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General HAINS. Somewhere about that.

Senator MORGAN. If you build a dam at Machuca how high would it have to be in order to produce the proper level for getting into the canal from the upper lake to the mouth?

General HAINS. The first thing, Senator, would be to establish the level that you are going to hold the lake at. The regulation of the lake level is the first thing that has got to be determined. After that is done you put your dam at Machuca at about that level, and then you back the water so that the water from Machuca Rapids up to Lake Nicaragua is just the height of the canal company's project.

Senator HARRIS. All dead water?

General HAINS. All dead water.

Senator MORGAN. Suppose you put your lake level, at which you expected the height, at 106 above the level of the sea, what would be the height of the dam at Machuca in order to get that level clear into the lake?

General HAINS. I do not remember just exactly, but I think the fall, say, from 106 at the lake down to Machuca is something like 40 feet. But there is no trouble about constructing a dam there, because it is a rock foundation, and it is an exposed rock. The water is quite shallow. Senator HARRIS. Is the defile there narrow, so that the dam would not be exposing length of crest?

General HAINS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Then coming on down, say, to Ochoa, or wherever you propose to put in the next dam, you then would not undertake to dam the water so as to raise the water at the lower point of the Machuca Lock higher than the ordinary level of the river?

General HAINS. Not much.

Senator HARRIS. As I understand it, just sufficiently to ground the rapids.

General HAINS. That is it.

Senator HARRIS. Between Machuca and Ochoa?

General HAINS. Yes, sir.

Senator HARRIS. That is the thing to be desired, of course.
General HAINS. To use it in connection with the excavation.

Senator MORGAN. That would lead it, then, to a height of about how much, say, at Ochoa?

General HAINS. You would come down, then, from 110, which is the level at which it was proposed to hold the lake. If you lock down 30 feet it would be 80, or 25 it would be 85 feet.

Senator MORGAN. The dam, then, at Ochoa would be 85 feet.

General HAINS. It would be just 25 feet less than 110. I should like to say that from Machuca Rapids down to Ochoa is a part of the river that they call the Aguas Muertas. That part of the river is quite deep, and it will stand a lowering of surface of some 25 or 30 feet without very much excavation.

Senator MORGAN. Not being, in any sense of the word, either experienced as an engineer or otherwise about the matter, I have always had an idea that your suggestion was a very valuable one of putting in two dams instead of one in that river. Do you think there would be a necessity in any event to put in more than two between Ochoa and the exit of the San Juan from the lake?

General HAINS. More than two between Ochoa.

Senator HARRIS. And San Carlos, at the mouth?

General HAINS. I think not.

Senator MORGAN. So that your idea, or your plan, rather

S. Rept. 1265-9

General HAINS. Still that opinion might be modified, but I rather think not.

Senator MORGAN. So the plan you have in your mind for the betterment of the situation, then, from the surveys as they have heretofore been made, would require one dam besides the one at Ochoa?

General HAINS. Yes, sir.

Senator HARRIS. Putting in one step between the level of the Ochoa Dam and the level of the lake?

Senator MORGAN. That occurs to me as very reasonable.

General HAINS. There is one objection I want to state to that project. If you step down in this way to a lower level you enter the solid land through which you are going to make your cut. Now, say the project of the canal company is carried out, you increase the depth of that cutting by whatever distance you lower the water.

Senator HARRIS. That is in what is called the east divide?

General HAINS. In the divide cut. You save in the height of the embankment, but you increase your cut in the divide.

Senator HARRIS. But there is no risk or danger attending a deep cutting, such as there is attending a high embankment?

General HAINS. No, sir.

Senator HARRIS. It is an insurance which you pay against risk; that is practically the case.

General HAINS. That is it.

Senator MORGAN. Now, let us go down the river from Ochoa. There is another point there, an island. What is the name of it? General HAINS. Tambour Grande.

Senator MORGAN. Have you made any borings there?

General HAINS. We had a party that started in there to make some examinations to see whether they could connect with the high hills on the Costa Rican side of the river.

Senator MORGAN. To connect the dam with the high hills?

General HAINS. Yes, sir. What the result of that survey is I do not know.

Senator MORGAN. At Tambour Grande there is an island?

General HAINS. There is an island called Tambour Grande Island. Senator MORGAN. Is it a sand spit?

General HAINS. Well, it is an island such as you find plenty of there in that river.

Senator MORGAN. Is it based upon rock? General HAINS. Oh, no; I do not think it is. the bottom is at Tambour Grande.

all there yet.

We do not know what We have not made any borings at

Senator MORGAN. Is there any rapid there?
General HAINS. No, sir.

Senator MORGAN. It is still water?

General HAINS. Well, it is not still water.

Senator MORGAN. I mean it is dead water?

General HAINS. It is not dead water either, but flowing, of course.
Senator MORGAN. It is flowing, of course.
Senator HARRIS. It is a moderate current?
General HAINS. It is a moderate current.

Senator HARRIS. Before we get away from the level of the lake I wish your opinion as to the extreme variation in the level of the lake from all natural causes. It seems that that is a subject about which there is a good deal of difference of opinion. That is the key to the whole system with regard to heights and levels.

General HAINS. We have a man there now who is an employee of the Geological Survey. He is, I think, an excellent man, and he has had that subject to thoroughly consider. I think the annual variation of the lake is perhaps less than has been generally supposed.

Senator HARRIS. But we have to consider a variation by years in this matter.

General HAINS. Yes, you will have to consider that. From the best information we could get from people who live in the vicinity of the lake shore-and I talked with quite a number-I could not find anyone who had ever known the lake to be up to the height at which I understood it had been reported; that is, up to about 112.

Senator HARRIS. And it had never been lower than what?

General HAINS. The indications were that it had been down to about 98, or somewhere about that.

Senator HARRIS. That would be 14 feet?

General HAINS. That would be something like 14 feet. But whether it ever got up to 112 or not, I think perhaps

Senator HARRIS. Of course, so far you have only tradition. That is all you are depending on in this matter, of course?

General HAINS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Let me ask you whether you, as an engineer, would hesitate to construct a canal there because of the possibility that at some very extremely dry period the water in the lake would fall below 100 feet above the level of the sea?

General HAINS. No; 1 would not.

Senator HARRIS. All that would be necessary would be simply to count upon the possibility and to provide for it?

General HAINS. That is it.

Senator HARRIS. That is the point to which the suggestions have gone that it must be taken into consideration.

Senator MORGAN. Providing for the proper level of the canal? Senator HARRIS. Providing for the proper level of the canal, and provision for regulating, so far as possible, the water in the lake by the connection with Lake Managuay and by retaining dams constructed at various points.

Senator MORGAN. Your question, then, as I understand it, does not include the proposition that the canal ought not to be built because possibly it might

Senator HARRIS. Not in the slightest; merely that that should be taken into consideration.

Senator MORGAN. That is right. Now, if you are through with that branch of the inquiry

Senator HARRIS. Yes; that is all I wanted to get at.

Senator MORGAN. If you were to accept the low-level canal, at what point would you think it most advisable to leave the San Juan River and to commence canalization overland?

General HAINS. With my present information I should stand in near Ochoa.

Senator MORGAN. You would not go down to this island below there? General HAINS. I do not know enough about it. Possibly you might go down there, but we do not yet know enough about that.

Senator MORGAN. According to your present idea of it, either of the three routes, the low level, or the compromise, or the high level, would leave the river at about Ochoa?

General HAINS. The compromise would leave it near Tambour Grande. That would be the point of leaving the river. That would be about

10 or 12 miles below Ochoa, and the advantage of that route is that it saves all the San Francisco embankment.

Senator MORGAN. That would be an immense advantage, no doubt. Did you make examinations of the rock divide, as it is called, there? General HAINS. Yes, sir; we made such personal examinations as we could by going over it and looking at it.

Senator MORGAN. Let me ask you about the general condition of the growth in the country, whether it is very difficult to do proper engineering work on the canal there on account of the thickness of the growth? General HAINS. Anything like survey work is exceedingly difficult, because you can not see any distance through the woods. The tropical growth is very thick.

Senator SEWELL. You have to chop your way all through?

General HAINS. You have to cut a line in order to see any distance. Senator MORGAN. Still it is not impracticable to make a thorough survey there?

General HAINS. Oh, no; it is not impracticable to make a thorough survey. A survey can be made as thorough as you please, only a thorough survey is a very expensive operation.

Senator HARRIS. And a very tedious operation?

General HAINS. Yes; it is tedious.

Senator MORGAN. Did you have any examinations made of the rock in that divide, to ascertain whether it is a consistent and firm body of stone, or whether it is ashes and lava piled together?

General HAINS. Not while we were there. That work is under the charge of a Mr. Hayes, of the Geological Survey, who, I think, is a very competent man for the work. He has that in hand now.

Senator MORGAN. You passed over the divide?

General HAINS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. You looked at this rock?

General HAINS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Is it covered with trees and bushes?

General HAINS. In the highest part of the divide the rock crops out in the little streams that run around through there just like in any other place, and while I do not know the character of the rock, it is on top a hard rock. It looks like granite.

I

Senator MORGAN. It does not have the appearance of lava? General HAINS. Not that part. There are all kinds, you know. am speaking of the part that was exposed to the wash of the little streams. There is a little stream up there, the general course of which is followed in the line of the canal.

Senator MORGAN. A little stream making its way over the bosom of this rock?

General HAINS. Yes; right over it. You see the canal line goes through about the lowest part they can find there in that particular area, and as it rains a great deal in that section the little streams form and run down to the San Juan.

Senator MORGAN. What is the effect of the rains there upon the surface of the earth? Is it erosive or otherwise?

General HAINS. It does not seem to be erosive at all. The earth slopes stand with remarkable consistency; they are much deeper than you will find in more temperate climates.

Senator MORGAN. Now, as you leave that stone divide going eastward toward Greytown, I suppose you first come into some lower hillsfoothills-an open country.

General HAINS. It is just a broken country, you know. There was a line cut through. There was a telegraph line there, and we could see

through this place where it had been cleared. But as soon as you get into the woods you can not see farther than around this room.

Senator MORGAN. The vista that had been opened by the telegraph line cut through there enabled you to see across through considerable reaches?

General HAINS. Yes; a considerable distance.

Senator MORGAN. And you could see that it was a broken country? General HAINS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Did it appear to be a clay country or sand or stone formation, or what?

General HAINS. I can hardly tell what it would be. There was a good deal of rock up in the upper part of it that cropped out, but whether it is all rock or not I could not say. For that I would have to depend on the examinations to be made by geologists.

Senator MORGAN. After leaving those foothills and going eastward you come then to the level country?

General HAINS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Covered with water?

General HAINS. No; it is not covered with water all the time. It was not covered with water when we were there.

Senator HARRIS. It is practically a delta, I suppose, with streams found in it?

General HAINS. That is it.

Senator MORGAN. Is it your idea that that formation from the foothills out to the coast has been made by deposits from the sea?

General HAINS. Yes, sir. Well, it is made by deposits from the San Juan.

Senator MORGAN. From the San Juan River?

Senator HARRIS. Worked down from the upland and pushed out into the sea?

General HAINS. Yes, sir; that is, a part of it. Some of it is of softer material, like you find in places around Washington. Some of it is material like the mud in the Potomac River.

Senator MORGAN. When you got down into that area you found there the railway that they had constructed?

General HAINS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN.. In what state of preservation was it as to the lime and the iron, and the embankments particularly? Of course, I know the wood has rotted away.

General HAINS. The railroad was in a first-rate state of preservation, considering the length of time it has been down and the fact that it has not been touched. There have not been any repairs on it since it was put down.

Senator MORGAN. How about the embankments? Were they firm? General HAINS. Yes, sir; they were quite firm.

Senator HARRIS. The track and everything was very much overgrown, I suppose.

General HAINS. It was perfectly dense. It took quite a large party of men some fifteen or twenty days to cut the stuff out and clear the railroad.

Senator MORGAN. That is, the young growth that had come up after the road had been put there?

General HAINS. Yes; young growth. It had been taken out in the last two years.

Senator MORGAN. The growth in that tropical country is bound to be very rapid.

General HAINS. It is very rapid.

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