72 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



the mountains. The English and American surveyors left 

 the region in disgust, but the French company, encouraged 

 by the Societe de L 'Etude of Paris, and .by popular enthusi- 

 asm at home, continued to make investigations along the 

 lines of the Caledonian and San Bias routes. Between 1850 

 and 1855, a wealthy American, Mr. Kelly, who was charmed 

 by the mysteries of the Atrato RiverTSpenta fortune in making 

 a reconnaissance of this region. The result of this active 

 exploration of the lower isthmus during the years 1850-55 

 was to place the Atrato, the Caledonian, and the San Bias 

 routes outside the limits of practical canal possibilities. 



The " Central American and United States Atlantic and 

 Pacific Canal Company," launched with flying colors, and 

 doomed to disappointment, was succeeded twenty-two years 

 later by " The American Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Com- 

 pany," which was organized in New York, with Cornelius 

 Vunderbilt at its head. It secured from Nicaragua (Septem- 

 ber, 184D) a favorable concession to build a canal from any 

 point in the state on the Atlantic coast to some Pacific point, 

 together with a liberal land grant and a monopoly of steam 

 navigation on the rivers and lakes of Nicaragua. With so 

 promising a beginning the company despatched its engineer, 

 Colonel Childs, to make accurate and complete surveys of 

 the route. The Childs survey was the first really technical 

 examination made of the Nicaragua route ; and the line 

 adopted by him in 1850 has been practically approved and 

 accepted by engineers in all subsequent surveys. Preparatory 

 to embarking upon the great work of building a complete 

 waterway, the company operated a line of small steamers on 

 the river San Juan and Lake Nicaragua, continuing the transit 

 by stage coaches from the lake to the Pacific Ocean. The prof- 

 its of this preliminary enterprise were exceedingly large 

 during the pioneer rush to the gold fields of California. Al- 

 though the company for some years continued successfully to 

 operate this "temporary line" of transit even after the con- 

 struction of the Panama Railroad (completed in 1855), it 

 accomplished comparatively nothing toward the declared 

 object and purpose of its creation. 



