naturally consult foreign interests rather than our own. The Central American republics are now friendly to us, although sparsely inhabited and without development. The company constructing and managing an interoceanic canal would soon wield an influence paramount to the local government, and the policy of the latter might become subservient thereto and inimical to us.

During the existence of the Panama railroad it has been deemed a necessity for our government to keep armed forces almost constantly at both ends of the transit, and these forces have often been landed and kept ashore indefinitely for the protection of life and property. If this has been the case with a railroad managed by permanent employees and with a small native population, what may we expect when five to ten thousand laborers of various nationalities are congregated there, subject to a lax police control, suffering from malarial fevers, discontented, mutinous, and with a free supply of aguardiente? Add thereto a greatly increased native population, and we have all the elements needing military power to control them in emergencies.

When Count de Lessep's company have purchased the Panama railroad, which they have agreed to do as a preliminary step, we no longer have large American interests to protect there. It will be natural, and indeed necessary, for him to call upon the French Government to protect the enterprise, as we have protected the railroad company on many occasions. The French Government, both during and after construction, will find it necessary to station armed forces at both ends and on the line of the canal. After landing these forces a few times, what

more natural than that they should see the advantage and economy of having these troops in barracks on shore-always within call? If it is claimed that the French Government accepts no responsibility in this connection, why has it already appointed an official agent to oversee the initiation of the work? If, at the end of our late internal war, our Government deemed it necessary to request the French to promptly leave Mexico-merely contiguous territory-how much more important that they should not be placed in a position completely controlling our coastwise commerce, and establishing, first, their influence, then their power, and lastly, if we are quiescent, their flag on the American Isthmus! Are the American people prepared for this? The late William H. Seward, than whom no brighter intellect ever graced American history, was wont to say that the Pacific Ocean is to be the scene of man's greatest achievements. Are we prepared to have the key thereto in foreign hands? Every American heart will say nay, and honor the patriotism of President Hayes and General Grant when they foresee these results and point them out to their countrymen.

Nor is a large army and navy a necessity in the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine; on the contrary, both would become a necessity were it to be disregarded. The United States have a moral prestige sufficient to create a respect for our rights and interests, and it is far better to meet attempted European domination on this continent, with a decisive negative now, than to object thereto after it has passed the initiative. It matters little where the capital comes from to construct an interoceanic canal, but a due respect for our national and traditional policy, as well

as for our national pride, should indicate the propriety of its accomplishment through an American organization; and it is a poor compliment to our discernment that we are to be kept quiescent by an “American Branch," which can any day be voted out of existence at the headquarters of the Panama Canal Company in Paris! Americans will not fail to appreciate the words of one who has proved himself worthy of their patriotic regard: "I commend an American canal, on American soil, to the American people!"

corvette L'Eurydice, from Honolulu to Tahiti, in August, 1857, a doldrum current is recorded at seventynine miles a day, west-by-north. He encountered it between 1 deg. north and 4 deg. south, where it was three hundred miles broad. On the voyage to Honolulu, in July of the same year, he experienced no such current, but in 6 deg. north, he encountered one of thirty-six miles, setting southeast, or nearly in the opposite direction. This current does not appear to have been more than sixty miles broad. Many instances of this kind might be cited, of local currents, of the southern flow of a stream along the coasts of China, and on into the Indian Ocean, while outside of the myriads of islands, the Japanese Black Stream is moving in majestic circles, and in a contrary direction.

In another part of this work, I have cited a case of the drift of pumice and ashes, easterly from Java to Ponape, flowing just between, and in a contrary direction to, the sweep of the two great ocean currents, the Black Stream of the North, and the Peruvian current of the South Pacific.

In regard to this floating pumice, a late authority, speaking of a certain formation found on the bed of the ocean, states, that everything seems to show that the formation of the clay is due to the decomposition of fragmentary volcanic products, whose presence can be detected over the whole floor of the ocean.

The universal distribution of pumice, over the floor of the ocean, is very remarkable, and would at first appear unaccountable; but when the fact, that pieces of pumice have been known to float in sea water for a period of over three years, before becoming sufficiently waterlogged to sink, is taken into consideration, it will be readily understood, how fragments of this material