The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-09-09

TIL E r Z PU B Lie.
Isthmus or Panama.

BARON HUMBoLDT's LAST OPINION THE PAS
SAGE OF THE lsTHMUs OF PANAMA.-Baron Hum
boldt, in work published in lSi9, entitled aspects
| ot Nature in different Lands and Ciiu.ss repeats
the opinion long ago expressed by him, that the
shortest and most practicable route for a navigabc
canal between the two oceans, across the lsthmus
Of Panama. s TO be found at the eastward Of Cruces
and Panama, and that this route ought to be salts
iactorily explored before any work is undertaken
on any other. Although we have expectation
that a ship canal to unite the two will be
ablishcd by this generation that it is practica-
bic by means which can be made available from
the resources of any private association, doubt
not that the route here indicated deserves for the
| reasons suggested, more thorough scientific
poraton than has been yet given 10 it. Ii is fact
not indicative of the enlistment, Of any great de-
gree OF practical skill and science, in a project
which has been SO long talked of, and from which
such immense benefits are anticipated, that no
satisfactory survey of any one of the routes sup
posed to be practicable has yet been laid before the
public.
"As the taking possession OF a considerable part of
the west coast OF the new continent by the United
! States of North America, and the RI port Of the
| abundance of gold in New California (now called
Upper California have rendered more urgent than
ever the formation Of communication between The
Atlantic States and the regions of the West through
the lsthmus of Panama, feel it my duty to call at
tention once again to the circumstance that the
shortest way to the shores Of the Pacific, which was
shown by the natives to Alonzo Martin de Don Be
nito, is in the eastern part of the lsthmus and led
to the Colo de San Miguel. We know that Colum-
| DuS (Nlua del Ailnlrante pOT Don Fernando Colon,
Cap. 90) sought for an 'estrecho de TERRA frme;'
and in the official documents which possess of
the years sos and 1907, and especially 1914, men.
ton is made of the desired opening (abcrtura) and
of the pass, (passo which should lead directly to
the Indian Land of Spices Having for more
than forty years been occupied with the subject Of
the means OF communication between the two seas,
have constantly, both in my printed works and in
the different memoirs which with honorable conf.
dcnce the free States of Spanish America have
quested me to furnish urged that the lsthmus
should be examined hypsometrically throughout its
entire length, and more especially where in Dari-
en- and the inhospitablc former Provincial dc Biru-
quote, il joins the continent of South America and
where, between the Atrato and the Bay of Cupica,
| Con the shore Of the Pacifc,) the mountain chain
Of the lsthmus almost entirely disappears (See in
my Atlas q Geographiquc ct physique de la Nouvelle
Espagne pl. ~; IN the Atlas dc La Relation Histo
riquc pl. XXI. and XIII. and other works.)
General Bolivar, at my request, caused an exact
leyelling Of the lsthmus between Panama and the
mouth of the Rio Chagres to be made in 1873 and
1929, by Lloyd and Falmarc, philosophical Trans
actions OF the Royal Society of London, for the
year 1890, PIP. SO, co. Other measurements have
since been executed by accomplished and expert
ehced engineers, and projects have been formed
for canals and railways with locks and tunnels,
but always in the direction OF meridian between
Porto Bello and Panama-or more TO the west be-
tween Chagres and Cruces. Thus the most inn
portant points of the eastern and southeastern
parts Of the lsthmus have remained unexamned
on both shores. SO long as this part ls not exam
incd geographically by means of exact but easily
obtained determinations of latitude and longitude
by chronometers, as well as hypsometrically IN
the confirmation of the surface by barometric
measurements OF elevation-so long consider that
the statement have repeatedly made, and which
now repeat in lS49, will still be true viz shat
ii Is as yet improved and quite premature to pro-
nounce that the Isthmus does not admit Of the
formation Of oceanic canal, l. G. a canal with
fewer locks than the Caledonian canal, permitting
at all seasons the passage of the same sea going
ships between New York and Liverpool on the
hand. and Chill and California IN he other
"On the Atlantic side, according TO examinations
which the Direction Hydrograhco of Madrid have
entered on their maps since 1907 the Ensenadade
/ Mandinga penetrates so deeply towards the south
that il appears ~ be only four five German geo
graphical miles, fifteen TO an equatorial degree,
q. e., sixteen or twenty English geographical
miles, from the coast of the Pacific the east of
Panama. On the Pacific side the isthmus is almost
equally indented by the deep Colo dc San Miguel,
into which the Rio Tuya falls, with its tributary
river, the Chuchunque, (Chucchunaque.) This
last named stream, IN the upper part of Its
approaches within sixteen English geographical
miles of the Atlantic side of the sthmus to the west
Of Cape 1ibursn.
"For more than twenty years have had inquiries
made of INC on the subject of the problem Of the
lsihmus of Panama, by associations desirous of
employing considerable pccuniary means, but the
simple advice which have given has never been
followed. Every scientifically educated engineer
knows that between the tropics, (evcn without
| responding observations,) good barometric mea-
surements (thc horary variations being taken into
account) afford results which well assured TO be
ess than prove seventy to ninety French seventy
five TO ninety six English feet Ii would besides be
easy to establish for a few months, the shores,
two fixed corresponding baromctric stations, and to
compare repeatedly the portable instruments en-
/ poyed in preliminary levcling, with each other,
and with those at the fixed stations. Let that part
be particularly examined where, near the continent
of South America, the separating mountain ridge
sinks into hills. Seeing the importance Of the sub
ject 10 the great commerce of the world, the re-
search ought not. as hitherto be restricted to limit
cd field. great and comprehensive work, which
shall include the whole eastern part of the lshmus
and will be equally usefu for every possible kind
| of operation or consuuction-for canal or railway
can alone decide the much discussed problcm either
afirmativcly negatively. That will be done at
last, which should, and, had my advice been taken
I would have been done in the first instance PIP.
4i9 $50, t5l, 49,, Amaicdn ed. Of ASPECTS Of Ma
! tHe. -