canal that shall join the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. We had passed
from sea to sea, a distance of about two hundred miles.

The San Juan river, one hundred and twenty miles in length, has a fall
of one foot to the mile. This will necessitate the introduction of at
least six massive locks between the Atlantic and the lake. Sometimes the
river can be utilized, but not without dredging; for it is shallow from
beginning to end, and near its mouth is ribbed with sand-bars. For
seventy miles the lake is navigable for vessels of the heaviest draught.
Beyond the lake there must be a clean-cut over or through the mountains
to the Pacific, and here six locks are reckoned sufficient. Cross-cuts
from one bend in the river to another can be constructed at the rate of
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or less, per mile. The canal
must be sunk or raised at intervals; there will, therefore, at various
points be the need of a wall of great strength and durability, from one
hundred and thirty to three hundred feet in height or depth.

The annual rain-fall in the river region between Lake Nicaragua and the
Caribbean Sea is twenty feet; annual evaporation, three feet. These
points must be considered in the construction and feeding of the canal,
even though it is to vary in width. The dimensions of the proposed
canal, as recommended by the Walker Government Commission, are as
follows: total length, one hundred and eighty-nine miles; minimum depth
of water at all stages, thirty feet; width, one hundred feet in
rock-cuts, elsewhere varying from one hundred and fifty to three hundred
feet--except in Lake Nicaragua, where one end of the channel will be
made six hundred feet wide.

Nearly fifty years ago, when a canal was projected, the Childs survey
set the cost at thirty-seven million dollars. Now the commissioners