Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/387

 show the relative amount of completed and uncompleted area along the axis of the canal. To complete the summit cut it is still necessary to excavate 111 feet, 93 feet having already been excavated, through a horizontal distance of 3300 feet. The width of cut at top surface for the required depth at a slope of 1 to 1 would be 750 feet, but as I said before, at this slope landslides were of frequent occurrence and the slope would probably have to be increased to at least 2 to 1.

Granting the necessary excavations made, there would be still the problem of the control of the Chagres river and the water supply for the summit level to provide for. At first it was thought that the water supply could be obtained from the storage of the waters of the Chagres and Obispo, but this idea was eventually abandoned, either from a belief in the insufficiency of the water supply during the dry season, or from difficulties in the way of conveying the water to the summit level.

Then it was that the advice of Mr. Eiffel, a noted French engineer, was sought, and after a visit to the Isthmus he proposed that the summit level should be supplied by pumping from the Pacific. A contract was immediately made with Eiffel, who was heralded all over the world as the man who would save the canal, and immediately a positive day, the seventh that had been announced, was fixed for the opening of the great canal.

I do not know just how much work was done towards perfecting the system for pumping, but probably very little was ever accomplished in this direction, as soon after this scheme was thought of the available funds of the canal company began to be very scarce, and there has been since then a general collapse of work all along the line until now it is entirely suspended. From what I have said and from what can be seen from the profile, it will be readily understood that as far as the sea-level project is concerned the amount done is not much more than a scraping of the surface, relatively speaking, and that what has been done is in places where the obstacles were fewest.

In regard to the lock canal about one third of the necessary excavation has been made along the axis of the canal, but taking into consideration other requirements necessary for the completion of the scheme, I should estimate, roughly, that probably only one sixth of the whole amount of work had been accomplished. The question now naturally arises as to what will be the probable future of this great enterprise.