text:  asserted that the project of piercing the isthmus of Panama was not a chimerical one and proceeded to read a letter from Professor Humbolt dated Angust 1842 in which that learned gentleman observed that "it was twenty-five years since a project for a communication between the two oceans either by the isthmus of Panama the lake of Nicaragua or by the isthmus of Capica had been proposed and topographically discussed; and yet nothing had been yet commenced