HENRY CGC. TAYLOR. 165 
way ; ameans of transit of vast service to commerce, 
but which, by providing an imperfect method has per- 
haps retarded the realization of the greater demand for 
a water communication between the oceans. _ 
We must now, having glanced briefly at the past his- 
tory of this great problem, make a hasty review of the 
work of to-day, and consider the various routes which 
have been examined duing the last few years. Although 
the boiling-down process of precise instrumental surveys 
has reduced the possible lines of transit to three, 
Panama, Nicaragua and Tehuantepec, and although the 
further boiling-down process of actual digging and 
building will, it is believed, soon rule out Panama and 
Tehuantepec, leaving only Nicaragua, yet many other 
routes, methods and plans have been examined, and no 
portion of the isthmuses can be said to have been neg- 
lected. 
Beginning at the south, we find the Atrato river, 
recommended by the great Humboldt, rising in the 
mountains of Western Columbia, and pursuing a north- 
erly course to its mouth in the southwestern corner of 
the Caribbean. Although its waters empty into the 
Eastern sea, its course is parallel to the Pacific coast, 
and only about fifty miles from that ocean. The main 
stem of the Andes, whose eastern slopes it drains, sep- 
arates it throughout its course from the Pacific. This 
range is throughout this portion not of great elevation, 
and numerous tributaries afford, in their valleys, easy 
grades from the Atrato to or toward the crest of the 
divide. 
Humboldt was told of vessels passing from the head- 
waters of the Atrato to those of a small stream flowing 
southwest into the Pacific.—by means of a short canal. 
Later examinations show that the vessels were canoes. 
the canal, if not mythical, was a ditch, and that a long 
and high portage intervened over which the canoes 
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