Heilprin - A Defense of the Panama Route
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ARTES
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1837
SCIENTIA
VERITAS
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3. E-PLURIBUS UNUM
SQUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAM
CIRCUMSPICE
....:
8361
A DEFENSE
OF THE
PANAMA ROUTE
BY
PROF. ANGELO HEILPRIN, F. R. G. S.,
Vice-President of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia; Member of the
American Philosophical Society, of the Board of Managers of the
National Geographic Society of Washington, of the
Geological Society of America, etc.
Printed for the Author.
THE FRANKLIN PRESS.
Philadelphia, March, 1902.
Reclassed
7-24
0187088,5
WAY
A DEFENSE OF THE PANAMA ROUTE.
BY
PROF. ANGELO HEILPRIN, F. R. G. S.,
Vice-President of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia; Member of the
American Philosophical Society, of the Board of Managers of the
National Geographic Society of Washington, of the
Geological Society of America, etc.
The final report (Senate Document No. 54, 1901) of the
Isthmian Canal Commission so manifestly sets forth the engi-
neering advantages of the Panama Canal route, while giving
a decision in favor of the Nicaragua route, that it is no longer
necessary to enter upon a discussion of this phase of the canal
problem. Aside, however, from conceding what had been
very generally known to engineers before the Commission
came into existence, and furnishing a valuable summary of
the work made in the field by its special experts (the details
of which are published elsewhere), the report is singularly
defective in some of its particulars, and will be judged by
many to emphasize largely, or even wholly, erroneous con-
clusions. These conclusions touch not so much important
questions in engineering as they do those of geography (com-
merce) and geology.
THE SHORT COMMERCIAL ROUTE.
It will be seen that this report says: "For the com-
merce in which the United States is most interested, that
between our Pacific ports and Atlantic ports, European and
American, the Nicaragua route is shorter by about one day.
I
170786
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A Defense of the Panama Route.
The same advantage exists between our Atlantic ports and
the Orient" (p. 260). While it may be easily denied, in view
of the rapid development of trade with South America and
the fact that the transcontinental railroad lines will always be
competitors in freight carriage to and from the vast interior
of the national domain, that the canal commerce in which the
United States is most interested is that which links the
eastern and western ports of our own country, the error of
the conclusion that for this commerce the Nicaragua route
is shorter by about one day cannot be questioned. The
Commission affirms that the estimated time for a deep-draft
vessel to pass over the contemplated Panama route is 12
hours, and over the Nicaragua route-the longer by 134.57
miles-33 hours, giving the advantage of 21 hours to the
Panama route. Applying this advantage to steamers of dif
ferent sailing powers, to those of 13 knots, 15 knots, and 20
knots (cruisers), we obtain as profit to the vessels using the
Panama route 139, 181, and 286 knots respectively. The
U. S. Hydrographic Office furnishes the data regarding the
different sailing routes, and gives an actual saving in distance
(between New York and San Francisco) by the use of the
Nicaragua route of 377 miles. Therefore, the net gain by
the Nicaragua traverse would be this amount less the loss
in making the long isthmian journey: 238 miles (or 18.3
hours) for the 13-knot steamers; 196 miles (or 13 hours) for
the 15-knot steamers, and 91 miles (or 4.5 hours) for the 20-
knot cruisers. A consideration of a 10-knot speed, which
appears to underlie the result obtained by the Commission,
may be interesting, but is hardly of value in the determination
of canal construction, since it is certain, with the rapid devel-
opment of speed-power, that but few vessels entering as com-
ナ
​A Defense of the Panama Route.
3
petitors for freight in an extended ocean course will in the
future be constructed with a speed-power of less than 14 or
15 knots.
The conditions in regard to the course to the Orient
are still more favorable to the Panama route, for the saving in
actual distance via Nicaragua, as the data of the Hydro-
graphic Office show, is only 255 miles. Therefore, steamers
of
13
knots using the Nicaragua route would have the advan-
tage over the Panama steamers of only 9 hours (116 miles) in
the course to Yokohama and Shanghai; and those of 15 knots,
of only 5 hours (74 miles). The swift-flying cruiser of 20
knots would, on the other hand, lose 1 hours (31 miles). In
the course to Australia the advantage would lie with the
Panama route. It is needless to say that these slight differ-
ences of disadvantage or advantage, over courses of 5,000 and
10,000 miles length, practically parallel the two routes. The
conditions are, however, wholly different when the course
with the western ports of South America is considered, and
concerning which the Commission reports: "For commerce
between North Atlantic ports and the west coast of South
America the Panama route is shorter by about two days"
(p. 261)—a saving of two days in a traverse (to Guayaquil) of
only 2,900 miles!
In this determination of travel-time the figures given by
the Isthmian Canal Commission for the traverse of the two
routes have been accepted merely for the purpose of pre-
senting the problem in the most favorable aspect taken from
the viewpoint of the Commission. It is, however, positively
certain that if the average passage over the Panama route is
to be taken at 12 hours, no vessel would or could make the
average Nicaragua passage-longer by 134 miles, with a con-
х
4
A Defense of the Panama Route.
1
siderably higher summit level, and through a canal with twice
the number of locks with much more rapid curves-in 33
hours. It is not alone the question of actual sailing time,
but that of delays, which has to be taken into account into the
resolution of traverse-time; and it is needless to say that over
a long canal course the possibilities (certainties) of delays of
different kinds are accentuated in a very different degree from
what they would be over a short canal course. It can reason-
ably be accepted that 40 hours would more nearly represent
the actual traverse of the Nicaragua Canal than 33 hours.
With this time allowance the Panama Canal would be made
the virtual equal of the Nicaragua Canal even in the trade
route between our Atlantic ports and the Pacific ports of the
United States, for a 15-knot steamer traversing it would only
lag 77 miles (5.1 hours) of its Nicaraguan competitor in the
voyage to San Francicso, while a 20-knot cruiser would be
in advance by 63 miles (3.1 hours).
It is manifest, therefore, that with practically no saving
advantage to either route in the course to the western coast
of the United States and the ports of the Orient, and with a
most marked advantage to the Panama route in the course to
the western coast of South America, the true commercial
· isthmian route is that of the Panama Canal.
THE DANGER FROM VOLCANIC DISTURBANCES.
In its Preliminary Report, submitted to Congress in
December, 1900, the Isthmian Canal Commission is silent on
the subject of the dangers from earthquake and volcanic dis-
turbances to which the Nicaraguan Canal would be subject,
manifestly considering as satisfactory the report of the Geolo-
gist of the Nicaragua Canal Commission (whose labors prac-
毒
​A Defense of the Panama Route.
5
tically excluded this field of inquiry) confirming the report
of the earlier geologist employed by the Maritime Canal
Company that the risk of serious injury was "so small that
it ought to be neglected alike by the Maritime Canal Com-
pany, the Construction Company, and by contemplating in-
vestors." It is probably on the strength of this opinion that
the Nicaragua Canal Construction Company, in their bro-
chure on "The Inter-Oceanic Canal of Nicaragua" (1891),
exultingly refers to the "grand old" cathedral of Leon as
having "for more than a century and a half . stood the
vicissitudes of earthquake, weather, war, piracy, revolution,
and its walls are still solid and unshaken," and define the risk
of injury to Nicaragua Canal construction by earthquakes
as existing only "in the theories of those who are interested
in the making a canal at some other locality or in the mind
of the man who is naturally a pessimist and opposed to all
bold undertakings." This vain-glorying was, however, re-
buked in less than a decade, for, on April 29, 1898, a violent
earthquake, which agitated the whole of Nicaragua, and had
its greatest intensity in the plain of Leon, destroyed (as we
are informed in the report of the Government Technical
Commission of Nicaragua) 340 houses in the city of Leon,
besides inflicting considerable damage elsewhere. Even the
"grand old" cathedral had its walls and, cupolas rent with
cracks.
In its present final report, the Isthmian Canal Com-
mission finds it necessary to enter into a brief discussion of
this subject, which, indeed, might be considered to be rather
an apology for a discussion than a discussion itself. Little
sympathy can be had for a report which dismisses this all-
important topic in hardly more than three pages, and uses as
6
A Defense of the Panama Route.
!
its main argumentative text Humboldt's Cosmos, the first
American edition of Lyell's Principles of Geology, the
second edition of Daubeny's Volcanoes, and the frag-
mentary (and confessedly incomplete) list of earthquakes
prepared by Montessus de Ballore. The sciences of vulcan-
ology and seismology have made such rapid advances during
the last quarter of a century that one wonders how reference
can be made to these works for "authority"; nor is it more
intelligible how Humboldt's earliest conception of the rela-
tion of the mountain systems of the two continents, which
Humboldt himself quite gave up upwards of forty years ago,
can be taken as the modern guide in the study of the region
in question. We are told that a glance at the map appended
to the report will show "that the entire isthmus between
North and South America is a volcanic region," and, follow-
ing Humboldt, that "the grandest example of a continental
volcanic ‘chain' is offered by the great rampart of the Andes
extending from the southern part of Chile to the northwest
of America" (p. 168). It has, however, been known for a
full quarter of a century that the main Andes do not traverse
the Isthmus of Panama, and that there are no active or re-
cently decayed volcanoes in any part of the true isthmus. So
far, therefore, as danger from direct volcanic contacts is con-
cerned, the Panama route is exempt. The case is very
different with the Nicaragua route, whose line is laid across
the almost continuously volcanic tract that binds Costa Rica
with Salvador, and which has been, during the period of the
last three-quarters of a century, probably the most violently
eruptive of any in the Western Hemisphere. On the line
of crustal weakness that is occupied by Lakes Nicaragua and
Managua there are distributed over a linear distance of
:
A Defense of the Panama Route.
7
X
little more than 200 miles not less than 25 volcanoes, most
of which have been active within a very modern period of
time, while a number are still active to-day. A few actually
lie within the basin of Lake Nicaragua itself. Coseguina,
which lies only 60 miles distant from the line of the initially-
proposed canal, went through a paroxysm in 1835 which has X
been described by the Geologist of the Nicaragua Canal
Commission as "the most violent recorded eruption until
surpassed by that of Krakatoa in 1883." Yet, in the face of Y
these facts, known to all geographers and geologists, the
Isthmian Canal Commission would have us believe that so
far as danger from this source is concerned the two routes
stand equal!
It is not a little surprising that the only source of danger
that the Commission associates with volcanic manifestations
is that dependent upon the secondary phenomena of earth-
quakes. The individual volcanic catastrophe, as such, does
not enter for consideration; and yet it is only fifteen years
ago (1886) that the great Lake of Rotomahana, in New
Zealand, was wrecked and emptied of its water through the
eruption of a volcano (Tarawera), thought to have been ex-
tinct for upwards of a hundred years! And only a few years
earlier (1879-80), the waters of Lake Ilopango, in Salvador,
had been lowered 35 feet as the result of an eruption in that
body of water. The physiographic conditions of Rotoma-
hana previous to 1886 could have been precisely paralleled
with those now existing about the lake region of Nicaragua.
THE CONDITIONS OF EARTHQUAKE PHENOMENA.
It is difficult to comprehend the conclusion arrived at
by the Isthmian Canal Commission regarding the dangers to
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A Defense of the Panama Route.
be feared from earthquake disturbances. Were the subject
not so important a one, a geologist might be led to assume
that the discussion as it is presented was not intended to be
treated seriously. We are told that in general terms "the
region of volcanoes is the region of earthquakes, but the im-
mediate vicinity of the volcanoes is not necessarily the most
dangerous part of the region”—a statement that is presum-
ably intended to carry with it the inference that the region of
Panama, which is distantly removed from volcanoes, is about
as likely to suffer from earthquake disturbances as the region
of Nicaragua, which is in close proximity to or in direct asso-
ciation with volcanoes! The basis of this singular conclusion
appears to be the "doctrine," "accepted by such writers as
Baron Von Humboldt, Sir Charles Lyell, Prof. Charles
Daubeny, and J. Le Conte," that volcanoes are "safety valves
which diminish the violence of earthquakes in their vicinity"
(p. 167)! One can readily admit that were it not for the
presence of active volcanoes certain earthquakes in particular
regions would be more destructive than they have actually
shown themselves to be, but this in no way affects the general
proposition that earthquakes centre about the volcanoes.
While it is perfectly true that many and even very destructive
earthquakes, such as those of Lisbon, in 1755, and Charles-
ton, in 1886, have taken place in absolutely non-volcanic
regions, and will repeat themselves as such in the future, it
is equally true that every region of marked volcanic activity,
or crustal weakness, is one distinguished by earth-movements
and dislocations. The Costa Rican-Nicaraguan-Guatemalan
region is one preeminently of this class, and one need have
no more impressive testimony to this condition than the de-
struction, either complete or in large part, of the town of
A Defence of the Panama Route.
9
Cartago, in Costa Rica, four times in the course of the past
century (1803, 1841, 1851, 1854), the destruction ten times
of San Salvador and seven times of the city of Guatemala.
The town of Rivas, at the precise outlet of the proposed
Nicaragua Canal from Lake Nicaragua, was almost com-
pletely destroyed by the earthquake of 1844, which also
wrecked considerable damage to Greytown, the inlet to the
proposed canal. Mr. E. G. Squier, former Chargé d'Affaires
of the United States to the Republics of Central America,
describing the earthquake of 1844, states that the waters of
Lake Nicaragua "were observed to rise and fall with the
throes of the earth."
It is well known, and the fact is admitted in the report of
the Isthmian Canal Commission, that the only recorded
earthquake on the Panama tract "that could be called de-
structive," in a period of over three centuries (or from the
time of the Spanish Conquest to the year 1886), was the earth-
quake of 1621, which destroyed the greater part of Panama.
It is, therefore, surpassing strange, with these convincing
facts before it, that the Commission should not find it pos-
sible "to justify a comparison between the Nicaragua and
Panama routes as to either the number of earthquakes or
their severity" (p. 168). The recent shocks reported from
Greytown must add to the embarrassment in drawing a con-
clusion. Were the volcanic "safety-valves" not present, it
would, perhaps, be easier to resolve the question; but, then,
it might pertinently be asked, What was Vesuvius doing
during the great Neapolitan earthquake of 1857? What,
again, was it doing in 1886, when the city of Casamicciola,
on the Island of Ischia, was wrecked, or what was the function
of Etna, at the time of the destruction of Catania, in 1693?
IO
A Defense of the Panama Route.
What was the particular aid that the volcano of Irazú, in
Costa Rica, gave to the town of Cartago, lying near its base,
when it was wrecked in the years 1803, 1841, 1851, and 1854
-or that which the Volcan de Fuego gave to the ancient
city of Guatemala? These instances and others that might
be cited almost without number, ought to be sufficient to
convince all who are not particularly interested in canal con-
structions that the presence of an active volcano is no safe-
guard or "mitigating circumstance" in the calculation of
earthquake possibilities. Its presence, on the contrary, is a
warning signal forever, for the conditions that brought it
into existence are the very ones that make earthquakes, of
one class at least.
[TH
THE WATER SUPPLY OF LAKE NICARAGUA INSUFFICIENT FOR
THE NICARAGUA CANAL.
In earlier papers on the water supply of Lake Nicaragua
attention is called to the surprising fact, developed by the
investigations of the Nicaraguan and Isthmian Canal Com-
missions, that, if these investigations are accurate and to be
relied upon, the water in the lake must be a continuously
diminishing one, since the San Juan River and the general
evaporation from the surface of the lake remove more than
the annual rains supply to the lake basin. This conclusion,
pertinent to the question of the instability and steady abase-
ment of the lake level, and its effect upon a canal requiring
a permanent summit level, has been warmly dissented from
by the Geologist and Hydrographer of the Commissions.
In its present report, however, by accepting the impugned
or presumably unreliable data of rainfall made at Rivas and
Masaya, and the observations on evaporation made by its
A Defense of the Panama Route.
II
Chief Hydrographer, the Commission virtually assumes the
condition, and finds it necessary to throw out the warning
that "no wastage whatever would be permitted during such
a low-water wet season as that of 1890. The rainfall from the
entire drainage basin would be impounded in the lake, and
it would then fall short of restoring the depletion resulting
from evaporation and requirements of the canal" (p. 146).
As a result of the operations of the nineteen months of that
particular season (calculating from November, 1889, to June,
1891), the Commission says: "In other words, in spite of
all storage of available water during the nineteen months,
evaporation from the lake and the use of the canal have run
the elevation of the lake surface down from 110.2 to 104
(feet), representing the net depletion of 6.2 feet in depth of
lake water" (p. 153).
The menace to a permanent canal from a condition of
this kind-the loss of its water-is so serious that only the
most conclusive evidence as to the non-recurrence in suc-
cessive periods of low water should be accepted as proving
the "recovery" of the lake in the alternate wet periods. The
Commission appears to have satisfied itself on this point, for
in its report it says: "The entire record for fifteen years,
from 1886 to 1900, at Granada and Masaya, shows but one
year, 1890, with insufficient precipitation during the rainy
season to fill the lake and restore the amount evaporated"
(p. 154). This conclusion is not borne out by the data that
are supplied in the special reports of the Chief Engineer and
the Chief Hydrographer. It is shown, for example, that
between the months of November, 1893, and May, 1897, the
total rainfall was at Rivas 192 inches (and at Masaya 133
inches), which according to the formula furnished by the
Chief Engineer of the Nicaragua Canal Commission, would
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A Defense of the Panama Route.
have raised the surface of the lake, were there no outflow and
no evaporation, by almost exactly 200 inches. The evapo-
ration during the same period of three and a half years, as
computed by the Chief Hydrographer, would be 210 inches—
a loss to the lake, therefore, of 10 inches, allowing not a par-
ticle of overflow with which to supply the canalized river, and
not permitting a drop of wastage of any kind.
Precisely the same condition presented itself in the inter-
val from November, 1882, to May, 1886, and our knowledge
is much too imperfect to permit us to say with any degree
of positiveness that much more unfavorable conditions may
not present themselves in the future.
The facts in our possession, then, manifestly, do not
justify the conclusion of the Commission that the "lake
affords an inexhaustible water supply for the canal" by the
Nicaragua route (p. 257). They show plainly the reverse:
that the supply is insufficient, and that no amount of storage
or raising to high level compatible with the security of the
construction and general convenience can give sufficient
margin of "retained" water to insure a serviceable canal.
CONCLUSION.
The broad conclusions that can be drawn from all the
premises are:-
1. Commercially, the true trans-isthmian route is that of
the contemplated Panama Canal.
2. Constructionally,—as involving less engineering diffi-
culties, avoiding the superior risks from earthquake and vol-
canic disturbances and water shortages, and presenting a far
more acceptable course for steaming,-the Panama Canal, of
the two canals under general discussion, alone merits serious
consideration.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 07376 4170
DEC 4 1907
BOUND IN LIBRARY,
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