The following Extracts from Authors who have treated of the Isthmus of Panama will tend to illustrate the subject of the foregoing pages. _Dampier, (1681)._ "Panama enjoys a good air, lying open to the sea-wind. There are no woods nor marshes near Panama, but a brave dry champaign land, not subject to fogs nor mists." _Humboldt, (1803)._ "It appears that we find a prolongation of the Andes towards the South Sea, between Cruces and Panama. However, Lionel Wafer assures us that the hills which form the central chain, are separated from one another by valleys, which allow free course for passage of the rivers; if this last assertion be founded, we might believe in the possibility of a canal from Cruces to Panama, of which the navigation would only be interrupted by a very few locks." _The Edinburgh Review, for Jan. 1809, Art. II. page 282._ "In enumerating, however, the advantages of a commercial nature which would assuredly spring from the emancipation of South America, we have not yet noticed the greatest, perhaps, of all,--the mightiest event probably in favor of the peaceful intercourse of nations which the physical circumstances of the globe present to the enterprise of man,--we mean the formation of a navigable passage across the Isthmus of Panama, the junction of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is remarkable that this magnificent undertaking, pregnant with consequences so important to mankind, and about which so little is known in this country, is so far from being a romantic or chimerical project, that, it is not only practicable but easy. The River Chagres, which falls into the Atlantic at the town of the same name, about 18 leagues to the westward of Porto Bello is navigable as far as Cruces, within five leagues of Panama; but though the formation of a Canal from this place to Panama, facilitated by the valleys through which the present road passes, appears to present no very formidable obstacles, there is still a better expedient. At the distance of about five leagues from the mouth of the Chagres it receives the river Trinidad, which is navigable to Embarcadero; and from that place to Panama is a distance of about 30 miles, through a level country, with a fine river,[11] to supply water for the Canal, and no difficulty whatever to counteract the noble undertaking. The ground has been surveyed, and not the practicability only, but the facility of the work completely ascertained. In the next place, the important requisite of safe harbours, at the two extremities of a Canal, is here supplied to the extent of our utmost wishes. At the mouth of the Chagres is a fine Bay, which received the British 74 gun-ships in 1740, and at the other extremity is the famous harbour of Panama." _J. A. Lloyd, F. R. S._