INTRODUCTION.

THE TEHUANTEPEC RAILWAY COMPANY invites attention to a Grant or Concession for seventy years, including large grants of land, made by the Government of Mexico, on the 6th of October, 1867, to a Company to be formed by Don Emilio La-Sere, to open in

teroceanic communication across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, by railroad, carriage road, and telegraph line. It is free from all taxation or imposts of any kind by the Government, except the payment of eight per cent. of the net profits of the enterprise, whenever dividends shall be declared for the stockholders, and twelve cents for each through passenger. This grant was modified and confirmed by the Congress of that Republic on the 29th of December, 1868; approved by the Pres. ident, January 2d, 1869; and published in the Official Gazette of that Government on the 4th of January, 1869.

Pursuant to said grant, Don Emilio La-Sere formed the "Tehuantepec Railway Company," composed wholly of citizens of the United States. This Company, in November, 1868, procured from the General Assembly of the

State of Vermont* an act establishing its incorporation, with a capital of eighteen millions of dollars ($18,000,000), divided into shares of $100 each; and received from said La-Sere an assignment of the grant or concession. On the 2d day of March, 1869, to comply with the 16th article of the grant, the Company gave to the Republic of Mexico its bond in $100,000, which was accepted and approved as satisfactory by Sr. Don Juan N. Navarro, Consul-General of Mexico in the United States, on April 14, 1869, under instructions from his Government.

On the 20th of April the Consul-General notified the Company that the President of Mexico had, on the 28th of March, appointed the directors to which it is entitled under the 30th article of the grant.

Col. Julius W. Adams, Consulting Engineer of the Company, eminent in his profession, prepared in August, 1868, and the Company adopted, a general project for the construction of the proposed works, also a map of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, showing the proposed lines of railway, carriage-road and telegraph, which were submitted to the Mexican Government, January 5th, 1869, and were approved.

The form of the mortgage, and of the bonds which the Company is authorized to issue in aid of the construction, repair, and maintenance of the works, were prepared by learned counsel, and were adopted by the Company,

*The 16th article of the Grant, provides that the Company shall be organized according to the laws of one of the States of the American Union. The Legislature of Vermont was the only one in session at that time.

and submitted for and received the approval of the Government, January 5th, 1869. Official documents and further details will be found in the body of this work.

It admits of but little doubt that the discoveries of Columbus arose less from a conviction in his own mind that a new continent would reward his exertions, than from a farsighted conclusion to which he had arrived, that the true connection of old Spain with the Indies lay in the western direction rather than in the east. The whole of the discoveries at the time of his death embraced the various islands of the West Indies and the coast of Honduras, and he died in the belief that he had accomplished the object of his earliest efforts.

Explorations under others extended to the coasts of Florida on the north and Darien on the south; but the Mexican Gulf, sweeping far into the interior, with its concealed riches, remained as yet unexplored. What he aimed to accomplish-a ready passage to the east by traveling westward-is left for American enterprise..

Diego, the son and successor of Columbus, first colonized Cuba, or Fernandina, as it was called, and Velasquez, the governor of that island, pushed his explorations from St. Jago, his capital, around the coast of Yucatan, and in 1519 organized the expedition under Hernando Cortez, which, landing at Vera Cruz, resulted in the conquest of Mexico. The first care of Cortez was to secure his conquest. The harbor of Vera Cruz being considered as dangerous, even for the small vessels then in use, he sent “a