ere is not,
then I hope to see the canal constructed on a system which will
bring to the nearest possible date in the future the time when it
is practicable to take the first ship across the Isthmus--that is,
which will in the shortest time possible secure a Panama waterway
between the oceans of such a character as to guarantee permanent
and ample communication for the greatest ships of our Navy and for
the largest steamers on either the Atlantic or the Pacific. The
delay in transit of the vessels owing to additional locks would be
of small consequence when compared with shortening the time for the
construction of the canal or diminishing the risks in the
construction. In short, I desire your best judgment on all the
various questions to be considered in choosing among the various
plans for a comparatively high-level multilock canal, for a
lower-level canal with fewer locks, and for a sea-level canal.
Finally, I urge upon you the necessity of as great expedition in
coming to a decision as is compatible with thoroughness in
considering the conditions.

The Board organized and met in the city of Washington on September 1,
1905, and on the 10th of January, 1906, or about four months later, made
its final report to the President through the Secretary of War. The
Board divided upon the question of type for the proposed canal, a
majority of eight--five foreign engineers and three American
engineers--being in favor of a canal at sea-level, while a minority of
five--all American engineers--favored a lock canal at a summit level of
eighty-five feet. The two propositions require separate consideration,
each upon its own merits, before a final opinion can be arrived at as to
the best type of a waterway adapted to our needs and requirements under
existing conditions.

Upon a question so involved and complex, where the most eminent
engineers divide and disagree, a layman can not be expected to view the
problem otherwise than as a business proposition which, demanding
solution, must be disposed of by a strictly impartial examination of the
facts. Weighed and tested by practical experience in other fields of
commercial enterprise, it is probably not going too far to say, as in
fact it has been said, that there is entirely too much mere engineering
opinion upon this subject and not a well-defined concentrated mass of
data and solid convictions. It is