The last mail brings information that two tions have been brought before Congress, which affect American interests in the East. One looks to the es. tablishment of telegraph between San Francisco and this continent, the other to the improvement of the harbor'at Midway islands. We may presume that a work as the submersion of a telegraph cable un jer an ocean which occupies one-third of the circum. ference of the globe, will not be undertaken 80 soon proposed; but the people of America, educate! by de-loping the resources of a new country, and by the civil war to grapple with affairs of magnitude, and car-nest in determination to takea high commercial position among the nations of the world, are likely at no ant day 40 enter on this enterprise with the same at has been displayed in the construction of ie Railroad. We believe, however, that the perhaps not difficult work at the vay islands, will be at once undertaken. The islands lie in north latitude 23° 14', and west longitude 177° 23° 15", or midway in longitude between Yokohama and San Francisco. They are well to the south of ities, but this is a matter of less concern as they are within the doldrums, a belt of calms so favorable to steam navigation, that the Pacific steamers alre: dy avail of it. The islands are two in number, of coral formation. They rise but a few feet above the sea, and only a little grass and herbage are able to draw sustenance from the sand which the sea has washed up. Each island is about one and a halt miles in diameter, They are surrounded cly a reef, enclosing a lagoon six miles in diameter, to which there is but one entrance. The harbor thus formed is said to be as good as that of Honolulu. There is, however, but 18 feet of water at the entrance. The work needed to make the islands available as a coaling station. and as a rendezvous for our merchant ships and war vessels, is the deepening of the bar, the erection of a lighthouse for a landfall by night and by day, the sinking of wells, and the establishment of storehouses. The station should be placed in charge of the navy department, and a suitable garrison provided. In the opinion of competent persons good water may be had by sinking artesian wells, and probably the copious rains of that latitude would famish all that would be needed. The removal of the bar could hardly be a work of much difficulty. If. we remember aright, a similar coral bar has been effectually deepened in the Sandwich Islands.
The advantages to be derived from the improvement of the harbor need no demonstration. 'Ihe Pacific steamers would be afforded a coaling station just linlfway of their unequalled voyage, that is to say, they would need to take coal for 2,600 miles' consumption instead of 5,200. They burn now about 1,005 tons on each voyage, so that the saving of cargo-room would be the equivalent of the space and burden of 500 tons of coal. Our vessels of war for this coast will soon be fitted out in San Francisco, instead of in the Naval depots of the Atlantic States, and will need such a station on the voyage across the Pacific. Incase of war, if well fortified, as probably they might be, the islands would be invaluable as a resort and refuge for our merchant vessels. and an additional point of supply for our several fleets in the Pacific.
Hitherto, of late years, the work of extending com: munication to the Bast has been greatly left to Great Britain. More recently France, by establishing a line of mail steamers, and by undertaking the great enterprise at the isthmus of Suez, has acquitted herself creditably in this connection. America now takes up the work, from which the circumstances of a new country have detained her, but for which she has peculiar opportunities. Ten years hence what changes shall residents here have witnessed, resulting from the efforts of these three enlightened and progressive States
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.