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burden of coal to start with, avoiding the necessity of going out 
of their way, and the delay in stopping at coaling stations en route 
to replenish. 
The foregoing comparisons and statements do not encourage 
the belief that the traffic to China, Australia, or even New 
Zealand, will be diverted from the other routes, and pass to any 
extent through the Panama Canal; and there are no large 
emporiums of commerce en route to help, as there are by the 
route of the Suez Canal and Canadian-Pacific. Steamers coming 
through the canal might get some traffic from connecting steamers 
at Panama with California and Chili and Peru, whose population 
does not exceed on the west side of the Andes and Eocky Mountains 
16,000,000; for it must be remembered that railways take the 
traffic from the basins on the east of these mountains to the north 
and south Atlantic ports, such as Buenos Ayres, Eio, Eio Grande, 
Orleans, New York, &c. There are also the immense river systems 
in North and South America, east of the Andes, and the Eockies. 
Besides, in cases of cargo from California, Chili, and Peru, it 
would save freight, cost of transfer and time, for cargo boats 
to take commodities straight through the canal to their desti- 
nation, and therefore only passengers and light goods would be 
transferred. The canal would, however, take a large amount of 
coasting traffic between the Eastern States of America and Cali- 
fornia, and such as it would not pay to send by railway. 
It has been anticipated that as the Suez Canal has been such a 
success in attracting and increasing traffic, that the Panama Canal 
would do the same, but the positions are hardly parallel. There 
has from time immemorial always been a large intercourse and 
traffic between the ancient and modern populations of the basin 
of the Mediterranean and the West, and those of the countries 
of the East, which all went this way until the discovery of the 
Cape route in the latter part of the fifteenth century to a great 
extent diverted it. The making of the Suez Canal caused the 
traffic to return to its ancient and natural channel, and arrested 
the decay of such ancient cities as Genoa and Venice. The 
Panama Canal will not to any appreciable extent again divert it, 
for the eastern route is, as it always has been, the shortest 
between the nations of Europe immediately bordering or having 
direct access to the Mediterranean and the East; and serves, 
