TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 659 
port should bear the cost of its own harbour, but if it were necessary to spend 
public funds at all, it should be in improving existing harbours of refuge rather 
than upon new ones. 
6. The Panama Canal. By the Chevalier pr Srozss. 
Passing over the various efforts which have been made since the days of 
Cortez and Pizarro—a period of fully four centuries—to discover a feasible route 
for the construction of a canal or waterway across Central America, the author 
described, with some details, the various proposals which have from time to time 
found favour, down to 1871, when an international congress assembled at Paris 
under the presidency of M. de Lesseps, provided with a concession obtained from 
the Columbian Government in the previous year ; and after an exhaustive inquiry 
decided upon the construction of a canal from the Gulf of Limon to the Bay of 
Panama. 
The author then proceeded to describe the work as then in progress, with the 
latest particulars up to September 14, obtained direct from M, de Lesseps. 
