and exploration of America. From the Straits of Magellan to Hudson's Bay, the early navigators sought for an open passage between the two oceans. Later, whenever explorers or engineers found a place where the continent was narrow, or broken by large rivers, or lakes, proposals were made for an artificial waterway. From the middle of the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth, the routes most favored were the five marked by letters on the map on page 33.
A. The Darien or Atrato River route. The distance between the headwaters of the Darien River, flowing into the Gulf of Uraba, and the source of the nearest small river running into the Pacific, is very short. Canoes could be easily carried from one stream to another. There is a story that a village priest, at the end of the eighteenth century, had his parishioners dig a ditch, so that loaded canoes could be floated across the divide, without a portage. Whether or not that is so, it would be impossible for even the smallest modern cargo-boat to steam up a mountain creek, through such a ditch, and down the rock-strewn rapids of the upper Atrato. The divide is too high and the supply of water too scanty at this point for the construction of a ship canal suited for twentieth-century commerce.
B. The San Blas route. Here, where the distance from sea to sea is only about thirty miles, Balboa crossed to the Pacific in 1513. Shortly afterwards, this country was abandoned to the Indians, except for a brief time in 1788, when an attempt was made to establish a line of posts, and a Spanish officer succeeded in crossing to the Pacific, but was not allowed to return. Interest in this
