The Colombian Canal, an alternative scheme to Panama

A curious map showing the proposed Colombian Canal, presented as a bird's-eye view looking east across the Isthmus of Darién from the Gulf of San Miguel on the Pacific Coast of modern Panama to the Gulf of Urabá in Colombia. The 153 km route, at the time all in the United States of Colombia, was determined by Lucien de Puydt and Fernand Mougel-Bey and was to be dug to sea level ('sans tunnels ni écluses', 'without tunnels or locks'), allowing a rapid transit. The route was optimistic, considering it crossed the 'Darién Gap', still the only break in the Pan-American Highway. When an international conference was organized by the Société de Géographie de Paris in 1879 to determine which of the several schemes should be chosen, it lost out to the Panama Canal of Ferdinand de Lesseps, begun in 1881 by the French and completed by the United States in 1914.