Charles de Fourcy

“ At what possible expense could the absolute security of these great dikes be assured?
To continue: we enter the San Juan River, kept in bounds by a large dam, which, however, is not enough to assure everywhere sufficient depth of water in the shallowest parts; where there is not depth enough it would be necessary to blow up or excavate by dredges a channel one hundred metres wide by eight and a half metres deep. To make this channel would be difficult, to maintain it against what would constantly come in to fill it up might be still more so. ”

“ It would be a long and difficult task to actually begin the work, because, before the great dockyards of the canal could be built, it would be necessary to make a harbor at Grey town, the success of which does not appear to be assured, and which at any rate would be very expensive.
Starting at this harbor, the canal, when leaving the San Juan River, would for several kilometres be suspended over the valley by immense dikes holding continuously a weight of water 8·50 metres high. There the slightest leak would become a breach, any breach a serious rupture, and any rupture a complete disaster. ”

“ I have said enough to show my reasons for refusing to accept the Nicaragua plan.
Next comes the project by Panama with locks. Here, as if
A MAP OF THE WORLD, SHOWING THE GREAT COMMERCIAL ROUTES TRIBUTARY TO THE PROPOSED CANAL.
Nature herself had wished to get ready for man's work, the soil, as at Darien, has for a long time been free from earthquakes. ”

“ Wyse and Reclus, which is, merely to provide against the occasionally very rapid currents which would come from the great rise and fall of the tide on the Pacific, which sometimes amount to six metres. This can easily be managed by a tide-barrier in such a way that the level of the water in the canal will be regulated by that of the Atlantic, which varies but very little. ”

“ To make artificially across this bar, and to keep it always open, a channel wide enough and deep enough for the largest vessels, is a very great undertaking, the success of which, however, should not be regarded as impossible or even as improbable. But still there is no instance of a work of such importance, and we find ourselves facing a problem the solution of which—a very laborious and very expensive matter—is by no means certain. ”

“ We have been told, I am aware, that these "movements," which I hardly dare to call earthquakes, were not to be feared; that during these "movements," to which the inhabitants of the country are well accustomed, sometimes in the walls of houses and of public buildings, cracks would appear wide enough for the light to be seen through them, but soon these cracks would be closed to crevices, mere lines, and that then the buildings threatened for the time would again become solid until there was a new "movement." ”

“ The first is to keep the canal above any possibilities of overflow. Theoretically, nothing is easier; the railroad, now in operation between Colon (Aspinwall) and Panama, which the canal should follow, and as near as possible, is above the overflow of the Chagres. By prolonging the level of this roadway to the sides of the valley a winding line would be traced, bringing us to the place beyond which the canal can be constructed, without danger from the highest overflow of the water ”

“ This line is the shortest which joins the two oceans, but to carry it out a harbor must be built on the Atlantic, and then you soon find yourself facing a mountain-chain which has to be passed by a tunnel sixteen kilometres long; next you come to the Bayano, with elbows in its course too square to be straightened out, and a bar also on the Pacific side, which it is not certain could be mastered. The expense calculated for all this is fourteen hundred million francs.
The plan of a tunnel does not frighten M. Favre, [3] the contractor of the one through the St. ”