362 Steam Navigation to the Pacific, S^c. 



" My impression is, that the first object, before thinking of a 

 canal, should be to make a good road from the junction of the 

 rivers Trinidad and Chagres to the Rio Grande or Panama ; by this 

 means an intercourse between the steamers on the Atlantic and 

 the steamers on the Pacific could be efiected in three or four hours 

 with perfect ease, and a cargo even transported in that time." 



As it regards steam navigation in the Pacific, I feel convinced 

 that it will gratify you to know, that the great work is going on. 

 Even the few voyages made between Chile and Peru have shown, 

 so palpably, its advantages, that the stopping of the steamers has 

 produced a great sensation throughout the land ; it is impossible 

 to form an estimate of what it will do for these countries — ^the 

 governments of Chile, Peru and Bolivia, have granted every pro- 

 tection and continue to give me every support ; and I am under 

 the firm conviction that when once perfected, its advantages will 

 be found vastly beyond what I have described them. I am very 

 much indebted for the insertion in the American Journal of 

 Science, of my paper on iron steamboats. I have made con- 

 siderable efforts to bring forward that subject in England ; I have 

 gone into its detail and examined with all minuteness the whole 

 subject, and I am perfectly convinced that not only all our 

 western waters will be navigated by steam vessels built of iron, 

 but that transatlantic steamers will and must be of iron. Mr. 

 Brunei, the celebrated engineer of England, wrote me a letter of 

 thanks for the paper, and promised to lay it before the board of 

 directors of the Great Western Company, and I have reason to 

 believe that it was mainly instrumental in bringing about the 

 building of the great iron steamer, which will shortly ply across 

 the Atlantic, and show herself as vastly superior to the Great 

 Western, as the Great Western was superior to others, when she 

 commenced transatlantic navisration. 



New Haven, July 20tii, 1S41. 



TO MR. WHEELWRIGHT. 



My Dear Sir — I am much gratified by your very interesting 

 letter of March 8th, received yesterday, with two specimens of 

 coal, for which I thank you. You rightly judge that I feel a 

 deep interest in your project, which I consider to be one of the 

 most interesting that has ever been undertaken. Your present 



