Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . mericans work done by theFrenchmen ac-tually on theIsthmus whileriveting atten-tion on the black-mailers and para-sites in Paris whowere destroyingthe structure atits very founda-tions. It is sig-nificant that noneof the real work-ers on the canaldo this. Talkwith the engi-neers and youwill find thementhusiastic overthe engineering work done by the French. Thosesturdy, alert Americans who are now puttingthe Big Job through will take pains to givetheir predecessors the fullest credit for workdone, for dirt moved, for surveys made and formachinery d
Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . mericans work done by theFrenchmen ac-tually on theIsthmus whileriveting atten-tion on the black-mailers and para-sites in Paris whowere destroyingthe structure atits very founda-tions. It is sig-nificant that noneof the real work-ers on the canaldo this. Talkwith the engi-neers and youwill find thementhusiastic overthe engineering work done by the French. Thosesturdy, alert Americans who are now puttingthe Big Job through will take pains to givetheir predecessors the fullest credit for workdone, for dirt moved, for surveys made and formachinery designed—a great lot of it is in use onthe line today, including machines left exposed in thejungle twenty years. Hundreds of their buildingsare still in use. If, after listening to the honest andgenerous praise expressed by our engineers, the visitorwill go out to the cemetery of Mount Hope, nearCristobal, and read the lines on the headstones ofFrench boys who came out full of hope and ambitionto be cut down at twenty-two, twenty-five—all. NEAR THE PACIFIC ENTRANCE TO THE CANALThe suction dredge is an inheritance from the French and still working SOME OF THE FINISHED WORK OF THE FRENCH 115 boyish ages—he will reflect that it is ill to laughbecause the forlorn hope does not carry the breast-works, but only opens the way for the main there are many little French graveyards scat-tered about the Isthmus which make one who comesupon them unawares feel that the really vital thingabout the French connection with the canal was notthat the first blast which it had been prepared tocelebrate with some pomp failed to explode, or thatthe young engineers did not understand that cham- largely by our force in carrying material for theGatun dam. At the Pacific entrance they had duga narrow channel three miles long which we are stillusing. We paid the French company $40,000,000for all its rights on the Isthmus. There are variousrumors as to who got the money. Some, it isbelieved,
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Keywords: ., bookauthorabbotwil, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1913
