Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/317

Rh It is possible also that a fissure might open which would drain the canal, and if it remained open, might destroy it. This possibility should not be erected by the fancy into a threatening danger. If a timorous imagination is to be the guide, no great work can be undertaken anywhere. This risk may be classed with that of a great conflagration in a city like that of Chicago in 1871, or Boston in 1872.

It is the opinion of the commission that such danger as exists from earthquakes is essentially the same for both the Nicaragua and Panama routes, and that in neither case is it sufficient to prevent the construction of the canal.

The relative health fulness of the two routes has already been touched upon. There is undoubtedly at the present time a vast amount of unhealthfulness on the Panama route, and practiallypractically [sic] none on the Nicaragua route, but this is accounted for when it is remembered, as has also been stated, that there is practically no population on the Nicaragua route and a comparatively large population along the Panama line. There is a widespread, popular impression that the Central American countries are necessarily intensely unhealthful. This is an error, in spite of the facts that the construction of the Panama Railroad was attended with an appalling amount of sickness and loss of life, and that records of many epidemics at other times and in other places exist in nearly all these countries. There are the best of good reasons to believe that with the enforcement of sanitary regulations, which are now well understood and completely available, the Central American countries would be as healthful as our southern states. A proper recognition of hygienic conditions of life suitable to a tropical climate would work wonders in Central America in reducing the death-rate. At the present time the domestic administration of most of the cities and towns of Nicaragua and Panama, as well as the generality of Central American cities, is characterized by the absence of practically everything which makes for public health, and by the presence of nearly every agency working for the diseases which flourish in tropical climates. When the United States Government reaches the point of actual construction of an isthmian canal the sanitary features of that work should be administered and enforced in every detail with rigor of the most exacting military discipline. Under such conditions, epidemics could either be avoided or reduced to manageable dimensions, but not otherwise. The commission concluded that, 'existing conditions indicate hygienic advantages for the Nicaragua route although it is probable that no less effective sanitary measures must be taken during construction in the one case than in the other.'

The time required for passing through a trans-isthmian canal is affected by the length, by the number of locks, by the number of curves, and by the sharpness of curvature. The speed of a ship and consequently the time of passage is also affected by the depth of water under its keel. It is well known that the same power applied to a ship in deep