CONTENTS. The constant and undiminished Importance of the East during the last three thousand years, as the Source of the Wealth and Trade of the PAGE. Opinion of American Statesmen during the last sixty years upon the vast importance to this country of an Interoceanic Communication, and upon the Necessity, Right and Policy of the United States to Distances saved.-Tonnage expected.-Government Status of the Enter- prise. Benefits to the United States and Mexico during the Con- II. Map showing Tehuantepec to be the great Central Barrier to the III. Perspective View of the Dock and Car. PREFACE. THE purpose of the Author in the following pages is to present, in a concise yet comprehensive form, the commercial and political reasons for an interoceanic communication between the Atlantic and Pacific at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico; also to bring together the more important facts that prove the practicability and the economy of a Ship-Railway. The previous discussions, while complete in detail, have been partial and fragmentary. The writer has had exceptional advantages in investigating this subject; he made examinations on the Isthmus and the surveys of its harbors in 1880, and has since that time conducted, through very efficient and experienced engineers, complete topographical surveys of the Isthmus, on which the plans, profiles and estimates are based. |