hat accidents have occurred in the "Soo" Canal
and in the Manchester Ship Canal; but the conditions, in the first
place, were decidedly different, and, in the second place, they proved
of no serious consequence as a hindrance to traffic and did no material
injury to the canal. The "Soo" Canal has been in operation as a lock
canal for some fifty years; it has been enlarged from time to time, and
to-day accommodates a larger traffic than passes through all other ship
canals of the world combined. It is a sufficient answer to the
objections to say that this experience should have a determining
influence in arriving at a conclusion, for the inherent problems of
lock-canal construction are as well understood by American engineers as
any other problems or questions in engineering science. The proposed
deep waterway with a 30-foot channel from Chicago to tide-water, which
has been surveyed by direction of Congress, proposes an expenditure of
$303,000,000, and several locks with a lift of 40 feet or more. The
enlargement of the Erie Canal by the State of New York, at an
expenditure of $101,000,000, involves engineering problems, including
lock construction, not essentially different from those inherent in the
lock-canal project at Panama; and if these problems can be solved by our
engineers at home, it stands to reason that we may rely upon their
judgment that they can be solved at Panama.

The majority of the Senate committee object to the proposed dam at
Gatun, and say that--

Earth dams founded on the drift and silt of ages, through which
water habitually percolates, to be increased by the pressure of the
85-foot lock when made, have been referred to by many of our
technical advisers as another element of danger. The vast masses of
earth piled on this alluvial base to the height of 135 feet will
certainly settle, and as the drift material of this base or
foundation has varying depth, to 250 feet or more, the settlement
of the new mass, as well as its base, will be unequal, and it is
predicted that cracks and fissures in the dam will be formed, which
will be reached and used by the water under the pressure above
mentioned, and will cause the destruction of the dam and the
draining off of the great lake upon which the integrity of the
entire canal rests.

But all of this is mere conjecture. The evidence of Engineer Stearns, a
man of large experience, and of En