The Newtown bee., 1879-07-23
Cutting the Isthmus of Darien,

Cutting the Isthmus of Darien.
 It seems hardly possible that large sailing ship going from New York to San Francisco could pay toll of $4,0O0 to cross the Isthmus of Darien by a canal and yet save a good deal ofmoney by doing so. By going through such a canal the ship would avoid sail round South America, say 5000 miles, equal to three voyages across the Atlantic As this usually requires three or four months, the ship would save the wages and board of a crew of twenty persons for that time, besides a large sum in sails l and paint, and general wear and tear. A suit of sails for a large ship costs $3,000 or $4,000, and they wear out with sur- prising rapidity. Away goes mainsail in gust of wind. Eight hundred dollars goner' says the captain. The canal would save one-half the in surance upon vessel and cargo, and a great sum in interest. A big ship may have S5O0,000 worth of cargo on board, all of which lies dead and useless while it is battened down under matches. Now, four per cent. of $500,000 is a large sum of money When such canal is finished Y ankee schooner can slip out of the Merrimac with a load of apples, boots and wash tubs, and in thirty days its captain can be selling them in Peru.
 
 canal? It could be done for the sum that used to be spent in the late war in forty days. One hundred and twenty millions is a liberal estimate. PiZarro saw the need of such a canal three hundred and forty years ago, when he lived upon the isthmus; and who can look upon the map and not feel what boon it would be to sthe whole family of man to have that thirty-mile obstruction taken out of one of the worlds great highways?
 Giant Difficulty interposes. The Siamese twins were connected only by an isthmus not much thicker than a baby's arm; but you see 1t held them to- gether all their lives. The isthmuS that joins these two continents like liga- ment is an extremely rough, tough and unmanageable piece of ground, full of creeks and rivers, with chain of mountains running through it, part of 1 the StupendOuS mountain system that l extends from Alaska to Patagonia. It's i climate is tropical. In the summer, the streams run low or dry up. In winter. they are rushing torrents. In some | places the mountains rise to the height of twelve thousand feet. twice as high at Mt. Washington; in others, their height for many miles averages below a l thousand feet and occasionally falls to three hundred. The isthmus varies in width from two hundred miles to twenty 1 eight miles.
 l Nine different routes were under con sideration by convention of engineers and naval officers that recently set in Paris; but they may be divided into two sets or systems. One set was based on l the idea of making use of the rivers and lakes of the isthmus; connecting them 1 by the proposed canal, and raising vessels l tn lnvpis hU were rejected. Tropical rivers are as untamable as tropical wild beasts; be- sides it would have taken ship from two to six days to get from ocean to ocean in that way. The other set ot i schemes proposed 9 cut across the iSthmus | at or near the place where it is narrowest l Mir. Kelly, of New York, a gentleman oi | fortune, who has spent many years in in vestigating the practicability of digging this canal. was in favor of taking the bull by the horns, and cutting the isth' mus at the precise spot where it is nar- rowest. His plans required the eXcava- 1 tion of a tunnel seven miles long, through i the mountains, and high enough to ad- init the passage through it of the tallest ship.
 ''The winter torrents,n said Admiral | Selfridge, U. $. N, twill fill your tun- nel full of water."'
 That plan was rejected, and the con- vention, after two weeks debate, recom- mended an open canal, running nearly parallel to the present railroad from As l pinwall to Panama. This canal would be about forty five miles long, and it was said would not probably detain vessel more than one day.
 The public will soon hear more of this matter from M. Lesseps, a French gen. ! tleman who carried through the SueZ canal and who has now turned his atten- tion to the Darien project Youth's Conn., paaa50n.