|Seitenumbruch|
ISTHMUS OF DARIEN.
The subjoined letter from Alexander
von Humboldt, on
the subject of the projected oceanic canal across the
Isthmus
of Darien, will be read with much interest:—
“
the isthmus of darien ship-canal. “Potsdam, June 4, 1853.“Sir,—I am very much to blame for having so longdelayed an answer to the
agreeable and interesting dispatchthat you have been kind enough to forward
me, by thehands of Mr. Augustus Peterman, so estimable by his
cha-racter, as well as by the solidity of his geographicallabours. Dr.
Cullen cannot doubt the high importancethat I would attach to the merit of
his courageous anduseful investigations in the eastern part of the
Isthmusof Panama; knowing my position and my antedi-luvian age, he
will receive with indulgence, evenso late, the expression of my lively
gratitude.After having laboured in vain, during half a century,
toprove the possibility of an oceanic canal, and to point outthe Gulf
of San Miguel and Cupica as the points mostworthy of attention; after
having regretted, almost withbitterness, in the last edition of my
‘Aspects of Nature,’that the employment of the means which
the present stateof our knowledge affords for obtaining precise
measurementshas been so long delayed, I ought, more than any one
else,to be satisfied to see, at last, my hopes for so noble an
enter-prise revived. By your publications, sir, and by that ofMr.
Gisborne, will be originated the great work of chang-ing an important part
of the commerce of nations,and of rendering more accessible the rich
countriesof Eastern Asia and the Indian Archipelago. Theundertaking is
by no means above the intellectual andmaterial power which civilised
nations have attained to.The work should be one to last for ever; it should
not com-mence with a canal with locks, like the magnificent
Cale-donian Canal; it must be a really oceanic canal,
withoutlocks—a free passage from sea to sea, across which
thespeed of the navigation will be modified, but not inter-rupted by
the difference in height and non-coincidence ofthe tides.“Receive, I pray you, sir, the expression of my highestconsideration.
“Yours, &c.,(Signed) “Alexander von Humboldt.
“Dr. Edward Cullen, Strand, London.”