is not twenty
years since Dr. Lardner, the author of a popular work on the
steam-engine, then supposed to be a most competent authority,
declared in his lectures that the application of steam-navigation to
the voyage across the Atlantic was a mere chimera. So it has been with
railways. Would not any man who fifty, or even twenty years ago, had
predicted that the journey from London to Exeter would be accomplished
_in five hours_, have been deemed a fit tenant for Bedlam? To contend
that because a great undertaking has remained unattempted for a long
series of years, _therefore_ it is impracticable, is to put a stop to
all improvement. At the suggestion of the friends before referred to,
the writer is induced to print the following pages, with the hope of
drawing to the subject of which they treat the attention of the
mercantile and shipping interests. If they awaken an interest in the
subject in those quarters, they will not be thrown away, and he is
fully convinced that the more the subject is examined the stronger
will be the conviction of the practicability of the undertaking.

_23, Throgmorton Street_,
_February, 1845_.

A SUCCINCT VIEW, &c.

From the first discovery of the American continent down to the present
time, a shorter passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific ocean
than the tedious and dangerous voyage round Cape Horn has been a
desideratum in navigation. During the dominion of old Spain in the New
World the colonial policy and principles of that jealous nation, to
which Central America belonged, opposed insurmountable obstacles to
any proposal for effecting this great object; but the emancipation of
the Spanish Colonies, and the erection of independent States in their
stead, has broken down the barrier which Spanish jealousy had erected.
The rulers of these states are not devoid of discernment to perceive
that the exclusion of European Nations from the shores of the Pacific
would be productive of immense injury to themselves, and that by
making their own territory the high-road to the countries which are
becoming important marts for the commerce of Europe, they are bringing
wealth to their own doors, and increasing their own political
importance.

In this, as in most other cases, individual and general benefit go
hand in hand; for it cannot be doubted that were such a communication
between the two Oceans made through Central America, it would prove of
incalculable utility to all