OCEAN MAIL SERVICE.
The bill does not in terms provide that the proposed mail line for
the Isthmus shall have a port on the Gulf of Mexico for its base of
Operations, because conditions will compel the selection of that base.
The distance from Colon to New Orleans is 1,380 nautical miles; to
Mobile, 1,371 miles; so that other considerations, such as railroad
connections, will control.
That New Orleans, for example, is the natural sippy point of
departure for American mails for Chile and Peru for all of the United
States east of the Rocky Mountains is a manifest geographical fact.
The opening of the Trans-Andine Railway a few months hence will
make New Orleans the proper point of departure for such mails also
for Argentina (though not for Brazil). The distance from New
York to Buenos Aires by sea is 5,868 nautical miles, equivalent to
6,807 statute miles. The distance by rail from New York to New
Orleans is 1,372 miles, from New Orleans to Colon 1,600 statute
miles, from Panama to Valparaiso 3,025 statute miles, and from
Valparaiso to Buenos Aires 950 miles, in all 6,947 statute miles, as
compared with 6,807 statute miles by sea from New York to Buenos
Aires. But the mail route via New Orleans will have the advantage
of 2.322 miles by rail, where the speed will be double that by sea.
With the steamship lines to be subsidized by Chile and Peru in
operation, letters from New York will reach Buenos Aires three
days sooner by the New Orleans route than by the all-sea route.
From San Francisco by way of Panama to Valparaiso is 6,855
statute miles. From San Francisco by rail to New Orleans is 2,482
miles, and thence by sea to the Isthmus and on to Valparaiso is 4,625
statute miles more, or 7,107 statute miles in all. The mail route by
way of New Orleans has the advantage of a railroad haul of 2,482
miles, where double the sea speed can easily be made, involving a
saving of nearly three days even on mails from San Francisco to
Valparaiso.
w the New York mails for Buenos Aires and the San Francisco
mails for Valparaiso can be carried more expeditiously by the New
Orleans route than by direct sea routes, then obviously the South
American mails from the great interior cities of the United States
will make an even greater saving in time by the New Orleans route.
Without elaborating this statement, a table of the official railroad
mileage distances of the United States follows, from which can readily
be computed the saving in mail time for a number of our larger
cities:

0 ficial railroad mileages.

New Orleans. .
Mobile. ....
3t. Louis....
3t. Paul....
Shicago. ...
Savannah. .....
New York. ...
3an Francisco. -
Seattle...

New
Yrleana

"

399
275
912
“91

Mobile.

141

647
i,223
929
520
Bi,
323
079

st. St. | emg
Louis. | Paul. : Chicago.

699
647

1,275
1,223
576
410
1,437
1,061
2,091
1. 820

912
929
284
410
-,027
912
2,279
9 239

284
905
867
199
2 339

Savannah.


520
905
1,437
L027

™
LY

New
York.

por
1,231
867
, 061
912
O44

+. vo)

San
Francisco.


we
62
1199
4,001
2,279
3,104
2.930
057

Seattle.

2,931
2,979
9,332
1,82
2,239
3,237
3,151
957

In his annual report the Postmaster-General has proposed a mail
route from New Orleans to Valparaiso, and the committee is convinced
 that no time should be lost in creating an American mail line