four members were appointed by De Lesseps, who nominated all the committees to consider the question of the route. At the outset considerable opposition to the line chosen by the promoters was shown. The San Blas route was advanced by one of the American delegates; the Darien route by another. The partisans of De Lesseps showed the deepest resentment at the opposition and a pronounced disinclination to submit the matter to open argument. They made it so plain that they intended to carry their point, regardless of every consideration but their own interests, that a number of the members of the committee declined to take further part in the proceedings. Immediately after their withdrawal, the remainder of the body cast a vote in favor of the Panama route and the Congress ratified it without debate, although in the final

declaration not more than one hundred of the members went on record.

The methods of the promoters in this Congress created the distrust of the foreign governments that had interested themselves in the project and even aroused unfavorable public opinion in France. De Lesseps was acutely alive to the bad impression that had been made and promptly set about counteracting it. In September, 1879, he went to the Isthmus and made an investigation. Although he was not an engineer, his opinion in the matter carried great weight, on account of the prestige attaching to him as the builder of the Suez Canal. He confirmed the favorable reports of Wyse and Reclus and published plans for a canal at sea level to be twenty-eight feet deep and to cost $132,000,000.

In the meantime, adverse feeling against the French project had grown in official circles and amongst the business men of the United States. Prominent capitalists and engineers, including Admiral Ammen and Lieutenant Menocal, the official delegates to the International Congress, organized the Interoceanic Canal Company, with the design of constructing a waterway at Nicaragua. In the spring of 1880, the latter