Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ...the results of his patient, long-continued studies of ocean currents, Lieut. Maury, whose eloquence is only exceeded by the correctness and breadth of his opinions, once said of this American inland sea, from which it is proposed to transport vessels to the Pacific: "From the Gulf of Mexico, the great commercial mar"kets of the world are down-hill. A vessel bound from that "gulf to Europe places herself in the current of the Gulf Stream "and drifts along with it at the rate, for part of the way, of "eighty or one hundred miles a day. And "when there shall be established a commercial thoroughfare "across the isthmus, the trade winds of the Pacific will place "China, India, New Holland and all the islands of that ocean "down-hill from this sea1 of ours. In that case, Europe must "pass by our very doors on the great highway to the markets "both of the East and West Indies. This beautiful Mesopo"tamian sea is in a position to occupy the summit level of "navigation and to become the great commercial receptacle "of the world. Our rivers run into it, and float down with "their currents the surplus articles of merchandise that are "produced upon their banks. Arrived with them upon the "bosom of this grand marine basin, there are the currents of "the sea and the winds of heaven, so arranged by nature that "they drift it and waft it down-hill and down stream to the "great market-places of the world. The area of "all the valleys which are drained by the rivers of Europe "that empty into the Atlantic; of all the valleys that are "drained by the rivers of Asia, which empty into the In"dian Ocean, and of all the valleys that are...
