320 National GeogTajphic Magazine. 



narrow limits was, up to 1885, almost entirely unknown. Between 

 Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific, however, every pass from the Bay 

 of Salinas to the Gulf of Fonseca had been examined. 



In 1 885 the party of which I was a member pushed a nearly 

 direct line across the country from a point on the San Juan, 

 about three miles below the mouth of the Rio San Carlos, to 

 Grey town, a distance of thirty one miles by our line, as compared 

 with fifty six miles by the river and forty-two miles by the 

 former proposed canal route. 



In December, 1887, I went out in charge of a final surveying 

 expedition, consisting of some forty engineers and assistants and 

 one hundred and fifty laborers, to resurvey and stake out the 

 line of the canal preparatory to the work of construction. 



The information and personal experience gained in previous 

 surveys made it possible, without loss of time, to locate the 

 various sections of the expedition in the most advantageous man- 

 ner, and push the work with the greatest speed consistent with 

 accuracy. 



The location lines of the previous surveys were taken as a pre- 

 liminary line and carefully re-measured and re-levelled. Pre- 

 liminary offsets were run ; the location made, and staked off upon 

 the ground ; offsets run in from three hundred to one hundred feet 

 apart, extending beyond the slope limits of the canal; borings 

 made at frequent intervals ; and all streams gauged. 



The result of this work was a series of detail charts and pro- 

 files, based upon rigidly checked instrumental data, and covering 

 the entire line from Greytown to Brito, from which to estimate 

 quantities and cost. 



As may be imagined by those familiar with ti-opical countries, 

 the prosecution of a survey in these regions is an arduous and 

 difficult work, and one demanding special qualifications in the en- 

 gineer. His daj^s are filled with a succession of surprises, usually 

 disagreeable, and constant happenings of the unexpected. Prob- 

 ably in no other country will the traveler, explorer, or engineer, 

 find such an endless variety of obstacles to his progress. 



Every topographical feature of the country is shrouded and 

 hidden under a tropical growth of huge trees and tangled under- 

 brush, so dense that it is impossible for even a strong, active man, 

 burdened with nothing but a rifle, to force himself through it 

 without a short, heavy sword or tnach'ete, with which to cut his 

 way. 



