coastline of what is now British Columbia, ever hoping to find the Pacific outlet of the famous North-West Passage. But always the coast trended to the north-west, and Drake, giving up the quest, turned his prow westward and continued his voyage of circumnavigation. But we are over-running our dates and must return to events at the isthmus. It was about the year 1530 that the non-existence of a natural waterway became recognized. And no sooner was this fact accepted than projects for an artificial canal began to be put forward. It was clear to the geographers and traders of those days that an isthmian route westward offered great advantages to the routes _via_ the Cape of Good Hope, Magellan Straits, or the problematical North-West Passage. FOOTNOTES: [1] The eminence known as "Balboa Hill" in the American canal zone is certainly not that from which Balboa first sighted the Pacific, though very likely a tradition to that effect will now gradually be established. CHAPTER II. CANAL PROJECTS. It appears that the honour of first conceiving and proposing the project of an artificial waterway through the isthmus belongs to Alvaro de Saavedra Ceron, a cousin of Cortez, who had been with Balboa at Panama. Ceron had been for twelve years engaged in the search for the strait, and had finally begun to doubt its existence. His thoughts turned to the isthmus at Panama, where the narrowness and low elevation of the land seemed to offer the likeliest chance of an artificial canal. We learn from the old historian Galvano that Ceron prepared plans for the construction of a waterway there--almost precisely along the route chosen for the American canal nearly four hundred years later. Ceron's death, however, put an end to this early project. It is interesting to find the Portuguese historian Galvano, who flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century, mentioning four possible routes for the canal--namely, Darien, Panama, Nicaragua, and Tehuantepec. The choice, however, quickly confined itself to the Panama and Nicaraguan lines. The reader may feel some surprise that at such an early date as this an engineering project should be seriously considered which was only accomplished in the end by the wealth and mechanical resources of one of the greatest of modern Powers. The explanation is that the tiny vessels of the early sixteenth century could have taken advantage of the natural rivers and lakes in the isthmus, especially those on the Nicaraguan route, and that far less artificial construction would have been necessary than in these days of the mammoth liner and warship.