ABSTRACT

The project of constructing a ship canal to connect Manchester with the sea appears to have been started just before the railway era, but it was then abandoned, as the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Canal brought about an immediate reduction in the rates of carriage. It is understood that before the Panama enterprise is again proceeded with, the Company think that a sum of about 25,000 should be expended in a complete survey and re-study of all the conditions, and the results submitted to the most eminent engineers. A rival scheme for carrying a ship canal across the isthmus that divides the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is that known as the Nicaragua Canal, as the proposed route is to cross Lake Nicaragua, an extensive sheet of water situated some 400 or 500 miles north-west of the Panama Canal.