The profits derivable from the undertaking, when accomplished, are too obvious to require enumeration.  The rates levied on letters, passengers, and merchandize, after leaving a proportionate revenue to the local government, must produce a large sum, which would progressively increase as the route became more frequented.  Mines exist in the neighbourhood, at present neglected owing to the difficulty of the smelting process.  It may hereafter be worth while for return vessels to bring the rough mineral obtained from them to Europe, as is now done with copper ore from Cuba, Colombia, and Chili.  Ship timber, of the largest dimensions and best qualities, may also be had.  The charges on the transit of merchandize would never be so heavy as even the rates of insurance round Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope.  The first of these great headlands mariners know full well is a fearful barrier, advancing into the cheerless deep amidst storms, rocks, islands, and currents, to avoid which the navigator is often compelled to go several degrees more to the south than his track requires; whereby the voyage is not only lengthened, but his water and provisions so far exhausted, that frequently he is under the necessity of making the first port he can in Chili, or seeking safety on the African coast.

[25] Ulloa (Book iii. chap. 11) remarks, that although the greater part of the houses in Panama were formerly built of wood, fires very rarely occurred; the nature of the timber being such, that if lighted embers are laid upon the floor, or wall made of it, the only consequence is, that it makes a hole without producing a flame.

    [26] America and the Pacific, 1838.

[27] Ulloa affirms, that the greater part of the houses in Panama are now built of stone; all sorts of materials for edifices of this kind being found there in the greatest abundance.  Mr Scarlett also acknowledges that he there saw more specimens of architectural beauty than in any other town of South America which he had occasion to visit.

[28] In 1814 the writer had coal in his possession, in London, brought from the vicinity of Lima, which he had coked and tried in a variety of ways.  It was gaseous and resembled that dug in the United States.  Since that period coal has been found near Talcahuano and at Valdivia, on the coast of Chili; on the island of Chiloe, and on that of San Lorenzo, opposite to Lima; in the valley of Tambo, near Islay; at Guacho, and even further down on the coast of Guayaquil.  Mr Scarlett quotes a letter from the Earl of Dundonald. (Lord Cochrane,) in which his lordship affirms, “that there is plenty of coal at Talcahuano, in the province of Conception.”  It was used on board of her Majesty’s ship Blossom; and Mr Mason, of her Majesty’s ship Seringspatam, pronounced it good when not taken too near the surface.  Mr Wheelright, the American gentleman who formed the Steam Navigation Company along the western