Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/322

316 The harbor features may be made adequate for all the needs of a canal by either route, with such little preponderance of advantage as may exist in favor of the Panama crossing.

The commission estimated ten years for the completion of the Panama canal and eight years for the Nicaragua waterway, but the writer believes that these relations should be exchanged.

The water-supply is practically unlimited on both routes, but the controlling or regulating works, being automatic, are much simpler and more easily operated and maintained on the Panama route.

The Nicaragua route is practically uninhabited and consequently practically no sickness exists there. On the Panama route, on the contrary, there is a considerable population extending along the entire line, among which yellow fever and other tropical diseases are probably always found. Initial sanitary works of much larger magnitude would be required on the Panama route than on the Nicaragua, although probably as rigorous sanitary measures would be required during the construction of the canal on one route as on the other.

The railroad on the Panama route and other facilities offered by a considerable existing population render the beginning of work and the housing and organization of the requisite labor forces less difficult and more prompt than on the Nicaragua route.

The greater amount of work on the Nicaragua route, and its distribution over a far greater length of line, involve the employment of a correspondingly greater force of laborers with attendant difficulties for an equally prompt completion of the work.

The recent volcanic eruptions on the Island of Martinique indicate a possible, danger to the Nicaragua canal, should it be built, from the living volcano of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua about ten miles from the land line. That there is some danger is beyond question, but it is very remote. There is no evidence to show that a canal or canal structure ten miles distant from Mount Pelee would have been injured by its recent eruptions, although navigation might have been interrupted for a short time. It is an open question, therefore, whether Ometepe in most violent eruption, even, would injure the Nicaragua Canal, although danger would exist.

On the other hand, as there is no volcano within about 175 miles of the Panama route, that route would be free from all danger of volcanic eruption.

Concessions and treaties require to be secured and negotiated for the construction of the canal on either route, and under the conditions created by the $40,000,000 offer for the new Panama Canal Company this feature of both routes appears to possess about the same characteristics, although the Nicaragua route is perhaps, freer from the complicating shadows of prior rights and concessions.