But we have not yet exhausted the motives which may help to prompt the choice of one route rather than another. There is the question of climatic conditions--storms and winds and currents. In this respect Panama should have a decided advantage over Suez. The Red Sea, as everybody knows, is red hot. This is not good for some sorts of cargo, and so terrible is the heat at times that the stokers are said to be unable to maintain the steam at full pressure. This may involve an appreciable delay in the 1,310-mile run from Suez to Aden. Moreover, from a temper and character point of view, the North Pacific and Caribbean are distinctly superior to the Indian Ocean and the North Atlantic. The deliverance which the Panama Canal will afford to many vessels and steamship lines from the perils and savageries of "Cape Stiff," as the sailors call the Horn, or the reefs and currents of Magellan's Straits, is in itself one of the blessings of the new route. Travellers tell us that the biggest ocean rollers in the world are found on the Pacific coast of America just a little north of the southern straits. For these reasons insurance rates _via_ Panama are likely to be lower than those round the far south of the American continent. There is good reason to believe that the Panama Canal will pay its way without imposing any new burden on the taxpayers of the United States. It will probably not produce the dividends of the Suez Canal. It will have cost four times as much, and is unlikely for many years to command quite as large a volume of traffic. The increase in the traffic at Suez has been enormous during the last fifteen years, owing largely to the development of the resources of the Far East with the help of western capital. The net tonnage of vessels passing through the canal in 1911 was 18,324,794, and the total passengers were 275,651. All forecasts of the traffic _via_ Panama must, of course, be speculative, but it may be mentioned that the net register tonnage of vessels that might have advantageously used a Panama Canal in 1910 is officially estimated at 8,328,029.