243 



shortened at least 3000 leagues, if the passage 

 from Huasacualco to Teh uan tepee could be ef- 

 fected by a canal. Having had at my disposal, 

 in the archives of the vice-royalty of Mexico, 

 the memoirs of two engineers % who were ap- 

 pointed to examine the isthmus, I have been 

 able to form a precise idea of the local circum- 

 stances. No doubt the ridge which forms the 

 partition of the waters between the two seas is 

 interrupted by a transversal valley, in which a 

 canal of derivation might be dug. It has been 

 recently asserted, that in the time of high floods 

 this valley is filled with a sufficient quantity of 

 water to admit of a natural passage for the 

 boats of the Indians ; but I found no indication 

 of this interesting fact in the different official 

 reports addressed to the viceroy, Don Antonio 

 Bucareli. Similar communications exist, at 

 the period of great inundations, between the 

 basins of the rivers St. Lawrence and Mississipi, 

 that is, between the lake Erie and the Wabash, 

 between the lake Michigan and the river of the 

 Illinois ^f. The canal of Huasacualco, pro- 

 jected during the able administration of the 

 Count de Revillagigedo, would join the Rio 

 Chimalapa and the Rio del Passo, which is a 

 tributary stream of the Huasacualco ; it would 

 be only about 16000 toises long, and from the 



* Bon Augustin Cramer and Don Miguel del Corral, . 

 t See above, Vol. iv, p. 152 ; Vol. v, 472. 



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