of Colombians; that it is at least twelve days' journey from Panama to Bogotá, the seat of Colombian government; that three-fourths of the capital invested in the State of Panama for mining and other purposes is American; and that the United States is pledged by treaty to preserve order on the Isthmus, and has repeatedly had to send armed forces there. What Mr. Penfield advocated was an out-and- Penfield's out purchase on equitable terms of the State of Panama from the Republic of Colombia, so that the Stars and Stripes may float over the Isthmus, as he predicts it is destined to do over half the West Indian islands. But Panama prefers to be an independent State. President McKinley, in 1899, was authorized by Congress to appoint a commission of engineers and eminent persons to investigate the question of canal possibilities on the Isthmus of Panama, or in Nicaragua. The commission reported in favor of the canal on one or the other routes. Discussion in Congress over the respective advantages of the proposed routes finally ended in June, 1902, by the enactment of a law authorizing the President of the United States to purchase the properties and franchises of the French Panama Canal Company for $40,000,000, provided a satisfactory title could be secured. At the same time the Secretary of War was authorized, in the event of purchase, to con arguments. by the United struct the canal at a cost not to exceed $145, 000,000. Negotiations were entered into with the Republic of Colombia to secure the necessary concessions, and to ascertain the character of the legal title of the Panama Canal Company. It was found that the company had a valid title, and on February 16, 1903, the United States formally closed the offer, subject to the Acquisition ratification of the treaty with Colombia, then pending, which provided that the United States should pay Colombia $10,000,000 in cash for the concessions, to be paid on the exchange of the ratification, and an annuity of $250,000, beginning nine years after the date of ratification, and in return should obtain a lease of the canal for 100 years, with the privilege of continued renewals. The treaty further provided that the territory forming the Canal Zone should be neutral and under the guarantee of both Governments. Colombia, however, failed to ratify the treaty and proposed a new one providing for greater compensation and the explicit recognition of the sovereignty of Colombia in the canal territory. The failure of the treaty created great dissatisfaction in Panama, and on November 4, 1903, the latter country set up an independent republic, which was formally recognized by the United States. A treaty with the new republic was ratified February 23, 1904, by which the United States guaranteed the in dependence of the Republic of Panama, and allowed it the original compensation offered to Colombia. On its part, the Republic of Panama granted to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a strip of land ten miles in width, extending five miles on either side from the center of the canal, with the proviso that the cities of Panama and Colon should be exempted from this territorial grant. The Panama Canal is to be a lock canal The Canal. about fifty miles long from the Atlantic terminus in Limon Bay, near Colon, to the Pacific terminus in Panama Bay. The highest point of the divide, Mt. Culebra, originally about 300 feet above the sea, has been cut to about 160. Beginning at the Atlantic shore line, the canal has a width of 500 feet for three miles to Gatun. At Gatun a duplicate flight of three locks, having a lift of 28 1-3 feet each, will raise vessels up to a lake formed by a dam at that point. This lake is 30 miles long, and at places nearly 8 miles. wide. From the Gatun locks the steamer channel will be through this lake for about 23 miles, and for 16 miles it will have a width of 1,000 feet. From San Pablo to Juan Grande it will be narrowed to 800 feet; then to 500 feet to Bas Obispo; then to 300 feet, the width maintained through the Culebra cut and on to San Miguel. Here a lock with a lift and descent of 30 feet forms the con Theatre nection with Sosa Lake, 55 feet above the sea, where vessels will again have lake navigation for five miles to Sosa Hill, in which are two locks of 27 feet each to carry vessels down to the sea level of the Panama Bay section of the canal. The canal will have a minimum depth of 41 feet. It will be formally opened to the commerce of the world January 1, 1915. Iroquois [Dec. 30: Iroquois Theatre, Chicago, burned. burned (700 lives lost). Jan. 5, 1904: Sir Oliver Lodge lectures at Birmingham on Radium and its meaning.] T RADIUM AND ITS LESSONS (A.D. 1904) SIR OLIVER LODGE HE recent visit to London of Monsieur vals of teaching physics at Paris have made brilliant chemical discoveries, has revived the interest felt through the scientific world in radium and its properties since its discovery by the Curies in 1898. kinds of Briefly these properties, as investigated by several physicists, are that radium, like the other far less active substances previously discovered, is constantly emitting, without apparent diminution, three kinds of rays: rays called Three 7, which appear to be chiefly of the same rays. nature as the X rays of Röntgen; rays called 8, or cathodic, which are similar to the cathode rays in a Crookes tube and to the Lenard rays outside such a tube, and are found to consist of extremely minute flying corpuscles or electrons negatively charged; and rays called a, which appear to be composed of projected and positively charged atoms of matter flying away at an immense speed measured by Professor Rutherford of Montreal. The whole power of emission is designated radio |