not only a seaport, but a Pacific seaport, of all the cities in the United States which are situated on or near navigable waters. From all the towns on all the principal lakes and rivers, lakes Michigan Ontario and Erie, rivers Ohio Mississippi and Missouri, and a score of others, vessels of medium tonnage will ply direct to San Francisco, Yokohama, Hongkong, Manila, Sydney, Valparaiso, and every other Pacific seaport; and where water communication is not already open for access to the sea, the canal once constructed such communication will soon be opened, and there will be such a revolution in the world's commerce as is now not even dreamed of.

As to the relative benefits to be derived by the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, they lie unquestionably more largely with the former. I know that California is expecting the millennium when the canal comes, as was anticipated when the first overland railway was finished. The millennium came, but not to California; it came to certain railway monopolists, who pocketed the money given them by the government to build the road, while grinding as much more as possible out of the country tributary to the road, throwing the debt of construction, with interest, finally back on the government. I never have known another instance in the history of railroad building, where a government paid for building the road, and then gave it to the builders to use for the destruction of the people it was supposed to benefit. California would be better off today had none of the present overland railways ever been built. From the day the Central Pacific ran an engine through Market street, in San Francisco, as the signal that the road was finished, the poor sheep that crowded the thoroughfare bleating their joy,-from that day to this the iron heel of commercial despotism has never been lifted from this country. And if now Californians take the matter of a ship canal as tamely as they took the railroad infamy, the waterway will be of little benefit, but rather a disadvantage, in carrying traffic directly through it, and away from us, instead of by our door. There will, of course, be our share of the general benefit which will accrue to all the countries bordering on the Pacific, with overland freight reductions on certain classes of goods; but to derive a proper benefit from any ship canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we shall have to rise and meet the occasion, by establishing on our shores full lines of all

kinds of manufacturing industries, with the closest commercial relations with every country bordering on the Pacific. In other words we shall be compelled to exercise the same intelligence, energy, and liberality that has built up so many large and flourishing cities and sections throughout the entire United States save in California alone.

I have only to remark in conclusion, as I have elsewhere intimated in this volume, that as a business proposition, clearly apparent to a business man, the United States government at this juncture can better afford to spend some money for national advancement than not to do so. As we figure it up, we are the greatest and the richest nation on earth, the most enterprising, brave, and humane, a nation of boundless potentialities, which in my soul I believe to be true; and yet, seeing how freely the public money is spent on what is of so little use to the public; on political jobbery; on private schemes for the personal advantage of our good patriots; on popular fads as soldiers' pensions and public schools for the piano; on army and navy supplies, necessary as humanity is made, but tending in no wise to the upbuilding of the industrial interests of the nation; when I see how easy the millions come for foolish and unnecessary things, and how difficult it is to get any thing done for the country, such as the construction of this canal, which in truth is too small a matter to haggle over so long, I cannot but feel that we need some men at the head of affairs whose minds are not laid out on such narrow lines, and whose souls are not wholly absorbed in the selfish seekings of party and place. It is the business of the government, for example, if the government has any business further than the comfortable support of the politicians, to reclaim its waste places and desert lands by systems of irrigation, which with less than the cost of the late Spanish war, would add one-fifth to the agricultural area of the United States, or three times as much as we get by all the tropical islands secured. These now waste lands, which can be made as rich as any Egypt by the application of water, of which there is an abundant supply at hand, lie in the heart of the continent, dividing the republic into two parts, between which commercial intercourse is restricted to the arbitrary rule of railway monopolists, who constructed their roads with funds furnished by the government, and now used with

government permission to crush the industrial life of the people who are forced to use them. A few hundred millions more of debt just now would not embarrass this nation, if the money instead of being wasted in political clap-trap, went for the promotion of public necessities, as a merchant marine, a government railroad across the desert, a ship canal, and like investments, which would yield to both government and people a large and quick return in wealth, power, and prestige. Five hundred artesian wells would be worth more to the United States than five thousand dead Filipinos, and would not cost as much. The price of three battleships would bring the waters of Lake Tahoe to San Francisco, fertilizing a thousand farms on the way, and adding millions to the taxable property of the state. And there are many such needful developments west of the Rocky mountains, awaiting the attention of government.

Many volumes have been written on the subject of interoceanic communication; many men have spent their lives in studying it; nearly all the principal governments of Europe have been interested in some one or more of the many plans brought forward, and several of them have had surveys made at different points. The governments of Netherland America have lived for centuries on the hope that this work would some day be done. Those who should wish to pursue further this interesting study I refer to the following authorities. Garella, Projet d'un canal, 11-194, 230; Chevalier, Pan. 117-22; Reichardt, Cent. Am, 164-5; Cullen's Isth. Darien Ship Canal, 19; Nicaragua, Gaceta, Nov. 18, 1848; Liot's Panamá, Nicaragua, and Tehuantepec, 6-12; Ramirez, Mem., 1108; Garay, Survey Isth. Tehuan., 3-188; Hakluyt, Voy., iii; Gomara, Hist. Ind., 37-89; Duflot de Mofras, Explor. de l'Oregon, 119; Nouvelle Annales des Voy., ci, iii, 8-9; Cortes, Diario, 1813, xix, 392; Robles, Prov. Chiapa, 17; Bustamante Med. Pacific, M S ii Sup. 15; Herrera Hist. Ind., iv, 234; Rivera Gobern. Mex., ii, 116; Ward's Mex., i, 311; Dublan and Lozano, Legisl. Mej., i, 738–9; Manero, Notic. Hist., 51-6; Davis' Report, 5-6; Mex. Diario Debates, 10th Cong., i, 273–1930, passim; Fröbel, Aus. Am., i, 144, 241; Squier's Nic., 658; Humboldt, Essai Polit., i, 1-17; Niles' Reg. xxx, 447; London Geog. Soc. Jour., xiv, 127-9; Scherzer, Cent. Am., 241; Belly, Nic., i, 84-7, 137; Sampson's Cent. Am., 7-18; Maruro, Mem. Hist., 1-47; Bülow, Nic., 44-57; U. S. Gov. Doc., Sen. Miscel. Cong. 30, Sess. 1, no 80, 69-75; Id., H. Ex Doc. Cong. 31, Sess. 1, no 75, 50-326, passim; Marcoleta, Min. Nic., 1-32; Hunt's Mer. Mag., lv, 31-48; Ivi, 32-4; Panamá Star and Herald, Dec 5, 1885; Andagoya, Carta al Rey, in Squier's M S S, xi, 8; Juan and Ulloa, Voy., i, 94; Fitz-Roy, in Lond. Geog., Soc., Jour., xx, 170, 178; Ariz, Darien M S, 11-12; Philosophical Trans. 1830; Arosemena, Examen, 8-34;

Interoc. Canal and Monroe Doc., 23-4; Panamá Gaceta Ist., Sept. 20, 1841; G. B. Watts, in Am. Geog. and Stat. Soc. Bull, i, pt iii, 64–80; Datos Biog., in Cartas de Ind., 761; Tucker's Monroe Doc., 43-4; Bidwell's Isth. Pan., 299-308, 397-417; Strain's Inter. Com., 18-27; Mex. Anales Min. Fomento, i, 83-88; Selfige, Darien Explor., U. S. Gov., Doc., Cong. 43, Sess. 3; Bulletin du Canal Oceanique, 1883-4; Sullivan's Problems Intero. Communic, Washington, 1883; Ammen's Interoc. Ship Canal, Phil. 1880; La Estrella de Pan. July 21, 1884; Guatemala Mem. Sec. Fomento, 1880-5; Pim's Gate of the Pac., 313–21; Laferriere de Paris a Guat., 101-6; Costa Rica Informe Sec. Goberu., 1873-4; Colombia Diario Ofic., 1874.

CHAPTER XVII

RESOURCES OF THE PACIFIC

VAST as are the resources of the countries round the Pacific, they present themselves at the present time in the form of industrial potentialities rather than of concrete wealth. True, there are here, with the limitless natural wealth and possibilities, money and property in abundance, but accumulated stores of riches such as are found in older communities we must not look for in new and undeveloped regions. Speaking generally, if one may speak generally of an area of land and water extending from pole to pole and covering half the earth, the soils here are very like the soils in the other hemisphere, and the flora and fauna, though differing, are much the same. The low-lying lands, where there is heat and moisture, are fertile; the higher and drier regions less so. There are mountains and swamps, and some volcanic débris on which plants grow reluctantly; but there are no great deserts, such as are found in the interior of continents, and no large stretches of land which may not in some way be found of use to man.

Beginning at the southern extremity on the American side, we will take a brief glance round the arena. Patagonia is still largely in a state of nature with some good soil and a fair display of vegetation; elsewhere there are places more barren in aspect and with trees dwarfed, though the largest of birds and the longest of men flourish here, the latter loving their country as well as if it were a better one.

Both Chili and Bolivia, and indeed the whole South American seaboard, produce largely of minerals for export, as silver, gold, tin, bismuth, antimony, mercury, lead, copper, as well as borate of lime, sulphur, and nitrate of soda. Southern Chili abounds in forests, but northern Chili without irrigation is sterile. The southern section, which long remained in its primeval state, the government is now opening to settle