PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS
The digging of an Isthmian Canal was a dream in the minds of many men
in Europe and America from the day that Columbus found two continents
stretched across his pathway in his endeavor to discover a western
route to India. On his last voyage, as he beat down the coast of
Central America, here naming one cape "Gracias a Dios" and there
another "Nombre de Dios," testifying his thanks to God and his
reverence for His name, he touched the Isthmus near the present
Atlantic terminus of the Panama Canal. He little dreamed that some day
ships 500 times as large as his own would pass through the barrier of
mountains which Nature interposed between his ambitions and India.
The idea of a canal through the American Isthmus was in the mind of
Charles V of Spain as early as 1520. In that year he ordered surveys
to ascertain the practicability of a canal connecting the Atlantic and
the Pacific. His son, Philip II did not agree with him about the
desirability of a trans-Isthmian waterway, holding that a shipway
through the Isthmus would give to other nations easy access to his new
possessions, and in time of war might be of greater advantage to his
enemies than to himself. He invoked the Bible to put an end to these
propositions to dig a canal across the American Isthmus, calling to
mind that the Good Book declared that "what God hath joined together
let no man put asunder."
The policy of Philip was continued for about two centuries, although
in the reign of his father many efforts had been made in the direction
of a ship waterway across the Isthmus. In fact, ships crossed the
Isthmus nearly four centuries before the completion of the canal.
About 1521 Gil Gonzales was sent to the New World to seek out a strait
through the Isthmus. He sailed up and down the Central American coast,
entering this river and that, but failing of course to find a natural
waterway. Not to be outdone, he decided to take his two caravels to
pieces and to transport them across the Isthmus. He carried them on
the backs of Indians and mules from the head of navigation on the
Chagres River to the ancient city of Panama. There he rebuilt them and
set out to sea, but they were lost in a storm. Still determined to
make the most of his opportunities, Gonzales built others to take
their places and with these made his way up the Pacific coast through
the Gulf of Fonseca to Nicaragua, where he discovered Lake Nicaragua.
A few years later another explorer made a trip across Lake Nicaragua
and down the San Juan River to the Atlantic.
Cortez, the conquistador of Mexico, at one time was ordered to use
every resource at his command in a search for the longed-for strait.
He did not find it, but he did open up a line of communication across
the Isthmus of Tehauntepec, following practically the same line as
was afterwards followed by Eads with his proposed ship railway.
From those days to the time when the United States decided that the
canal should be built at Panama and that it should be made a national
undertaking, one route after another was proposed. In 1886,
immediately after the French failure, the Senate requested the
Secretary of the Navy to furnish all available information pertaining
to the subject of a canal across the Isthmus, and Admiral Charles H.
Davis reported that 19 canal and 7 railway projects had been proposed,
the most northerly across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec and the most
southerly across the Isthmus of Panama at the Gulf of Darien, 1,400
miles apart. Eight of these projects were located in Nicaragua.
In 1838 the Republic of New Granada, which then had territorial
possession of the Isthmus of Panama, granted a concession to a French
company to build a canal across the Isthmus. This company claimed to
have found a pass through the mountains only 37 feet above sea level.
In 1843 the French minister of foreign affairs instructed Napoleon
Carella to investigate these claims. That engineer found no such pass
and reported the claims to be worthless. He, in turn, advocated a
canal along the route followed by the present Panama Canal, with a
3-mile tunnel through Culebra Mountain and with 18 locks on the
Atlantic slope and 16 locks on the Pacific slope. He estimated the
cost of such a canal at $25,000,000. The first formal surveys of the
Panama route were made in 1827 by J. A. Lloyd. He recommended a
combination rail and water route, with a canal on the Atlantic side
and a railroad on the Pacific side.
The first serious proposition to build a Nicaragua Canal was made in
1779 when the King of England ordered an investigation into the
feasibility of connecting the Nicaraguan lakes with the sea. A year
later Capt. Horatio Nelson, destined to become the hero of Trafalgar,
headed an expedition from Jamaica to possess the Nicaraguan lakes,
which he considered to be the inland Gibraltar of Spanish America,
commanding the only water pass between the oceans. His expedition was
successful as far as overcoming Spanish opposition was concerned, but
a deadlier enemy than the Don decimated his ranks. Of the 200 who set
out with Nelson only 10 survived, and Nelson himself narrowly escaped
with his life after a long illness.
In 1825 what now constitute the several countries of Central America
were embraced in one federation--the Central American Republic. It
asked the cooperation of the American people in the construction of a
canal through Nicaragua. Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, favored
the proposition, and, in 1826, the Federation entered into a contract
with Aaron H. Palmer, of New York, for the construction of a canal
through Nicaragua capable of accommodating the largest vessels afloat.
Palmer was unable to command the necessary capital and the concession
lapsed. A few years later an English corporation sent John Bailey to
Nicaragua for the purpose of securing a canal concession. He failed to
get the concession but was later employed by the Nicaraguan
Government, which again had become independent, to determine the most
feasible location for a canal across Nicaragua.
The United States Government became deeply interested in Isthmian
Canal projects during the Forties of the last century. The extension
of the national domain to the Pacific coast made the building of an
Isthmian Canal a consideration of prime importance to the United
States, and made it a dangerous policy to allow any other country to
acquire a dominating hand over an Isthmian waterway. The result was
that the American Government advised the British Government that it
would not tolerate the control of any Isthmian Canal by any foreign
power. This later brought about the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which made
neutral the proposed Nicaraguan Canal.
In 1849 Elijah Hise, representing the United States, negotiated a
treaty with Nicaragua, by the terms of which that country gave to the
United States, or its citizens, exclusive right to construct and
operate roads, railways, canals, or any other medium of transportation
across its territory between the two oceans. The consideration exacted
by Nicaragua was that the United States should guarantee the
independence of that country--a consideration that was then paramount
because of the effort being made by Great Britain to gobble up the
"Mosquito Coast" as far east as the San Juan River. The United States
was not ready to give such a guarantee--although a half century later
it did give it to the Republic of Panama--and the Hise treaty failed
of ratification in the Senate.
A little later Cornelius Vanderbilt became interested in a canal and
road across Nicaragua under an exclusive concession running for 85
years. Modifications of this concession permitted the Vanderbilt
Company to exercise exclusive navigation rights on the lakes of
Nicaragua. As a result the Accessory Transit Company established a
transportation line from the Atlantic through the San Juan River and
across Lake Nicaragua, thence by stage coach over a 13-mile stretch of
road to San Juan del Sur on the Pacific.
In 1852 Col. Orville Childs made a report to President Fillmore upon
the results of his surveys for a Nicaraguan Canal; and, if the United
States, in 1902, had elected to build the Nicaraguan Canal, the route
laid out by Childs would have been followed for all but a few miles of
the entire distance. In 1858 a French citizen obtained from Nicaragua
and Costa Rica a joint concession for a canal, which contained a
provision that the French Government should have the right to keep two
warships on Lake Nicaragua as long as the canal was in operation. The
United States politely informed Nicaragua and Costa Rica that it would
not permit any such agreement--that it would be a menace to the United
States as long as the agreement was in force. Upon these
representations the concession was canceled.
In 1876 the first Nicaraguan Canal Commission created by the American
Congress made a unanimous report in favor of a canal across Nicaragua,
after it had investigated all the proposed routes from eastern Mexico
to western South America. It asserted that this route possessed, both
for the construction and maintenance of the canal, greater advantages
and fewer difficulties from engineering, commercial, and economic
points of view than any one of the other routes shown to be
practicable by surveys sufficient in detail to enable a judgment to be
formed of their respective merits.
When the first French Panama Canal Company began its work all other
projects fell by the wayside for the time being, just as all other
plans for interoceanic canals were abandoned when the United States
undertook the construction of the present canal. After that company
failed, however, the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua was organized
in 1889 by A. G. Menocal, under concessions from the Government of
that country and Costa Rica. The Atlantic end of this canal, as
proposed by the Maritime Canal Company, was located on the lagoon west
of Greytown. The Pacific end was located at Brito, a few miles from
San Juan del Sur. This canal company built three-fourths of a mile of
canal, constructed a temporary railway and a short telegraph line, but
soon thereafter became involved in financial difficulties which led to
a suspension of operations. Even to this day the visitor to Nicaragua
may see many evidences of the wrecked hopes of that period for
whatever town he visits he finds there Americans and Europeans who
went to Nicaragua at the time of the opening of the work of building a
canal by the Maritime Canal Company. They expected to find a land of
opportunity. But, with failure of the canal project, they found
themselves in the possession of properties whose value lay only in
staying there and operating them.
When the first Isthmian Canal Commission, in 1899, undertook to
investigate all of the proposed routes across the connecting link
between North and South America, it placed on the Nicaraguan route
alone 20 working parties, made up of 159 civil engineers, their
assistants, and 455 laborers. The entire work of exploring the
Nicaraguan route was done with the greatest care. The depth of the
canal, as adopted by the commission, was 35 feet and the minimum width
150 feet. The locks were to be 840 feet long and 84 feet wide, and of
these there were to be eight on the Pacific and six on the Atlantic
side. This canal was to be 184 miles long. At the Atlantic end there
was to be a 46-mile sea-level section and at the Pacific end a 12-mile
sea-level section, while the water in the middle 126-mile section was
to be 145 feet above the water in the two oceans. It was estimated
that it would cost $189,000,000 to build the Nicaraguan Canal.
Although the distance between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the
United States would have been more than 400 miles shorter by the
Nicaragua Canal than by the Panama Canal, it would have taken about 24
hours longer to pass through the former than through the latter, so
that, as far as length of time from Atlantic to Pacific ports was
concerned, the two routes would have been practically on a par. The
total amount of material it would have been necessary to excavate at
Nicaragua approximates, according to the estimates, 228,000,000 cubic
yards. This would have been increased, perhaps, by half, to make a
canal large enough to accommodate ships such as will be accommodated
by the present Panama Canal.
The three great trans-Isthmian projects may be said to have been: The
Panama Canal, the Nicaraguan Canal, and the James B. Eads ship railway
across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec. The latter proposition seems to be
the most remarkable, in some ways, of them all. In 1881, James B.
Eads, the great engineer who built the Mississippi River bridge at St.
Louis, and whose work in jetty construction at the mouths of the
Mississippi proved him to be one of the foremost engineers of his day,
secured a charter from the Mexican Government conveying to him
authority to utilize the Isthmus of Tehauntepec for the construction
of a ship railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. His plan called
for a railway 134 miles long, with the highest point over 700 feet
above the sea, and designed to carry vessels up to 7,000 tons. He
calculated that the entire cost of the railway would not be more than
$50,000,000. His plan was to build a railroad with a large number of
tracks on which a huge cradle would run. This cradle would be placed
under a ship, and the ship braced in the manner of one in dry dock.
Heavy coiled springs were to equalize all stresses and to prevent
shocks to the vessel. A number of powerful locomotives would be
hitched to the cradle and would pull it across the Isthmus. Although
the proposition was indorsed by many authorities, it seems to anyone
who has crossed the Isthmus of Tehauntepec that it was a most
visionary scheme.
[Illustration: COL. CHESTER L. HARDING
THE GATUN UPPER LOCKS]
[Illustration: LIEUT. COL. DAVID D. GAILLARD
CULEBRA CUT, SHOWING CUCARACHA SLIDE IN LEFT CENTER]
If one can imagine a ship railway across the Allegheny Mountains
between Lewiston Junction and Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania Railroad,
or between Washington and Goshen, Va., on the Chesapeake & Ohio
Railroad, he will have a very good idea of the difficulties which
would be encountered in building such a railway. The present
Tehauntepec railroad is 188 miles long. When crossing the Cordilleras
there are numerous places on this road where the rear car of the train
and the engine are traveling in diametrically opposite directions. The
road is well-built, and, as one crosses the backbone of the continent,
and beholds the engineering difficulties that were encountered in
building an ordinary American railroad, he can not help but marvel at
the confidence of a man who would endeavor to build across those
mountains a shipway large enough and straight enough to carry a
7,000-ton ship. Yet Captain Eads estimated that his shipway could be
constructed in four years at one-half the cost of the Nicaraguan
Canal; that vessels could be transported by rail much more quickly
than by canal; that in case of accident the railway could be repaired
more speedily; and that it could be enlarged to carry heavier ships as
business demanded.
He declared that he did not think it would be as difficult to build a
ship railway across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec as to build a harbor at
the Atlantic entrance of the Nicaraguan Canal. His confidence in his
project was such that he proposed to build a short section of the road
to prove its practicability before asking the United States to commit
itself to the project. Commodore T. D. Wilson, at that time Chief
Constructor of the United States Navy, declared in a letter to Captain
Eads that he did not believe the strains upon a ship hauled across the
Isthmus, as Eads proposed, would be greater than those to which ocean
steamers are constantly exposed. Gen. P. T. G. Beauregard, of
Confederate Army fame, declared that a loaded ship would incur less
danger in being transported on a smooth and well-built railway than it
would encounter in bad weather on the ocean.
A prominent English firm offered to undertake the building and
completion of the necessary works for placing ships with their cargo
on the railway tracks of the trans-Isthmian line, declaring that they
had no hesitation in guaranteeing the lifting of a fully loaded ship
of 8,000 or 10,000 tons on a railway car to the level of the railroad
in 30 minutes, if the distance to be lifted was not over 50 feet. The
death of Captain Eads ended this picturesque project.
A proposition once was made to build a canal across the Isthmus of
Tehauntepec. This would have required 30 locks on each side of the
Isthmus of 25 feet each, and these locks alone would have cost, on the
basis of the locks at Panama, perhaps as much as the whole Panama
Canal.
One of the narrowest parts of the Isthmus is that lying between the
present Panama Canal route and the South American border. Three routes
were proposed in this section, known as the Atrato River route, the
Caledonia route, and the San Blas route. It was found that a canal
built along any one of these routes would require a tunnel. The
estimated cost of building a tunnel 35 feet deep, 100 feet wide at the
bottom, and 117 feet on the waterline, with a height of 115 feet from
the water surface, the entire tunnel being lined with concrete 5 feet
thick, would approximate $22,500,000 a mile. The cost of building a
canal along one of these routes would have been greater than that of
building either the Nicaragua Canal or the Panama Canal.
The question of an Isthmian Canal will probably be forever set at rest
at no distant date. In an effort to forestall for all time any
competition in the canal business across the American Isthmus,
negotiations are now under way whereby the United States seeks to
acquire the exclusive rights for a canal through Nicaragua, just as it
now possesses exclusive rights for a canal through the Republic of
Panama. The conclusion of the work at Panama will end the efforts of
four centuries to open up a shipway from the Atlantic to the Pacific
across the American Isthmus.