The Hawaiian gazette., 1885-02-04
The 1nterooesnio Ship Railway.

The advantages of the position of the Tehaunte-
pee ship railway for sailing ships is thus describ
an address delived before the Merchants Exchange
in st. Louis. He said.
"Mere statements of the difference in miles is
very inadequate measure" "of the difference in
time that would be occupied by sailing vessels
in making these several passages; and when
we consider that three-tourths of the ocean COM
MERGE of the world IS carried in sailing vessels,
you can see what an important factor this ques-
ton of SIiing time becomes in the solution of the
problem befJie Us.
THE northeast trade winds which extend across
the Atlantic are so broken and interrupted when
they encounter the West India Islands that they
never penetrate the Caribbean sea; but the north
west portion of them, however, do extend into the
Gulf of Mexico, and often 50 far down as to reach
we'll toward Tehauntepec, SO that while in the
Gulf winds are always found, yet the Caribbean
sea remains region of almost relentless calm.
Nor is this all, for the mountain ranges, ex-
tending the length of the Isthmus of Panama and
through Central America, offer still more Tor
midable barrier to the passage of these winds,
thus throwing them still higher into the up
per regions of the atmosphere, and extending
these calns far out into the Pacific Ocean, on the
parallel of Panama, with lessening width, for
fifteen or eighteen hundred miles TO the north
west, along the coast of Central America.
This whole region of Gains, both in the Carib-
bean Sea and in the Pacific Ocean, is so we'll
known to navigators that sailing vessels always
shun 1t, If possible, though they may have to run
thousand miles out of their way to do so.
"This absence of wind, of course leaves this
vast area exposed to the unmitigated heat of a
torrid sun, except when relieved momentaTily by
/ harassing squalls in the dry season and by the
| deluging rainfalls of the wet season. With these
meteorological facts in view. let US now suppose
| that the Lesseps canal at Panama and the Eads
| railway at Tehuantepec are both completed and
| in running order; then let us start two sailing
ships, of equal tonnage and equal speed, from the
mouth Of the Mississippi, with cargo for China,
one to so by the way of the Panama Canal, and
| the other by the way of the Tehuantepec Railway,
and / venture to affirm that by the time the Pan
anna vessel has cleared the canal and floats in the
waters of the Pacific, the Tehauutepec vessel will
have scaled the Isthmus and be well on to the
| meridian of the Sandwich Islands; and that be-
| fore the former vessel can worry through the
| fifteen more hundred miles of MINDLESS ocean
before her, to reach the trade winds to the west
ward of TehuanteDec, the latter will have sped
five thousand miles of her way ACROSS the Pacific,
| and be fully thirty days ahead Of her adversary,
For it IS fact worth mentioning here, that the
strength Of the northeast trade winds in the Pa
cifc, as we'll as the maximum strength of the
| northern portion of the great equatorial current
| in that ocean, are both found near the par
allel of latitude of Tehuantepec the former blow
ing with impelling force to the westward of ten
or twelve miles an hour, and the latter with fol
lowing strength of three four miles per hour