BRIDGING THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3569, 4 June 1880, Page 3

BRIDGING THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA.

' Count Lessepg will now derote some months to the promoting of his great scheme of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The hostility of the Government of the United States he has in a measure overcome, but he has now more to fear, according to all accounts, from an opposition scheme propounded by a Captain Eads, of St. Louis, and which, preposterous as it seems, has nevertheless many supporters. Captain Eads proposes to construct a ship-railway across the Isthmus—in other words, a line upon which vessels of any tonnage can be lifted bodily from shore to shore. He has himself no misgivings as to the feasibility of his project,-and he asserts as the results of deep calculations that he can move thus all shipping at a rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, that there will be no greater pressure upon the rails than that of a locomotive on an ordinary line, and that the line throughout will have its highest gradient at one per cent. Moreover, he claims as advantages of his ship railway over the water canal, that it will only cost half the money; that it can be constructed in a third or a quarter the time; that the , speed in transport will be four or five times as great; that he can move a larger daily average of ships; and that, finally, the whole cost of administration, repairs, and so forth, will be less. Strange as this vast idea must seem to most minds, it must be remembered that the transport of vessels by land has already been tried with success, but on a much smaller scale.