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It may easily be supposed that every other imaginable and unimaginable objection was raised, but to one and all Eads gave an answer that sounded conclusive. As usual he was willing to back up his ideas with money, and he had the most elaborate surveys made, and remarkable models prepared to show the working of the ship-railway. He preached this new crusade of science with his customary vigor.
And it was at Tehuantepec that Eads proposed building, not a canal, but a ship-railway. The proposition was astounding. It certainly suggested very picturesque visions of transportation; but at first sight it did not sound very practicable. However, Eads held that it presented six great and purely practical advantages: First, it could be built for much less than the cost of a canal.
He was in such poor health that he was not able to remain there, but on his doctor's advice he went with his wife and one daughter to Nassau. While sick there, he was still at work on improvements for his ship-railway. He was wont to say to his intimate friends, "I shall not die until I accomplish this work, and see with my own eyes great ships pass from ocean to ocean over the land."
All in all he held nearly fifty patents from the United States and England for useful inventions in naval warfare, bridge foundations and superstructure, dredging machines, navigation, river and harbor works, and ship-railway construction. In January, 1887, when his bill was to come up, he went to Washington.
The next year he proposed to Congress to build the ship-railway at his own risk, and to give the United States special privileges, which had been arranged for in his Mexican charter, provided the government would, as he proved the practicability of his plan by actual construction and operation, guarantee part of the ship-railway's dividends.
In 1885, after obtaining from the Mexican government a modification of his concession, guaranteeing one third of the net revenue per annum, he had a bill introduced in Congress, whereby, when the ship-railway should be entirely finished and in operation, the United States was to guarantee the other two thirds.
In 1880 he appeared before a committee of the House, and in reply to De Lesseps, who was advocating the Panama Canal, he stated his plan for the ship-railway. A few months later he went to Mexico, where the government gave him, besides a very valuable concession for building the ship-railway, its cordial assistance in his surveys.
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