. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 332 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. will be seriously affected by the competition of tlie future Nicaraguan canal carried at a height of not more than 110 feet above sea-level. But despite of everything, the work will sooner or later be resumed, unless the cutting of the navigable way is rendered useless by some fresh discovery. One would fain hope that so many lives, so much energy and devotion may not have been sacrificed in vain. The prodigious quantity of machinery accumulated at this vital point ol the globa must be utilised ; the astou
. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 332 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. will be seriously affected by the competition of tlie future Nicaraguan canal carried at a height of not more than 110 feet above sea-level. But despite of everything, the work will sooner or later be resumed, unless the cutting of the navigable way is rendered useless by some fresh discovery. One would fain hope that so many lives, so much energy and devotion may not have been sacrificed in vain. The prodigious quantity of machinery accumulated at this vital point ol the globa must be utilised ; the astounding cuttings which the traveller contemplates with amazement will one day give free passage to the mingled waters of two oceans ; the ever-growing power of human industry and the yearly progress of international trade surging round the portals of this isthmian barrier, will all Fig. 152.—Projected Artificial Lakes on the Panama Divide. Scale 1 : West oF L 9 45 79°40 , 3 Miles. combine to open a navigable highway between the neighbouring marine basins. But its completion must necessarily be delayed for years. East of Puerto Belo, on the Atlantic side, the Indians largely predominate in all the settlements. Nombre de Dm, founded by Nicuesa in 1510, has left no vestige of its existence, and its very site can no longer be determined. The spacious and deep basin of San Bias Bay, where 10,000 vessels might easily ride at anchor, is occupied only by a few scattered hamlets of the Cuna Indians. But schemes have also been proposed for piercing the isthmus at this its narrowest part. The country was surveyed first by MacDougal in 1864, and since then by Self ridge, Wyse, and A. Reclus, and from their reports it appears that here the cutting would be only 32 miles long, of which 6 would follow the deep bed of the E,io Bayano. But the cordillera at this point is over 1,000 feet high at the lowest passes, so that the canal would have to be cut through a tunnel variously estim
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