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. 61 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 i9th 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- 



61 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. 



