how to build, and how to secure the lands? And finally is it possible to build and operate a canal? The French had failed; can we succeed?

Now, if one of the prime reasons was to furnish a short cut for our ships, from ocean to ocean, is it not enough to furnish the "short cut" without making it a clear donation?

If it were only the original cost of the canal, for which we are obligated, there might be a plea asking for favors in the nature of a subsidy. But we are only at the beginning of the expense of the canal. Operating expenses will be enormous, and new plans will ever be brought to the forefront for adoption and installation. No one can approximate what changes are in the immediate future. No one has a right to expect that all the nation's future finances can be expended in Panama, and that any ships of traffic can be allowed to navigate the canal without cost or tolls. We are now only at the threshold; the end is a very long way in the distance, with unconjectured millions of expenditure to be placed on top of the $400,000,000.

It is too soon for generosity; it will be better policy to see what the balance sheet will show. There is a national economic question to be solved of far greater moment than the international treaty questions. If we do not receive income from our own ships, then we are dependent wholly on foreign customers for funds to recoup our annual outlay. Can we expect their patronage, by notifying them, that we built the canal, and own it, and will do as we please with it?

Necessity might still drive some foreign ships to use the canal, almost against their desire; but is it not far better to court their good will and patronage, precisely as would every successful man of business?

The whole trouble with a nation operating a public

utility is, that it is liable to be affected with politics the same as toll exemption has affected the Panama Canal. Politics, at least in America, is not based on economy, but on what is best in a political sense; what is the selfinterest or the vagaries of any class of voters.

If a private corporation owned the canal, there would not be even a suggestion of toll exemption. Even in the post-office department all users pay the same rate, except officials who have the franking privilege, as a part of their salary.

Since all questions connected with the finances of the canal are yet an unsolved problem, let those who believe in "ship subsidy," if they have the political power, enact a law making the donation a definite sum, and pay the same out of a specific, known and ascertained fund. Let us for a moment follow the theory, that America built the canal for herself:

Then England signed the Hay-Pauncefote treaty with this end in view, and Panama went to revolution and to the edge of war to give America a canal for Americans. We are not sure that foreign nations, more than ourselves, are so overflowing with benevolence and altruism.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MECHANISM-OPERATION-FINANCE.

For the sake of variety we may take a little relaxation from the discussion of the heavy problems of treaty construction, neutralization, national sovereignty, and consider in a chapter, some of the physical and economic questions connected with the canal.

When the French people began the building of the Panama Canal they had in mind a channel at sea-level--an open strait like the Suez Canal. After years of work they foresaw the difficulties and changed the plan to one with locks.

When the Americans began work they "made the dirt fly" but with no definite type of canal in view; they simply began to cut down the mountain and make a channel for a canal.

The contest went on between the advocates of the two kinds of canal until 1906, when the President sent a message to Congress in favor of a lock canal. It was debated in Congress thoroughly, and an act was passed providing for locks, which was approved June 29, 1906.

It has been stated that Engineer Wallace favored the open canal, while Mr. Stevens and Colonel Goethals believed in the lock system.

There has been a most visionary idea among acting engineers as to what a sea-level canal would have cost. The first French estimate was $140,000,000. In 1906 the American estimate was $247,000,000. Later the amount had so increased, through the Culebra difficulties, that in 1909 it was supposed that the cost might run to $560,000,000. As the

digging continued and the difficulties developed, some estimated that this type of canal might cost a billion dollars; and yet it is a question whether a sea-level canal be at all possible. Engineering skill is unable, at this day, to foretell what might happen in the Culebra Cut, if an attempt were made to dredge a free, open channel from ocean to ocean.

The French Company had prognostications of the slides at Culebra while their work was in progress. The distance through the mountain is nine miles, and no one can know where and when a slide may happen and the exact area which may be so involved. It has been stated that one slide which has taken place may cover an area of 75 acres.

As the bottom of the channel at Culebra is now about 45 feet above sea-level, it will require the deepening of the channel (for these nine miles) to the additional depth of 85 feet, to afford passage for large ships from ocean to ocean, without locks; and the additional depth of nearly 45 feet from Gatun dam to the foot of the mountain. It is impossible now to know, whether this great depth through the mountain could be excavated with safety or not. The flood-waters of the Chagres would also have to be carried off by a separate outlet.

By experience, the present plan is a success, so long as the Gatun dam and locks serve their intended purpose. The sea-level plan is in the realm of doubt and uncertainty. In the distant ages, if funds are abundant, the top of the mountain on both sides of the canal might be removed and the needed depth in the channel be secured.

With the large amount already invested and almost all depending on foreign patronage, is the American nation willing to double or treble the present investment? This problem belongs to the future, and to the

favorable turn of the wheel of fortune. The nation has gained one of its main purposes; it can at least, by the present plan, take its warships through from one ocean to the other in any emergency.

THE DAMS.

One of the most important features of the present plan is the Gatun dam, and the immense lake behind it. This body of water is said to cover an area of 164 square miles. We should remember that the canal runs substantially a north and south direction; the isthmus at this point extending from east to west rather than from north to south; hence the Spaniards called the Pacific the "South Sea."

With these points of the compass in view, the Gatun lake extends very largely to the west of the canal and far up into the mountains; the extreme width being 20 miles, The lake then must extend almost 10 miles beyond the canal zone. The length of the lake from Gatun to the foot of the mountain is about 23 miles; at this last point the lake is but 500 feet wide, simply the width of the canal. The average width for 16 miles from Gatun is 1,000 feet, so vessels for this distance will be steaming through a wide channel with full navigation facilities.

The dam at the south end of Culebra, at Pedro Miguel, is only such as is required to stop the spilling of the canal water into the Pacific. Here one set of locks is placed. At the further distance, to the south, of one and one-half miles is the Miraflores dam and two sets of locks. This dam creates a lake one and one-half miles long, and mostly supplied with water from the small river Cocoli and the Rio Grande, and this operates the two sets of locks at Miraflores.

The Gatun dam was the one uncertain engineering