Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Practicability of a Ship-Canal Between the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts by the way of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec

Exploring different possibilities for an inter-oceanic canal across Central America.

Interest in connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by means of an artificial canal through Central America captivated European statesmen and engineers as early as the sixteenth century. The prospect of avoiding the long and hazardous voyage around Cape Horn was enormously appealing, but it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that serious engineering surveys were undertaken. In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant established an Interoceanic Canal Commission, appointing naval officers and engineers to investigate several potential routes. This report, compiled by Captain Robert Wilson Shufeldt and published by the Government Printing Office in 1872, details the findings of his expedition across Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

The volume presents a remarkably comprehensive account of the survey, including lithographed views, statistical tables, geological observations, official correspondence, engineering assessments, cost estimates, and much more. Twenty folding maps and diagrams are bound into the rear of the volume, among them elevation profiles, detailed river surveys, meteorological charts, and proposed canal alignments. Together they represent one of the earliest and most thorough American investigations of an interoceanic canal route.

Having previously served in the region with the merchant marine, Shufeldt was a strong advocate for the Tehuantepec route. He argued that its proximity to the United States, favorable river systems, relatively stable political environment, and strategic advantages made it superior to competing proposals. History ultimately favored Panama, where Ferdinand de Lesseps began construction in 1881 before the project was completed by the United States in 1914.