TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 521 



light springs, so that the pen took exactly the varying positions due to the varying 

 strength of the currents, which again depended upon the position of the pencil of 

 the operator. 



The paper on which the operator wrote, and the paper on which the pen wrote 

 at the opposite end of the line, both moved along by clockwork, so as to write a 

 long continuous message or telegram. 



TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1879. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. On the Proposed Canal Across the Isthmus of Panama. 

 By Captain Bedford Pim, B.N., M.P. 



The author said the whole world agreed that the accomplishment of inter- 

 oceanic canalisation of the Isthmus of Central America was only a question 

 of time. No one disputes the possibility of making such a canal, and it was 

 generally acknowledged that it might be made a paying concern. The congress 

 on inter-oceanic canalisation did not deal practically with the subject, and the 

 enthusiasm, which was so important an element in the greatness of the French 

 people, blinded those who took part in the congress to the magnitude and 

 the difficulties of the task, and to the fact that the work already done by M. Les- 

 seps bore about the same relation to the proposed Panama Canal that a small 

 tunnel on the northern of France would to that of the Mont Cenis. The physical 

 geography of the Bay of Panama was never taken into consideration, and he was 

 bound to say that the vote in favour of a canal parallel to the Panama Railway was 

 due rather to a personal feeling than to any capability possessed by the route selected. 

 In fact it was rumoured that the process known by our cousins across the Atlantic 

 as ' lobbying ' was by no means neglected on this occasion ; it was not therefore 

 surprising that the American representatives expressed their feelings in terms of 

 the strongest, and, not content with that, made anything but a favourable report 

 to their own Government. It was not alone the physical difficulty of the under- 

 taking, or even its cost, to which attention should be given. The choice of a 

 route depended upon far more important considerations than those — the terminal 

 ports or harbours for instance. A still more important feature was the physical 

 geography of the sea in the neighbourhood of the ports, for if sailing ships would 

 be able freely to enter and depart, the success of the undertaking was secured. At 

 least half of England's 21,000 sailing ships would use the canal, but if nature 

 placed an irresistible barrier to the approach of those ships a deep shadow would 

 be cast upon the future outlook of the undertaking. Commodore Maury had said 

 ' that if nature, by one of her convidsions, should rend the Continent of America 

 in twain, and make a channel across the Isthmus of Panama or Darien as deep, 

 as wide, and as free as the Straits of Dover, it would never become a commercial 

 thoroughfare for sailing vessels,' and he endorsed that opinion, for of all parts of 

 the world the calms in the Bay of Panama were the most vexatious and endur- 

 ing. It therefore became the duty of a Central American canal projector to 

 avoid that locality, and, relying upon Commodore Maury, the route from the At- 

 lantic by way of the magnificent Nicaragua lakes to the harbour of Realejo seemed 

 that which was adapted for the required purpose, for it would be quite impossible 

 to exaggerate the money value of having a fair start and approach by means of 

 the little monsoons which blow on that coast. The great difficulty to be over- 

 come in the construction of a canal across Nicaragua was the making and main- 

 taining the harbour of Greytown on its Atlantic terminus, as a strong norther was 



