454 eeport — 1879. 



of what is needed at the various ports around the coasts of India. Lieutenant 

 Jarrad, R.N., conducts the actual surveys ; and the construction of charts, the pub- 

 lication of notes to mariners, wreck returns, and lighthouse lists are entrusted to 

 Mr. Oarrington, the Chief Civil Assistant. A new steamer, called the Investigator, 

 is now being built at Bombay, specially fitted for scientific surveying, and will be 

 ready in 1880. A naturalist forms one of the staff of the Department ; and when 

 the new steamer is ready, and fitted with apparatus for deep sea sounding and 

 dredging, systematic scientific investigations will be undertaken. Useful results 

 have been produced by the Department in a wonderfully short time. From the 

 spring of 1875, when Mr. Carrington got his branch into working order, to 1879, 

 as many as eighty charts have been produced, or more than one each month, from 

 which 11,400 copies have been photo-zincographed. Upwards of 15,000 charts 

 have been corrected for new lights and buoys, and 20,000 copies of notices to 

 mariners have been distributed. A very great improvement has also been made in 

 the report of wrecks and casualties. A chart depot has been established at Calcutta, 

 where some 20,000 charts are shelved and numbered, and considerable sales are 

 now being effected. This is an immense benefit to the merchant shipping in Indian 

 ports, and the Department has also been able to supply H.M.'s ships when charts 

 were urgently needed. 



The continued prosperity and efficiency of this useful Department is of the 

 utmost consequence to the shipping and manufacturing interests of nearly all the 

 maritime nations in the world, as well as to the people of India ; and it is no less 

 important to geographers who are supplied with accurate hydrographic informa- 

 tion, and are thus enabled to obtain a sound knowledge of the physical geography 

 of the Indian coasts. 



5. The Exploration of the American Isthmus and the Interoceanic Canal of 

 Panama. By Lucien N. B. Wtse, Lieut.- Commr., French Navy. 



After some general observations upon the long recognised necessity of a connec- 

 tion of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through Central America, and a discussion 

 of the various aspects of the subject, the author pointed out, among other con- 

 nected erroneous conclusions, a frequent error of opinion as to the practicability of 

 a canal in places where the sources of two rivers on opposite water-partings nearly 

 touch each other, and gave an account from personal experience of the natural diffi- 

 culties in the way of the explorer in this region. The badness of the climate, 

 however, except in marshy places on the coast, such as Greytown, he believes to 

 have been grossly exaggerated, Panama being considered by him to be the most 

 healthy of inter-tropical towns. There, the waters descend rapidly from great 

 heights ; the width of the Isthmus not exceeding 37 miles, and the water-parting 

 being only 10 miles distant. In Nicaragua, however, the physical contour is very 

 different, the elevation of the lake being so slight that the San Juan flowing from it 

 has only a fall of 107 feet in 124 miles, the least rise causing a flood, with marshes 

 extending for 74 miles. On leaving the hill region, the river breaks up into a count- 

 less net-work of streams, forming an immense marsh of hundreds of square miles, 

 with proportionately bad climatic conditions. Darien, hitherto considered most un- 

 healthy, has been found by the American expeditions to be nothing of the kind,, 

 subject to simple medical precautions. From a hygienic point of view, therefore,, 

 Nicaragua is the worst of the three great divisions of routes ; and, though all are 

 productive in wood suited for hydraulic purposes, Darien is the most so. 



As to the supply of labour, the population is scanty and indolent throughout, 

 though more numerous at Panama. The Indian will not bear regular work ; he is 

 timid, and will give way to the spread of civilisation. The chief supply must be 

 from Asia, but negroes will be useful in cutting roads, at which they are very 

 expert ; and they may be bought for purposes of liberation at a cheap rate by law 

 of the Spanish Antilles and Brazil, their freedom being made the ultimate reward 

 of their labour. 



Of the routes proposed, that of Tehuantepec is the first from the north. Capt. 

 Shufeldt, of the U.S. Navy, after examining the river Coatzacoalcos, found it at a 



