In fine, the earthquake argument has little or no force against a lock-canal project, and it has never received serious consideration as such or been used in arguments against a lock canal until the recent San Francisco disaster brought the subject prominently before the public. It is a danger as remote as a possible destruction of the proposed terminal plants at Colon and Panama by flood waves equal in magnitude to the one which destroyed Galveston in 1900, but such dangers are inherent in all human undertakings. They must be taken as a matter of chance and remote possibility, which for all present purposes may be left out of account, except that the subject should receive the due consideration of the engineers and perhaps be made a matter of special and comprehensive inquiry by the Geological Survey. In any serious consideration of the facts for or against a lock canal, I am confident that the earthquake risk may safely be ignored. The comprehensive report of the minority members of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Affairs is a sufficient and conclusive answer to all the important points which are in controversy, and it remains for Congress to cut the "Gordian knot" and put an end to an interminable discussion of much solid and substantial conviction on the one hand and of a vast amount of opinion and guesswork on the other hand. All of the evidence, all of the supplementary expert testimony which may be obtained upon the merits of the two propositions, will not change the position of those who rest their conclusions upon American experience and upon the judgment of American engineers, and who favor a lock canal. While there is no doubt that such a canal can be constructed and can be made a practicable waterway, there is a very serious question whether a sea-level canal can be constructed and made a safe and practicable waterway, at least within the limits of the estimated amount of cost and within the estimated time. The view which I have tried to impress upon the Senate is nothing more nor less than a business view of what is, for all practical purposes, only a business proposition. If a lock canal can be built, useful for all purposes, at half the cost and within half the time of a sea-level canal, then I can come to no other conclusion than that a lock canal would be decidedly to our political and commercial advantage. A decision, however, should be arrived at. The canal project has reached a stage where the final plan or type must be determined, and it is the duty of Congress to act and to fix, for once and for all time, the type of canal, with the same courage and freedom from prejudice or bias as was the case in the decision which finally fixed the route by way of Panama.