tion, or modify their force, and therefore we may suppose that the prevailing winds of the North Pacific are more uniform than they are in the Atlantic. But supposing them equal, one of the New York packets at her average outward bound rate of sailing, would make the passage by the Great Circle from Changhai to Monterey in forty-one days, which is about equal to the passage from Rio to the United States.

If we suppose the same ratio to hold in the Pacific, which obtains between the outward and the homeward passage across the Atlantic, then the average sailing distance the other way, that is from Monterey to Changhai, would be fifty-seven days by the Great Circle. The trades are favorable for the outward bound trips of sailing vessels from Monterey, and therefore the old sailor adage: "the longest way round is the shortest way home," will probably continue to hold good for that half of the voyage.

But you have asked me to consider the best route not for sailing vessels, but for a line of steamers.

The Great Circle is the route for steamers both ways-and supposing the ves sels upon the proposed line to be equal in speed to the "Great Western" in her palmy days-and why should they not be superior?-they will make the passage to and fro between Changhai and Monterey in twenty-six days, including the stoppage of a day for coaling at the Fox Islands.

It has been shown that Monterey is directly on the great highway from weɛtern South America and Mexico to China. This fact is of itself sufficient to show why the preference should be given to it as the American terminus of the line. Intimately connected with this subject, however, is a rail road from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

A rail road from Savannah and Charleston to Memphis, has already been projected and is partly completed. From Memphis to Monterey, the distance by an air line is 1,500 lines.

Supposing your proposed line of steamers established to China, and this rail road completed to Monterey, the productions and rich merchandize of China and Japan might be placed in the lap of the great Valley of the Mississippi within thirty days.

The intelligence brought by each arrival would be instantly caught up by telegraph, and as instantly delivered in New York and Boston. Here the steamers would receive it on board, and in thirteen days more arrive with it in England; thence it would be taken across the channel in a few hours, and immediately communicated through the magnetic wires to all parts of the continent. And thus, by this route, intelligence might be conveyed from China through the United States to the people of St. Petersburg and Moscow, and perhaps, at no distant day, to Constantinople also, within forty-five days.

I see no reason why the rate of travel over the railroads, hereafter to be built in America, should not at least be equal to that of the English and European

railroads. I believe the usual rate in England to be about forty miles the hour. Over some roads it is more. But supposing the rate over the great Atlantic and Pacific railroad to be only twenty miles the hour, the time from Monterey to Memphis would occupy three days.

This route has further the advantage of being at once the most central and direct route that has ever been proposed from the United States to China.

The distance from Memphis by Monterey and the Great Circle, is only seven per cent. greater than it is by a "bee line" drawn through the air from Memphis direct to Changhai.

If you look to the long and much talked of canal across the Isthmus of Darien to Panama, you will find that a person from Memphis to China by that route would, on making Cape St. Lucas, the southern point of the Peninsula of California, be no nearer to Changhai, in point of distance, than he was the day he embarked at Memphis, notwithstanding that to reach Cape St. Lucas he would have traveled upwards of 4,000 miles; and if he should go by the way of the Sandwich Islands, he would, to reach China, have to perform a journey of 5,000 miles greater than would be required of him on this new route by railroad and Great Circle via. Monterey.

In the progressive spirit of the age, time has become to be reckoned as money; and if there were a canal already cut from Chagres to Panama, the circuity of the route and the loss of time compared with what is to be gained by the proposed line from Memphis and Monterey, would, in time, cause the abandonment of that, and the completion of this, so far at least as raw silk and other small parcels of merchandize for England, travelers, and the people of the United States are concerned.

The route across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, though not so far out of the way as that by Panama, is nevertheless quite a round-about way; the distance by it to China being over 2,000 miles greater than it is from Memphis via. Monterey.

In 1521, Cortes caused a survey to be made of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, for the purpose of uniting the two oceans. Afterwards, it became the favorite route by which the Manilla merchants and others crossed over from Acapulco to the Gulf of Mexico.

Towards the latter part of the last century, an accidental circumstance gave it fresh importance. The Vice-Roy Bocareli, observing some brass pieces in or near the famous Castle of San Juan de Ulloa, with the stamp of Manilla foundry upon them, wished to know how they were brought to the Gulf. It was ascertained from the archives of the imperial city of Tehuantepec, that those heavy pieces had been transported from the Pacific to the Gulf, partly by land and partly by water across the Isthmus. The route from the Pacific being up the Chicapa across the rual-paso, thence by land over the grand Cordilleras to the head waters of the Coatzacoalcas, which empties into the Gulf. At what sacrifice of money,

time and men those pieces were transported, it is not stated-but it should be recollected that the feat was performed when the Spanish galleons from Acapulco were ballasted with silver, and laden with gold.

In 1814, the Spanish Cortes actually ordered the canal to be made: but this order produced no other result than a reconnoisance by Gen. Obregoso, which I have before me in the very excellent work of De Mofras, entitled "Exploration de Territorie de L'Oregon, Paris, 1844." Although the General's geodetic report was never completed, it gives, in the language of that intelligent writer, “very correct ideas of the nature of the ground and of the difficulties it presents."

I have also before me a MS. copy of the survey made three or four years ago by Cayetano Moro, in connexion with the grant by Santa Anna to Don Jose Garay, for connecting the two oceans by canal through this Isthmus. This MS. was obtained by Commander McKenzie, U. S. N., at Mina-tit-lan, from one of the assistants of the survey. It was copied by Lieutenant May, U. S. N., by order of Commodore Perry, and sent here, and is now in the hands of the engraver for publication,

With these, and other sources of information to guide me, I have attentively considered the practicability of a ship canal through the mountains of Tehauntepec. From sea to sea, the distance across, in a north and south direction, between the parallels of 16 degrees and 18 degrees, is rather less than 120 miles. By Moro's MS., you can carry nine feet water one hundred and fifty miles up the Coatzacoalcas, though other authorities put the head of schooner navigation at the Island of Tacanachipa, which is only twenty-five miles from the Gulf.

But taking the most favorable view, which gives nine feet for fifty miles, and commencing the canal at the point proposed, which is about fifteen miles further up, at the confluence of the Maletengo, there remains a circuitous distance of seventy odd miles in which there is an ascent and descent of at least seven hundred feet to be overcome.

In this distance, the Sierra Madre is to be crossed; and I have never heard that there is to be found the famous Irish mountain, "with a bog on the top of it," affording water enough to feed a ship canal! The Mexican engineers, however, propose to bring it by two lateral cuts twenty or thirty miles from a mountain streamlet.

The canal to be a bona fide ship canal, should be at least seventeen feet deep, by eighty feet broad at the surface. It must be a copious stream, indeed, to supply water enough to lift up through 700 feet and safely to let down from this elevation again, the fleets of ships which we are told are daily to pass through such a canal.

Suppose the feeder to be ample, let any one who would form an idea as to the cost of a ship canal in the pestilential climate and inhospitable country of this Isthmus, recollect the expense of the Louisville canal, constructed with every thing at hand, in a healthy and settled country, around the falls of the Ohio-and

it is but as a rod in length, and only as a race for shallops in comparison with this. Let him recollect the difficulties, nay, practically, the impossibility of deepening the western rivers. We have not been able to increase the depth of the Mississippi itself, at low water, even so much as two feet, much less sixteen. What, think you, would have been the expense of digging out the Ohio river, from Wheeling to Pittsburgh, before that country was settled, so as to afford an uniform depth of seventeen feet at low water? Go into the calculation and examine the items: after that, you may be able to form something like an appropriate estimate as to the cost of a ship canal across this continent, in the most unhealthy region of the globe; a region in which native or acclimated laborers are not to be found, and where foreign laborers, knowing they should have to work knee-deep in mud and water, under a tropical sun, and in such a climate, could not be had for wages.

So impressed are the Mexicans themselves with the unhealthiness of the route, that Santa Anna, after granting to Garay this privilege, which he proclaimed to his countrymen, would make Mexico the focus of the world's commerce, the emporium of wealth and power, issued a decree directing judges to sentence malefactors to work on this canal, and then ordered a prison to be built on its banks to keep the laborers in.

But suppose the mines of Potosi to be exhausted and the canal to be made, I doubt much of its extensive use, for there are in the minds of sailors, great obstacles still in the way. It is well known that in that part of America, during the sickly season, even a few hours on shore are considered sometimes fatal, and always dangerous to unacclimated foreigners.

Two years ago, the United States Frigate, Savannah, cruizing in the Pacific, touched on the coast of Tehuantepec during the healthy season. Four of her crew deserted, and in two weeks three of the four were dead. She was followed by the Warren; seven of her crew deserted, one of whom in a very short time after, wasted and worn down with disease found his way back, and reported himself as the only surviving man of the party.

During any season, but especially the sickly season, which on this Isthmus is most of the year, a night in the "Black Hole of Calcutta" would be quite as inviting to travelers, as passage through this canal. I suppose that seamen would not ship to sail through it, at such seasons, on any terms. But if they would, there are other obstacles still in the back ground. Perhaps they are the obstacles; I allude now to the bars across the harbors, and to the dangers at either terminus of the canal. The bars are shifting bars, and therefore more difficult to remove.

The water and that at the mouth of the harbor, on the Gulf, is variously stated at from fourteen to twenty feet, while the outlet at the other end, is obstructed by the bars both of Teresa and Francisco. As often as vessels, on

The highest ever known.

approaching the mouth of the Coatzacoalcas from the Gulf should be caught in a norther, and hurricanes prevail here for much of the year, there would be danger, if not wreck. The ship would be embayed, close on a lee shore, from which there is no escape: there is no harbor nor shelter to the south of Vera Cruz, that a vessel at such times could make. During a norther the sea breaks "feather white" across this bar, and where the sea breaks in a gale, no ship can live. With such an exposure to the swell from the north, as this bar presents, to prevent the rollers from breaking over, it would require a depth twice, if not thrice as great as it now has.

There are the bars at the mouth of the Mississippi river, choking up the commerce of that great valley, checking if not damping, the prosperity of the whole country; and yet the labor and cost of deepening them even so much as two feet more, are such that the enterprise of the nation has not yet found itself equal to the task.

Look at the coast line about the mouth of the Coatzacoalcas. This port is in the middle of the crescent formed between the peninsula of Yucatan and the coast below Tampico-now you will observe, that if a vessel were caught in a norther off the bar of the Coatzacoalcas, she could not make any course that would take her clear of the shore. She is now in a cul de sac; and there is no escape for her.

On the Pacific side it is worse. The bars there have not so much water in them, and the outer one is exposed to the full force of the waves that come across that broad ocean. Here, the sea is visited by the most violent storms, accompanied with thunder and lightning, that are described by sailors as truly awful. In short, such are the dangers and difficulties of navigation in that region, that there is an admiralty order, forbidding British ships of war to visit it between June and November.

There are also the Nicaragua and three or four other routes, that have occupied, more or less, the attention of nations and capitalists, from time to time; but the difficulties and objections with regard to them are quite as serious as those which I have been considering with regard to Tehuantepec and Panama.

But if the connection by any of the routes across Central America could be made at half the expense of Monterey, or of Wilkes' or Whitney's rail road, I should consider either of the last three of far greater importance in a national point of view to this country, and its people, than any route that can be projected to the south of us, free though it should be to them and to it.

To canals, railroads and all such improvements, there are attached two values; a particular and a general value, if I may so call them. By the particular value of a rail road or canal, I mean that value which attracts the capitalist, and which induces him to invest his money in it for the sake of dividends. It is simply that value which inures exclusively to the benefit of stockholders, and consists in the aggregate only of the nett proceeds of the work.