January 21, 1870
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution passed by the House of Representatives on the 17th instant, requesting to be informed "under what act of Congress or by other authority appropriations for the Navy are diverted to the survey of the Isthmus of Darien," I transmit a report by the Secretary of the Navy, to whom the resolution was referred.
U. S. GRANT.
Ulysses S. Grant, Special Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/203863