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The following observations were thrown together as the result ofcommunications with several gentlemen locally acquainted with theIsthmus of Panama, and who expressed to the writer their astonishment,that amidst the numerous undertakings, of more or less utility, whichscience has realised in our time, one so important to the wholecommercial world, so easy of accomplishment, and so certain to beproductive of ample remuneration to the undertakers, as a Ship Canalthrough that Isthmus, had not been taken up. The idle objection, thatif practicable it would not have been left unattempted for the lastthree hundred years, they considered, would have no weight in an agein which we have seen accomplished works that in our fathers' time,nay, even within our own memory, it would have been considered madnessto propose,—witness steam-navigation and railways. It is not twentyyears since Dr. Lardner, the author of a popular work on the[Pg iv]steam-engine, then supposed to be a most competent authority,declared in his lectures that the application of steam-navigation tothe voyage across the Atlantic was a mere chimera. So it has been withrailways. Would not any man who fifty, or even twenty years ago, hadpredicted that the journey from London to Exeter would be accomplishedin five hours, have been deemed a fit tenant for Bedlam? To contendthat because a great undertaking has remained unattempted for a longseries of years, therefore it is impracticable, is to put a stop toall improvement. At the suggestion of the friends before referred to,the writer is induced to print the following pages, with the hope ofdrawing to the subject of which they treat the attention of themercantile and shipping interests. If they awaken an interest in thesubject in those quarters, they will not be thrown away, and he isfully convinced that the more the subject is examined the strongerwill be the conviction of the practicability of the undertaking.
23, Throgmorton Street,
February, 1845.
From the first discovery of the American continent down to the presenttime, a shorter passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific oceanthan the tedious and dangerous voyage round Cape Horn has been adesideratum in navigation. During the dominion of old Spain in the NewWorld the colonial policy and principles of that jealous nation, towhich Central America belonged, opposed insurmountable obstacles toany proposal for effecting this great object; but the emancipation ofthe Spanish Colonies, and the erection of independent States in theirstead, has broken down the barrier which Spanish jealousy had erected.The rulers of these states are no