Panama and the canal . e diseases that lurk in tlie filtli ofthe cities and the deadly air of the swamps. Consumption,typhoid, malaria, plague, and yellow fever, cut down therailroads workmen until the wonder is that the road waseyer completed. Be\ond the Chagres ri\er Are the paths that lead to death—To the fe^e^s deadly malarias poisonous breath! It has been said that one life \\as sacrificed for eyerycross-tie on the railroad track. This is, no doubt, total loss of life was about 2,500. It was a fight ofAmerican daring against terrible odds. liut such engi-neers as Col
Panama and the canal . e diseases that lurk in tlie filtli ofthe cities and the deadly air of the swamps. Consumption,typhoid, malaria, plague, and yellow fever, cut down therailroads workmen until the wonder is that the road waseyer completed. Be\ond the Chagres ri\er Are the paths that lead to death—To the fe^e^s deadly malarias poisonous breath! It has been said that one life \\as sacrificed for eyerycross-tie on the railroad track. This is, no doubt, total loss of life was about 2,500. It was a fight ofAmerican daring against terrible odds. liut such engi-neers as Colonel George Totten and James Baldwin weresuperior to all the evil powers of the jungle, and the roadwas built. Eight million dollars,—five years of exhausting labor,— io6 THE RAILROAD COMPLETED over two thousand lives,—that was the price paid for forty-eight miles of railroad away off in Panama. On the 27th of January, 1855, a strange sight was seen inthe City of Panama,—the first locomotive that ever crossed. Here at Last Was a Railroad Across the Isthmus. the American continent from ocean to ocean,—and this,too, fourteen years before it was possible to cross the United„. , „ States by rail from the Atlantic to the Pacific. First Trans- • continental Here at last was a railroad across the Isth- mus. Shiploads of goods headed for thePacific need no longer be sent on the long journey aroundSouth America. Commerce came to Panama at once. Even SUCCESS 107 before it was completed, the road liad talicn in more tliantwo million dollars. It soon made fortunes for its builders,and has paitl handsomeb* e\er since. In the first forty-se\enyears this little railroad earned nearh $38,000,000 of clearprofit for its owners. Surely a railroad can haxe a storv as romantic as thebloody career of a i/anii of pirates, even thouQ;h led bv IlenrvMorran. CHAPTER IX WATERWAYS ACROSS CENTRAL AMERICA In the first part of our story of Panama we learned thatthe greatest disappointment o
Size: 1907px × 1311px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidcu3192401401, bookyear1910
