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ISTHMIAN CANAL.

COMMITTEE ON INTEROCEANIC CANALS,

UNITED STATES SENATE,

Washington, D. C., Monday, March 26, 1906.

The committee met at 2 o'clock p. m. (only an executive session having been held on Wednesday last).

Present: Senators Millard (chairman), Kittredge, Dryden, Knox, Ankeny, Morgan, and Taliaferro.

STATEMENT OF COL. OSWALD H. ERNST, U. S. ARMY.

The CHAIRMAN. General Ernst, will you be kind enough to give the stenographer your name and rank?

Colonel ERNST. O. H. Ernst; colonel, Engineer Corps, U. S. Army. The CHAIRMAN. And your present position?

Colonel ERNST. I am now a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission.

The CHAIRMAN. When were you appointed a member of the Commission?

Colonel ERNST. I was appointed a member of this Commission on the 1st of April last.

The CHAIRMAN. You have been an engineer in the Army for a good while?

Colonel ERNST. Yes, sir; I graduated at West Point in 1864, and have served in the Corps of Engineers ever since-forty-two years.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Colonel, we would like to have you, as a member of the Commission and an army engineer, give us your experiences upon the Isthmus and your judgment in regard to the work which is going on there at the present time. You have been on the Isthmus, as I understand it, a good many times?

Colonel ERNST. Yes, sir. The last time I was there was in October, and I found things in a very favorable situation. The temper was excellent; the tone of the force employed there was first-rate. The men in charge seemed to me to be earnest and capable. They were getting supplies with reasonable promptness, and I felt very much encouraged.

The CHAIRMAN. When were you there previous to that time, and how long were you there?

Colonel ERNST. I was there in July, also, of this last year.

The CHAIRMAN. Were you ever there prior to July?

Colonel ERNST. I was there in 1899-the spring of 1899 and 1900. The CHAIRMAN. When the French company was in charge of the work?

Colonel ERNST. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Colonel, we want your best information in regard to matters as they exist there, and particularly in regard to the two plans of canal that have been submitted.

Colonel ERNST. I have made a very careful review of all the arguments presented on both sides as exhibited in these two reports which you have before you the majority and the minority reports and I am satisfied that the United States will get a perfectly satisfactory canal in very much less time and for very much less money under the plan proposed by the minority. I believe that the canal under that plan will cost little more than half what the canal of the majority will cost, and the time will be a little more than half, and when done it will be a better canal, because it will be three times as big a canal. The volume of water in the sea-level canal is only one-third what the volume of water is in this lock canal. Leave out everything in those lakes beyond the width of 1,000 feet and everything beyond a depth of 45 feet and you have three times the number of cubic yards of water in the lock canal that you have in the sea-level canal.

If we could eliminate the locks it would be a fair statement to say that the lock canal offers three times the facilities for navigation that the sea-level canal does.

Senator KITTREDGE. Just a minute, Colonel. What about the canal going through the Culebra cut? Do you say that the canal going through that cut offers three times the facilities for navigation? Senator KNOX. He is speaking of it as an entirety.

Colonel ERNST. I am speaking of it as an entirety as a waterway. Senator KITTREDGE. Right there, is not the capacity of your canal limited by the maximum capacity in any particular part?

Colonel ERNST. No, sir.

Senator KITTREDGE. By the maximum capacity in the Culebra cut, for instance?

Colonel ERNST. No, sir. The size of vessels is limited, but not the capacity of the canal. The capacity of the canal varies with the facilities.

Senator KITTREDGE. Is not the capacity of your canal limited by the capacity of your locks?

Colonel ERNST. Oh, yes; not the capacity of the canal, necessarily, but the size of the ships.

Senator KITTREDGE. Is not the capacity of your canal for usable purposes limited by the capacity of your locks?

Colonel ERNST. It depends a good deal, Senator, on what we mean by "capacity."

Senator KITTREDGE. I mean the number of ships that can pass through.

Colonel ERNST. Yes. Now, what I say is that the capacity of a waterway which is 1,000 feet wide for a large part of its distance and 45 feet deep or more is greater than the capacity of a canal which is only 200 feet wide or 150 feet wide and 40 feet deep, notwithstanding that one can not take any bigger vessels than the other. I mean the facilities, the ease with which they can get through and pass each other.

Senator KITTREDGE. You mean, then, to make that statement upon the basis of eliminating the locks and eliminating the narrow passage through the Culebra Cut?

Colonel ERNST. I was going on to say that these are to counterbalance each other. One canal is three times as big as the other; but the one has these locks, which are an objection on the other side.

Senator KNOX. You mean that the area of the waterway in the lock canal is three times as great as the area of the waterway in the sealevel canal in its entirety? Is not that what you mean?

Colonel ERNST. Yes; only not area, but volume-cubic volume. Senator KNOX. Volume?

Colonel ERNST. Yes; that is what I say. That is one of my reasons for thinking that it is a safer waterway.

Senator TALIAFERRO. But in connection with the inquiry of Senator Kittredge, you can not get any more vessels through that larger waterway than you can get through your narrow locks or your narrow cut through Culebra?

Colonel ERNST. They all have to go through the locks, of course; but what I mean to say is that you get greater speed.

Senator TALIAFERRO. After they get through?

Colonel ERNST. Yes; except they are detained at these isolated points. When they are elsewhere, for the rest of the 47 miles, they have a free, open waterway where they can go at much greater speed and with much less risk of collisions or groundings, or anything of that kind.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Colonel, if you are ready, be kind enough to roceed.

Colonel ERNST. The plan as it was laid out by the minority has straight courses. You can guide a vessel through submerged banks very much better in a canal with straight courses than you can where they are all curved. They make their changes all at one place; they run along a straight course and then make a change and then run along another straight course. That has been found a very great advantage in the channels between the Great Lakes.

Senator MORGAN. When making the changes that you speak of, Colonel, do they have to stop the ship?

Colonel ERNST. No, sir; they just slow up at the curves. Instead of keeping on a turn all the time, they run straight up to the angle, and there the channel is widened out.

Senator MORGAN. It is practically a stopping of the ship, is it not? It is a slowing up?

Colonel ERNST. It is a slowing up.

Senator MORGAN. You slow up when you reach certain points, and then you take a new course?

Colonel ERNST. Yes.

Senator MORGAN. And steer for that?

Colonel ERNST. Yes.

Senator DRYDEN. Do you remember how many of those angles there are in the lock canal?

Colonel ERNST. I do not remember, but we can easily count them. They are all exhibited here. Shall I count them?

Senator DRYDEN. If you please, yes; and in counting them kindly point them out on the map.

(Colonel Ernst thereupon pointed out on the map the locations of the angles referred to and stated that there were nineteen of them.) Senator DRYDEN. That is about one to every 2 miles?

Colonel ERNST. Yes, sir.

Senator DRYDEN. Just a little less than one every 2 miles on an average. The point you make upon that is that these are well-defined angles, and that the ship can make greater progress by turning the angles, even if at slow speed, and then having a straightaway course, say, for 2 miles, than it could by going around the curves that exist in the sea-level scheme. Is that it, Colonel?

Colonel ERNST. Yes, sir; that is it. They are much more easily marked.

Senator DRYDEN. Do you know how many of those curves there are in the sea-level scheme?

Colonel ERNST. It is stated in the report. I can find that for you. I do not recall.

Senator DRYDEN. You need not look it up.

Colonel ERNST. It is an almost continuous curvature.

The CHAIRMAN. Colonel, the dark covered book there has both reports in it, and everything connected with the reports of the Board. Senator MORGAN. Giving the same depth and prism to the canal, there is no more difficulty in steering through a sea-level canal than through a lock canal, is there?

Colonel ERNST. Only for the reason that in one you have straight courses and in the other you have continuous curvature or almost continuous curvature.

Senator MORGAN. How do you get a straight course in the lock canal through the Culebra cut? The curves are just the same, are they not, in the lock canal and in the sea-level canal through the Culebra Heights? Colonel ERNST. Not quite the same. In the lock-canal plan they have paid great attention to that feature, and in the other they have not. That is the difference. There is some slight difference in the Culebra cut. There need not be, however. It is not necessary that there should be, but as a matter of fact they paid no particular attention to that feature of having straight courses. They thought that if the curvature was gentle that was all that was necessary; but I regard having the courses absolutely straight as an advantage.

Senator MORGAN. It is practicable to make a straighter line with the lock canal through the Culebra Heights than it is with sea-level canal? Colonel ERNST. No, sir; it is not.

Senator MORGAN. The line would have to be practically the same? Colonel ERNST. Pretty nearly the same thing; and if you keep that in view, it is just as easy to make one as the other.

Senator KITTREDGE. You say "pretty nearly the same." In what respect, and where, are they at all different?

Colonel ERNST. Simply in laying down the lines on the map by the engineer; if he takes particular pains to get his lines straight, he will cut off a little more, perhaps, than he would otherwise.

I believe those cover the reasons why I prefer the minority plan. There have been one or two points raised in the evidence which has been before you, Mr. Chairman, which I would like to refer to, unless some one has other questions to ask.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed.

Colonel ERNST. On page 1760 of the evidence I read this-Mr. Parsons was on the stand. [Reading:]

"Senator KITTREDGE. Then, as I understand you, notwithstanding the statement in the minority report of the usable dimensions of this

lock as 900 feet by 95 feet, in the plan presented to us the usable dimensions are in fact 790 feet as to length?

"Mr. PARSONS. That is a fact.

"Senator KITTREDGE. By what width?

"Mr. PARSONS. Ninety-five feet.

"Senator KITTREDGE. Is it not possible to lengthen the entire lock structure so as to have a usable length of 900 feet?

"Mr. PARSONS. It is not possible to do that and still keep the three locks in flight.

"Senator KITTREDGE. Why is that?

"Mr. PARSONS. The topograhy of the ground (is such), falling off at both ends, that you could not get a longer structure in there. Then, farther on down:

"There is a divide there, a ridge, with suitable material for foundations, rock or a very hard clay amounting almost to a rock, and at such reasonable depth as to be reached by the locks. But when you come to make the locks of a thousand feet each, with the space between the locks for the gates and the clearances between the locks, the ends of that structure would overhang the sides of this ridge so that the ends would not have a proper foundation. The ends would include, of course, the end gates at both ends, where it is most important that there should be a satisfactory foundation.

"The minority, therefore, decided not to use 1,000-foot locks. In other words, three members of the minority reversed themselves in their original decision of a thousand feet and dropped back to a 900foot lock, so as to get in three locks of 900 feet each in this situation.

"Then, when an objection was made to the danger of locks in flight, they still further reduced it, as Mr. Bates has pointed out, by introducing the safety gates, the second set of gates, and by putting them inside of the 900-foot length.

"Senator KITTREDGE. And thereby reducing the usable length dimension to less than 800 feet?

'Mr. PARSONS. To something less than 800 feet."

The CHAIRMAN. That refers to the locks at Gatun, I presume?
Colonel ERNST. Yes, sir.

Now, as for the site, we have a cablegram from Mr. Stevens, which I believe is on file

The CHAIRMAN. By the way, Colonel, right here I will hand you these cablegrams, and will ask you to look them over and comment on them, and then allow them to go into the record. This one appears to have been sent by Mr. Stevens to Mr. Shonts and the other is to the Secretary of War. If you will have the kindness to look those over and read them to the committee and then comment on them, I would like to have them in the record after you are through with them.

Colonel ERNST. Here is a telegram dated March 17 from the chief engineer on the Isthmus, Mr. Stevens.

The CHAIRMAN. I think you should read the other one first-the one to Mr. Stevens.

Colonel ERNST. The one from Mr. Shonts?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. It seems to have been from Mr. Shonts to Mr. Stevens.

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