HENRY C. TAYLOR. 167 
orders. These boundaries were the limits of certain ter- 
ritory in which the society had reason to know they 
could obtain a concession of land for canal purposes. 
From the sale of this concession the society hoped for 
much profit, but was not specially interested in the final 
success of a great canal company, if first that company 
should have purchased from their society, at a suf- 
ficiently large price, the desired concession. This was 
not a good beginning, but the instructions to this expe- 
dition were submitted to M. de Lesseps, and approved 
by him. 
The individuals comprising this expedition proved to 
be, in all save engineering qualities, vigorous and enter- 
prising persons. They ran some lines of levels, glanced 
at some other routes, guessed at the heights of many 
hills, and at the possible volumes of many streams in 
time of freshet. On the basis of that data, however, 
they did not hesitate to make the most elaborate plans 
and estimates, including minute details. 
The real and valuable work done, valuable to the 
speculators, at least, was shown, however, when they 
returned from France in 1878, bearing with them a con- 
cession, obtained at the capital Bogota, and embracing 
all routes comprised within the limits of the United 
States of Columbia. It seemed to matter little to the 
gentlemen of Paris that no practicable line existed 
throughout their concession ; that their most able engi- 
neer, M. Celler, in despair of finding any route for a 
sea-level canal, had submitted plans for a canal with 
locks, while admitting that he had but meagre data for 
it, because they had been sent out to find only a sea- 
level canal. These mischances affected but little the 
speculative minds of the international interoceanic 
company. They had obtained the concession; they 
had, by means known to themselves, persuaded that il- 
lustrious Frenchman, whose fame gained at Suez made 
51 
