The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-05-28
The 0rcat Isthmian Canal-Onc OF
the Practical schemes OF GeneraA
Grants AdministratiOn.

the Practical schemes OF General
Grants Administration.
| A HERALD correspondent on the Mexican
| border in recent letter. after detailing the
| enormous losses of our citizens of Texas from
the depredations of Mexican cattle stealers,
earnestly advocates the annexation of the
frontier Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Nuevo
Leon Coahuila, chihuahua, &C.. as the only
practical solution of these border troubles.
This idea, strong in the army. seems to be
widely entertained among our people, and
from various sources within the last few
weeks it has been reported as scheme Of the
administration. We had supposed that after
the discouraging failure of his st. Domingo
annexation experiment General Grant had
become exceedingly cautious in reference to
all other projects of manifest destiny" but
the temptations to this Mexican adventure are
so powerful that he may not be able to resist
them. For example, with the absorption OF
the Mexican frontier States between the two
oceans our existing border troubles, IL is
claimed, will be promptly and permanently
settled, new and extensive field for ''North
|
marvellous gold, silver and copper mines will
be secured, and a field for transcontinental
and Mexican railways, which, with the COM
pletion of two or three lines, will establish
internal peace in our ''sister Republic" and
enrich both Mexico and the United States.
These are plausible arguments in favor of
this annexation scheme, and when it is further
al 1.okA - -, III
tive but cession Of territory in the SETTLE
ment of balance Of some twenty millions of
dollars in the claims we have against her, the
question arises, How is President Grant to
avoid this adjustment? We answer, that all
the real advantages suggested in this annexa-
ton project can be secured without it, and
that the acceptance Of white elephant, with
only the promise to keep him and take good
care of him, is costly bargain But still,
remembering the ''new departure Of General
Grant, in the gigantic schemes of internal i'm
provements submitted to the consideration of
Congress in his last annual message, we think
it possible that the commercial arguments in
support of another slice from Mexico" may
tempt him to the speculation. We trust, how
ever, that he will not be misled into this wild
goose chase, as we hope that Congress will
not be diverted to the expensive folly of con-
Meeting the bays, sounds and inlets along our
Atlantic seaboard by a ship canal, nor to that
other ante diluvian idea OF half dozen horse
boat canals over the Allegheny Mountains.
But there is one commercial scheme upon
which the administration has ventnred, mani
testify with desire to carry it through, which
commands our most cordial support. We
| refer to the scheme of an interoceanic ship
canal over the most available isthmus passage
anywhere to be found from Nicaragua down
to the Atrato River, in South America The
Suez Canal is success, and is steadily re-
calling the trade between Southwestern Asia
and Europe to its old channels-that trade
which, before the rounding by modern navi-
gators Of the Cape Of Good Hope, built up the
commercial cities of the Mediterranean. But
a ship canal which will cut off the rounding of
the Continent of South America will be meal
culably more valuable to the world at large
than the Suez Canal, and to the United States,
particularly, will it be profitable investment,
| in giving us the command of the enormous
| traffic of Eastern Asia. Under the auspices of
| General Grants administration we believe
| that the most available route for this ship
canal has at length been found in the newly
discovered way across the Isthmus OF Darien
The preliminary but decisive intelligence of
the success of this Isthmian Ship Canal Sur
vey, as first given by the HERALD recently,
will reawaken popular enthusiasm in this great
enterprise. The interoceanic water way has
World ever since the day when vasco Nunez
discovered the Great Ocean
and all his men
Looked at each other with wild SurmiSe
| Silent upon peak OF Darien.
The magnitude of the undertaking has here
tofore been equalled by the uncertainty which
overhung it in the point of engineering
practicability But the revelations made by
the Selfridge Expedition remove all doubts as
to the latter point, and indicate that the ex-
pense will by no means reach such high
figures as were formerly assigned by en-
gineers. Without depreciating the splendid
labors of Captain Shufeldt in the Tehuantepec
Survey and those of other intrepid and saga
cious explorers for transoceanic canal route,
we may congratulate the country and the Self
ridge Expedition upon its conclusive and
triumphant researches.
The line now marked out by Captain Self
ridge wholly lies in the territory of the United
States of Colombia and passes through the
Atrato Valley, which bears geologic evidence
of having been once Oh arm of the sea. As
cending the Atrato (Which is broad stream
from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet in
width and from twenty-eight to sixty feet deep
in the channel, as far as it would be required
for ship navigation), the proposed canal would