many and serious curves, while in the lock canal the courses are straight and changes of direction will be made at intersecting tangents, the same as in our river navigation, in which serious accidents are practically unknown. They show that the courses in a lock canal can be marked with ranges which will greatly facilitate navigation, particularly at night. The Commission points out that the argument of the majority of the Board, that locks will limit the traffic capacity of the canal, carries very little if any weight, and they refer to the experience of the "Soo" Canal, through which there passes annually a larger traffic than through all the other ship canals of the world combined.

Finally, the Isthmian Commission discusses the cost of operation and maintenance. The majority of the Board submit no details upon this most important item in canal construction and subsequent operation. What banking house in the world would advance a single dollar upon a canal or railway project upon a mere statement of the probable ultimate cost, but with no corresponding information as to cost of maintenance and operation! Having been appointed to reëxamine into all the facts, and, so to speak, to reconsider the entire project, the majority seriously erred in omitting from their report the necessary data and calculations for an accurate and trustworthy estimate of the cost of operation and maintenance of a sea-level canal.

From this point of view and in the light of the facts as presented by the Board for or against either project, the Isthmian Commission could not consistently act otherwise than to give their final approval to the more specific and practical recommendations of the minority members of the Board, and they properly say that "it appears that the canal proposed by the minority of the Board of Consulting Engineers can be built in half the time and for a little more than half of the cost of the canal proposed by the majority of the Board." They advance a number of specific reasons why a lock canal when completed will for all practical purposes—commercial, military, and naval—be a better canal than a sea-level waterway with a tidal lock, as proposed by the majority members of the Board.

The report of the Board was carefully and critically examined by Chief Engineer Stevens, of the Isthmian Commission and in actual charge of engineering matters on the Isthmus. Mr. Stevens is a man of very large practical American engineering experience, and he adds to the finding of the Commission the weight of his authority, decidedly and unequivocally in favor of a lock canal. He states as the sum of his conclusions that, all things considered, the lock or high-level canal is preferable to the sea-level type, so-called, for the reason that it will provide a safer and quicker passage for ships; that it will provide beyond question the best solution of the vital problem of how safely to care for the flood waters of the Chagres and other streams; that provision is offered in the lock project for enlarging its capacity to almost any extent at very much less expense of time and money than can be provided for by any sea-level plan; that its cost of operation, maintenance, and fixed charges, including interest, will be very much less than any sea-level canal, and that the time and cost of its construction will not be more than one-half that of a canal of the sea-level type; that the lock project will permit of navigation by night; and that, finally, even at the same cost in time and money, Mr. Stevens would favor the adoption of the high-level lock canal plan in preference to that of the proposed sea-level canal.

To these observations and comments the Secretary of War, under whose supervision this great work is going on, adds his opinion, which is decidedly and unequivocally in favor of a lock canal. In his letter to the President, Mr. Taft goes into all the important details of the subject and reveals a masterly grasp of the situation as it confronts the American people at the present time. He calls attention to the fact that lock navigation is not an experiment; that all the locks in the proposed canal are duplicated, thereby minimizing such dangers as are inherent in any canal project, and he adds that experience shows that with proper plans and regulations the dangers are much more imaginary than real. He goes into the facts of the proposed great dam to be constructed at Gatun and points out that such construction is not experimental, but sustained by large American experience, which is larger, perhaps, than that of any other country in the world. He gives his indorsement to the views of the Isthmian Commission and its chief engineer that the estimated cost of time and money for completing a sea-level canal is not correctly stated by the majority members of the Board, and that the cost, in all probability, will be at least $25,000,000 more, while, in his opinion, eighteen to twenty years will be necessary to complete the sea-level project. He also holds that the military advantages will be decidedly in favor of a lock canal.

This is practically the present status of facts and opinions regarding the canal problem as it is now before Congress, except that since January the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals has collected a large mass of additional and valuable testimony. Restating the facts in a somewhat different way, Congress is asked to give its final approval to the sea-level proposition, chiefly favored by foreigners, and to give its disapproval to the project of a lock canal, favored by American engineers. Congress is asked to rely in the main upon the experience gained in the management of the Suez Canal, where the conditions are essentially and fundamentally different from what they are or ever will be on the Isthmus of Panama, and to disregard the more than fifty years' experience in the successful management of the lock canals connecting the Great Lakes. Congress is asked to pronounce against the lock canal because in the management of the ship canal at Manchester several accidents have occurred, due to carelessness or ignorance in navigation, and we are asked to disregard the successful record of the "Soo" Canal, in the management of which only three accidents, of no very serious importance, have occurred during more than fifty years.

In no other country in the world has there been more experience with lock canals than in this. For nearly a hundred years the Erie Canal has been one of our most successful of inland waterways, connecting the ocean with the Great Lakes. The Erie Canal is 387 miles in length, has 72 locks, and is now being enlarged, to accommodate barges of a thousand tons, at a cost of $101,000,000. We have the Ohio Canal, with 150 locks; the Miami and Erie Canal, with 93 locks; the Pennsylvania Canal, with 71 locks; the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, with 73 locks; and numerous other inland waterways of lesser importance. It is a question of degree and not of kind, for the problem is the same in all essentials, and confronts Congress as much in the proposed deep waterway connecting tide-water with the Great Lakes, in which locks are proposed with a lift of 40 feet or more, or very considerably in excess of the proposed lift of the locks on the Isthmian Canal.

The proposed ship canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio River provides for 34 locks. The suggested canal from Lake Michigan to the Illinois and Mississippi rivers provides for 37 locks, and, finally, the projected ship canal from the St. Lawrence River to Lake Huron contemplates 22 locks. So that lock canals of exceptional magnitude are not only in existence, but new canals of this type are contemplated in the United States and Canada.

In other words, Congress is asked to regard with preference the judgment and opinions of foreign engineers and to disregard the judgment and opinions of American engineers. We are seriously asked to completely disregard American opinion, as voiced by the Isthmian Commission, responsible for the enterprise as a whole; as voiced by the Secretary of War, responsible for the time being for