the opinions of eminent engineers, including all
the Americans, were opposed to a sea-level project and in favor of a
lock canal, but De Lesseps had made his plans, he had arrived at his
decision, and in his own words, at a meeting of the American Society of
Civil Engineers held in January, 1880, said, "I would have put my hat on
and walked out if any other plan than a sea-level canal project had been
adopted."

The situation to-day is very similar to the critical state of the canal
question in 1902. What was then a question of choice of route is to-day
a question of choice of plan. What was then a geographical conflict is
to-day a conflict of engineering opinions. It has been made clear by the
reference to the report of the Board of Consulting Engineers and by the
testimony of the engineers before the Senate committee that the opinion
of eminent experts is so widely at variance that there is little, if
any, hope of an ultimate reconciliation. It is a choice of one plan or
the other--of a sea-level or a lock canal. In respect to either plan a
mass of testimony and data exists, which has been brought forward to
sustain one view or the other. In respect to either plan there are
advantages and disadvantages. The majority of the Senate Committee on
Interoceanic Canals have reported favorably a bill providing for the
construction of a canal at sea level. From this majority opinion the
minority of the committee emphatically and unequivocally dissent, and in
their report they express themselves in favor of the lock canal.

The minority report calls attention to the changed conditions and
requirements, which now demand a canal of much larger dimensions than
originally proposed. Even as late as 1901 the depth of the canal prism
was to be only 35 feet, against 40 to 45 feet in the project of only
five years later. The bottom width has been increased from 150 to 200
feet and over. The length of the locks has been changed from 740 to 900
feet, and the width from 84 to 90 feet. These facts must be kept in
mind, for they bear upon the questions of time and cost, and a sea-level
or lock canal, as proposed to-day, is in all respects a very much larger
affair, demanding very superior facilities for traffic, than any
previous canal project ever suggested or proposed. This change in plans
was made necessary by the Spooner act, which provides for a canal of
such dimensions that the largest ship now building, or likely to be
built within a