292 



MEXICO, CENTEAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



will have a depth of 29 or 30 feet, and a minimum breadth of 80 feet on its bed, 

 with sidings at the narrowest parts. 



Above the upper lock, which will have to be separated by an embankment 

 from the mouth of the San Carlos, the ships will pass into the lake and traverse 

 it obliquely to a second canal, whence they will descend to the Pacific through an 

 artificial lake and the Rio Grande. But Lake Nicaragua itself will have to be 

 deepened in its south-eastern section, where its bed has been raised by the alluvial 



Fig. 127. — Political Divisions of Nicaragua. 

 Scale 1 : 5,000,000. 



el Norta 



87*30 



West oP breenwich 



Chinandegi . 



Chontales. 



Leon. 



Matagalpa. 



Granada. 



Segovia. 

 ^94 Miles. 



Rivas. 



Mosquitia. 



matter washed down by the Rio Frio from the Costa Rica highlands. The Pacific 

 Canal will be partly transformed by huge dykes to lakes at different levels 

 terminating at the port of Brito. 



Such is the magnificent project first conceived by Thome de Gamond in 1858, 

 then adopted with modifications bj' other engineers, esi^ecially Menocal, and now 

 in process of realisation. But will the estimated sum suifice for the construction 



