NICARAGUA.
With the exception of the Panama route, no Isthmean project has received so careful an examination as the lines passing through Lake Nicaragua. This part of the Isthmus widens into continental proportions of great fertility. The productive and industrial development of this country, by means of railroad or canal, would supply a material addition to the commerce of the world. With the growth of Central America, our gulf ports—Galveston, New Orleans, Mobile, Appalachicola, Pensacola, Tampa Bay, and Key West—would increase in military and commercial importance.
This line possesses additional interest for the political reasons adduced by the Emperor Napoleon III, in a memoir prepared by him when a prisoner at Ham. Arranged with method and prepared with care, this pamphlet bears the impress of a sagacious judgment. “In order,” says the writer, “that the canal should become the principal element of the advancement of Central America, it must be cut, not through the narrowest part of the tongue of land, but through the country which is most populous, the most healthy, and the most fertile, and which is crossed by the greatest number of rivers, in order that its activity may be communicated to the remotest part of the interior. England will see with pleasure Central America become a flourishing and powerful State, which will establish a balance of power by creating in Spanish America a new center of active enterprise, powerful enough to give rise to a feeling of nationality, and to prevent, by backing up Mexico, any further encroachment from the North.”
The line selected by Louis Napoleon (although he errs in his statement of distance), has not been improved by the changes in location proposed by subsequent engineers. All these routes commence at San Juan de Nicaragua, and follow the San Juan river to the Lake Nicaragua. From this lake three other routes pass through Lake Managua to Realijo, and to the Gulf of Fonseca. Lake Managua is about twenty feet above the level of Lake Nicaragua. The dry season suspends the flow of water between the lakes, and the question arises whether, even by the aid of a dam, sufficient water can be stored in the smaller lake to feed the summit level on each side of it during the dry season.
Col. Childs’ route terminates at Brito; a fifth at San Juan del Sud, and three other variations of route near the same point of the Pacific coast. Col. Childs’ report, which is very complete, was submitted to a Board of English Engineers, and to Colonels Abert and Turnbull, of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, U. S. A. Although the survey was thoroughly and scientifically executed, the route was condemned by these officers, because of the insufficiency of the harbors of Brito, and the small dimensions of the canal proposed by Colonel Childs.
The length of the canal was divided into sections, for the convenience of description and estimation of the cost:
| MILES. | FEET. | |
|---|---|---|
| Western division, from Brito to the Lake | 18 | 588 |
| From Lake Nicaragua to head of San Juan | 56 | 500 |
| Slack water of seven dams on the San Juan | 90 | 800 |
| Canal to San Juan del Norte | 28 | 505 |
| Total distance | 194 | 393 |
The maximum width of the canal was designed to be 118 feet, and the depth 17 feet. The descent from the lake to Brito was accomplished by fourteen locks.
The following table exhibits the distances from sea to sea of the proposed lines originating at San Juan del Norte:
| ROUTES FROM THE PORT OF SAN JUAN TO THE PACIFIC. | LENGTH OF THE RIO SAN JUAN. | DISTANCE ON LAKE NICARAGUA. | FROM LAKE NICARAGUA TO THE PACIFIC. | FROM LAKE NICARAGUA TO LAKE MANAGUA. | DISTANCE INLAKE MANAGUA. | DIST. BETWEEN LAKE MANAGUA AND THE PACIFIC. | LENGTH OF ACTUAL CANAL. | TOTAL LENGTH. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MILES. | MILES. | MILES. | MILES. | MILES. | MILES. | MILES. | MILES. | |
| To Brito | 119 | 57 | 18 | 137 | 194 | |||
| Fonseca, Tamarinda | 119 | 120 | 4 | 50 | 16 | 139 | 309 | |
| Realijo | 119 | 120 | 4 | 50 | 45 | 168 | 338 | |
| Fonseca, Estero Real | 119 | 120 | 4 | 50 | 20 | 143 | 313 | |
The ports on the Bay of Fonseca, and at Realijo, are good, but the other ports designated as terminal points upon the Pacific are not so favorable for shipping. San Juan del Norte, the initial point upon the Atlantic of all these routes, will not admit ships of large draught, and the harbor is rapidly deteriorating. All harbors of Central and South America receiving rivers, and opening to the northward, are decreasing in depth. The incessant wave-beat, caused by the trade-winds and northers, acts like a ponderous hammer, wielded by an irresistible force, whose unceasing efforts, for six months of the year, are exerted to force the sand into the entrance of the harbors, and to arrest the sediment brought down by the rivers. The result is a tortuous and variable channel, and a shifting and shoaling bar.
The deterioration of the harbor of San Juan de Nicaragua, or Greytown, has been minutely discussed by a board of scientific officers of the United States Corps of Engineers, and of the Coast Survey Department. Their conclusions were unfavorable to the improvement of the harbor.
Where the Cyane lay during the bombardment of Greytown a luxuriant grass marsh is now growing. It has not been many years since this harbor afforded refuge for shipping of ordinary draught, but it is not unusual, at the present time, to find the harbor so completely closed during a storm that a pedestrian may walk dry-footed across the former entrance. Upon such occasion the harbor of Greytown is converted into a lagoon until after the storm, when the accumulating water of the San Juan erodes for itself a new outlet to the ocean.
It is apparent some other initial point must be found before this route can be seriously considered as a suitable terminus for interoceanic communication. Monkey Point is said to supply a good anchorage, and has been suggested for this purpose. Monkey Point affords anchorage for ships drawing rather more than three fathoms. By joining the island with a breakwater of pierre perdu, of the length of about twelve hundred feet, a good harbor, affording five fathoms water, can be obtained.
The writer is not aware that any surveys have ever been made for connecting this point with the San Juan river, or with the lakes. It is therefore unnecessary to mention other reports upon the same route, or to do more than to refer to the plans, profiles, and details of the “Interoceanic Canal of Nicaragua,” submitted at the Paris exhibition by L. J. Thome de Gamond. The report of M. de Gamond is not at hand.
A healthy and productive country; two lakes affording an inexhaustible supply for a summit level; a divide easily overcome at an altitude represented as 174 feet, and the convenient channel of the San Juan, through which the waters of Lakes Managua and Nicaragua find their way from an amphitheater of hills to the Atlantic ocean, are advantages which engineers and capitalists are loath to abandon, and which the reader relinquishes with regret. We may expect, therefore, to find the question continually revived. But its advantages have been overestimated.
The San Juan river has cut an outlet for the canal through the ridge, separating Lake Nicaragua from the Atlantic; but to pierce the divide on the opposite side, which separates the lake from the Pacific, a tunnel of about six miles in length will be requisite. The altitude of the divide is six hundred feet above the level of the lake. The singular omission in Colonel Childs’ report may have led Admiral Davis to overlook so important an objection, or perhaps he may have thought it unnecessary to multiply objections to a route which appeared impracticable upon other grounds.