90 THE PROPOSED TERRITORY OF HURON. 



two-thirds, and instead of an average voyage taking four months, it would 

 not take more than six weeks. It would, shorten the distance to Liverpool 

 by 9,364 nautical miles, and reduce the time of passage to seven or eight 

 weeks, whereas six or eight months are now sometimes taken. 



The canal would enormously develop the business and industry of all 

 central and southern South America, which has for so long a time been neg- 

 lected, mainly on account of its inaccessibility from the centres of civiliza- 

 tion, enlightenment and commerce. New and flourishing cities would 

 spring up all along the border of the Pacific; Panama would become one 

 of the great commercial centres of the earth and one of its greatest cities. 

 New fields for the development of capital and the employment of labor 

 would be opened, which otherwise might lie dormant for a quarter of a 

 century. The annual amount of tonnage that may be expected to pass 

 through is 3,000,000 tons, and this will increase rapidly from year to year, 

 as a new way from Europe and the East will have been opened to the west- 

 ern parts of the great American continent, to the islands of the Pacific, 

 Australia and New Zealand, Asia and the rich islands of the Indo-Chinese 

 Archipelago. It will, in fact, be opening the Pacific ocean to civilization 

 and commerce. As a business speculation there is no doubt but that the 

 work would pay handsomely, nay, more than handsomely from the first, 

 but if it never paid a cent and the expense had to be borne by the great 

 nations of the earth, it is a work that should be accomplished. 



For San Francisco and the Pacific coast it would, as we have already 

 explained, inaugurate a new era as far as cheap freights and quick pas- 

 sages are concerned, but it would do much more than that. The founding 

 of new towns and cities, the increase in the population of the old ones, and 

 the new regions opened to civilization and commerce by it would be so 

 many customers of ours, and in proportion as they grew so would this city 

 grow too. San Francisco possesses a special interest in this matter, and 

 her people look with eagerness for the inception of this marvelous under- 

 taking which is destined, in a manner, to revolutionize the commerce of 

 the world. — Journal of Commerce, San Francisco. 



THE PROPOSED TERRITORY OF HURON. 



The i^roposed new territory of Huron contains about 70,000 square 

 miles and 10,000 inhabitants. It is the northern half of Dakota, and is 

 said to embrace one of the best farming regions in the United States. The 

 bill to create the territory has already passed the senate, and will probably 

 pass the house, since there seems to be no serious objection to it. There 

 being no direct means of communication between the northern and the 

 southern portions of Dakota, people in the former section having business 

 at Yankton, the capital, which is located in the southern part of. the terri- 



