THE PANAMA CANAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9081, 4 May 1908, Page 3

THE PANAMA CANAL.

A vtry important book on the position find prospects of the Panama Canal has"just found publication. It is entitled "Retrieval at Panama,!' - nd is by Mr Lindou W. Bates, an American engineer, who has already published soma most valuable criticism* on the great ocean highway in which New Zealand is so deeply in-; terested. Mr Bates is of opinion that the need to America and to the' world of the isthmian waterway 13 so axiomatic and su imperative that its instruction has become a very corner stone of the national policy, and that so radical is the necessity for its creation that there would he full warrant "for the basic premises, the caijMatany cost." But while Mr Bo*a holds the opinion that thero is warrant in commercial outlook and military necessities for a canal constructed at a reasonable cost, there is nothing to justify the expenditure which the canal, if carried out on the present lines, will require. His object in writing the papers reproduced in the book under notice was ■"toshdWrthat the present scheme is impracticable, both from a financial . and engineering point of view, and that there is an alternative course which is simple, national, and cheap. "Congress has so fur appropriated a sum of 30 millions of pounds for a scheme comprising six locks and a summit level of 85ft. Beyond this r.mount Mr Bates estimates that there are "monumental deficits" in sight, which he calculates, on the present rate of expenditure, will amount to 21 millions before the canal is finished. The book generally is intended to show„that what is termed the 85ft level is a huge mistake, and chat the I canal can be constructed at far less J cost and risk.* The alternative scheme proflaunded by Mr Bates is the sub- ! j**gp|ence of the low, swampy land "lying at the Atlantic and Pacini ends of the canal by building three low dykes or embankments, and so forming two lakes, one 12 miles, and the other five miles long, thus reducing the length of excavation for the canal to 30 miles instead of 47, a now be3y;arried out, and the height of the SiSfmit level, between Mindi and Baca, to about half. The depth of water in these two lakes would bo sufficient for the navigation of the largest vessels afloat, and, owing to the Width of the waterway, there would be no occasion for restricting the speed, and the time occupied in ihojpaisage would be rjluced from 14 to 10 hours. The cose of the embankments is estimated at a quarter of a .million pounds.