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Antiqua
Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kapitälchen.
Subjoined in 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 the only medium of
communication suitable for the accommoda-
tion of the trade of the world. It was to the
absence of this important feature in the Nica-
ragua ship canal scheme that the failure of
that project was mainly owing, no capitalists
were naturelly averse to commit themselves to
an undertaking which, whilst involving an
immense and unascertained expenditure,
would, when completed, it was more than
feared, prove perfectly inadequate to its ob-
ject: —
To the Editor of the Daily News
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 cha-
racter, as well as by the solidity of his geo-
graphical labours. Dr. Cullen cannot doubt
the high importance that I would attach to the
merit of his courageous and useful investiga-
tiona in the eastern part of the Isthmus of Pana-
ma; knowing my position and my antidiluvian
age, he will receive with indulgence, even so
late, the expression of my lively gratitude.
After having laboured 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 pointa most worthy of atten-
tion; after having regretted, almost with
bitterness, in the last edition of my “Aspects
of Nature,” that the employment 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 for ever;
it should not commence with a canal
with locks; like the magnificant Caledonian
Canal, it must be a really oceanic canal, with-
out looks; a free passage from sea to sea across
which the speed of the navigation will be mo-
dified, 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.,
Dr. Edward Cullen, Strand, London.