To the House of Representatives: I herewith transmit to the House of Representatives a communication from the Secretary of the Navy, with accompanying reports, of the persons who were sent to the Isthmus of Chiriqui to make the examinations required by the fifth section of the act making appropriations for the naval service, approved June 22, 1860.

But now, as a piece of good fortune amid many untoward occurrences, the steam sloop-of-war Brooklyn, a new and formidable vessel of twenty-five guns, which had been engaged in making preliminary surveys in the Chiriqui Lagoon to test the practicability of one of the proposed interoceanic ship canals, unexpectedly returned to the Norfolk navy yard on the 28th of November, less than a week before the meeting of Congress.

CHIRIQUI, an archipelago and a lagoon as well as province in Costa Rica.