11 



mSTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 167 



tlioaisand tons. If delivered at §20 per ton, it would 

 compete successfully with the coal from Vancouver's 

 Island and New Holland, and amount to $6,000,000. 



" The construction of a railroad across the Isthmus 

 of Panama would secure the market for those articles 

 agaiciSt all competition. 



'' Some idea may be formed of the demand for them 

 from the prices paid in San Francisco last autumn. 

 Coal was sold at §60 to §100 per ton ; potatoes §16 

 per bushel ; turnips and onions for 25 to 62J cents 

 'each ; eggs from §10 to §12 per dozen. 



" The distance from Chagres to New York has 

 recently been run in seven days. The same speed 

 would carry a steamboat from Panama to San Fran- 

 cisco in ten days. Allow three days to convey freight 

 across the Isthmus, on a railway, and both passengers 

 and freight will be conveyed from New York to San 

 Francisco in twenty days. 



'* This celerity of movement would secure for 

 American produce the entire market of California. 

 Sailing vessels may be successfully employed between 

 our Atlantic and gulf ports and the terminus of the 

 railway on this side of the Isthmus ; and propellers 

 from Panama to San Francisco. These latter vessels 

 will be found peculiarly suited to that trade ; they 

 ean use ticir steam through the calms of the Bay of 

 Panama, and against head-winds and currents going 

 north, and their sails with favorable winds and cur- 

 rents coming south. 



^' These modes of conveyance, in connection with 

 the railroad across the Isthmus, would be sufficiently 

 expeditious and economical to turn the tide of com- 

 merce, between the Atlantic and Pacific States of the 

 Union, into that channel. The tendency of our 



-A 



