The report of the International Board has been printed and placed before Congress. A critical discussion of the facts and opinion presented by this Board, all more or less of a technical and involved nature, would unduly impose upon the time of the Senate at this late day of the session. In addition, there is the testimony of witnesses called before the Senate committee, which has also been printed in three large volumes, exceeding 3,000 pages of printed matter. To properly separate the evidence for and against one type of canal or the other, to argue upon the facts, which present the greatest conflict of engineering opinion of modern times, would be a mere waste of effort and time, since the evidence and opinions are as far apart and as irreconcilable as the final conclusions themselves. It is, therefore, rather a question which the practical experience and judgment of members of Congress must decide, and I have entire confidence that the will of the nation, as expressed in its final mandate, will be carried into successful execution, whether that mandate be for lock canal or sea-level waterway. The Panama Canal presents at once the most interesting and the most stupendous project of mankind to overcome by human ingenuity "what Nature herself seems to have attempted, but in vain." From the time when the first Spanish navigators extended their explorations into every bay and inlet of the Central American isthmus, to discover, if possible, a short route to the Indies, or "from Cadiz to Cathay," the human mind has not been willing to rest content and accept as insurmountable the natural obstacles on the Isthmus which prevent uninterrupted communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Excepting, possibly, Arctic explorations, in all the romantic history of ancient and modern commerce, in all the annals of the early navigators and explorers, there is no chapter that equals in interest the never-ceasing efforts to make the Central American isthmus a natural highway for the world's commerce--a direct route of trade and transportation from the uttermost East to the uttermost West. As early as 1536 Charles V ordered an exploration of the Chagres River to learn whether a ship canal could not be substituted for an existing wagon road, and Philip II, in 1561, had a similar survey made in Nicaragua for the same purpose. From that day to this the greatest minds in commerce and engineering have given their attention to the problem of an interoceanic waterway; every conceivable plan has been considered, every possible road has been explored, and every mile of land and sea has been gone over to find the best and most practical solution of the problem.