COMMITTEES ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT 249 
navigation within her territories and the construction of an 
interocean canal to a new American organization, known as 
the Central American Transit Company of which Francis 
Morris was the president.™ It was this company which invoked 
the aid of the National Academy of Sciences in solving the 
problem of improving the harbor of Greytown on San Juan del 
Norte, that was to be the Atlantic terminus of the canal. 
At the beginning of the rgth century the harbor was one of 
the most important on that coast. In 1832 it was reported that 
its width at the mouth was one and three-quarters miles, with 
a channel depth of 30 feet. Afterwards it became rapidly choked 
by sand, and in 1861 the width of the entrance was only 300 
feet, while in 1865 Captain Jones of H. M. S. Shannon reported 
that it had a bar across it after a storm from the North, though in 
continued fine weather the river scoured out a channel of eight 
or ten feet. The chart made by the American engineer Preston 
C. F. West shows but 8 feet at the entrance at low water on 
February 4, 1865, while on May 25 of the same year this 
entrance was closed and a new one was opened through the sand 
spit farther to the East. 
The idea that the National Academy of Sciences should in- 
vestigate the condition of the harbor and if possible recommend 
means for improving it appears to have originated with J. E. 
Hilgard, who was the Acting Superintendent of the U. S. Coast 
Survey in 1866, and corresponded with the Nicaraguan minister 
on the subject. The minister, Don Luis Molina, repeated the 
suggestion in a letter addressed to Secretary Seward and re- 
quested that a committee of the Academy be appointed to carry 
it into effect. Seward in turn presented the matter to Joseph 
Henry, then Acting President of the Academy, with the request 
that he would comply with the wishes of the Nicaraguan min- 
ister, and a committee was duly appointed. The correspond- 
“ There were two of these transit companies, the relations between which are not clear. 
One called the “ Nicaraguan Transit Company” had as its president W. H. Webb, while 
the other, as noted, was called the “ Central American Transit Company,” and had Francis 
Morris as president. 
