It is probable, that with the opening of the canal, a great stimulus would be given to the coasting trade of the United States, and especially between the two ports of New York and San Francisco, to the probable detriment, at least for a time, of the trans-continental railways. The very large trade that is now being cultivated between the United States and Central America, the republics of Peru, Chili, and Ecuador, and something like one-half of Mexico, would be equally benefited by the new means of communication. With all this to depend upon, the promoters of the canal are probably not over-sanguine in expecting that its financial results would be fairly satisfactory. The experience of the Suez Canal at least encourages that hope, although it is to be remarked that the cost of the Nicaraguan canal, will probably, when completed, have been more than that of the Suez waterway. The local advantages of the Nicaragua route for a ship canal are generally recognised in the United States. A recent writer[212] on the subject states that— “The range of what in other parts of Northern and Central America are mountains, and at Panama has proved one of the obstacles that have wrecked the French Company, on the Nicaragua line, dwindles to its lowest elevation, as if inviting a junction between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The western shore of Lake Nicaragua is but fifteen miles from the Pacific, and the ‘divide,’ which north and south at this point assumes mountainous proportions, is less than 50 feet above the level of the lake, and about 150 feet above the mean level of the Pacific Ocean. Although so close to the Pacific slope, and with so slight a barrier holding back its waters, the great lake of Nicaragua drains through the river San Juan to the East into the Caribbean Sea. The lake itself is deep and unobstructed, and that portion of the river San Juan needed for navigation purposes requires but little work to adapt it for the heaviest draught vessels. The Lake of Nicaragua is undoubtedly the key to the situation, forming the summit level, and supplying the immense amount of water required to operate a lock canal on the large scale projected.” The route from Greytown, on the Atlantic, to Brito, on the Pacific, a distance of 170·099 miles, has been divided thus:—