166 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL

DOCUMENT NO. 100 (FILES OF SHIP CANAL AUTHORITY OF STATE OF
 FLORIDA), JANUARY 15, 1936

 AzrncL BT CoL GmIlnza A. YoUNGBEBG, UNrrED STATES ABT,
 RTEbED, THE TBANI-FOBIDA AND KIEL SHIP CANALS--SoE
 COMPARISONS
 CouPrnzzeo~e

 Under date of January 15, 1936, Col. Gilbert A. Youngberg Corps
 of Engineers, United States Army, retired, published the following
 article:

 THu TANws-FLOIrDA AND K1m SHIP CANALS-SOMX COMPARBSOS (BY GinaM
 A. Youvaeme, CaLONzL (EwOinAs), UNITD STATsm AMy, BaRIa) .
 1. Editorial writers and others, particularly in the southern part of Florida,
 have strenuously opposed the Gulf-Atlantic Ship Canal now being constructed
 across the peninsula by the Federal Government. While many of them have
 heard of the Suez and Panama Canals, they apparently believe that the Florida
 cross-State canal is the first and only waterway ever projected across a penin-
 sula. Some have voiced the view that even as a means of Public Works Ad-
 ministration relief employment it is not very effective and that, considered as a
 navigation facility, it will be immensely costly, will have little or no use, and
 that no economic warrant does or can exist for its construction in the interests
 *of waterborne commerce.
 2. Nevertheless, its construction is based on a fundamental principle of trans-
 portation as old as mankind. That principle is the same which results in a
 short cut across a vacant lot to a car station or a grocery store. It is identical
 with the reason for every rectification of our highways and it is applied to
 every tunnel that is holed through a mountain to eliminate the curves and
 heavy grades, and consequent high transportation costs incident to carrying
 the railway over the mountain from one valley to another. It was this same
 basic principle which caused the construction of the Sues and Panama Canals.
 & Because of the geographic analogy existing between the Florida canal and
 the Kiel Canal in Europe, it is appropriate to consider the latter. This crosses
 the base of the Jutland Peninsula which projects northward from Germany
 and which contains the Kingdom of Denmark.
 PENINSULAR 8IMILARITIE8
 4. If the reader will imagine himself at the tip of the two peninsulas, in
 turn facing the base or neck of each, he will find that the Baltic Sea on the
 left of the Jutland Peninsula corresponds with the Gulf of Mexico on the left
 of the Florida Peninsula; that the North Sea on the right corresponds in a way
 to the Atlantic, and that the Kattegat and Skagerak Straits around Skagen
 (Cape Skaw) correspond to the Straits of Florida around Cape Sable and the
 Florida keys.
 5. On the Baltic Sea there are the important ports of Stettin, Danzig, Gdynla,
 Riga, Reval, Leningrad, and others, including those on the east side of Sweden
 (see map, p. 14). These ports correspond to the American ports of Panama
 City, Pensacola, New Orleans, Galveston, Houston, and other ports on the Gulf
of Mexico in the. United States and in Mexico (see map, p. 10, Southeastern
Waterways, vol I, no. 1, for January 1988).
 & In Europe the North Sea and Atlantic ports of Hamburg, Amsterdam,
 Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Le Havre on the Continent, and London, Hull, Edin-
 burgh, and other ports on the east coast of England and Scotland, all of which
 are separated from the Baltic Sea by the Jutland Peninsula, correspond to the
 American Atlantic coast ports of Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, Baltimore,
 Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other ports in the United States and in
 Canada, which are separated from the Gulf ports by the peninsula of Florida.
 THE GREAT CIRCLE SAILING ROUTE
 7. In comparing the Kiel Canal with the trans-Florida ship canal there is,
 however, one important feature in favor of the latter project. This lies in the
 fact that trans-Atlantic vessels plying direct between any two ports in America