Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/434

230 Admiral Mordecai T. Endicott, civil engineer, U. S. Navy; Brig. Gen. Peter C. Hains, corps of engineers, U. S. Army (retired); Col. Oswald H. Ernst, corps of engineers, U. S. Army (retired); and Benjamin M. Harrod. A vacancy in the commission that had been caused by the resignation of Mr. John F. Wallace had not been filled.

This commission determined on February 5, 1906, by a vote of five to one, to recommend to the president the lock canal project of the

minority of engineers. The dissenting member was Admiral Endicott, who favored the adoption of the sea-level project.

The recommendation of the commission was accompanied by a report of Mr. John F. Stevens, their chief engineer, who favored the lock canal plan.

The secretary of war approved the recommendation of the commission and the president was not slow in acting. On February 19, 1906, the reports and papers were transmitted to Congress with a statement of his conclusions that the type of canal to be built is the canal with locks.

On June 21, 1906, the senate, by a vote of 36 to 31, passed an act authorizing the construction of a lock canal. This act was a few days later concurred in by the house without division. It provided

That a lock canal be constructed across the Isthmus of Panama connecting the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, of the general type proposed by the minority of the board of consulting engineers, created by order of the President under date of January 24 (June 24), 1905, in pursuance of an act