Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/759

Rh COMMUNICATION.] AMERICA 715 Tortola, Trinidad, Bahamas, Bermuda, Falkland Island; and 2 continental British Guiana and Honduras. The colonies contained a population of 1,228,967 in 1871, of whom probably four-fifths were persons of colour. The Spanish colonies are Cuba and Porto Rico. Cuba has an area of 45,883 square miles, and in 1 867 the population was 1,414,508. Porto Rico has an area of 3530 square miles, and in 1866 a population of 646,362 persons. In 1867 there were upwards of 700,000 slaves in these two colonies. In August 1872 the Spanish government issued a decree ordering that arrangements should be made for the gradual emancipation of the slaves ; and in December 1872 a bill was laid before the Spanish Cortes for the abolition of slavery in Porto Rico in 1873 ; so that probably slavery will soon be extinct throughout the whole of America. The French colonies in the West Indies include Mar tinique, Guadeloupe, and some smaller isles ; and on the continent, Guiana. According to a recent authority the population of these colonies was 318,934. The Dutch have Surinam on the continent, with the islands of Curafoa, St Eustatius, and St Martin. In 1870 the population of the islands was 35,482, and of Surinam 59,885, occupying an area of 2812 geographical square miles. Slavery has ceased since July 1863, when the Dutch government compensated theownersfor 44,645 slaves. The Danes have the small islands of Santa Cruz and St John, containing a population of 24,698 in 1860, of whom most are freed slaves, and St Thomas, which had in the same year a population of 13,463. St Bartholomew, another of the Lesser Antilles, belongs to Sweden. ransit The problem of making a grand highway for travel and om the traffic from the Atlantic to the Pacific, either across the .tlantic to breadth of the American continent or by taking advantage 1 R of the narrow isthmus that joins its northern to its southern portion, has been the subject of many schemes since its western as well as its eastern shores have been inhabited by enterprising nations, skilled in commerce and in mechanical arts. It is interesting to remark that, whereas the hope of sailing to India by a westward route was the motive which guided the navigators of the 15th century to the disco very of America, the means of internal communication for this part of the earth, and the geographical exploration of its remote extremities, have been more recently advanced by the desire of finding a path in this direction to the Asiatic resorts of mercantile activity. Arctic voyagers were at first invited to the icy seas of high latitudes by the dream of a north-west passage to China and the East Indies. It was a passage by sea from the Atlantic to the Pacific which Sir John Franklin went to seek in his last expedition in 1845, but which Captain Maclure effected in 1856, though by an opposite course from Behring s Strait to Baffin s Bay. But it is scarcely possible that this route along the north coasts of America should ever be habitually freqxiented by mariners going to and fro between the two oceans. At the opposite extremity of the continent arrange ments have lately been made to substitute a shorter way to the Pacific for that round Cape Horn by improving the navigation of the Strait of Magalhaens, which separates Tierra del Fuego from the south portion of the mainland. The project of cutting a canal through the central American isthmus has often been discussed. There can be no doubt of the practicability of a system of inland navigation from the Atlantic coast by the river San Juan to Lake Nicar agua, and thence by a canal to the neighbouring Lake Managua or Leon, with a short artificial channel of exit to the Pacific. A different route, of combined river and canal navigation, has more recently been proposed, which would cut off the whole of the isthmus from the body of South America entering the uppermost part of that mainland by the river Atrato from the Gulf .of Darien, ascending this river 150 miles, then following up the course of the Napipi or the Bajaya, tributaries of the Atrato crossing the coast range of hills by a canal Avith several locks, and descending to the Pacific either in Limon Bay or in the Gulf of Cupica, But these projects could be adapted only to the admission of vessels of smaller size than such as in the present day are commonly employed for commercial traffic between distant regions of the world. In spite of the grand example of the Suez Canal, it seems likely that, in a country tolerably productive of wealth and capable of supporting population, the more profitable means of provid ing for a through traffic will be found in railroads, which serve also for the accommodation of intermediate districts. In this class of undertakings North America has of late years displayed a wonderful degree of active enterprise. The line of 60 miles from Aspinwall, near Chagres, across the neck of land, which is there so narrow, to Panama, on the Pacific side, though situated in the territory of a Spanish republic, was constructed by citizens of the United Staters, expressly for the traffic between New York and San Francisco. But since that first opening of a gateway of communication with California, Australia, or China, for the travellers and merchandise of the Atlantic states or of Europe, the whole breadth of the continent where it widens, in latitudes between 35 and 45 N., all belonging to the United States, has been traversed by a continuous railroad system. The middle link of this system is the Union Pacific Railway, 1600 miles long, from Omaha, on the Missouri, in the state of Nebraska, through that state, up the course of the Platte river, and through Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada, crossing the summits of three great mountain ranges from 7000 feet to 8250 feet high, and meeting the Central Pacific Railway of California. This line was through a barren desert for several hundred miles, in the arid uplands of Idaho and the salt plains of Utah; but its construction has served to bring the com mercial cities of the Atlantic and of the Pacific within six or seven days journey of each other. Three or four rival projects of railways across the width of the United States, or extensions of the existing railway system westward from the Mississippi and Missouri, have been taken up with some promise of their realisation. The one which offers the greatest advantages is that designed to ascend the long and broad valley of the Arkansas river, and to cross the Rocky Mountains with a southerly inclination into New Mexico, opening up the Rio Grande and San Juan country, which is said to be very rich, and thence passing on to the Grand Canon of the Colorado, and to the Nevada mining district. Near the northern frontier of the United States territory, where it borders on the British Dominion of Canada, another continental line from east to west is now in progress that is, from the western extremity of Lake Superior, through Minnesota, Dakotah, and Washington, to Puget Sound, just below Vancouver Island. Biit the work of this kind that will be most interesting to many of our readers is that undertaken in 1871 by the government of the Canadian Dominion. By the extension of the Dominion beyond the Rocky Mountains to include British Columbia, and the incorporation of the vast territories of the Hudson s Bay Company, nearly the whole of North America above the 49th parallel is united in one grand British colonial province, and the Canadian Pacific Railway will do much to promote a compact union between the widely-scattered communities of Her Majesty s subjects on this great con tinent. The line will proceed from a port on the northern shore of Lake Superior, westward to the Red River settle ment, near Lake Winnipeg, now forming the province of Manitoba ; and will thence be conducted up the valley of the river Saskatchewan to the foot of the Rocky