goes to ports on the Pacific coast of America, to the Sandwich Islands, Japan, the northern ports of China, to New Zealand and Australia, is all that will be materially benefited by the construction of a canal. As regards Australia, the principal advantage would be in having a safer, easier, and, consequently, quicker and surer means of communication than is afforded by the Cape of Good Hope; for the Pacific Ocean is pre-eminently the sea of steamers, and where steam navigation, in respect of speed at least, is destined to achieve its most brilliant success. So far as the United States is concerned, the advantages of such a work would naturally be greater than to Europe.

Assuming a canal to be built across the Isthmus of Nicaragua, the following table will illustrate the relations of Liverpool and New York with the principal ports of the East, in respect of distance:

[The distances to Sidney are calculated via Torres Straits.]

The following table will illustrate the relations of Liverpool and New York in respect to the principal western ports of America:

But it is not to be assumed that all the trade, much less all the travel, treasure, and mails to the points which I have indicated, will, under any circumstances, pass through a canal. The passengers between New York and San Francisco, amounting annually to nearly 100,000, would never consent to make a voyage of from 1000 to 2000 miles out of their way, to Nicaragua, Panama, Darien, or Atrato, for the sake of passing through a canal, however grand, when by a simple transhipment at Honduras, for instance, and a transit of 200 miles railway, they would be able to avoid this long detour, and effect a saving of from 5 to 8 days of time; for, even if steamers were to run to any canal which might be opened, and supposing no detention on account of locks or other causes (calculated by Colonel Childs at 2 days), even then it would be necessary for them to stop, for coals and other supplies, more than quadruple the time that would be occupied by the passengers over the railway in effecting their re-embarka tion. And what is true of passengers is equally true of treasure, the mails, and light freight of small bulk and large value.

I do not wish to be understood as arguing against a canal; what I mean to illustrate is this, that, open a canal wherever we may, it will always stand in the same relation to a railway as does the baggage-train

to the express. A canal would be chiefly, if not wholly used by ships and vessels carrying heavy and bulky freights; but, as most articles of this kind are kept in stock in all the principal ports of the world, it is not of so much consequence to have rapidity as constancy of supply, and hence, unless the canal shall be constructed so economically as to admit of a moderate tonnage rate, it is not improbable that ships of this kind would find it more economical to follow the routes now open.

COSTA RICA is the most southern of the states of Central America, the smallest in respect of population, and, next to San Salvador, the least in territorial extent. It lies between the Caribbean Sea on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Its bounda ries on the south, long in dispute with the Republic of New Granada, have been settled by treaty, bearing date June 11, 1856, as follows: Commencing at Punta Burica, on the Pacific, in longitude 83° 13′ west of Greenwich, thence in a right line to the head of a stream called Agua Clara, thence due northeast to the Mountains of Cruces, and along their crest to the source of the Rio Doráces (or Dorado), and down the principal channel of that stream to the Atlantic, at a point some distance above Boca del Toro, or Chiriqui Lagoon. Previous to the negotiation of this treaty, Costa Rica claimed that her southern boundary was a right line drawn from Punta Burica to a point on the Atlantic south of Chiriqui Lagoon, and opposite the island called Escuda de Veragua.* The boundary

* The boundary, as finally defined by treaty, coincides precisely with that laid down in an original MS. map in the possession of the author, by Don Juan Lopez, Geographer Royal, dated Madrid, 1770.

of Costa Rica on the north is in dispute with Nicaragua. The Costa Rican claim, which is utterly without foundation in fact, is the south bank of the Rio San Juan from the port of the same name to Lake Nicaragua, in a right line through the lake to the Rio Flores, a few miles to the southward of the town of Rivas or Nicaragua, and thence a little south of west to the Pacific. The true boundary, however, and that claimed by Nicaragua, as set forth by the historian Juarros, and as laid down in a MS. map by Colonel La Cierra, engineer of the crown of Spain, dated 1818, is a line extending from the principal or Colorado mouth of the River San Juan, following the crest of the mountains which throw their waters northward into that river and Lake Nicaragua, to the mouth of the Rio Salto de Nicoya or Alvarado, on the Pacific. Such is the boundary as defined in Chap. ii., Art. 15, of the Constitution of Costa Rica itself, dated January 21, 1825, and as laid down on all maps of Central America prior to the year 1830.* In other words, Costa Rica lies chiefly between 8° 30′ and 10° 40′ N. latitude, and 82° and 85° W. longitude, and has an area of about 23,000 square miles.

The political divisions and the population of the

* The claim of Costa Rica is founded upon an act of the Federal Congress of Central America, dated December 9th, 1826, as follows:

"For the present, and until the boundaries of the several states shall be fixed, in accordance with Art. 7 of the Constitution, the Department of Nicoya [Guanacaste or Liberia] shall be separated from Nicaragua and attached to Costa Rica." This decree was framed in order to give Costa Rica a larger and more respectable representation in the Federal Congress; but as the boundaries of the several states were never fixed in accordance with Art. 7 of the Constitution, and since the people of the department protested against the change, as did also the authorities of Nicaragua, it was justly claimed that this conditional decree could not affect the sovereign rights of the latter state, and that when, on the dissolution of the republic, she resumed her independent position, she was also entitled to resume her original limits. For a full discussion of this question, see American Whig Review for November, 1850, article " The Great Ship Canal Question.”