284 



project. Steam-engines for feeding the basins 

 of partition, subterraneous tunnels, as they 

 were proposed in the mountainous part of the 

 isthmus of Panama, and like those of the ca- 

 nal of Saint Quentin, which has one of 2900 

 toises in length *, belong preferably to inland 

 lines of navigation. It is sufficient for me to 

 have shewn the practicability of an oceanic 

 canal in central America ; the estimate of the 

 expence of its construction, of the labor of 

 clearing the ground, and forming banks, locks, 

 basins, and feeding trenches, must depend on 

 the choice of the localities. The Caledonian 

 canal, the most admirable work hitherto ex- 

 ecuted, cost nearly 3,900,000 piastres, which is 

 2,700,000 piastres less than the canal of Lan- 

 guedoc-f-, reducing the mark of silver to the 

 present currency of money. The sketch of the 

 general expence of the works of the canal of 

 Suez, projected by M. Le Pere at the period of 

 the expedition of Buonaparte to Egypt, amounted 

 to 5 or 6 millions of piastres, of which a third 

 would have belonged to the subsidiary canals of 

 Cairo and Alexandria. The isthmus of Suez, 

 reckoning that part which has never been 



* Huerne de Pommeuse, p. 112. 

 + L. c. p. 308. The keeping of this canal, from 1G8G to 

 1791, has cost besides, the sum of 23 millions of francs, 



(Andreossy), Deber. du Canal du Midi, p. 289). 



