A new contract was then entered upon with New Granada in June, 1847, and early in 1848, the Syndicate was about to forward to the Isthmus the expedition which was to execute the preliminary works, while the company was being finally organized in Paris, and its stock placed. The success of the undertaking seemed to be assured beyond peradventure, when the unexpected breaking out of the French revolution in February, 1848, dashed all hopes to the ground. Several of the prominent financiers engaged in the affair, taken by surprise by the suddenness of the revolution, had to suspend their payments and of course to withdraw from the Panama Canal and railroad scheme. Others withdrew from contagious fear and timidity. Finally the term fixed for carrying out certain obligations of the contract expired without their fulfillment by the company, and the concession was forfeited. Another contract was almost immediately applied for and granted with unseemly haste by the President of New Granada to Messrs. Aspinwall, Stephens and Chauncey, which resulted in the construction of the actual Panama Railroad. These gentlemen acted fairly in the matter, and in 1849, calling Mr. De Sabla to New York, offered him to join them in the new scheme. Unfortunately they had decided upon placing the Atlantic terminus of the railroad upon the low and swampy mud Island of Manzanillo, while Mr. De Sabla insisted on having it on the mainland on the dry and healthy northern shore of the Bay of Limon. They could not come to an understanding on this point, and Mr. De Sabla, whose experience and foresight taught him the dangers that would result to the shipping from the unprotected situation of the projected part (now Colon--Aspinwall), and who well knew the insalubrity of the malarial swamp constituting the Island of Manzanillo, withdrew forever from the undertaking, after having devoted to it without any benefit to himself, the best years of his life and a large portion of his private means. One of his sons, Mr. Theodore J. de Sabla, after having actively co-operated with Lieutenant Commander Wyse, in the original scheme of the present canal company, is now one of Count de Lesseps's representatives in the City of New York, and a director of the Panama Railroad Company. * * * * * IMPROVED AVERAGING MACHINE. At the recent meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers, in this city, a paper on an improved form of the averaging machine was read by its inventor, Mr. Wm. S. Auchincloss.