Across Nica/ragua with Transit and Machete. 319 



by the action of the wind upon its broad surface, mistook these 

 fluctuations for tides and felt assured that some broad strait con- 

 nected it with the North Sea. Later, when Machuca had discov- 

 ered the grand river outlet of the lake, and the restless searching 

 of other explorers in every bay and inlet along both sides of the 

 American isthmus had extinguished forever the ignis fatuus 

 "Secret of the Strait," Gomara pointed this out as one of the 

 most favorable localities for an artificial communication between 

 the North and South Seas. 



It was not until 1851, however, that an accurate and scientific 

 survey of a ship canal'route was made by Col. O. W. Childs. 



This survey which showed the lake of Nicaragua to be only 

 one hundred and seven feet above the sea, and the maximum ele- 

 vation between the lake and the Pacific to be only forty-one feet, 

 exhibited the advantages of this route so clearly and in such an 

 unanswerable manner that it has never since been possible to 

 ignore it. 



In 1870, under the administration of General Grant and largely 

 through the unceasing efforts of Admiral Ammen, the United 

 States began a series of systematic surveys of all the routes 

 across the American isthmus from Tehuantepec to the head 

 waters of the Rio Atrato ; and six years later, with the plans and 

 results of all these surveys before it, a commission composed of 

 General Humphreys, Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army ; Hon. 

 Carlile Patterson, Superintendent U. S. Coast Survey ; and Rear- 

 Admiral Daniel Ammen, Chief of Bureau of Navigation, U. S. 

 Navy ; gave its verdict in favor of the Nicaragua route. 



The International Canal Congress at Paris, in 1879, had such 

 convincing information placed before it that it was forced, in 

 spite of its prejudices, to admit that in the advantages it offered 

 for the construction of a lock canal, the Nicaragua route was 

 superior to any other across the American isthmus. 



In 1876, and again in 1880 Civil Engineer A. G. Menocal, U. 

 S. N., the chief engineer of previous governmental surveys, re- 

 surveyed and revised portions of the route, and in 1885 the same 

 engineer, assisted by myself, surveyed an entirely new line on the 

 Caribbean side, from Greytown to the San Juan river, near the 

 mouth of the San Carlos. 



On the eastern side of Nicaragua, all these surveys (except the 

 last), were confined almost entirely to the San Juan river, and its 

 immediate banks ; and the country on either side beyond these 



