OCR Text |
Show THE PANAMA CANAL. I For more than three hundred years, it has been the dream of navigators and those interested in the spread of commerce to have a ship waterway water-way connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the Isthmus of Panama. However, there was no definite move made looking to the consumma tion of the work until 1876, when an organization was perfected in France, which two years later secured a concession from the government of Colombia Co-lombia for prosecuting the work. In 1879 an in-; ternational congress was convened, with Ferdinand Ferdi-nand de Lesseps as the moving spirit, to consider the best location and type of canal, which decided on the Panama route, and under the influence of De Lesseps, the sea-level type was adopted. The company organization was perfected and the stock floated in 1880, and for several years preliminary work was carried on and the surveys were completed. com-pleted. For about seven years work was carried on, when, after a careful study of the difference in the heights of the tides on either side of the isthmus, isth-mus, the sea-level type was abandoned, and it was decided to build a lock canal. Work was pushed forward until 1889, when, on May 15, on account of financial difficulties and scandals, the whole thing was abandoned. The United States became interested in the canal in the same year that work was suspended by the French company. A commission com-mission was appointed to investigate the two known routes for a canal at the isthmus, viz., the Panama and the Nicaragua routes. This commission, com-mission, after two years of work, reported to congress con-gress on Xovember 16, 1901, in'favor of the Panama Pan-ama route and recommended the lock type of canal. ca-nal. Pursuant to this report, congress on June 28, 1902, authorized the President of the United States to acquire the property rights of the Xew Panama Canal company, which had been , organized organ-ized after the original company had failed, to hold control of the route, and perpetual control of the strip of land upon which the canal was built, at a cost not to exceed $40,000,000. By treaty with the newly organized republic of Panama, the control of the canal zone was secured in February, 1904, and the property rights of the canal company com-pany were transferred to the United States in May of the same year. The foregoing facts are taken from a long article ar-ticle by Lieutenant Colonel George W. Goethals, chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Ca-nal commission, who has charge of the work of construction. Assurances are given that the construction con-struction is going forward with greater speed than was contemplated when the United States took charge, and that the dream of centuries is to become a reality on schedule time. Colonel Goethals dismisses as wild the rumors of engineering engineer-ing difficulties circulated in the United States a year or so ago, and says the difficulties encountered encoun-tered at the Gatun dam, about which grave rumors have been afloat, offer no obstacle to the work of construction. Of this particular place, he says: "I venture the statement, without fear of contradiction, contra-diction, that the site of no public or private work of any kind has received such a thorough and exhaustive ex-haustive examination and investigation as the foundation of the dam and locks at Gatun." The location and conditions surrounding it are all right. All of which is comforting to the layman. Although Al-though the latest estimate of the cost of the big ditch is $100,000,000 more than the estimate of a year ago, the people generally have confidence in the ability of Uncle Sam and his engineers to carry car-ry to successful conclusion anything which they begin. Whether the building of the Panama canal turns out as "humanity's most colossal blunder," as one critic styles it, or not, the future alone can determine. The government will finish the canal and let the future take care of itself. |