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LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS MONTHLY JOURNAL

Vol. XLI.

C. H. SALMONS, EDITOR AND MANAGER,
807 SOCIETY FOR SAVINGS BLDG, CLEVELAND, O.

Panama Canal.

APRIL, 1907.

The Panama Canal as an American enterprise being of more than ordinary interest, a brief history will doubtless find favor with many of our readers.

The idea of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by a great ship canal by way of the Central American Isthmus is by no means new. That for uniting them by way of the Isthmus of Panama is almost coincident with Balboa's discovery of the Pacific in 1513. Gomera, the historian, 1520-60, was the first one to advocate a union of the oceans by means of a canal. In 1581 Captain Autonio Pereira, Governor of Costa Rica, organized an expedition and explored a route by way of the San Juan River, the lake and river emptying into Gulf Nicoya, crossing on the dividing line between Costa Rica and

NUMBER 4.

Nicaragua. In 1620 Diego de Mercado submitted to King Philip of Spain an elaborate report in favor of constructing a ship canal over the route known as the Nicaragua route, but the King proved an implacable enemy to all such schemes. The proposition to connect the two oceans seemed to fascinate men of science and create intense interest for men of commerce.

One of the boldest conceptions was that of James B. Eads, the American engineer who constructed the Mississippi jetties, the Eads bridge at St. Louis, etc. He proposed to construct at Tehuantepec a railroad which would be able to carry the largest ships from ocean to ocean. number of surveys were made of the Panama and Nicaragua routes, but no positive movement was made until 1879 towards the realization of this great pro

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PANAMA CANAL EMPLOYEES' QUARTERS. Group of employees. Behind them, oil pipe lines acro s the Isthmus.-Courtesy Bro. J. Foose, Div, 609.

LA BOCA WHARF, PANAMA.

ject in which commerce was so vitally in-. terested.

In May of that year an International Congress was convened in Paris by Ferdinand de Lesseps (who won great fame as projector of the Suez Canal), to discuss the plan of cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Panama. The congress finally adopted a plan which had been prepared previously by M de Lesseps, and immediately following that action the Panama Canal Company was formed. The company secured from Lieut. Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse of the French navy the concessions which he had obtained from the United States of Colombia. After the concessions had been secured by the company a commission, known as the De Lesseps Engineering Commission, was sent to Panama to make surveys and prepare estimates of cost. The Commission estimated that the canal could be built for 843,000,000 francs, $168,600,000. De Lesseps reduced these figures to 600,000,000 francs, or $120,000,000, and announced that a tide level canal could be completed for that sum. He was so confident that he invited men of prominence to attend the opening of the canal, which he set for 1888.

In February, 1881, the

first detachment of the canal employees arrived at Colon. Surveys were made, and the building of the camps, hospitals, and other necessary buildings followed. In 1882 the Panama Company purchased the Panama Railway, but things did not move as De Lesseps had anticipated. The debt and interest charges increased, and in the autumn of 1888 further borrowing became necessary, but impossible, for confidence had waned. Then came the great financial crash which shook the financial world, and on January 1, 1889, the company was forced into liquidation, which created a ferment throughout France, as some 800,000 French shareholders had been induced to invest in the stock of the company. In 1890 the receiver sent a commission of French and other engineers to Panama to report on the actual condition of the work. They reported that not more than one-fifth of the proposed work had been done; and that a valuable plant estimated at $20,000,000 was rusting away and useless. In 1891 the government of Colombia granted the Panama Canal Company an extension of ten years from 1893 in which to finish the contract, providing operations were resumed before February 1893, but the investors in France had not

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AMERICAN QUARTERS, COLON, PANAMA

PALM AVENUE, CRISTOBAL, COLON, PANAMA.

been idle and looked for causes for the
great failure in results, and in November
1892 a member of the French Chamber of
Deputies, M. Delayhaye, created a pro-
found sensation in Paris by declaring on
the floor of the Chamber that the Panama
Canal Company had obtained exceptional
privileges which it had used for the pur-
pose of defrauding investors, by bribery
of no fewer than 100 deputies. The de-
mand for an investigation of the charges
was of such force and insistence as to be
irresistible, and the Ministry decided to
submit the whole question to a commit-
tee. Following this decision, a banker
accused of being the instrument or agent of
much of the corruption
of the company died
suddenly, and it was
alleged he had poisoned
himself. The disclo-
sures before the investi-
gating committee indi-
cated that the opera-
tions of the canal com-
pany had teemed with
fraud. It was shown
that the Panama Com-
pany had bribed de-
puties and journalists
on an extensive scale in
order to cover up its
shortcomings and leave
the way open for fur-
ther impositions.

In February, 1893, M. de Lesseps, his son Charles, and some of their colleagues were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment for fraud and bribery.

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Bitter was, the feeling toward those who were responsible for their loss of money, but much sympathy was manifested toward M. de Lesseps, who had been the presiding genius of the great enterprise, and the sympathy for him took such form that he was not imprisoned. But the great engineer who had reaped so much glory through the construction of the Suez Canal, now in his 80th year, was unable to withstand the blow the Panama exposure had given and he died in November of the following year.

In 1894 on a proposition that the canal could be completed for $110,000,000, a new company was formed and 300,000 shares issued and work on the canal was resumed under French auspices, but early in 1895 a strike occurred among the laborers on the canal, and the methods of the company were criticised severely by the stockholders. Another scandal was feared, but developments showed that the suspicions were unwarranted. The confidence of the French public, however, had been shaken to such an extent as to make it manifest that the completion of the canal under French auspices was no longer a possibility, and those who were

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MAMEI CUT, PANAMA CANAL.

DREDGE EMPIRE, PANAMA CANAL

was

bound up in the enterprise turned toward America for relief. Several surveys had been made by army and naval officers under American auspices, and in 1889 the Maritime Canal Company was organized to construct the Nicaragua Canal. Panama had received little consideration, but an auxiliary American company formed which on investigating the French company's affairs found that of the $156,400,000 expended by the original French company only $88,600,000 had been expended legitimately on excavation and construction, the rest having gone to bribery and corruption. The second French company spent about 33,000,000 francs, continuing the construction for four years. It abandoned the original tide water plan for one with locks. In the meantime the Maritime company had done more or less work on the Nicaragua route, but ceased operations in 1893 and Congress appointed a commission to examine and report on feasibility and cost; the commission reported the cost at $140,000,000 and there the matter rested until the outbreak of the SpanishAmerican war which required that the battleship "Oregon" make the long trip from San Francisco around Cape Horn. This furnished a more impressive argument for the construction of a

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canal than the centuries of discussion, and President McKinley appointed a commission in 1899 to determine the most feasible route for a ship canal. This induced the French company to form a new American company in conjunction with the American auxiliary company organized under the laws of the State of New Jersey with a capital fixed at $30,000,000 which was to take over all the French rights, the shareholders to get part cash and part shares in the American company, but so much opposition was developed in France to the surrender of the enterprise that the directors all resigned. A new board of directors was then chosen which continued the negotiations with the American company and the transfer was eventually made. Congress then immediately decided upon the Panama Canal route as the most feasible and passed the bill under which President Roosevelt was authorized to acquire the American Panama Canal Company's rights, and the price fixed for these rights was $40,000,000 which includes the Panama railroad. A treaty was then made which grants the use in perpetuity of a zone ten miles wide and its exclusive coatrol for police, judicial and other purposes; cedes territory for sub

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DREDGE CITY OF PARIS, PANAMA CANAL

CULEBRA CUT, PANAMA CANAL.

sidiary canals and coast line in the cities of Panama and Colon, the canal to be neutral and open to the world. For these grants the United States was to pay $10,000,000 on the ratification of the treaty, and $250,000 yearly beginning nine years after.

Our readers are generally conversant with the numerous changes in the Canal Commission and officials since the United States government has been in control, and these changes may be expected until the right men are found to manage so great an undertaking. We have gleaned the above historic facts from various sources, principally the "Americana." The following is from

a folder issued in Panama descriptive of the project and the country in which it is located. -EDITOR.

ISTHMUS OF PANAMA.

The width of the Isthmus in a straight line east and west is less than 33 miles, but the course of the canal and railroad is from northwest to southeast. Panama, the terminus on the Pacific side, is about 20 miles further east than Colon, on the Atlantic, caused by the peculiar bend or elbow of the Isthmus at this point. Geologists have found indisputable evidence that the two

oceans were at this point
once connected.

The Isthmus of Pana-
ma is of volcanic form-
ation. Within the last
50 years severe earth-
quakes have been ex-
perienced strong enough
to have destroyed the
proposed dams had they
been in existence. The
iron railroad bridge at
Barbacoas was shifted
out of position, Colon
was rent with a seam
across the town and
Panama was damaged to
the extent of $300,000.

The seasons of the isthmus are two, wet and dry, the wet extending from about the 15th of April to the 15th of December. The amount of rain that falls has been given as 128 inches per annum. It often seems to fall in solid sheets, the streets being flooded from curb to curb. Such storms clear away as rapidly as they come. With the deep cuts on the canal they play sad havoc, as an immense amount of earth that has been thrown out naturally washes back into the cut.

In a country like this, where all is perpetual summer, the average temperature about 80 degrees and the average humidity nearly as great, vegetation is of very rapid growth: and, apropos of humidity, there are places on the upper levels of the isthmus where nightly it is 100 degrees, the point of saturation. But

CULEBRA CUT, PANAMA CANAL

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