S. T. (Silvanus Thayer) Abert

author

S. T. (Silvanus Thayer) Abert

1828–1903

A nineteenth-century civil engineer with a taste for big practical questions, he wrote about one of the era’s boldest ideas: an interoceanic ship canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific. His work brings together engineering judgment, geography, and the global ambitions of the age.

1 Audiobook

Is a Ship Canal Practicable? Notes, Historical and Statistical, Upon the Projected Routes for an Interoceanic Ship Canal Between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in Which is Included a Short Account of the Character and Influence of the Canal of Suez, and the Probable Effects Upon the Commerce of the World of the Two Canals, Regarded Either as Rivals, or as Parts of One System of Interoceanic Navigation

Is a Ship Canal Practicable? Notes, Historical and Statistical, Upon the Projected Routes for an Interoceanic Ship Canal Between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in Which is Included a Short Account of the Character and Influence of the Canal of Suez, and the Probable Effects Upon the Commerce of the World of the Two Canals, Regarded Either as Rivals, or as Parts of One System of Interoceanic Navigation

by S. T. (Silvanus Thayer) Abert

About the author

Born in Philadelphia on July 22, 1828, Silvanus Thayer Abert was an American civil engineer and author. He was educated at Princeton and began engineering work in government service in 1848 on the James River and Kanawha Canal.

For more than a decade, he worked on a range of public engineering projects, and later held charge of a geographical division stretching from Washington to Wilmington, North Carolina. He is best remembered as the author of Is a Ship Canal Practicable?, a study of proposed routes for an interoceanic canal between the Atlantic and Pacific.

Abert died in 1903. Though not widely known today, his writing captures a moment when engineering, exploration, and national ambition met on the page.