JUNCTION OF THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 797, 3 December 1853, Page 2

JUNCTION OF THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS.

[From a Correspondent.] A vast migration of the Anglo-Saxon race is now in progress. A few years ago, on the Northwestern shores of America, and on the broad plains of Australia, representatives of that race were but as stragglers from the crowd which thronged Great Britain, and was rapidly occupving the United States. A migration there certainly was, but one that was irregular, tedious, and defective. England had planted colonies in Australia, which she supplied with transported felons and occasional adventurers. In America the tide of human life was slowly advancing across the Continent. But the result to which these indications pointed was apparently so distant as to baffle the calculations of theorists, and little to affect the operations of practical men. The whole scene is now changed. Gold discovered in California and Australia has accelerated, a thousand-fold, a tardy process, and forestalled a future age. Myriads of men are now hurrying to spots to whichformerly hundreds slowly ventured. Wastes, ere now the resort of wild beasts and their barbarian hunters, now teem with civilized life, and cities occupy former solitudes. Mary years will probably not elapse before there is found in this hemisphere a nation of British origin, equally as civilized, as powerful, and as prosperous as that within Great Britain.

Under these circumstances, the practical question arises, what obstacle exists to that free commerce which ought to prevail between the old and new worlds, and which will most facilitate the attainment of the glorious result in prospect. A cursory glance at a map will furnish a reply. The principal bar to the free intercourse of navigation between the two hemispheres is the narrow isthmus of Darien. A few miles of hill and .0rest alone obstruct the central intemavigation ot of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In these days of facile intercourse and? rapid locomotion, it w useless to enlarge on the benefit of a quicx ana direct route for vessels across the centre oftbe world. A plan by means of which vessels from home can at once enter the Pacific without wtrograding round the Cape of Good Hope, or wituout circumnavigating South is to commercial nations one of paramount importance. The saving of time and money would be im* mense. Benefits commensurate with those produced by railways in England, would be on the whole globe. It cannot be that, in 1 1 days, enterprise will long hesitate to attempt undertaking, the success of which is of so esse - tial moment. That enterprise which, m®° merce has, single handed, braved the unrestric competition of the world, —which raised a pm of glass, and displayed within it the industry _ • all nations, —which has so rapidly" cre *! e r QVf ways, steamers, and telegraphs, and which seems ever on the watch to annihilate the riers of time and space, will soon, we believe deavour to gain a result of incalculable bene and of world-wide interest. We have no wish depreciate what has already been done. Airea y steamers from both oceans run to Panama railway is now almost completed across the mt - vening barrier. But all is not yet done. •* grand difficulty, the transhipment of merch - dize, still remains. To avoid that tranship®®® mariners face the danger and delay of doub S Cape Horn, —the wear and tear of a tempesm - passage, and a circuit of thousands of miles. > * is wanted is a large and deep canal for an ir l; , oceanic navigation—a navigation that will a * a practicable and easy route for vessels 0 largest size. We have long heard of the " • of such navigation, but, unfortunately no su - stantial result has, as. yet, followed, Xhe . has come when this-question must no longer

. . the subject of theoretical guess-work, but of practical solution. The essential points are to discover the best route for such a canal, and then to form an energetic and bona fide company on the most comprehensive footing, zealously to cany such a plan, within a reasonable time, into practical effect. It would almost seem as jf the execution of such a work were a duty imposed by Providence on England and the United States. The directness of the route, — the crowds thronging to the golden lands of Australia and California, —their rapidly rising importance to the interests of both the old countries, are all indications concurrently pointing to one course. -Difficult such an undertaking may be—but in our times, difficulties only exist to be overcome, and their conquest is merely a question of cost. It appears to us that in this case any probable cost dwindles into insignificance by the side of the object in view, and of the advantage to be secured. Both are of a colossal nature. That object is the junction of two oceans, and that advantage is the rapid and unobstructed intercourse of two hemispheres. It will be seen by the appended extract from the leading article of the Sydney Morning Herald, of the 28th October last, that an attempt to effect this great object has been made, under the auspices of Fox, Henderson, and Co. (the contractors for the Crystal Palace), and that a preliminary Survey holds out greater facilities for the commencement of tire work, and for its successful issue, than had heretofore been anticipated : “This splendid but not difficult enterprise has now been talked of in terms of enthusiasm for the last three centuries, during which it was the object of merchants and monarchs to find a shorter route than that pur-sued by the navies of Tarshish or the fleets of Cartilage. The continent of America scarcely consoled Columbus for the passage which it obstructed. Balboa esteemed the discovery of the South Sea a greater honour than the invasion of Peru ; whilst Cortes quitted the empire and the treasures of the Aztecs to herald commerce on her pathway to the West. But the ignorance of a good route, the jealousy of rival nations, an erroneous idea that there was something too stupendous in the undertaking, a very strong prejudice that the difference of the level of the oceans, and of their rise of tide would be a fatal objection, a most exaggerated notion of the healthiness of the Isthmus, which Dr, Cullen, from long experience, declares to be local and endemic, or fixed in a few distinct localities, and does not pervade the whole isthmus, and the futile attempts to effect a north-west passage through the of the polar seas, on wnich so much treasure and so many valuable lives have been wasted, have hitherto prevented any attempt to cut through that narrow neck of land, and thereby, as it were, approximate the two hem- - ispheres. And yet upon a careful examination of the subject, and referring to the work before us with its elaborate surveys, it appears certain that in cutting a canal across the Isthmus of Darien hut little more difficulty exists than in the execution of similar works in England. The Forth and Clyde Canal, of 35 miles in length, with a summit level of 160 feet, which had to be carried through moss, quicksand, gravel and rocks, over precipices, and across valleys —in the course of which, besides smaller ones, 18 drawbridges, and 15 aqueducts, with several tunnels had to be constructed, —was commenced in 1768 by Mr. Smeaton, and completed in 1700, at a cost of 200,000/. A short description of the contemplated Darien route will show that, in comparison with the gigantic works on the Forth and Clyde Canal, there is in the proposed undertaking an almost total absence of engineering difficulties. “Port Escosces, or Scotch Harbour, and the Bay of Caledonia, on the Atlantic coast of the Isthmus of Darien, present an extent of six nautical miles, from S.E. to N.W.,of safe anchorage in all winds. These harbours are situated between Garret to Bay and the Channel of Sassardi, and are 140 miles E.S.E. of Simon Bay, and 21 miles W.N.W. of Cape Liburou, the N.W. boundary of the Gulf of Darien. Port Escosces extends to the S.E. to lat. 8° 50*, and long. 77° 41*; and Golden . Island or Isla d’Oro, or Santa Catolina, which forms the N.W. boundary of Caledonia Bay, is in lat. 8’54 40 and long. 77'45-30, “ The channel of Sassardi, also extending from Caledonia Bay, N.W. five miles, to the Fronton, or point of Sassardi, is sheltered from the winds and seas of both seasons, and lias good depth of

water. “Twenty-two miles S.W. of Port Escosces is the site of the old Spanish settlement of Fuerte del Principes, on the river Savana, established in 1785, and abandoned in 1780. From thence the river Savana has nearly a south by east course for fourteen miles to its mouth, which opens into the river Tuyra, Santa Maria, or Rio Grande del Darien, three miles above Boca Chica and Boca Grande, the two mouths by which the latter discharges itself into the Gulf of San Miguel, on the Pacific. •‘Thus the distance from the Atlantic to the Pa cific Ocean, by the route from Port Escosces or Caledonia Bay, to the Gulf ot San Miguel, hy way of the river Savana, would be thirty-nine miles. In a direct line from Port Escosces to the Gulf, the distance is thirty-three miles. “The whole work to be done, in order to make a ship canal communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by this route, would be to cut from Principe or from Lara Mouth to Port Escosces or Caledonian Bay, a distance ot from twenty-two to twenty-five miles, of which there would be but three or four miles of deep cutting. “ The Canal, to be on a scale of grandeur commensurate with its important uses, must be cut sufficiently deep to allow tbe tide of the Pacific to flow right through it across to the Atlantic; so that ships bound from the Pacific to tbe Atlantic would pass with the flood, and those from the Atlantic to the Pacific with tbe ebb-tide of the latter. Such was the plan recommended in Dr. Cullen’s Report to Lord Palmerston. By such a canal, that is, one entirely without locks,—the transmit from »ea to sea could be effected in six hours, or one tide. “Tbe engineering details and estimates of the cost of the work are furnished by Mr, Lionel Gisborne, C. E., who, with bis assistant, Mr. Forde, was commisioned in' April 1852, by Sir Charles Fox to survey the route in question, which they found to be perfectly feasible for a ship canal communication, and fully as eligible as Dr. Cullen bad represented it And it is to be sincerely hoped that, under the auspices of the eminent firm of which Sir Charles Fox is so distinguished a member, the great work of an inter-oceanic canal may before long he accomplished. “ Dr. Cullen submits his earnest belief, that an attentive consideration of the advantages of the Darien route —its shortness, the excellence of its harbours, tbe low elevation of tbe land, the absence of bars at tbe Savanna and Tuyra mouths, the depth of water and great rise of ride in tbe former, its directness of course and freedom from obstructions, the healthiness of tbe adjacent country, the feasibility of cutting a canal without locks, and the absense of engineering difficulties —will fully justify him 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 ships of tbe highest class, “ We have already notified through these columns, that, in consequence of the earnest recommendations of Dr.Cullen (theresultof journeys through the Isthmus and its adjacent country during the years 1849, 1830, 1851, and 1852), and relying also upon the valuable report of Mr. Gisborne, to which a high compliment is paid in Baron Humboldt’s letter to Dr. Cullen,—a company has been provisionally registered in London, entitled “the Atlantic and Pacific Junction Company,’'of the Provisional Directory of which Lord Wharacliffe is Chairman. The capital is to be £15,000,000 sterling, and tbe object of the company is to unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by an open-navigation across the Isthmus of Durieu. The Congress of New Greneda, in full appreciation of the importance of a project which recognises the great fact that the period has at length arrived when the spread of commerce and the flow ot emigration from the over-populated countries of Europe to tbe western shores of America,—to the golden districts of Australasia,—to the Ports of Indiaand China,—demand a passage either by acanal, road, or rail way across the mosteligible point of tbe Isthmus,—have conceded on very liberal terms to Sir Charles Fox, Mr, John Henderson, Mr. T. Brassey, and Dr. Cullen, 200,000 acres of teritory between the point of Mosquitos and the western mouth of the Atrato; this grant being accompanied by assurances of cordial of co-operation on the part of the government. Thus, with every prospect of success, the Company propose to form a navigation between the two oceans, which will, without locks, at all times permit the passage of the largest vessels, having 150 feet breadth at mid-water, and thirty feet in depth at low tide. Mr. Gisborne observes that, in consequence of the Pacific rising above, and falling nelow, the level of

the Atlantic, there will, during every tide, be a current flowing each way, whose greatest velocity, will not exceed three miles an hour. This is a most important point, the direction of the trade will naturally follow the flow of the tide, so that the meeting of vessels will be obviated and the navigation kept free from deposit. To the following remarks of Mr. Gisborne, with whic we lor the present conclude our review of this important matter ve feel assured that all the great commercial interests of the world will assent« This is not a question dependant on local trade : every maritime nation has an interest in its success and the commeice of the world will yield the profits. Moreover, the vast supplies of gold now discovered in Australasia and California afford means which cannot be applied to more beneficial objects than the extending the blessings of civilization by thus facilitating of the operations of commerce.”’