ANOTHER GREAT MARITIME HIGHWAY.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 539, 10 March 1876, Page 3

ANOTHER GREAT MARITIME HIGHWAY.

The “ Interoceanic Ship Canal ” is now the subject of general interest in the United States, This projected canal is to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Commissioners appointed by the President to report as to the respective merits of the various routes surveyed for the canal have recently made their report. They are of opinion, after a full investigation, that the Nicaragua route is the best, and they estimate that the canal from the harbour at Brito, on the Pacific, to Greytown, on the Atlantic, can be constructed at a total cost of 66,000,000 dollars. Objections of an almost insurmountable character were found in all but the Panama and Nicaragua routes, and they give the preference to the latter, notwithstanding its greater length of nearly 181 miles, on the ground of its being the only route where the climate is not dangerous to health. In the lower routes the malaria would destroy the greater portion of the workmen before the canal could be completed. It is, too, the only route where an unfailing and proper supply of water can be found. The Commissioners after referring to the importance of the problem of connecting the two oceans, which has occupied the attention of statesmen and navigators for centuries, add that it is of the highest importance that the United States should take some action at once to carry out the feasible plan of the ship canal in order to prevent either England or France from coming in and reaping the honour and profit of this great enterprise. The results of the work cannot, they say, be fully estimated; but doubtless when the canal is completed nearly one-half of the carrying trade of the world will be revolutionised. One item alone, it is thought, will make the building of the canal a good investment—namely, the shipment of Californian products to Europe and the ports upon the Atlantic coast, but more especially to Europe. Large quantities of wheat shipped from California to the European markets will pass through the canal instead of goingfround by Cape Horn.