In the official report he filed with Secretary Robeson, Selfridge said merely that the effort had served to simplify matters—“the field of research is reduced and the problem narrowed.” He was convinced that the determining factor must be the canal to be built. The canal “should partake of the nature of a strait, with no locks or impediments to prolong the passage . . .” It must be a “through-cut,” at the level of the sea, he wrote, a canal like the canal at Suez, and, from what was known of Central America, the only feasible point for such a passage was Panama.
