THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 183 



important influence upon the history of the globe this 

 new route will have. The labours of the second 

 commission, presided over by Mr. Nathan Appleton, 

 of Boston, completed this first report by showing 

 what new markets would be opened, what new traffic 

 would be created, and what advantages the traffic 

 already in existence would derive from the cutting of 

 the American isthmus. M. Simonin, the reporter of 

 the commission, summed up these advantages in a 

 very able report, which shows the distances that would 

 be saved to navigators. From France and England, 

 that is to say, from Liverpool, Havre, Nantes, and 

 Bordeaux, the distance to San Francisco, round Cape 

 Horn, is 5,000 leagues, whereas by Panama it would 

 be only 1,500. For Valparaiso the distance would 

 be reduced from 3,000 to 2,000 leagues. The saving 

 in time for sailing vessels would be sixty days to 

 San Francisco and thirty to Valparaiso. To this must 

 be added the fact that steamers and sailing vessels 

 alike would avoid the dangerous passage round Cape 

 Horn. Thus the distance and the time in going from 

 one part of the globe to the other would be materially 

 shortened, and there would be such a reduction in the 

 rates of assurance and freight that maritime inter- 

 course would soon double itself, and that many mar- 

 kets now closed to European commerce would be 

 opened, and provide it with fresh openings for import 

 and export trade. 



The New World will send us its woods, its indigo, 



