I submit herewith the letter of the Secretary of War transmitting the report of the Board of Consulting Engineers on the Panama Canal, and the report of the Isthmian Canal Commission thereon, together with a letter written to the Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission by Chief Engineer Stevens. Both the Board of Consulting Engineers and the Canal Commission divide in their report. The majority of the Board of Consulting Engineers, eight in number, including the five foreign engineers, favor a sea-level canal; and one member of the Canal Commission, Admiral Endicott, takes the same view. Five of the eight American members of the Board of Consulting Engineers and five members of the Isthmian Canal Commission favor the lock canal, and so does Chief Engineer Stevens. The Secretary of War recommends a lock canal pursuant to the recommendation of the minority of the Board of Consulting Engineers and of the majority of the Canal Commission. After careful study of the papers submitted and full and exhaustive consideration of the whole subject, I concur in this recommendation. It will be noticed that the American engineers on the consulting board and on the commission by a more than two to one majority favor the lock canal, whereas the foreign engineers are a unit against it. I think this is partly to be explained by the fact that the great traffic canal of the Old World is the Suez Canal, a sea-level canal, whereas the great traffic canal of the New World is the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, a lock canal. Although the latter, the Soo, is closed to navigation during the winter months, it carries annually three times the traffic of the Suez Canal. In my judgment the very able argument of the majority of the Board of Consulting Engineers is vitiated by their failure to pay proper heed to the lessons taught by the construction and operation of the Soo Canal. It must be borne in mind, as the Commission points out, that there is no question of building what has been picturesquely termed “the Straits of Panama”; that is, a waterway through which the largest vessels could go with safety at uninterrupted high speed. Both the sea-level canal and the proposed lock canal would be too narrow and shallow to be called with any truthfulness a strait, or to have any of the properties of a wide, deep water strip. Both of them would be canals, pure and simple. Each type has certain disadvantages and certain advantages. But in my judgment the disadvantages are fewer and the advantages very much greater in the case of a lock canal substantially as proposed in the papers forwarded herewith; and I call especial attention to the fact that the Chief Engineer, who will be mainly responsible for the success of this mighty engineering feat, and who has therefore a peculiar personal interest in judging aright, is emphatically and earnestly in favor of the lock-canal project and against the sea-level project.