To relieve the situation a drainage canal was proposed a few years ago, that should furnish an artificial exit for the surplus water into the Bay of Cardenas. The length of the proposed canal was thirty miles, and work began on the big ditch in 1916. At the present time it is practically completed, at a cost of approximately five millions of dollars. Its width varies from sixteen to forty-four meters, carrying an average depth of one and a half meters, or five feet. The possibility of eventually converting this drainage canal into an avenue of traffic, between the north and the south coasts, furnishing thus water, or cheap transportation, between Havana, Matanzas, Cardenas and Cienfuegos, or other ports on the south coast, has naturally appealed to engineers who have studied the terrain. There are no engineering difficulties that would prevent a canal of this kind from being converted into a deep ship canal across the Island which would shorten the distance between New York and Panama by at least two hundred miles. Steamers bound north from Panama would then cross the Caribbean, pass through from Cochinos Bay to Cardenas, entering at once the Gulf Stream, the force of whose current would still further shorten the time between Panama and Pacific ports on the south, and all Atlantic ports north of Cuba. The engineering problem could not be more simple, since it is merely a question of dredging through earth and soft limestone rock for a distance of seventy-five miles, taking advantage, as does the present drainage canal, of the Auton River, where it empties into Cardenas Bay. That such a saving of time and distance will some day be consummated is more than probable. Not only the economics and benefits to be derived from such a shortening of miles between local points in times of peace, but the strategic advantage of the short cut for naval units in time of war, are more than manifest to any one at all familiar with the geography of Cuba and the West Indies. Cuba, for commercial and economical reasons, is deeply interested in the construction of a canal that would make the Province of Matanzas an intersea gateway, not only for her own coastwise trade, but for much of the northbound traffic that in the near future will carry millions of tons of raw material from the west coast of South America to the great manufacturing centers of the North Atlantic. Running parallel with the north shore, a short series of remarkable hills rise abruptly from the surrounding level plain to an altitude of a thousand feet or more. One of these is known as the “Pan de Matanzas,” whose round, palm covered top may be seen for many miles at sea. Ships coming from New York usually make this peak above the horizon before any other part of the Island comes into view.