nama enjoys a good air, lying open to the sea-wind. There are no
woods nor marshes near Panama, but a brave dry champaign land, not
subject to fogs nor mists."

_Humboldt, (1803)._

"It appears that we find a prolongation of the Andes towards the South
Sea, between Cruces and Panama. However, Lionel Wafer assures us that
the hills which form the central chain, are separated from one another
by valleys, which allow free course for passage of the rivers; if this
last assertion be founded, we might believe in the possibility of a
canal from Cruces to Panama, of which the navigation would only be
interrupted by a very few locks."

_The Edinburgh Review, for Jan. 1809, Art. II. page 282._

"In enumerating, however, the advantages of a commercial nature which
would assuredly spring from the emancipation of South America, we have
not yet noticed the greatest, perhaps, of all,--the mightiest event
probably in favor of the peaceful intercourse of nations which the
physical circumstances of the globe present to the enterprise of
man,--we mean the formation of a navigable passage across the Isthmus
of Panama, the junction of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is
remarkable that this magnificent undertaking, pregnant with
consequences so important to mankind, and about which so little is
known in this country, is so far from being a romantic or chimerical
project, that, it is not only practicable but easy. The River Chagres,
which falls into the Atlantic at the town of the same name, about 18
leagues to the westward of Porto Bello is navigable as far as Cruces,
within five leagues of Panama; but though the formation of a Canal
from this place to Panama, facilitated by the valleys through which
the present road passes, appears to present no very formidable
obstacles, there is still a better expedient. At the distance of about
five leagues from the mouth of the Chagres it receives the river
Trinidad, which is navigable to Embarcadero; and from that place to
Panama is a distance of about 30 miles, through a level country, with
a fine river,[11] to supply water for the Canal, and no difficulty
whatever to counteract the noble undertaking. The ground has been
surveyed, and not the practicability only, but the facility of the
work completely ascertained. In the next place, the important
requisite of safe harbours, at the two extremities of a Canal, is here
supplied to the extent of our utmost wishes. At the mouth of the
Chagres