Is a Ship Canal Practicable?: Notes, Historical and Statistical, Upon the Projected Routes for an Interoceanic Ship Canal Between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in Which is Included a Short Account of the Character and Influence of the Canal of Suez, and the Probable Effects Upon the Commerce of the World of the Two Canals, Regarded Either as Rivals, or as Parts of One System of Interoceanic NavigationAbert, S. T. (Silvanus Thayer)
History
Is a Ship Canal Practicable?: Notes, Historical and Statistical, Upon the Projected Routes for an Interoceanic Ship Canal Between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in Which is Included a Short Account of the Character and Influence of the Canal of Suez, and the Probable Effects Upon the Commerce of the World of the Two Canals, Regarded Either as Rivals, or as Parts of One System of Interoceanic Navigation
Abert, S. T. (Silvanus Thayer)
Canals, Interoceanic
After forty days of wandering, subsisting for the time chiefly on sour
palmetto berries, emaciated with hunger, lacerated with thorns, sick,
and half naked, Strain, having hastened ahead of his party, sought
succor in Yvisa. Proceeding to the Savana, he presented himself to
the English agent, who, receiving him with every kindness, shed tears
at the sight. Securing assistance, which was reluctantly granted, at
Yvisa, he hastily returned to find the remnant of his party, feebly
struggling back toward Caledonia Bay, having lost five of their number,
among whom were the two Granadian Commissioners.
Strain, mistaking the Chuquanaqua for the Savana, reached the Pacific
by the longest route. He claims that his expedition “has disproved a
magnificent preconceived theory,” and that instead of a summit-level of
150 feet, it is at least 1000 feet.
Three days after the departure of Strain, “another party, composed of
English and French together, under the guidance of Dr. Cullen and Mr.
Gisborne, set out from the same point, and endeavored to follow in his
track.” “Gisborne and Cullen could not follow their own maps,” and
after having “penetrated not more than six miles in all, returned.” Mr.
Gisborne, observes the narrator in the _Nouvelles Annales des Voyages_,
“dementait complétement” his former statements. They failed to confirm
the first statements, and the London company, organized with such high
hopes, was dissolved.
On the heels of Gisborne and Cullen, the Granadian expedition, under
the command of Codazzi, made a cotemporaneous essay. “How far,” says
Strain, “it penetrated is not known; but, struggling over the space of
a mile, it was broken up, and returned after having lost several men.”
While failure and misfortune was befalling the exploring parties
starting from the Atlantic coast, another attempt was made at the same
time to effect a transit from the now notable Savana. Capt. Prevost, of
the Virago, after advancing twenty-six miles, at the rate of one and
one-half miles per day, returned again to the Savana, followed, says
Mr. Gisborne, by two hundred hostile Indians. Four sailors, left to
guard a depot of provisions, were found murdered.
Capt. Prevost failed to find a practicable pass. Crossing valleys which
probably led to the Pacific, the altitude of which is not given, he
terminated his survey at a summit of 1080 feet above the level of the
ocean. “L’execution de canal interoceaneque était devenue á peu pris
impracticable,” remarks the reviewer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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