Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/425

Rh to see that the necessary surveys and data for determining the type of canal have been completed and to bring the same to Washington to be laid before the commission; and that the committee on engineering plans shall, if possible, recommend to the commission, during March, various plans and estimates for the several types of canal, so that the commission as a whole may determine the same.

The writer was a fourth member of the committee on engineering plans.

In compliance with this resolution two members of the committee, Professor Burr and Mr. Parsons, went to the isthmus, where their deliberations were participated in by General Davis, who by virtue of his station on the isthmus was a member of all committees there in session. Major Harrod did not accompany the other members of the committee, because it was necessary to preserve a quorum of the commission at Washington for the transaction of business.

On February 23, 1905, the committee, having returned from the isthmus, made a report, in which it recommended that the construction of a breakwater at the entrance of Limon Bay should be commenced at the earliest practicable date; that the harbor at Cristobal should be deepened and otherwise improved; that, if a lock-canal be constructed the summit level of the canal should not exceed 60 feet; that Chagres River should be controlled by a dam at Gamboa; and that a plan for a sea-level canal, free from the restriction of locks (except a tidal lock near the Pacific Ocean) should be adopted. The committee included in its recommendations 150 feet as the least bottom-width of the canal and 35 feet as the least depth. suggesting, however, that estimates be also made to cover a depth of 40 feet. The committee also took up the question of the necessary lock dimensions, if locks be required, and advocated a width of 100 feet and a usable