332 



MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



will be seriously affected by the competition of tlie future Nicaraguan canal carried 

 at a height of not more than 110 feet above sea-level. 



But despite of everything, the work will sooner or later be resumed, unless the 

 cutting of the navigable way is rendered useless by some fresh discovery. One would 

 fain hope that so many lives, so much energy and devotion may not have been 

 sacrificed in vain. The prodigious quantity of machinery accumulated at this vital 

 point ol the globa must be utilised ; the astounding cuttings which the traveller 

 contemplates with amazement will one day give free passage to the mingled waters 

 of two oceans ; the ever-growing power of human industry and the yearly progress 

 of international trade surging round the portals of this isthmian barrier, will all 



Fig. 152.— Projected Artificial Lakes on the Panama Divide. 

 Scale 1 : 240.000. 



West oF L 



9 45 



79°40 



, 3 Miles. 



combine to open a navigable highway between the neighbouring marine basins. 

 But its completion must necessarily be delayed for years. 



East of Puerto Belo, on the Atlantic side, the Indians largely predominate in 

 all the settlements. Nombre de Dm, founded by Nicuesa in 1510, has left no 

 vestige of its existence, and its very site can no longer be determined. The 

 spacious and deep basin of San Bias Bay, where 10,000 vessels might easily ride 

 at anchor, is occupied only by a few scattered hamlets of the Cuna Indians. 



But schemes have also been proposed for piercing the isthmus at this its 

 narrowest part. The country was surveyed first by MacDougal in 1864, and since 

 then by Self ridge, Wyse, and A. Reclus, and from their reports it appears that 

 here the cutting would be only 32 miles long, of which 6 would follow the deep 

 bed of the E,io Bayano. But the cordillera at this point is over 1,000 feet high 

 at the lowest passes, so that the canal would have to be cut through a tunnel 

 variously estimated at from 6 to 9 miles in length. 



