APPENDIX A. Table showing distances in miles between commercial ports of the world and distances saved by the Nicaragua Canal. NOTE.-The distances have been measured by customary routes most convenient for sailing ships and slow freight steamers. APPENDIX E. NICARAGUA CANAL. THE NICARAGUA CANAL PROJECT. [From Engineering News, September 14, 1889.] It has been evident for some time to the careful observer that, although the day of small canals is over, the day of great ship canals is just dawning. Heretofore, although there has always been as great proportional need as now for ship canals to shorten sailing distances, yet the means for construction, both mechanical and financial, were so much more limited, and the aggregate volume of traffic to be accommodated so small, that there was not enough traffic "in sight" to pay interest on a cost necessarily far greater than it is to-day. Accordingly we find that, although ship canals at Suez, Panama, Nicaragua, Corinth, Cape Cod, and elsewhere have been talked about for centuries, yet it is only within the last three decades that the first of them, that at Suez, has really been completed and put to use. At the present moment there are a dozen or so of them in various parts of the world which either are or are likely soon to be under way, as we may show more fully before we close. This is but the natural effect of the great change of conditions alluded to, and it is important to remember that the end is not yet in this change, great as it is. Capital is so cheap that interest is less than half what it was twenty years ago; engineering appliances are so improved that the cost in labor and time of executing great public works is certainly not more than half what it was twenty years ago; commerce has multiplied with even more marvelous rapidity. The railway mileage of the world has doubled since 1875, or in fourteen years, and that of the United States has doubled since 1877. The shipping has multiplied in the still more marvelous ratio shown in the table below: Equivalent per cent. per decade. 3, 140,000 4,560,000 9, 586, 000 13, 826,000 15,002,000 5, 644, 000 3, 146, 000 4, 676,000 10, 406,000 15, 576, 000 20, 646, 000 9,497,000 11, 552, 000 21,049, 000 67, 257, 000 88.1 [The " effective "" tonnage is ascertained by multiplying the steam tonnage by 5, and adding the product to the sailing tonnage, steamers making about five times as many voyages per year as sailing vessels. The percentages in the last line gives the correct decennial ratio regardless of the actual period between the figures.] It is but natural that great enterprises which lagged along hopelessly in the '40's, '50's, and '60's, should now be begun with confidence, and it is quite certain that enterprises of any promise, which even now are neglected, will not be likely to be neglected long. For example, we can hardly expect the Nicaragua Canal to be opened before 1895, or seven years from 1888. In view of the above accelerating ratio up to 1888, what is the commerce of the world likely to have grown to when it is opened? Obviously it will be vastly larger than it is now, and that is enough for our present purpose; but we should bear in mind also that the commerce tributary to it is the most vigorously growing in the world. Perhaps, however, as giving a more direct indication of how traffic tends to multiply, we may as well give here the following table of the growth of traffic of the Suez and Sault Ste. Marie canals since they were opened to commerce, the enormous jump in the "Soo" traffic in the last year being especially notable: [Receipts are computed at 5 francs per dollar. Net tonnage is about 70 per cent. of the gross tonnage.] [The first Sault Canal was finished in 1855, at a cost of $999,802. The above statistics begin with the opening of the new canal.] On the other hand, from the accompanying little diagram which we reproduce from our issue of April 27, 1889, it will be seen that the greatest small canal in the world by far, in every sense, has been steadily falling off in traffic since 1873, and is now even smaller than it was in 1862, when it was larger than ever before. We need not seek far for a reason. It lies in the simple fact that the railways have distanced the small canals, not only in speed, but in actual cost of transportation, while they still lag far behind large ships and steamers in economy of transport, and to all appearance must ever do so. The most cursory examination of rates and cost of transportation will reveal this fact. The following table of lake and canal rates is perhaps alone sufficient, remembering that what may be called the standard allrail rate between Chicago and New York is 30 cents per 100, or a trifle over 0.60 cents per ton per mile, which rate is often severely cut, sometimes by half or two-thirds. As the average cost per ton per mile of the whole United States was just about 0.6 cents (for 109 miles average haul) we may be quite certain that the fair proportional cost of hanling such freight by rail is little if any over 0.3 to 0.4 cents per ton per mile. On the other hand, the ocean rates on grain to Liverpool last year ranged from 2 to 9 cents per bushel of 60 pounds, or a 3,000-mile haul, averaging about 5 cents, or 0.055 cents per ton per mile. At 0.1 cent per ton per mile the steamers feel that they are doing very well, even on flour, which stands about 50 per cent. more per ton than wheat. Contrast these figures (all for net tons of 2,000 pounds) with the figures given below of lake and canal rates. We see at once that in a rude way we may classify the lowest feasible rates of freight as follows, with at least relative correctness: In evidence of why this difference should exist let us compare one or two items: It has been aptly said, in relation to coal economy in marine steam-engines, that if we assume paper to be as good fuel as coal per ton, we have only to "burn this letter" of one-half ounce weight to propel a ton a mile by steamer-in other words, a ton of 2,000 pounds will produce 64,000 ton-miles of ship and cargo on the ocean at freight speeds. The same is frequently realized by the best lake vessels. To propel one mile a freight-car weighing, with load, 25 tons takes, on an average, over 5 pounds of coal, so that on land a ton of 2,000 pounds only produces 10,000 ton-miles of car and load, or say one-seventh as much. Again, a ship costs only some $50 per ton, a steamer some $100 per ton, and that steamer ton will be good for some 60,000 ton-miles per year, or 600 ton-miles yearly per dollar of capital invested. Were railways equally effective per dollar of investment the 81,000,000,000 ton-miles and passenger-miles made last year in the United States would represent a capital investment of only $135,000,000. They actually represent a capital of $9,607,000,000. It is needless to go further. The demand of the age being for quick and cheap transportation, we see at once why the day of great ship canals is so visibly dawning. It is dawning, not only for canals, which save great sailing distances, like the Suez and Nicaragua, but also for canals like the Manchester, which save no distance whatever, but merely compete with railways, saving the disadvantage of breaking bulk. That canal is to be 35 miles long, 26 feet deep, 120 feet wide, and to cost, if it uses up all its authorized capital, some $49,000,000. Its actual cost will be at least $35,000,000. Yet Manchester is a city of only 350,000 people, and the tonnage to be benefited by the canal, although as yet largely problematical, is certainly small compared with that which will be tributary to the Nicaragua canal, while the dues must be trifling in comparison. At least one other canal like the Manchester is likely to be soon started in England: but of course the greatest stimulus to ship canal construction is when more or less sailing distance is also saved, as in the Corinth, North Sea, and Baltic, Cape Cod, and half a dozen others now under way or likely soon to be. And of all canals which ever can be built, it needs only a glance at the map to see that the Nicaragua, or other canal through the Central American Isthmus will save the greatest sailing distances. Even the saving by the Suez Canal is small in comparison. Thus between London and Canton the Suez saves 3,300 miles (10,000 against 13,300); to Bombay it saves 4,325, and to Calcutta, 3,626 miles, the average saving being about 3,500 miles, while the Nicaragua canal saves from 5,000 to 8,000 miles on most of the voyages likely to be required. Between London and San Francisco it saves nearly 7,200 miles out of a voyage of 14,700; between New York and San Francisco, 10,080 out of a voyage of 14,840; between New York and Canton it is about 500 miles shorter than Suez, and over 5,000 shorter than "around the Horn." As compared with the transcontinental railways it is only some 60 per cent. longer. The following table will be convenient for reference in this connection. The distances have been measured by routes most convenient for sailing ships and slow freight steamers. The distances for swift mail and passenger steamers have not been calculated: These are enormous advantages, insuring that the Nicaragua canal can easily collect 50 cents per ton or so more than the Suez, or say $2.50 per ton. At cent per ton per mile this would only pay railway rates for 500 miles, thus in effect reducing the competitive rail distance to 2,500 miles, or as nearly, may be, half that via the canal free of tolls. What possible chance have the railways in a competition like this? A moderately fast line of steamers will make the voyage in less than two weeks, and all but express freights will be sure to go that way, and save time as well as money by doing so, while, more important than all, vast sources of traffic, like ores and timber, of which none is now shipped, will furnish a new and heavy traffic. The larger part of the timber supply of the Atlantic coast, for example, is likely to come from the Pacific coast via the canal. We deem it therefore an entirely safe assumption that the traffic "in sight" is at most not over half what will exist after the canal has been three or four years in |