deck-loads of sheep and cattle; that near-strategic than commercial, designed by ly all of these steam-ships take their supplies of provisions and breadstuffs from this side of the ocean? The Massachusetts Commission, in the report we have cited, concede that we can not give up the through business, for it would be done by others, and would carry with it all other business activity. This is not a logical deduction from the premises of the Commission, but is undoubtedly correct. That business must be useful to the local traffic which can not be detached from it without its loss. In the past, New York has kept pace in its growth with the growth of its through business by the Erie Canal. It still clings to that canal, and is willing to sink the interest on its cost for the preservation of its business. It has lavished on that canal three times the amount advanced by Massachusetts for its tunnel; and if New York can afford to abandon | all revenue, and reduce the tolls on its canal to a point barely sufficient for its maintenance, a fortiori Massachusetts can afford to do the same with the tunnel, which has cost less than one-third the outlay on the Erie Canal. In the intense rivalry which now animates our board cities and the lines that connect them with the West, it is the policy of each to study and countenance improvement, whatever shape it may assume, whether it be in opening new branches of commerce, in the substitution of steel for iron, in the models, mechanism, or materials, or in the selection of powerful engines, and loading trains to their full capacity in both directions. We should waste no funds in constructing lines planned by idle contractors or engineers. Let good sense, sagacity, and frugality rule the hour, and guide the action of our railways. sea At this moment there is a tendency to extend our railways, and combine fragmentary parts into long and important lines, and these are countenanced by our great exporting cities. Doubtless they are on the right track. To the north the Dominion of Canada is making a great line from the Straits of Canso to the mines of Pictou, and thence along the Bay of Chaleurs and River St. Lawrence to Quebec and Ottawa, thence through the trackless wilderness to the borders of Alaska. Great Britain to hold her provinces in subjection. They pass for nearly three thousand miles for most part through a wilderness, and can realize but little revenue for a long series of years. They will double the present debt of Canada, which now, under its costly government, exceeds one hundred and seventy millions. Besides this, she now pays a portion of our interest on national debt. Her debt per capita already exceeds our own, is becoming oppressive, and must eventually be assumed by England, for whose benefit it has been contracted. It will be many years before the chief railways of Canada compete successfully with our own. Her Great Western and Grand Trunk depend, to a great extent, upon the trade they can divert from our lines to the West by a circuitous competition, which has doubtless, to some extent, contributed to the reduction of rates. There is another great enterprise, more commercial in its character, on which Canada is now engaged, expressly designed to compete not only with the Erie Canal and her own lines of railway, but also directly or indirectly with all our trunk lines from the sea-board to the West. This undertaking is fast advancing to completion. It is the enlargement of the Welland Canal and the canals of the St. Lawrence to admit steamships of twelve hundred tons. Canada is desirous to supersede New York, and it must be conceded that her temptation is a strong one, as our lake ports annually receive ten million tons of cereals, in addition to vast amounts of live stock and provisions. New York and Boston now hold Montreal in check by the Erie Canal and Central Railway. In a few weeks Boston will gain some points by the tunnel, and its new route to the coal mines, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. Upon the completion of the canals on the Niagara and St. Lawrence, New York will be obliged to make strenuous efforts to hold its own. Should it fail, it will doubtless be its policy to open a ship-canal from the St. Lawrence into Lake Champlain, and possibly thence to the head of navigation on the Hudson, in the benefits of which Boston will participate, and to which it may lend its aid. If, however, the railways on the shores of the lakes, St. Lawrence, and the Hud The railways of Canada are rather son compete successfully with the lakes and rivers, and continue to improve, their | sagacity, has quietly followed the caravan future is bright before them; while the lake steamers of light draught carry their grain across the sea, the railway, resorting to more capacious steamers, some of which transport six thousand tons, may lay down their cargoes at less cost in the sea-ports of Europe. THE NORTHERN PACIFIC. We have glanced at the great line of Canada slowly progressing through the Hudson Bay territory. Let us now glance at three other lines making rapid progress, and destined within two years to reach the waters of the Pacific, which have already been touched by our Central Pacific Railway. First, there is our Northern Pacific, which extends from Duluth, at the head of Lake Superior, to the Upper Missouri, and is destined to cross the Yellowstone within a twelvemonth. Having converted its bonds into stock, and found a quick market for its land, toward which the tide of emigration is setting, it is rapidly approaching Montana, both from the east and from the west, and will there make a connection with the combined river, canal, and railway improvements of Oregon, soon to give place to a continuous railway. Large bodies of settlers attend its march, eager to plant themselves in the rich wheat fields of Dakota, or pleasant pastures or prolific mines of Montana, or looking still further west to the green meadows or wheat fields of Oregon. We may look to Oregon for new lines of steamers to China and Japan. route from Kansas to Mexico, traversed the fertile plains, interchanging the cereals of Kansas for the ores of Colorado, has pierced the Raton Mountains, and in one year more will reach the border of Mexico. In another season, under charters already conceded, it will enter Mexico, and reach Guaymas, the chief sea-port of Northern Mexico; extending a branch into Arizona, it will unite with the Southern and Central Pacific Railroad. It will also reach an American port at San Diego, and another at San Francisco, thus making two new routes to the Pacific. A slight extension will carry this line to El Paso, on the northern frontier of Mexico, more than half way from St. Louis to the city of Mexico. Having reached the table-land, it will command the commerce of the States of Sonora and Chihuahua, and probably of the northern half of Mexico. The only connection that city now has by railway with the sea is the Mexican railway which connects Vera Cruz with the capital. This has fallen into the hands of the Jews. It has cost more than ten millions of dollars for three hundred miles of railway, although it has received large subsidies from the government. It is deeply in debt, maintains a high rate of charges, and draws out a sickly existence. As the States of Chihuahua and Sonora are distant from the capital, are not populous, but contain much valuable land with rich silver mines, it would be politic for our government to purchase them, with the understanding that a large per Then we have a long line of railway from Ogden to the Park of the Yellow-centage of the money be applied, through stone, aiming at the confluence of the Willamette with the Columbia, making a third line to the Pacific, This will give the Union Pacific a new route from the Atlantic to the Pacific, independent of the Central line. the medium of bonds, to extend the line to the city of Mexico. An appropriation of fifteen millions, to be invested in bonds, would carry the line from El Paso to the capital across the table-land of Mexico, and the bonds might be used to repay the debt of Mexico. We may well anticipate such a result, and the ultimate extension of the Santa Fe line from Kansas City to the city of Mexico, thus connecting it with the chief sea-board and inland cities. While this great work is progressing, New Orleans is recovering from the effects of the war, and is now accessible to the largest steamboats, for a channel has been provided at the mouth of the Mississippi with twenty-five feet of water, and the Illinois Central Railroad Company, one of our strongest railroads, has purchased a controlling interest in the direct line from Cairo to New Orleans, and has nearly finished its conversion into a steelclad railway, so level and so direct that within a year a passenger may traverse the distance from Cairo to New Orleans in fourteen hours, or in twenty-four hours from the Gulf to Lake Michigan, and in one day reach by such railways waters flowing into Hudson Bay, and the cotton and sugar may take a northern route to Atlantic cities. Meanwhile Cincinnati, to extend her valuable commerce, has issued bonds for twenty millions of dollars, and nearly completed her great Southern Railway across Kentucky and Tennessee to Chattanooga, opening a vast pastoral region almost inaccessible during the war, and connecting her with the rising city of Atlanta, and the cotton ports of South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, thus benefiting her own commerce, and promoting the great interests of the Union. Among the earliest railways of the West was the Illinois Central. Congress had granted to the State of Illinois a large amount of fertile land in the centre of the State, but accessible by no river, and consequently of little value. Mr. Rantoul and other enterprising men of Massachusetts offered to build a railway through it for the alternate sections, and to pay the State a yearly percentage on its receipts. The land was granted, the road was built, emigrants were attracted, the land rose to five prices, and has become the great corn field of the West. The rise enriched the railway, the settlers, and both State and nation. This great line has been wisely administered; for some time past it has earned eight and divided six per cent., has thrown out an arm to Sioux City, on the Upper Missouri, and obtained good connection with Manitoba; recently it has purchased a controlling interest in the great Southern line of 530 miles from Cairo to New Orleans, and is rebuilding its bridges and replacing its rails with steel. In a few months more it will bring the mouth of the Ohio within fourteen hours of New Orleans, and ere long St. Louis, Chicago, and St. Paul within one or two days of the Gulf of Mexico. Already it has become a route for the sugar, cotton, and tobacco of the South on its way to Northern marts, and one of the chief feeders of the Illinois Central, forming a route of national importance. But there is another great enterprise now on the tapis, still more gigantic, which will soon become a direct or indirect rival to our continental lines, viz., a ship-canal from ocean to ocean, either across the Isthmus or through Central America, the latter of which is preferable to the former, as it makes the route from our Atlantic coast to California and Oregon several hundred miles shorter than that by the Isthmus. It was once, before the era of railways, when in a state of nature, the leading route from New York to San Francisco. At the recent Congress in Paris, Mr. Lesseps by his intrepidity and address carried a vote in favor of a canal across the Isthmus near the Chagres River, where a rampart of mountains impedes the way, and where more than ten miles of tunnel must be made, eighty feet wide and 130 feet high, or open cuts through the mountains of 360 feet in depth. Modern science may possibly achieve this in ten or fifteen years, but the estimates for the work and its accumulating interest will probably exceed $200,000,000, while the route by Central America presents a lake and river already navigable by steamers. Here a shipcanal may be made for our largest steamships at a cost greatly below the cost across the Isthmus, and in one-half the time-a canal which will be remunerative at half the toll of three dollars per ton demanded by Mr. Lesseps. This gentleman has now a European reputation from the Suez Canal through Arabian sands, near the route where Herodotus found a canal 2000 years ago, and has done this by bending to his will the Khedive of Egypt and the autocrat of France, but has dealt with no mountain barrier or gigantic tunnel unprecedented in modern engineering. He would enter a new field, and rival Hannibal, who "disjecit saxa et montes rupit aceto," but must be careful not to alienate the friends of the enterprise by the untimely use of his acids. This enterprise is most important to our own country, as it will unite its fronts on two oceans, and produce a wholesome rivalry with its land route. It is all-important that no mistake be made, that the route be chosen which can be most rapidly perfected, which shall shorten distances, and permit the most reasonable tolls. gether, add another million to its tonnage. CANAL ACROSS CENTRAL AMERICA TO THE The commerce of the United States alone PACIFIC. The success of the Suez Canal insures the construction of another ship-canal most important to the United States-one which will form a new route for its coastwise commerce, which now passes around Cape Horn to the Pacific. It will reduce a voyage of 18,000 miles to less than onethird of that distance, and diminish the time required on the way to one-fifth of the time now taken, replacing the vessel under sail with the steam-ship of steel. The Pacific railways are adapted to the transportation of mails, travellers, and express freight. They are important also for local traffic; but in no respect suited to our chief coasting trade-the conveyance of grain, provisions, timber, coal, fish, and metals between the Atlantic and Pacific. When a ship-canal is finished, it will cheapen all our routes to the Pacific, and it is safe to predict that it will reduce the rates of freight between the Atlantic and Pacific below six dollars per ton via the canal, and we may easily foresee what will be the future course of commerce. The routes across the Isthmus and Central America have been explored and surveyed by both England and the United States, and the estimates for one of them are below the cost of the Suez Canal, while the prospects for business are far more encouraging. The Suez Canal commands the trade between India and Europe, but can not control the commerce of China and Japan with the United States, or more than half of that between the same countries and Europe, while a ship-canal between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific will eventually command twice the tonnage that now passes through the Suez Canal. It will be a candidate for the vast export of wheat and other grain from our Pacific coast to Europe. The annual production of wheat on our Pacific coast exceeds a million of tons, and will soon require a million of tons of shipping to convey it to Europe. The ships would pass twice through the canal, and give it two millions of tonnage. The vast coasting trade of the United States between the Atlantic front and California, Oregon and Alaska would pass through this canal both going and returning, and the varied products of the Pacific coast, in shape of timber, fish, copper ore, and return cargoes, would, to It through this canal will supply a tonnage equal to that which pays six millions of dollars each year to the Suez Canal. will be a candidate for ships on their voyages from Europe for tea to China and Japan, and on their return, and will take nearly the whole tonnage passing between the Atlantic States, China, Japan, and the Philippine Islands, and between Europe and the Russian Possessions, and best accommodate the ships engaged in the whalefisheries of the Pacific. Tea, to the extent of two hundred millions of pounds, and occupying one hundred thousand tons of shipping, forms one item of this commerce, which will annually send through the canal nearly a quarter of a million tons of shipping. Then we have the trade between Australia and Europe, one item of which, wool, amounts yearly to three hundred millions of pounds. We may safely calculate that the Australian ships, out and back, will patronize this canal to the extent of three hundred thousand tons. Peru, with its guano amounting to three or four hundred thousand tons sent annually to Europe, Chili, with its copper and nitrates and return cargoes, with Guatemala, Mexico, and Central America, must furnish at least another million of tons. Then we have the growth of this commerce while the work progresses, together with that due to new facilities, so that the aggregate must reach between five and six millions of tons-nearly twice the tonnage which passes yearly through the Suez Canal. This estimate is not a high one. Ten years since, before the grain trade of California had attained to any importance, the tonnage that would seek the canal was set at 3,300,000 tons by Admiral Davis, of our navy, and the annual saving in the cost of freight, interest, and insurance on the property to be transported by this canal was set by him at ninety-nine millions of dollars. The estimate seems to be a high one, for it exceeds the computed cost of the canal itself; but the saving must be immense, as this trade is fast increasing, and the cost of transportation may be lessened two-thirds by a ship-canal. California has become the chief granary of Great Britain, which now requires annually from other nations two hundred millions of bushels of grain; she prefers the wheat of California to grind with her own moist wheat, and there is no country but California where one man can successfully cultivate five hundred acres of wheat unaided by either man or fertilizer. With this canal completed, the grain of San Francisco, which is now more than four months on its way to Boston or Liverpool, could be landed there in less than three weeks. The vessel transporting it, instead of making one trip yearly, would accomplish many trips, by the aid of steam, now prohibited by the length of the voyage. To the United States the canal will be most useful in developing the products of the Pacific coast, and exchanging them for our manufactures. To the British Isles it is even more important, as they draw one-fifth of the wheat they consume from California and Oregon, and by means of this canal may save annually a million sterling in the freight. To France it is important for the diffusion of her manufactures over the isles and coasts of the Pacific, while the whole continent of Europe and most of South America are deeply interested in this enterprise. IS A SHIP-CANAL FEASIBLE? three times as great as the rain-fall of We The indentations of the coast are such Both England and the United States at each terminus that good harbors may have made diligent inquiry for a short-be made; the height of land between the cut across the Isthmus free from lockage and tunnels. The Isthmus has been carefully surveyed, but no route for a canal has been discovered which would not require deep rock-cutting and a vast expenditure. The only route to the Pacific free from such embarrassments is one across Central America, by the San Juan River and the Lake of Nicaragua, from the port of San Juan to the port of Brito, on the Pacific-a distance of 190 miles. On this route 140 miles will be open river and lake navigation, and fifty miles ship-canal. The San Juan route was carefully examined in 1851 by Child, an | American engineer, whose report was indorsed by Colonel Abert, an eminent officer of the Engineer Corps of the United States. : This report gave the following results, viz. that the summit level is found in a large navigable lake, whose surface is but 110 feet above the level of the sea on either side; that this lake is twice the size of Lake Champlain, being 110 miles in length and thirty-five miles in width, and lies in a country where the rain-fall is lake and the Pacific is but nineteen feet |