No work, so costly nor fraught with such stupendous consequences, has ever been attempted by man. The history of civilization is the history of the efforts of man to assert the right and to increase the means of individual development. The monuments of science, skill, and industry, left by ancient nations to perpetuate the names and conquests of Kings and Pharaohs, were wrung by oppression from suffering men. To us is left the opportunity for a more extended organization—a combined world movement—in the interest of science and religion, for the extension of liberty, and for the diffusion of civilization among the races of mankind. Less than the cost of one year of war, will establish for all time—only to be shaken by a paroxysm of nature—this enduring monument of peace and good will, and will secure to the United States a conquest pregnant with vast moral and political possibilities. It is an object worthy of consideration. Fifty years ago the Pacific Railroad, the Panama Railroad, the Mt. Cenis Tunnel, the International Telegraph and the Suez Canal, were visionary schemes. It seemed the acmé of poetical fiction when the poet spoke of girdling the earth in forty minutes, as the work of supernatural agency. Sir Humphrey Davy, making science the basis of fiction, attempted to arrive at some conception of the composition of distant planets and the nature of their inhabitants. We can now send a message across the Atlantic in a minute, and know with certainty something of the composition of planets, stars, and nebulæ. These achievements have become the common property of the civilized world. The piercement of the Isthmus does not involve greater practical nor intellectual difficulties. Neither science, ability, nor energy, is wanting. Conviction of its utility, sufficiently wide spread to secure the popular good will, and leading to a national movement in favor of combined international action, will secure the early completion of this great marine highway. To secure popular favor it seems only necessary to exhibit the material advantages which must flow from its execution. Some of the facts, showing how far the completion of the canal would affect the commerce of the world, have been stated. A small space may be given to the probable revenue. The moderate estimate given in Admiral Davis’s report may be assumed as a basis, which may be safety taken as doubling itself in ten years. The tonnage which would pass the Isthmus yearly is, at one dollar per ton toll, $3,094,070.