Digitale Ausgabe

“Potsdam, 4th June, 1853. “Sir—I am very much to blame for having so long delayedan answer to the agreeable and interesting dispatch that youhave been kind enough to forward me by the hands of Mr.Augustus Petermann, so estimable by his character, as well asby the solidity of his geographical labours. Dr. Cullen can-not doubt the high importance that I would attach to themerit of his courageous and useful investigations in the east-ern 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. Afterhaving laboured in vain during half a century to prove thepossibility of an Oceanic Canal, and to point out the Gulf ofSan Miguel and Cupica as the points most worthy of atten-tion—after having regretted, almost with bitterness, in thelast edition of my “Aspects of Nature,” that the employmentof the means which the present state of our knowledge affordsfor obtaining precise measurement has been so long delayed,I ought, more than any one else, to be satisfied to see at lastmy hopes for so noble an enterprise revived. “By your publications, sir, and by that of Mr. Gisborne, willbe originated the great work of changing an important partof the commerce of nations, and of rendering more accessiblethe rich countries of Eastern Asia and the Indian Archi-pelago. “The undertaking is by no means above the intellectualand material 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 Caledo-nian canal; it must be a really Oceanic Canal, without locks—a free passage from sea to sea, across which the speed of thenavigator will be diminished, but not interrupted, by the diffe-rence in height, and non-coincidence of the tides. “Receive, I pray you, sir, the expression of my highest con- siderations.

Yours, &c., &c, “Alexander Von Humboldt.