about the several routes it would seem that Fi*ederick Mr
Kelley, of New York, should have been listened to, if not
with admiration and affection, at least with respect. And
yet at the Paris " International Scientific Congress " of
1879, when an American delegate asked the committee
on the selection of a route to give a hearing to the pro-
ject of Mr. Kelley, from San Bias to Panama by the
Bayano river, which was seconded by Sir John Stokes,
who added that what was known of that route justified a
hope that the project might deal advantageously with
some of thfe difliculties, there was a great deal of opposi-
tion to the proposal to hear Mr. Kelley. M. Simonin^
known for his extremely superficial and not altogether
reliable articles on the United States in La France and
Revue des Deux Mondes, exclaimed — " We are not here
to register these schemes. Do they propose that we shall
set about and examine everything that the Americans
have been doing for the last ten years 1 We should lose
our time. We have to discuss only the projects of MM.
Wyse and Reclus, Blanchet and Menocal, and others."
M. Simonin might as well have eliminated the two latter
names. He and his friends did not want to hear but of
the Wyse-Eeclus project, and in their cynical effrontery
they even snubbed a man like Kelley !

Leaving now the Darien aside, let us see what waa
going on in the isthmus in these same fourteen years,,
from 1850 to 1864, apart from the work in Nicaragua
and the labours of Mr. Kelley.
