Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . at on thewharf at New York or Bos-ton would be worth $2,000. The history of the Panama Railroad may well bebriefly sketched here. For its time it was the mostaudacious essay in railway building the world hadknown, for be it known it was begun barely twentyyears after the first railroad had been built in theUnited States and before either railroad engineersor railroad labor had a recognized place in difficulties to be surmounted were of a sortthat no men had grappled with before. Engineershad learned how to cut down hills, tunnel mount
Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . at on thewharf at New York or Bos-ton would be worth $2,000. The history of the Panama Railroad may well bebriefly sketched here. For its time it was the mostaudacious essay in railway building the world hadknown, for be it known it was begun barely twentyyears after the first railroad had been built in theUnited States and before either railroad engineersor railroad labor had a recognized place in difficulties to be surmounted were of a sortthat no men had grappled with before. Engineershad learned how to cut down hills, tunnel mountains and bridge rivers, but tobuild a road bed firmenough to support heavytrains in a bottomlessswamp; to run a linethrough a jungle thatseemed to grow up againbefore the transit couldfollow the axe man; tograpple with a river thathad been known to riseforty feet in a day; to eatlunch standing thigh deepin water with friendlyalligators looking on fromadjacent logs, and to doall this amid the unceas-ing buzz of venomous 40 PANAMA AND THE CANAL. BY A COCLE BROOK insects whose sting, as welearned half a centurylater, carried the germs ofmalaria and yellow fever—this was a new draftupon engineering skill andendurance that mightwell stagger the best. Thedemand was met. Theroad was built, but at aheavy cost of life. Itused to be said that a lifewas the price of every tielaid, but this was a pic-turesque 6000 men in alldied during the construc-tion period. Henry Clay justifiedhis far-sightedness by se-curing, in 1835 the crea-tion of a commission toconsider the practicability of a trans-isthmian rail-road. A commissioner was appointed, secured a con-cession from what was then New Granada, died beforegetting home, and the whole matter was forgottenfor ten years. In this interim the French, for whomfrom the earliest days the Isthmus had a fascina-tion, secured a concession but were unable to raisethe money necessary for the roads 1849 three Americans
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Keywords: ., bookauthorabbotwil, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1913
