June 9, 1856.] STOKES. 85 



Director of a large company established to carry out the Panama line at so 

 early a period, that nothing but the llussian war, and the consequent high rate 

 of interest for money, stopped its proceedings. 



Captain Hoseason also wished to call the attention of the Society to the fact 

 that the railroad has been finished from sea to sea for more than 12 months ; 

 that it is only 49 miles in length ; that 700 or 800 passengers are carried across 

 in about three hours ; and that the passengers and mails which arrive in Navy 

 Bay from New York in the forenoon, are carried across and sail from Panama to 

 San Francisco, or to Peru and Chile, in the evening of the same day. Also 

 that about 70,000 passengers and 12 millions sterling of specie were carried 

 over the Isthmus last year ; that the trade is now most rapidly increasing, and 

 that cargo of all kinds is being carried across ; valuable goods, common mer- 

 cantile goods, such as coal, hides, ice ; in fact, any thing and every thing. An- 

 thracite coal in large quantities is now sent direct io the Pacific from New 

 York via Navy Bay and Panama. Five enormous steam lines concentrate at 

 the Isthmus of Panama alone ; two from America to Navy Bay, the Boyal 

 West India Mail Company, an American line from Panama to San Francisco, 

 and the English Pacific Company to Peru and Chile. 



All these facts, as well as the peculiar advantages which the Panama route 

 offers, owing to favourable winds and moderate weather, are fully detailed in 

 a pamphlet now in possession of the Society, which is addressed by the direc- 

 tors of the Australian Direct Steam Navigation Company to Lord Canning, 

 then Postmaster-General, and which had chiefly been compiled by Captain 

 Hoseason and his late colleague, Captain A. S. Hamond, r.n., both of whom have 

 had considerable experience in those seas while in command of war steamers ; 

 the former officer having run his vessel upwards of 70,000 miles, during 

 which time he daily chronicled those oceanic phenomena which entitle his 

 opinion to so much w^eight. 



Mr. J. Crawfurd, f.r.g.s., said that he believed the climate of the southern 

 portion of the Gulf of Carpentaria to be unfavourable. The country was not a 

 tableland, but was almost at the sea level, certainly nowhere 300 feet in ele- 

 vation. No person who had been in such a country within the tropics could 

 believe it to be one in which Europeans could labour. The lowest tempera- 

 ture of winter was 50°, while the heat of summer was excessive, amounting to 

 89° or 90°, being 5° or 6° greater than the very Equator. Besides this no dis- 

 tant mountains had been discovered, and consequently no water applicable to 

 irrigation. On comparing the country with one of which much had been lately 

 said. Central America, the great advantage of the latter over it would be evi- 

 dent. Instead of a lowland, Central America presented a tableland rising to a 

 height of 3000 up to 8000 feet, thus giving lands at all elevations fit for the 

 growth of every kind of produce. In addition to this, much of the land was 

 volcanic, and therefore was pretty sure of being fertile. He consequently 

 persevered in saying that the Gulf of Carpentaria was totally unfit for European 

 labour. 



Captain Stokes, r.n., f.r.g.s., believed that the supply of water was good, 

 as Leichhardt had crossed numerous streams there, in addition to those which he 

 had himself previously discovered and surveyed. The existence of highland 

 had not been proved to the southward of the gulf, but it had been certainly 

 found both eastward and westward. From the observations of Flinders 

 during the summer months, from November to March, he believed that the 

 heat was not oppressive ; and the evidence of Leichhardt was conclusive as 

 to the healthiness of the climate. 



Mr. Hovell, f.r.g.s., who had been forty-three years in Australia, and 

 made the first overland journey to Port Phillip in 1824, entered into the ques- 

 tion of convict-labour, stating his belief that transportation, and assignment of 

 convicts to private service, was the most humane mode of punishment that 

 had ever been adopted. He believed that the climate about the Gulf of Car- 



