where a decision should be
made to fix permanently the type of the waterway, whether it shall be a
sea-level or a lock canal. An immense amount of evidence on the subject
has in the past and during recent years been presented to Congress. An
overwhelming amount of expert opinion has been collected, and an
International Board of Consulting Engineers has made a final report to
the President, in which experts of the highest standing divide upon the
question. The Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals has likewise
divided. It is an issue of transcendent importance, involving the
expenditure of an enormous sum of money, and political and commercial
consequences of the greatest magnitude, not only to the American people,
but to the world at large.

The report of the International Board has been printed and placed before
Congress. A critical discussion of the facts and opinion presented by
this Board, all more or less of a technical and involved nature, would
unduly impose upon the time of the Senate at this late day of the
session. In addition, there is the testimony of witnesses called before
the Senate committee, which has also been printed in three large
volumes, exceeding 3,000 pages of printed matter. To properly separate
the evidence for and against one type of canal or the other, to argue
upon the facts, which present the greatest conflict of engineering
opinion of modern times, would be a mere waste of effort and time, since
the evidence and opinions are as far apart and as irreconcilable as the
final conclusions themselves. It is, therefore, rather a question which
the practical experience and judgment of members of Congress must
decide, and I have entire confidence that the will of the nation, as
expressed in its final mandate, will be carried into successful
execution, whether that mandate be for lock canal or sea-level waterway.

The Panama Canal presents at once the most interesting and the most
stupendous project of mankind to overcome by human ingenuity "what
Nature herself seems to have attempted, but in vain." From the time when
the first Spanish navigators extended their explorations into every bay
and inlet of the Central American isthmus, to discover, if possible, a
short route to the Indies, or "from Cadiz to Cathay," the human mind has
not been willing to rest content and accept as insurmountable the
natural obstacles on the Isthmus which prevent uninterrupted
communication between the Atlantic and th