of
the New Panama Canal Company, and for a time its consulting engineer, a
member of different Isthmian commissions, and also a member of the
consulting board, reemphasized his conviction, sustained by much
valuable evidence, in favor of the lock-canal project. General Abbot, as
a member of the consulting board, had signed the report of the minority
in favor of a lock canal. Gen. George W. Davis, United States Army, for
a time governor of the Canal Zone and president of the International
Board of Consulting Engineers, restated his views and convictions as
opposed to the lock-canal type and in favor of the sea-level project.
The last witness, Mr. B.M. Harrod, an engineer of large experience, for
many years connected with levee construction and familiar with the flood
problems of the Mississippi River, submitted a statement in which he
restated his views in favor of a lock canal.

So that, summing up the evidence of twelve engineers examined before the
committee (including Mr. Lindon W. Bates), there were eight American
engineers strongly and unequivocally in favor of a lock canal, while
four expressed their views to the contrary. Subjecting the mass of
testimony to a critical examination, I cannot draw any other conclusion
or arrive at any other conviction than _that the lock project, in the
light of the facts and large experience, has decidedly the advantage
over the sea-level proposition_. And this view is strengthened by the
fact that the opinion of the engineers most competent to judge--that is,
men like Mr. Noble, who has thoroughly studied lock-canal construction,
management, and navigation, who as a member of the United States Deep
Waterway Commission reexamined probably as thoroughly as any living
authority into the entire subject of the mechanics and practice of lock
canals--is emphatically opposed to the sea-level proposition.

When a man like Mr. Stearns, of national and international reputation as
a waterworks engineer, who for many years has been in charge of the
extensive construction work of the Massachusetts Metropolitan Water and
Sewerage Board, and who probably has as large a practical and
theoretical knowledge of earth-dam construction as any living authority,
declares himself to be strongly in favor of the lock project and
believes in the entire safety of the dams required in connection
therewith, I hold that such a judgment may be relied upon and that it
should govern in national affairs as it woul