Among the more than 50,000 documents that the Roberto F. Chiari library houses, the researcher finds all kinds of […]
Among the more than 50,000 documents that the Roberto F. Chiari library houses , the researcher finds all kinds of pleasant curiosities. Today we will deal with one of them. It is a book dating from 1886, written in French and which even has a dedication by its author: the French engineer Lucien Bonaparte Wyse, who was the grandson of the former emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
The book Le Canal de Panama details the explorations that between 1876 and 1880 Wyse, in the company of the also engineer Armand Reclus , carried out in our isthmus commissioned by the Paris Geographical Society , and whose president was Ferdinand de Lesseps .
Why the scans?
The Paris Geographical Society wanted to arouse international interest in the possible construction of an interoceanic canal in Central America. This was the beginning of a management that would last several years and that would culminate in the Congrés International dÉtude du Canal Interocéanique (International Congress to consider an Interoceanic Canal) in 1879.
The Panama Canal
The book is a sum of the letters, reports, and documents of the two trips that Wyse and Reclus made to the isthmus. In the first trip, which began in November 1876, Wyse and Reclus explore the Darien and Atrato regions (Colombia), and upon completion, they recommend the construction of a canal with tunnels and locks that was finally rejected by De Lesseps.
The explorers returned to the isthmus in late 1877 and explored routes through San Blas, including the current route from Colón to Panama City. The study along this route imagined a canal that would closely follow the trans-isthmian railway, at level (without locks), and would have a 7,720-meter tunnel. This route would be, finally, the winner in the congress of 1879.
It should be noted that the Panama Canal not only provides technical information to determine the viability of one route over the other, but is also a study of the flora, fauna and Panamanian society at that time. The book contains maps and images that are kept in perfect condition and that give an idea of ??the work of these explorers.
Other explorations
As well as the Wyse and Reclus study, the library houses a large number of original documents from geographic explorations throughout the Central American isthmus, which are still consulted by national and international researchers today.
Studies such as: Interoceanic ship canal via the Atrato and Truando Rivers; Reports of explorations and surveys to ascertain the practicability of a ship-canal by the way of the isthmus of Tehuantepec; and United States coast survey report on the Nicaragua route, dating from 1850, 1872, and 1874 respectively, are testaments to the work of risky explorers who, perhaps unknowingly, fought for a common goal: the construction of the Interoceanic Canal.
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I have that same book “Le Canal de Panama” written by Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyze and signed and dedicated by him to my grandmother’s uncle, Lic. Francisco Ardila. He was a lawyer for the French Canal Company and married to my grandmother’s aunt, a sister of General Rafael Aizpuru Aizpuru who served twice as Presidente del Estado Federal de Panamá 1875-1878 and 1885. My grandmother was Josefa Mercedes Rucabado Aizpuru and her mother was another sister of General Aizpuru. The book was given to me by my grandmother’s first cousin Gilda Ardila Aizpuru de Jacobs, the youngest of 16 children, daughter of Lic. Francisco Ardila. Gilda Ardila Aizpuru was the wife of the exiled and former Ambassador to Panama, Count Gustav Jacobs of Austria.