In selecting a route to oriental ports it is evident, from the facts of physical geography, as stated by Lieut. Maury, Napoleon III, and the writer in the _London Times_, that the navigator seeking to make a rapid voyage would adopt the American route both going and returning, except, perhaps, between Levantine and Indian ports. Between French, English, Levantine, and Indian ports, the outward voyage by way of Darien, or Panama, and homeward by way of Suez would, in many cases, be favorable to the quickest trip. The Suez Canal was built by French talent, French energy, French machinery, and French money. England and the Mediterranean States participate in the benefit. But the larger share of the profit belongs to France, by reason of her ports and industrial resources; and so far as France and the Levant enter into a direct trade with India, so far, it has been supposed, will the value of trade between Great Britain and India be impaired. We have spoken of the piercement of the American Isthmus as an international work. It should rather be the work of American energy, American talent, and American money. It is part of the American continent. No foreign nation can have the same military control of it that Great Britain now has of the Suez Canal. The benefit of its construction, although shared by the maritime powers, will be most important to the Americas, and by reason of resources, organization, and position, especially to the United States. It deserves consideration as an American project. FOOTNOTE: [4] 17,738 miles during S. W. monsoon. For a part of this table I am indebted to Com. B. F. Sands, U. S. N. CHAPTER III. The Canal considered as an American Project exclusively—Currents and Winds—Resources of the Basins of the Rivers of the Gulf and Caribbean Sea—Their Productive Capacity compared with the Mediterranean Basins. Let the reader refer to Berghaus’s map of winds and currents, and any map of the alluvial basins of the river systems of Europe and America. He will observe that the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico constitute but one sea, partially divided by the West Indies and Cuba, which, stretching toward Yucatan, is separated from that part of Central America by a channel 100 miles wide and 6000 feet deep. The equatorial current, crossing the ocean with the trade-winds, enters the Caribbean Sea, and, passing between Cuba and Yucatan into the Gulf of Mexico, flows out through the Strait of Florida. Ships from the east following this current are led in the path of favorable winds, both going and returning. The Pacific trade-winds and equatorial current are equally favorable to the outward and homeward bound voyager. The skillful navigator shapes his course north of the equatorial current when returning from China to San Francisco or Panama.