Captain Liot spent a month in exploring the isthmus in company with Mr. McGeachy, the Crown Surveyor of Jamaica. On his return to England he was deputed by a number of commercial magnates in the City of London to ascertain whether the British Government of the day were willing to afford such guarantees and immunities as would secure a transit company against undue risk, should such a corporation decide to establish a macadamised carriage road, or railroad, from Porto Bello to Panama. The Government discouraged the idea, and the project was abandoned; but Captain Liot subsequently published his manuscript containing his impressions and views, and these are interesting reading, were it only for his striking prediction that, for at least half a century to come, a railway or carriage road were the only two propositions that would pay. The interest aroused at this time in the idea of inter-oceanic communication is evidenced by the Bulwer-Clayton Treaty of 1850, by which the Governments of Great Britain and the United States pledged themselves to do all in their power to facilitate the construction of a canal, and to maintain its neutrality when constructed. During the early fifties the attention of American engineers was more particularly directed to two canal routes farther north, one of which was across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, by way of the Coatzacoalcas River. Not unknown to Cortez, this route had been surveyed in 1842 by Moro, under the direction of José de Garay, whose scheme for a canal in this district involved a waterway of one hundred and fifty miles in length. As the maximum altitude to be reached was estimated at 656 feet (De Lesseps says 975 feet) above sea-level, Garay’s plan necessitated the construction of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty locks, and it was calculated that the passage from sea to sea would occupy a period of twelve days to accomplish. Within the last few years the Tehuantepec Railway has been constructed, and is now open for traffic. Should this prove as successful as is anticipated, there is little likelihood that anything more will be heard of a canal scheme here to compete with the one approaching completion in Panama. The other route, in the northern part of the American isthmus, was by way of Lake Nicaragua, and had been investigated as early as 1779 by Manuel Galisteo, who passed an opinion unfavourable to a canal project in this locality. However, some British agents at Belize, who accompanied Galisteo’s expedition in a private capacity, sent home glowing accounts to their Government; creating such an impression that when, a year later, war broke out between England and Spain, Captain Horatio Nelson organised an expedition to acquire possession of the Nicaraguan territory.