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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Deckmber, 



Two of our steam ships, of about 700 tons each, tlie Peru and Chile, 

 arrived in this port in 35 days from EngUind, passing through the 

 Straits of Magellan, from sea to sea, in thirty hours ; sails were em- 

 ployed when the winds were fair, otherwise steam, and the voyage 

 may be said to have been one of the most brilliant ever undertaken. 

 The field for steam navigation in these seas is so ample that our first 

 voyages came off most successfully, proving and fulfilling every state- 

 ment made ; unfortunately, however, the directors in England, neg- 

 lecting to send a supply of coal, as previously arranged, the operations 

 of the company liave ceased, for the present, and I am now engaged 

 in this place in mining for coal, an operation never before undertaken 

 in this country, and which of course presents a thousand difficulties. 

 My first object when I arrived here was to make a practical ex<imi- 

 nation, to ascertain tlie strength of the coal, and see its influence upon 

 our boilers and fire bars ; for this purpose I proceeded south, with the 

 double object of proving the coal and exploring Valdivia and the 

 island of Chiloe. After some unsatisfactory experiments, we finally 

 earae to such an arrangement of our fire bars as to produce a result 

 decidedly favourable ; the excess of expenditure over the best Welsh 

 coal was 27 per cent., which is nearly as good as Newcastle coal. 

 The formation of clinker is great, but it is not of an adhesive charac- 

 ter, and tlie fires are easily cleared ; the coal seems to possess no sul- 

 phur, and there is nothing disagreeable in the smoke ; the ashes are 

 ■white and the coal free from smut. The coal lies in horizontal strata, 

 rjging or falling not more than ten or eleven degrees; is about three 

 to four feet wide, and is found most generally, cropping out on the 

 precipitous sides of hills; the upper stratum is generally soft; the 

 next stratum, which is what I now send you, is found from twenty to 

 forty feet beneath ; and I am now engaged in sinking a perpendicular 

 shaft for the purpose of finding a third stratum and still better coal. 

 Some two or three cargoes of this coal have been shipped, and spon- 

 taneous combustion has been produced, which set fire to the vessels ; 

 it must be considered that the coal first used was never mined, and 

 was taken merely from the surface. I have ascertained that in two 

 instances the vessels which have been set on fire had vegetable mat- 

 ter on board — the first was a cargo of wheat stowed over a deep bed 

 of coal ; the next, the coal was shipped in what are called here ckgitas, 

 made of grass. What influence they may have had in producing 

 spontaneous combustion it is not in ray power to say, and I should be 

 much obliged if you could account to me for its spontaneous ignition. 

 I cannot at present make any large deposit of this coal until I make 

 some experiments, and for this object I shall load one or two small 

 ressels with the coal, and watch it carefully, keeping it free from any 

 vegetable matter, and from water, and giving it all the ventilation in 

 my power; it is a great drawback upon my operations at present. On 

 board the steamers we have iron bunkers for about ten or eleven days' 

 fuel, and it causes me no anxiety in putting it on board. 1 had this 

 arrangement of our hunkers made with a view of using this coal. 



On my voyage south, I found at Valdivia and Chiloe the same strata 

 of coal, and in a line of coast of more than 4U0 miles there does not 

 appear to exist the slightest difference in quality. It is perhaps 

 worthy of remark, that the coal found at Boca del Toro, on the Atlan- 

 tic side of the isthmus of Panama, and near Cherokee on the Pacific 

 side of the isthmus, is the same to all appearance as that found in this 

 district. 



I am at present mining about fifty tons a week, but hope in the 

 course of a few days to open some more mouths, and mine in much 

 farther than I am doing at present; ray only fear is that in sinking a 

 shaft I shall be obliged to contend with a large quantity of water. As 

 it is a new thing and a work in which 1 have no knowledge, I am 

 obliged to adopt a common sense view of it, and work on as well as 

 I can, until miners can be sent me from England. The cost at the 

 pit's mouth will not exceed two dollars per ton ; should I get it lower 

 down, it will be necessary to clear it of water by a steam engine, 

 which will render it somewhat dearer. Notwithstanding our ope- 

 rations are paralyzed at present, I feel persuaded that by the end of 

 this year our line of intercourse to Panama will be completed, and our 

 communication with North America and Europe greatly facilitated, 



I have no doubt that the coal beds here will bring about sooner the 

 steam intercourse westward from Europe to Australasia: this has been 

 a favourite plan of mine for several years, and 1 hope that the arrange- 

 ments which I made before I left England, patronized by >ir Edward 

 Parry, Captain Fitzroy, Mr. Montague and others, will soon go into 

 effect. Perhaps the greatest change ever ell'ected will be produced 

 by opening an intercourse westward from Europe to Asia, and making 

 America the stepping stone between them. The isthmus of Panama 

 is destined to become one of the most interesting spots in the world ; 

 a ship canal will be formed, and it will be formed, and it will become 

 the highway between the I'acific and Atlantic oceans. I have been 

 frequently on the isthmus, have passed often between the two seas, 



have examined with much attention the facilities and obstacles which 

 it offers for the object proposed, and have satisfied myself of the per- 

 fect feasibility of establishing a communication between the two oceans. 

 On leaving England, I was requested to report upon my journev over, 

 and to examine the isthmus with care, as well as the river Chagres. 

 As it may, perhaps, be acceptable, I extract from the report such parts 

 as I conceive may prove interesting to you. 



" Having prepared myself with the necessary apparatus, I com- 

 menced by sounding the Chagres bar, where I found at low tide 14 

 feet of water ; the river being then swollen IS inches, left ]'2i feet of 

 water, from thence upwards to the junction of the rivers Chagres and 

 Trinidad, (which you will find in the map in my pamphlet,) where 

 there are four and three fathoms close to bank, which vessels might 

 use as a pier to discharge goods. A little above the junction the 

 water shoals to seven or eight feet — the channel below is never less 

 than 300 to 40U feet, and often lUOO to 1200 feet ; a steamer of 500 

 tons, properly built, might navigate as high up as the Trinidad, with 

 perfect safety and ease; at this point it is also perfectly healthy; 

 from this junction the distance is 28 miles to the Rio Grande, which 

 empties into the Pacific about three quarters of a mile from the city 

 of Panama. Vessels of any size may enter this river, as the tide rises 

 in spring 22 feet; the space between the t%vo points has but a very 

 slight rise. I should say that it could not exceed 40 feet, for in pass- 

 ing over to Panama from Gorgona, I found there was not a hill to 

 ascend, and that a good carriage road could be formed without making 

 a single cut. While the land to the left towards Cruces was moun- 

 tainous and broken, that to the right seemed to decline to an unbroken 

 plane : hence, it appeared to me, that Lloyd's statement respecting 

 that line was strictly true. 



" My impression is, that the first object, before thinking of a canal, 

 should be to make a good road from the junction of the rivers Trini- 

 dad and Chagres to the Rio Grande or Panama; by this means an 

 intercourse between the steamers on the Atlantic and the steamers on 

 the Pacific could be effected in three or four hours with perfect ease, 

 and a cargo even transported in that time." 



As it regards steam navigation in the Pacific, I feel convinced that 

 it will gratify you to know, that the great work is going on. Even 

 the few voyages made between Chile and Peru have sho«ni, so pal- 

 pably, its advantages, that the stopping of the steamers has produced 

 a great sensation throughout the land ; it is impossible to form an es- 

 timate of what it will do for these countries — the governments of 

 Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, have granted every protection and continue 

 to give me every support ; and I am under the firm conviction that 

 when once perfected, its advantages will be found vastly beyond what 

 I have described them. I am very much indebted for the insertion in 

 the American Journal of Science, of my paper on iron steamboats. I 

 have made considerable efforts to bring fonvard that subject in Eng- 

 land; 1 have gone into its detail and examined with all minuteness 

 the whole subject, and 1 am perfectly convinced that not only all our 

 western waters will be navigated by steam vessels built of iron, but 

 that transatlantic steamers will and must be of iron. Mr. Brunei, the 

 celebrated engineer of England, wrote me a letter of thanks for the 

 paper, and promised to lay it before the board of directors of the 

 Great Western Company, and 1 have reason to believe that it was 

 mainly instrumental in bringing about the building of the great iron 

 steamer, which will shortly ply across the Atlantic, and show herself 

 as vastly superior to the Great Western, as the Great Western was 

 superior to others, when she commenced transatlantic navigation. 



THE PUBLIC WORKS IN FRANCE. 



The following remarks on the public works in France are taken 

 from a letter which lately appeared in the Cotistilulioimel, they present 

 a melancholy picture of the state in which various public works have 

 been left throughout France in consequence of the disastrous policy of 

 " arming against all Europe," at an expense which not even the greatest 

 financial prosperity could justify. 



" The Count Daru has aptly characterized our actual situation — we 

 commence great works on every side, and finish none. The great 

 leading lines are scarcely sketched out, when the sums which should 

 be destined to their completion are exhausted in opening unproductive 

 branches. The interest of enormous capitals is lost, taxes are in- 

 creased, and there is no augmentation of revenue. The generation 

 which makes such generous sacrifices will derive no fruit from them. 

 Canals, destined to enrich the country, are at this moment in the actual 

 condition of lands purchased for their weight in gold, and yet shame- 

 fully remaining sterile. Each year we must recommence what was 



