valley of one of its tributaries, passes through the Culebra Hill, situated on the divide formed by the Cordillera, the backbone of the isthmus. On the Pacific Slope the descent is by the valley of the Rio Grande, entering the Pacific at the port of Panama.

On the occasion of my visit I found that some four or five hundred men were being employed, and these almost entirely on the Culebra cut; while, contrary to general impression, the machinery and plant were mostly being kept in fairly good order, and this at considerable expense. I have read most exaggerated accounts of the wreck of the canal by the floods of the Chagres river. I have seen it stated that if a spectator were to take his stand on the isthmus and overlook some six or eight miles of the projected work, he would see nothing but immense masses of débris of gravel, earth, and sand washed down, and covered by the dense jungle which has sprung up. It was, of course, to be expected that, in a tropical country, after six years cessation of work, the excavated channel would be thickly overgrown, and much of the work done destroyed. But the general impression I gained from my visit was that a large amount of useful work remained accomplished-work not evident to the ordinary traveller or untrained observer. Still, the Chagres river and the Culebra cut appeared to me to be obstacles which may be considered insurmountable, that is to say, within the range of practical engineering.

Having no adequate supply of water at greater elevations to feed his canal, Lesseps depressed its bottom to a level that made it a constant prey to the Chagres river

and the enormous floods of water rushing down by that stream, which drains an area of some 1,400 square miles, discharging in the dry season, at its first point of contact with the line of the canal, 15 cubic metres of water, but

in the wet season, 4,670 metres per second, cause a sudden rise in the Chagres river of from 20 to 50 feet in height! This water is precipitated from the steep

1 In November, 1879, there was an unusual rainfall and flood of the river Chagres, stopping the railway traffic, the river rising over 40 feet, and covering the line in parts with more than 10 feet of water.

ravines and high mountains, the torrents concentrating suddenly, and often without warning, in the main outlet. I have seen a good deal of torrential streams in various tropical countries, and from my experience, both as an engineer and traveller, have learnt to appreciate their dangerous character, but nowhere-neither in Burmah, India, IndoChina, or South Africa, all of which I know well-have I seen anything more formidable than the Chagres river. The tropical rains in Central America are the most serious obstacle to the construction and maintenance of a canal, which must be out of reach of sudden and excessive inundations. This object could never be accomplished at Panama, with the channel bed at the sea-level. Neither is a lock canal, in my opinion, possible, for a canal with locks or lifts must have at its highest level an abundant, safe and controllable supply of water, and this can only be had in Central America on the Nicaragua route. There it already exists in perfection.

These facts regarding Panama clearly indicate the wide and radical difference in the conditions existing between that route and Nicaragua, and it is idle, as will later be more fully demonstrated, for the adverse critics of the projected canal to contend that the failure of the Panama scheme proved the impossibility of the Nicaraguan or any isthmian canal. That project was defeated by local difficulties, mainly by the uncontrolled giant floods of the Chagres river, which hold undisputed sway over this route, and by the Culebra cut, the character of which had never been properly ascertained.

THE TEHUANTEPEC SHIP-RAILWAY.

This project for a ship-railway across the isthmus at Tehuantepec, in Southern Mexico, was conceived and advocated with great energy and ability by Eads, who succeeded in converting to his view a large number of engineers and men of a scientific cast of mind in various parts of the world, although he had the consensus of public opinion," the common-sense of mankind," as his opponents in the United States termed it,-opposed to him. With his death, however, the scheme fell out of favour, and no successor has taken his place. Eads was a man not only of commanding talents as an engineer, but of that rare class of resourceful, magnetic, persuasive personalities, equipped with boundless courage, vitality, and energy in face of all difficulties, of whom de Lesseps was such a striking example. Lesseps, it is too often forgotten, was not an engineer, either in the professional meaning of the word, or even in a much broader sense.

The report of the House Committee on Commerce contained the following:

"In this connection, however, it is but proper to say that in the opinion of the most able and well-known engineers, naval architects, and ship-builders of the world, the construction of a ship-railway at Tehuantepec, in accordance with the plans which have been submitted to them by Mr. Eads, is entirely practicable. Indeed, many of these experts go much further than this, and declare that a railway is preferable to a canal;-first, in the economy with which it can be constructed; second, in the facility with which it may be enlarged when commerce demands its enlargement; third, in the economy with which it can be operated; and fourth, in its ability to transport vessels with greater rapidity and less delay."

His brilliant plan was to take ships bodily from one ocean to the other on a four-fold steel-laid track, drawn by as many locomotives abreast. The length of the line was to be 154 miles; the termini Salina Cruz, on the Pacific Ocean, and Barra, on the Gulf of Mexico; the maximum height to be crossed, 755 feet above sea-level. Extraordinary as was his proposed undertaking, it is by no means beyond the range of possibility, and has one great advantage, that of being built above the floods, while a canal must be beneath them. There is, in fact, at the present moment a similar ship-railway now in progress, and about three-fourths already built, though on a much smaller scale, it is true, which will probably pave the way for other works of a similar nature. This littleknown work, the Chignecto ship-railway, connecting the navigation of the Bay of Fundy with the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is 17 miles in length, and will be capable of carrying ships weighing 2,000 tons.

The concession granted by the Government of Mexico to Eads was for a period of fourteen years from 6th May, 1881. The cost, estimated at £3,750,000 ($18,750,000), was to be refunded at the rate of £250,000 ($1,250,000) per annum, should the profits exceed £750,000 ($3,750,000) per annum. An ordinary railway, 190 miles in length,planned by Eads to be used as a "service" line to aid in the construction of his ship-railway-has actually been carried out by the Mexican Government, and recently opened from ocean to ocean, though much is still wanting to make the line thoroughly serviceable. In order to render it valuable for the purposes of inter-oceanic railway