letter from alexander von humboldt.

The London News of the 18th inst. publishes the following under its money article head:

Subjoined is a translation of a letter recently addressed by the venerable Baron Humboldt to Dr Cullen, relative to the projected Darien ship canal.

It will be seen that the Baron especially urges the necessity of constructing a canal without locks, as, as the only medium of communication suitable for the accommodation of the world.

It was to the absence of this important feature in the Nicaragua ship canal scheme that the failure of that project was mainly owing, as capitalists were naturally averse to commit themselves to an undertaking which whilst involving a immense and unascertained expenditure, would, when completed, it was more than feared, prove perfectly inadequate to its object:

the isthmus of darien ship canal.

Potsdam, June 4, 1853.

Sir

--I am very much to blame for having so long delayed an answer to the agreeable and interesting despatch that you have been kind enough to forward me, by the hands of Mr. Augustus Peterman, so estimable by his character, as well as by the solidity of his geographieal labors.

Dr. Cullen cannot doubt the high importance that I would attach to the merit of his courageous and useful investigations in the eastern part of the Isthmus of Panama; knowing my position and my antediluvian age, he will receive with indulgence, even so late, the expression of my lively gratitude.

After having labored in vain, during half a century, to prove the possibility of an oceanic canal, and to point out the Gulf of San Miguel and Cupica as the points worthy of attention:

alter having regretted, almost with bitterness, in the last edition of my "Aspects of Nature," that the emyloyment of the means, which the present state of our knowledge affords for obtaining precise measurements has been so long delayed; I ought, more than any one else to be satisfied to see at last my hopes for so noble an enterprise revived By your publications, sir, and by that of Mr. Gisborne, will be originated the great work of changing an important part of the commerce of nations, and of rendering more accessible the rich countries of Eastern Asia and the Indian Archipelago.

The undertaking is by no means above the intellectual and material power which civilized nations have attained to.

The work should be one to last forever; it should not commence with a canal with locks, like the magnificent Caledonian canal; it must be a really oceanic canal, without locks; a free passage from sea to sea, across which the speed of the navigation will he modified, but not interrupted, by the difference in height and non coincidence of the tides.

Receive, I pray you, sir, the expression of my highest consideration. Yours, &c. &c.

Alexander Von Humboldt.

Dr. Edward Cullen, Strand, London.