EE VENUE AND INCOME. 
141 
Lastly, the country itself can supply thousands of workmen at 
the moderate wages of from 37^ to 50 cents per day. 
The consumption of dyes tuffs, mahogany and other fine 
woods, such as the Isthmus can supply, amounts for London and 
Liverpool alone to upwards of sixty thousand tons ! the value 
of which, at the present market prices, exceeds $1,500,000, clear 
of all charges ; and when the demand for every other country is 
taken into account, it is but reasonable to put down under this 
head the sum of $2,500,000. In the port of Liverpool, during 
the year 1849, the imports of mahogany only, exceeded 29,012 
tons. As the grant of land is made to the company in fee sim- 
ple, these sources of income are of course the property of the 
company, and add to the value of the stock in a material de- 
gree. These resources have, however, lain dormant for ages, 
and would continue so if no communication between the At- 
lantic and Pacific oceans was made through the Tehuantepec 
isthmus. But no sooner would the projected railroad be con- 
structed and in operation, than the busy hum of industry and 
commerce would drive the wild beasts of the forests into the dis- 
tance, and a demand be created for the products of the soil, which 
have so long grown, and withered, and decayed, and grown 
again, as if in mockery of the boasted progress of man. It has 
been said that he who makes two blades of grass grow where 
but one grew before, is a public benefactor. What shall we say 
of those who will open to the commerce of the world a tract of 
land which abounds, in the greatest degree, with the commodi- 
ties essential to this civilized age — not only to the wants, but to 
the luxuries of man — and which, indeed, possesses riches that 
the nations of the old world have hitherto pursued at a distance 
of eighteen or twenty thousand miles \ 
Some idea of these products may be gleaned from the follow- 
ing table, showing the approximate value of what might be an- 
nually obtained by the existing population on the Isthmus even 
now :* 
* It is proper to remark that the figures representing the values of most of the 
articles above are taken from official documents, obtained on the Isthmus during 
the survey. The value assigned to hides, india-rubber, valuable woods, fruita, tar, 
and wax, are estimated. 
