CANAL ACROSS CENTRAL AMERICA TO THE PACIFIC. 695 



million to its tonnage. The commerce of the United States alone through this 

 canal will supply a tonnage equal to that which pays six millions of dollars each 

 year to the Suez Canal. It will be a candidate for ships on their voyages from 

 Europe for tea to China and Japan, and on their return, and will take nearly the 

 whole tonnage passing between the Atlantic States, China, Japan and the Phil- 

 ippine Islands, and between Europe and the Russian Possessions, and best ac- 

 commodate the ships engaged in the whale fisheries of the Pacific. Tea, to the 

 extent of two hundred millions of pounds, and occupying one hundred thousand 

 tons of shipping, forms one item of its commerce, which will annually send through 

 the canal nearly a quarter of a million tons of shipping. Then we have the trade 

 between Australia and Europe, one item of which — wool — amounts yearly to three 

 hundred millions of pounds. We may safely calculate that the Australian ships, 

 out and back, will patronize this canal to the amount of three hundred thousand 

 tons. 



Peru, with it guano amounting to three or four hundred thousand tons sent 

 annually to Europe ; Chili, with its copper and nitrates and return cargoes, 

 with Gautemala, Mexico, and Central America, must furnish at least another mil- 

 lion of tons. Then we have the growth of this commerce while the work pro- 

 gresses, together with that due to new facilities, so that the aggregate must reach 

 between five and six millions of tons — nearly twice the tonnage which passes year- 

 ly through the Suez Canal. This estimate is not a high one. Ten years since, 

 before the grain trade of California had attained to any importance, the tonnage 

 that would seek the canal was set at 3,300,000 tons by Admiral Davis, of our 

 navy, and the annual saving in cost of freight, interest, and insurance on the 

 property to be transported by this canal, was set by him at ninety-nine millions of 

 dollars. 



The estimate seems to be a high one, for it exceeds the computed cost of the 

 canal itself; but the saving must be immense, as this trade is fast increasing, and 

 the cost of transportation may be lessened two-thirds by a ship canal. California 

 has become the chief granary of Great Britain, which now requires annually from 

 other nations two hundred millions of bushels of grain. She prefers the wheat of 

 California to grind with her own moist wheat, and there is no country but Cali- 

 fornia where one man can successfully cultivate five hundred acres of wheat un- 

 aided by either man or fertilizer. 



With this canal completed, the grain of San Francisco, which is now more 

 than four months on its way to Boston or Liverpool, could be landed there in less 

 than three weeks. The vessel transporting it, instead of making one trip yearly, 

 would accomplish many trips, by the aid of steam, now prohibited by the length 

 of the voyage. 



To the United States the canal will be most useful in developing the products 

 of the Pacific coast and exchanging them for our manufactures. To the British 

 Isles it is even more important, as they draw one-fifth of the wheat they consume 

 from California and Oregon, and by means of this canal may save annually a mil- 

 lion sterling in freight. 



