Letter of Baron von Humboldt to Mr. Frederick M. Kelley. (Translation.) Berlin, 27th January, 1856. It is with the most lively satisfaction that I have taken notice, during your too short visit to Berlin, of the great and solid operations which you have caused to be executed since the beginning of January, 1855, by Mr. William Kennish, a skilful engineer, in surveying and levelling the course of the great river Atrato and its affluents from the W. My learned friend Mr. Alexander Bache, superintendent of the coast survey of the United States, had already drawn my attention to the previous investigations which you had caused to be made; and these researches are the more deserving of regard in consequence of your proposal to extend the investigation, with equal precision, to the passage between Port Cupica and the river Napipi, as well as to other points situated above the confluence of the Truando—positions of great importance in the solution of the vast problem of an oceanic canal. The great number of maps and sections on large scales, which you possess, furnish all the necessary elements for judging of the possibility of communication through the mouths of the Atrato, the Truando, and a canal leading from the latter to the South Sea. It is owing to such a complete examination not having been effected of the mountainous country between the Gulf of San Miguel and Caledonia Bay, that Mr. Lionel Gisborne’s project in 1852 has not been executed. Ignorance of the locality, with the want of hypsometrical measurements, led to the sad results of Lieut. Strain’s courageous expedition. The great object to be accomplished is, in my opinion, a canal uniting the two oceans without locks or tunnels. When the plans and sections can be submitted to the public, a free and open discussion will elicit the advantages and disadvantages of each locality; and the execution of this important work, which interests the civilised nations of the two continents, should be entrusted to engineers who have successfully constructed similar works. The Junction Company will find supporters among those governments and citizens, who, yielding to noble feelings, will take pride in the idea of having contributed to a work worthy of the progress of intellect in the 19th century. This opinion I have expressed with warmth for more than fifty years. I have laboured, without ceasing, to disseminate the geographical views which tend to prove the possibility of commercial communications, whether by canals, with or without locks, either simple or coupled with inclines; or by means of railroads, uniting coasts or rivers having an opposite course. Through General Bolivar, I obtained the exact geodetic levelling of the Isthmus of Panama. I was the first to make known, in my Mexican Atlas, the course of the two rivers Huasacoalco and Chimalapa, according to documents found in the archives of the viceroyalty of Mexico. I indicated the proximity of the almost unknown port of Cupica to the sources of the Napipi and the waters of the Atrato, as well as the existence, ignored in Europe, of a canal of very small dimensions, constructed in 1788, under the directions of a monk, curate of Novita, by the Indians of his parish, for connecting the waters of the Raspadura, an affluent of the Quito, with the waters of the San Juan de Chirambira. I think there is nothing more likely to obstruct the extension of commerce and the freedom of international relations, than to create a distaste for any further investigation, by declaring, in an absolute and imperative manner, that all hope of an oceanic canal ought now to be abandoned. I have described already in my ‘Essai Politique de la Nouvelle Espagne’ the immense operation of cutting through mountains the open canal, called the Desague of Huehuetoca, which was executed by the Spanish government at the commencement of the 17th century; and I have now too much faith in the power of the resources offered by modern civilisation, to be discouraged. See the last edition, vol. i., pages 202-248, and vol. ii., pages 95-145. I am indebted to Colonel Codazzi, and to the affectionate kindness of the Minister of the Interior at Bogota, M. Pastor Ospina, for important communications which remind me that the route from Cupica to the river Napipi presents successive elevations; and it would be an additional service to geography, if you would cause this route to be levelled.