Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/541

Rh For the first time in the history of these endeavors the question had become a practical one—as to which of two routes was the superior for both commerce and war.

The second of the two maps shows at a glance the situation of the two routes, especially the manifest advantage of the Sassafras, chiefly on account of the greatly decreased distance from the* wharves of Baltimore to a point at sea off the capes of the Delaware.

But it is not with the commercial relations of any route that our

interest lies; but rather that by the construction of a ship-canal by one or the other, one link will be securely forged in that chain of waterways by which so much is to be gained in ways of defense of our Atlantic seaboard. Perhaps these defensive advantages could not be better set forth than by quoting in full the 'expert' opinion of General William P. Craighill former chief of engineers, U. S. A.

It will be doubted by no one that a deep-water communication between the two bays would be of vast importance in the contingency of war with a maritime nation. Such a connection would provide a means of concentrating the floating defenses of the two bays, and besides this would render more secure the communication between the naval stations of Philadelphia and Norfolk and Washington. Vessels defending a port have two offices to perform, the one