Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1894 — WHERE OCEANS ALMOST MEET. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHERE OCEANS ALMOST MEET.

A Kentucky Engineer's Idea as to the Place for a Panama Canal. J. A. Karweise, a Kentucky civil engineer, has arrived at Tacoma from the United States of Colombia on business connected with the new state capital, and brings with him charts and drawings and estimates of construction of an ocean level ship canal, which, owing to heretofore undiscovered natuial formations and fissures in the backbone of the Cordilleras discovered by him, can be built for 988,000,000 less than the Nicaragua Canal, and can be completed, in three years from the date of beginning work, for $48,000,000. At the point where Mr. Karweise claims to have made his discovery the Atlantic and Pacific ocean tides approach within eighteen miles of each other. This, in connection with the new fissure discoveries in the Cordilleras, results from the lagoons and marshes of the Gulf of Darien on the Atlantic side and the San Miguel Bay on the other. Mr. Karweise favors the joint building by all nations of a double-track ship canal at the point of his discoveries and the setting aside of a neutral zone. He does not believe in the feasibility of the 168-mile long lift-lock Nicaragua Canal, and said, in speaking to a correspondent of the Globe-Democrat, of his discoveries: The location of the dzmble-track ocean-level ship canal route is directly south of the eastern isthmus bend, and actually in the northwest corner of the South American continent. The distance between the points 'where the ocean tide ends is eighteen and a half miles and the total length of the combined canal works, inclusive of 11,800 feet tunnel, is eight and five-eighths miles. The so-called free navigation exceeds eleven miles in distance, and a carefully prepared estimate of the cost puts the total canal expenditure at $48,000,000, and the commencement of operation of his double-track ocean-level ship canal route thirty-eight months from the time of beginning labor. The harbors at each end of the proposed double-track ship canal route are of magnificent proportions and may be counted as the finest and safest on the continent, with San Miguel Bay as the Pacific harbor and the Gulf of Darien as the harbor in connection with the Atlantic ocean. The discovery of fissures in the two backbones of the Cordilleras immediately west of the principal mountain which is proposed to be pierced by a tunnel will alter all ideas about the correct location of the Atlantic and Pacific ship canal all over the world. There is no interior work along the proposed ocean-level ship canal route necessary, dredging excepted. Therefore no railroad line for the transportation of heavy building material will be necessary. One lock at each end for the protection of the shipping trade, against high tide, volcanic tidal waves and other unforeseen disturbances will be sufficient for the proposed double-track ship canal, which will be a quadruple channel for about eleven miles at the free navigation level. The method of construction is clever and ingenious, with the assistance of the most superior mechanical devices. The total ship canal length will not exceed twenty-eight and miles of distance te tween the salt waters. The great canal tunnel is measured at 11,800 feet in length, exclusive of the approaches.

GOVERNOR WAITE OF COLORADO.