PASSAGE FOR THE PACIFIC TIDE.
It is needless to say that, under the auspices of Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Brassey, who, with that clear discernment and prompt decision, which have placed them in the elevated position which they occupy, adopted this route in December 1851, after a careful examination of my statements, the great work of an interoceanic canal is sure, erelong, to be accomplished.
I trust that an attentive consideration of the advantages of this route—viz., its shortness, the excellence of its harbors, the low elevation of the land, the absence of bars at the Savana and Tuyra mouths, the depth of water and great rise of tide in the former, its directness of course and freedom from obstructions, the healthiness of the adjacent country, the exemption of the coasts from northers and hurricanes, the feasibility of cutting a canal without locks, and the absence of engineering difficulties—will fully justify me in asserting it to be the shortest, the most direct, safe, and expeditious, and in every way the most eligible route for intermarine communication for large ships.
An examination of the physical aspect of the country from Port Escocés to the Savana—presenting, as it does, but a single ridge of low elevation, and this broken by gorges, ravines, and valleys, and grooved by rivers and streams, with a champaign country extending from its base on each side—will prove the feasibility of making the canal entirely without locks, a superiority which this route possesses over others, which all present insurmountable physical obstacles to the construction of such a canal.
In fact, a glance at the map ought to convince the most sceptical that nature has unmistakably marked out this space for the junction of the two oceans, and the breaking of the continuity of North and South America; indeed, so narrow is the line of division, that it would almost appear as if the two seas did once meet here.
Details of the Route Proposed.—I shall now enter into a more detailed description of this route, which I discovered in 1849, and proposed for a ship-canal communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the Panamá Echo of February 8, 1850, in the Daily News and Mining Journal of May 1850;[XXXIV-52] in a paper presented to the Royal Geographical Society, and read at the Edinburgh meeting of the British Association in July 1850; and in a report to Lord Palmerston, of January 15, 1851.
Port Escocés.—Of Port Escocés, Caledonia Bay, and the channel of Sassardi, the Columbian Navigator, vol. 3, p. 218, says:
'Port Escocés, or Caledonia, lat. 8° 51´, long. 77° 44´, is a noble harbor; very safe, and so extensive that a thousand sail of vessels may enter it.
'Punta Escocés is the s. e. point of Caledonia Bay, the greater islet of Santa Catalina, or de Oro (gold), being the n. w. Between point and point the distance is four miles, and the points lie n. w. and s. e. (n. 40° w., and s. 40° e.), from each other; and in respect to this line the bay falls in one mile and two thirds. In the s. e. part of this bay is Puerto Escocés (or Scottish Harbor), which extends inward two miles in that direction, and forms good shelter. There are various shoals in it, which are represented in the particular plan of the harbor, by which plan any vessel may run in, for the depths are five, six, seven, and eight fathoms of water over a bottom of sand.
'Between Piedras Islet to the north, the west point of Aglatomate River to the south, and that of San Fulgencio to the S. W., is formed the Ensenada, or bay of Caledonia, and the channel of Sassardi.