The commission, returning too from Europe, where it had made as careful investigations as those of Eads, reported, by a majority of six to one, in favor of trying jetties in the South Pass. This pass, the smallest of the three mouths, had a depth of only eight feet on its bar, and had besides a shoal at its head. The South West Pass, the one which Eads had proposed to use, is not only two or three times as big, both in width and in volume of water, but it had fourteen feet on the bar, and no shoal at its head. Eads argued and implored with all his strength to be allowed to use the larger pass, as the only one adequate to the demands of commerce; and so convincing were his reasons that the House passed a bill which called for jetties in the larger pass. But the Senate, again more conservative, was cautious in this experiment, and insisted on the small pass. Finally, the bill went through, and the grant was made for the improvement of South Pass. And notwithstanding the considerable difference in size, as well as preliminary conditions altogether less promising than in the pass Eads had asked for, still, the depth of thirty feet was to be obtained,--the same result under harder circumstances. The payment promised, however, was not increased with the difficulty; but on the contrary was to be a good deal less than the estimate of the commission. The terms, which required certain specified depths and widths of channel to be obtained and then maintained during twenty years, were so arranged that Eads should not receive any part of his payment till after the work covered by that part had been finished and approved.
Hard as these conditions were, they were based on his own proposal, and he was glad even on such terms to undertake the great work he had longed to do. He at once busied himself in raising money for beginning the Jetties, and here again his peculiar talents helped him. One of his friends has said, "His powers of persuasion, his charm of address, and the magnetism of his personality opened the hearts and purses of whomever he pleaded with in support of his engineering devices. He was a most lovable man." Moreover, he was an excellent business man. He had indeed a marvelous faculty for obtaining funds with which to carry on his works; and in that time of financial distress such a faculty was very necessary.