In addition to the Eyder Canal, a second but more indirect water communication between the Baltic and North Seas has existed for five hundred years in the Steckenitz Canal, by which the Hanse city of Lübeck connected the Steckenitz and Delvenau with the Elbe. But this is not the route which wins engineering or political favour. The line most strongly supported is from Kiel, south-westwards to Brunsbüttel, at the mouth of the Elbe, opposite Cuxhaven. It would satisfy the demands of Hamburg, which, though it seems to be jealous of Altona, practically embraces within the limits of its port the whole Elbe estuary. Kiel has a rising commerce which is likely to be greatly expanded by the undertaking. In the eyes of German statesmen, the plan has commended itself as giving the principal war harbour of the Empire an independent outlet to the North Sea. The Northern Powers might, as things now are, if hostile, seal up the German Navy in the Baltic. They hold the keys, and could convert the sea into a lake. Whatever the German naval strength at Bremerhaven, on the Elbe, and at Kiel, it could be cut in half, and prevented from co-operating at the discretion of Scandinavia. This is, as we have seen, a reason of the highest State for undertaking the new waterway. German ships, unprovided with a waterway between the German Ocean and the Baltic, have been exposed to extraordinary risks. This fact alone is, in the eyes of Germany, a sufficient reason for such an enterprise. But there are also the equally cogent reasons of trade, and the preservation of shipping and human life. [Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE ROUTE OF THE NORTH SEA AND BALTIC CANAL.] The Kattegat and Skager Rack are computed to cost Germany a yearly loss of five hundred lives by wreck, and half a million sterling. The pecuniary damage through the trade which is turned back, and does not dare to defy the peril, must be much more considerable. Germany at large has finally to defray the major part of these charges, positive and negative. The saving of them is likely to yield very ample interest on the seven or eight millions to be spent. Venerable Lübeck would alone have cause to murmur at a work which threatens it with more grievous competition than even now it has to meet from the competition of Kiel for the Baltic trade. A writer in the _Times_ has, however, pointed out that Lübeck, though it has fallen behind in the race with Hamburg, has its own intrinsic sources of prosperity, and is not likely to let them slip. The one real drawback to the attractions of the project is the unaccommodating character of a North German winter. Ice, which seriously obstructs the navigation of the tidal rivers, would be harsher still to the sluggish surface of a fresh-water canal in Holstein. The North Sea and Baltic Canal will be of the following dimensions:—Breadth at surface 200 feet; at bottom 85 feet. Depth 27 feet 10 inches.