The Panama Canal

These efficiency records are told in the cost-keeping reports based upon one of the most careful and thorough cost-accounting systems ever devised. This system was instituted for the purpose of keeping a check upon all expenditures by reducing everything to a unit basis and then comparing the cost of doing the same thing at different places. For instance, if it were found that it cost more to excavate a cubic yard of material at one place than at another, under identical conditions, this fact was brought to the attention of the men responsible and an intimation given that there seemed to be room for taking up a little lost motion. The lost motion usually was recovered or else someone had to be satisfied that conditions were not identical after all.

In no other part of the canal work do these cost-keeping reports tell such a graphic story as in Culebra Cut. In spite of the fact that as the cut became deeper it became narrower, and the slides and breaks became more troublesome, to say nothing of the extra effort required to get the excavated material out of the cut, every unit cost was forced down notch by notch and year by year until the bottom in costs was reached only a little before the actual bottom of the cut was exposed to view.

For instance, in 1908 it cost 11¹⁄₂ cents a yard to load material with steam shovels, while in 1912 it cost less than 7 cents. In 1908 it cost more than 14 cents a yard for drilling and blasting; in 1912 it cost less than 12 cents. In 1908 it cost $18.54 to haul away a hundred yards of spoil; in 1912 it required only $13.31 to perform the same operation, although the average distance it had to be hauled had increased 50 per cent. In 1908 it cost more than 13 cents a yard to dump the material as compared with less than 5 cents in 1912. The whole operation of excavating and removing the material, including overhead charges and depreciation, fell from $1.03 a cubic yard in 1908 to less than 55 cents a yard in 1912. And that is why 232,000,000 cubic yards of material were removed for less than it was estimated 135,000,000 cubic yards would cost.

To remove the 105,000,000 cubic yards of earth from the backbone of the Americas required about 6,000,000 pounds of high-grade dynamite each year to break up the material, so that it might be successfully attacked by the steam shovels. To prepare the holes for placing the explosives required the services of 150 well drills, 230 tripod rock drills, and a large corps of hand drillers. Altogether they drilled nearly a thousand miles of holes annually. During every working day in the year about 600 holes were fired. They had an average depth of about 19 feet. In addition to this a hundred toe holes were fired each day, and as many more "dobe" blasts placed on top of large boulders to break them up into loadable sizes. So carefully was the dynamite handled that during a period of three years, in which time some 19,000,000 pounds were exploded in Culebra Cut, only eight men were killed.

The transportation of the spoil from Culebra Cut was a tremendous job. A large percentage of it was hauled out in Lidgerwood flat cars. Twenty-one cars made up the average Lidgerwood train. It required about 140 locomotives to take care of the spoil, and the average day saw nearly 3,700 cars loaded and hauled out of the cut. In a single year 1,116,286 carloads of material were hauled out. There were 75 trains in constant operation, for each 2¹⁄₂ miles of track in the Central Division, which was approximately 32 miles long. A huge steam shovel, taking up 5 yards of material at a mouthful, would load one of these trains in less than an hour with some 400 yards of material. Then the powerful locomotive attached to it, assisted by a helper engine, would pull the train out of the cut, and then, unassisted, would haul it to the dumping ground some 12 miles or more away.

Arriving near the scene of the dump, another engine, having in front of it a huge horizontal steam windlass mounted on a flat car, was hooked on the rear end of the train. Then the locomotive which had brought the train to the dump was uncoupled and moved away, and in its stead there was attached an empty flat car, on which there was a huge plow. A long wire cable was stretched from the big windlass at the other end of the train and attached to this plow. As the drum of the windlass began to turn it gradually drew the plow forward over the 21 cars, plowing the material off as it went forward. The cars were equipped with a high sideboard on one side and had none at all on the other. A flat surface over which the plow could pass from car to car was made by hinging a heavy piece of sheet steel to the front end of each car and allowing it to cover the break between that car and the next, thus affording a practically continuous car floor over 800 feet long. The operation of unloading 400 yards of material with this plow seldom required more than 10 minutes.

After the plow had finished its work it left a long string of spoil on one side of the track which must be cleared away. So another plow, pushed by an engine, attacked the spoil and forced it down the embankment. This process of unloading and spreading the material was kept up until the embankment became wide enough to permit the track to be shifted over. Here another especially designed machine, the track shifter, was brought into play. It was a sort of derrick mounted on a flat car, and with it the track shifters were able to pick up a piece of track and lift it over to the desired position. With this machine a score of men could do the work that without it would have required a gang of 600 men.

In addition to the Lidgerwood dirt trains there were a large number of trains made up of steel dump cars which were dumped by compressed air, and still other trains made up of small hand-dumped cars, and each class found its own peculiar uses.

As has been said, the problem of digging the big ditch has been one of the transportation of the spoil, and this has involved numerous difficulties. In Culebra Cut no little difficulty was experienced in keeping open enough tracks to afford the necessary room for dirt trains. Slides came down and forced track after track out of alignment, burying some of them beyond the hope of usable recovery; often the very bottom of the cut itself heaved up under the stress of the heavy weight of faulty strata on the sides of the mountain; and sometimes the slides and breaks threatened entirely to shut up one end of the cut.

In hauling away the spoil one improvement after another was made in the interest of efficiency. It was found at first that the capacity of a big Lidgerwood flat car was only about 16 cubic yards, and that with a sideboard on only one side of the car, the load did not center well on the car, thus placing an undue strain on the wheels on one side. The transportation department, therefore, extended the bed of the car further out over the wheels on the open side, and this served a triple purpose—it permitted the steam shovels to load the cars so that the load rested in the center, increased the capacity of each car by about 3 yards, and permitted the unloader plow to throw the spoil further from the track, thus adding to the efficiency of the dumping apparatus.

Frequent breaks in the trains were caused by worn couplers. These accidents were almost entirely overcome by equipping each train with a sort of "bridle" which prevented the separation of the cars in the event of the parting of a defective coupler. In the operation of the unloader plows it was found that the big cables frequently broke when a plow would strike an obstruction on the car, and this caused no end of annoyance and frequent delays. Then someone thought of putting between the cable and the plow a link whose breaking point was lower than that of the cable. After that when a plow struck an obstruction the cable did not part—the link simply gave way, and another was always at hand. On the big spreaders no less than 51 improvements were made, each the answer of the engineers to some challenge from the stubborn material with which they had to contend.

The major portion of the material excavated from the canal had to be hauled out and dumped where it was of no further use. From the Central Division alone, which includes Culebra Cut, upward of a hundred million cubic yards of material was hauled away and dumped as useless. At Tabernilla one dump contained nearly 17,000,000 cubic yards. A great deal of spoil, however, was used to excellent advantage. Wherever there was swampy ground contiguous to the permanent settlements it was covered over with material from the cut and brought up above the water level. Many hundreds of acres were thus converted from malaria-breeding grounds into high and dry lands.

During the last stages of the work in Culebra Cut it was found that some of the slides were so bad that they were breaking back of the crest of the hills that border the cut. Therefore it was found to be feasible to attack the problem by sluicing the material down the side of the hills into the valley beyond. To this end a big hydraulic plant which had been used on the Pacific end of the canal was brought up and installed beyond the east bank of the cut. A reservoir of water was impounded and tremendous pumps installed. They pumped a stream of water 40 inches in diameter. This was gradually tapered down to a number of 4-inch nozzles, and out of these spouted streams of water with a pressure of 80 pounds to the square inch. These streams ate away the dirt at a rapid rate.

The slides did not hold up the completion of the canal a minute, at least to the point of usability. The day that the lock gates were ready there was water enough in the canal to carry the entire American navy from ocean to ocean. That day the big dredges from the Atlantic and the Pacific were brought into the cut, and with them putting the finishing touches on the slides at the bottom, and the hydraulic excavators attacking them at the top, the problem of the slides was solved.

Viewing Culebra Cut in retrospect, it proved an immensely less difficult task than some prophesied, and a much more serious one than others predicted. There were those who opposed the building of the Panama Canal because of the belief that Culebra Cut could not be dug, that Culebra Mountain was an effective barrier to human ambition. Also, there were those who asserted that Gold Hill and Contractor's Hill were in danger of sliding into the big ditch and that they were mountains which neither the faith nor the pocketbooks of the Americans could remove. Others saw the handwriting of Failure on the wall in the heaving up of the bottom of the cut, interpreting this as a movement from the very depths of the earth. Still others saw it in the smoke that issued from fissures in the cut, which spoke to them of volcanoes being unearthed and told them that the Babel of American ambitions must totter to the ground. They did not know that these were only little splotches of decomposing metals suddenly exposed to the air, any more than their fellow pessimists knew that the heaving up of the bottom of the cut was due to the pressure of the earth on the adjacent banks.

To-day Culebra Mountain bows its lofty head to the genius of the American engineer and to the courage of the canal army. Through its vitals there runs a great artificial canyon nearly 9 miles long, 300 feet wide at its bottom, in places as much as a half mile wide at its top and nearly 500 feet deep at the deepest point. Out of it there was taken 105,000,000 cubic yards of material, and at places it cost as much as $15,000,000 a mile to make the excavations. Through it now extends a great ribbon of water broad enough to permit the largest vessels afloat to pass one another under their own power, and deep enough to carry a ship with a draft beyond anything in the minds of naval constructors to-day. With towering hills lining it on either side, with banks that are precipitous here and farflung there, with great and deep recesses at one place and another telling of the gigantic breaks and slides with which the men who built it had to contend, going through Culebra Cut gives to the human heart a thrill such as the sight of no other work of the human hand can give. Its magnitude, its awe-inspiring aspect as one navigates the channel between the two great hills which stand like sentinels above it, and the memory of the thousands of tons of dynamite, the hundreds of millions of money and the vast investment of brain and brawn required in its digging, all conspire to make the wonder greater. It is the mightiest deed the hand of man has done.

CHAPTER VII

As one travels along the Pacific end of the canal he is reminded of the words of Isaiah:

"Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain."

Hundreds of acres of low, marshy land have been filled up, either with mud from the suction dredges and the hydraulic excavators, or with spoil from Culebra Cut. Much of this made land will be valuable for tropical agriculture, while other parts will never serve any purpose other than to keep down the marshes. But they afforded a dumping ground for material taken out of the canal prism, and added something to the improvement of health and living conditions on the Isthmus.

Probably the most interesting process of excavation in the sea-level channels was that of the sea-going suction dredges. These dredges took out material more cheaply than any other kind of excavating machinery used on the Isthmus. Two of them were put to work in 1908, about the time the operations reached full-blast and have been kept in commission ever since. While it cost as much as $70,000 a year to keep each one in commission, they were able to maintain an annual average of about 5,000,000 cubic yards of material excavated at a cost per yard of 5 cents and even less. With steam shovels it ranged from 10 to 20 times as much per yard. These big dredges were built with great bins in their holds and equipped with powerful 20-inch centrifugal pumps. When at work they steamed up and down the channel, sucking up the mud, and carrying it out to sea.

Another interesting dredge used was the big ladder dredge Corozal. It is a great floating dock, as it were, with a huge endless chain carrying 52 immense, 35-cubic-foot buckets. On the center line amidships there is a large opening down to the water. The big elevator framework carrying the endless chain goes down through this and into the water at a considerable angle. The buckets pass around this, and as they round the end of it their great steel lips dig down into the material until filled, then they come up at the rate of three every five seconds and deposit their burden in a huge hopper which conveys it to the barge at the side of the dredge. The dredge is anchored fast at a given place, and keeps on attacking the material beneath it until the desired level is reached. This dredge, with the sea-going suction dredges, will be retained as the permanent dredging fleet. The stationary suction dredges at the two ends of the canal were used to pump up the soft material and to force it out through long pipe lines into the swamps or into the hydraulic cores of the earth dams.

Several old French ladder dredges were rescued from the jungle and put into commission at the beginning of the work, and they held out faithfully to the end, dividing honors with the newer equipment in hastening the day when the oceans might go inland to Gatun and Miraflores. While they looked like toys beside such giant excavators as the Corozal, they probably showed more efficiency than any other class of excavators of their period of construction. They were attended by large self-propelling scows built by the French. When these were filled they steamed out to sea and dumped their burden and then steamed back again for another load. Some of the dredges were attended by ordinary barges which were towed out to sea by tugs and dumped.

Another interesting machine used on the Pacific end of the canal was the Lobnitz rock breaker. This consists of a sort of pile driver mounted on a large barge. Instead of a pile driving weight there is a big battering ram made of round steel, pointed at one end. It is lifted up perhaps 10 feet and allowed to drop suddenly. As some of these rams weigh as much as 25 tons their striking force may be imagined. When the ram struck the rock the top would shake back and forth like a bamboo pole, in spite of the fact that it was made of the best steel and more than 15 inches in diameter. Sooner or later the rams would break off at the water line, this being due to the fact that the constant flexion at that point set the molecules in the steel and took away all its elasticity.

It was found desirable to excavate a part of the sea-level channel before the water was let into it. To accomplish this a big dam, or dike, was built across the channel several miles inland, and steam shovels were used behind this dike. As the work neared completion, however, it was found advisable to let the water come further inland, so that the dredges could extend the field of their activities. To do this another dike was thrown across the channel about a mile north of the first one, and water was admitted to the section of the big ditch between these two dikes. The engineers were afraid to cut a small ditch in the top of the first dike, and allow the water to eat the dam away as it flowed in, for fear that it would rush in so rapidly it would destroy the second dike. Therefore they filled the basin between the two dikes by siphon and by pumping, a process which required the drawing in of billions of gallons of water. This was accomplished in due time, however, and then 16 tons of dynamite was placed in the no longer useful dike. An electric spark did the rest.

The distinguishing features of the ends of the canal are the big breakwaters at Toro Point, at the Atlantic end, and Naos Island, at the Pacific end. The former extends from the shore out into the sea for a distance of 2 miles and has a large lighthouse at the seaward end. It was built by dumping stone from the shore out into the sea, this process being followed by driving piles into the dumped stone and building a railroad on the crest, over which the stone was hauled for its further extension. The top of the breakwater is covered with huge stones weighing from 8 to 20 tons each, these to make sure that it will stand against the pounding of the waves. Two minor breakwaters were also built at the Atlantic end to protect the terminal basin.

The big dike at Naos Island in the Pacific is more than 17,000 feet long and transforms the island into the cape of a small peninsula. There was a threefold purpose in its construction—to cut out the cross currents that brought thousands of yards of sand and silt into the canal channel, to afford a dumping place for a large quantity of the spoil from Culebra Cut, and to make a connection with the mainland for the fortifications on Naos, Flamenco, and Perico Islands. In building it the engineers were under the necessity of first building a trestle on which the spoil trains could be backed and dumped. The piles had to be driven in soft, blue mud, and as the rock was dumped, it sank down and down until, at places, ten times as much stone was required as would have been necessary if the ocean bottom had been firm. In addition to this thousands of trainloads of material were dumped in the landward end of the dike, some 20,000,000 cubic yards of material being thus disposed of.

The last part of the canal work to be completed will be the terminal facilities at the ends of the big waterway. At the time this book went to press they were something more than a year from completion, but the indications were that they would be finished within the time limit originally set for the completion of the canal itself. These terminal facilities consist of dry docks, wharfage space, storehouses, and everything else necessary to perform any service that might ordinarily be required for passing ships, whether they be those of commerce or of war. The main coaling station is to be established at the Atlantic end. The storehouses, the laundry, the bakery, and the other equipment of the Isthmian Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad also will be made a part of the permanent terminal plant on that side of the Isthmus.

A large dry dock is being built at the Pacific end having the same usable dimensions as the canal locks, capable of accommodating any vessel that can pass through the canal. The principal machine shops will also be erected there, and a coaling plant of half the capacity of the one at the Atlantic end will be provided. A little to the east of the Pacific terminal works will be stationed the capital of the Canal Zone, where the administrative offices, the governor's residence, and two new towns will be built. The administration building, which is to be a three-story structure of concrete, hollow tile, and structural steel, is to occupy an eminence on the side of Ancon Hill, which will afford a splendid view of the Pacific fortifications, the entrance to the canal channel, a part of the port works, and of the canal itself from the great continental divide to the Pacific.

There one may sit and see ships coming into the canal, tying up at the docks, sailing up the big ditch, and passing through the locks at Miraflores and Pedro Miguel. Near by will be the permanent home of the marines who will be stationed on the Isthmus, their barracks and grounds occupying the broad plateau on the side of Ancon Hill made by taking out the millions of cubic yards of stone required for the concrete works on the Pacific side of the Isthmus. Two permanent towns will be built at Balboa, one for the Americans and the other for the common laborers. The American town will be built under the capitol hill on a broad plain that was made by pumping hydraulic material into a swamp and by dumping spoil from Culebra Cut.

When the terminal plant at Balboa is completed it will represent probably the most extensive and adequate port works in the New World. In addition to the main dry dock it will have a second one which will be smaller, but which will be large enough to accommodate a majority of the ships that will pass through the canal. The existing dry dock at the Atlantic end will be continued in service.

It is certain that none of these port works will ever fail by reason of insecure foundations. Wherever unusual loads were to be carried great piers of reinforced concrete were sent down to solid rock, often a distance of 60 feet below the surface. They consisted of a hollow shell of reinforced concrete which was allowed to sink to hardpan of its own accord or under heavy weight. These shells were built in sections 6 feet high. The bottom section was 10 feet in diameter, and the lower end was equipped with a sharp steel shoe. As the section cut down into the earth of its own weight and that above it, laborers on the inside removed the material under the shoe and as they did so it sank further down. The sections above were only 8 feet in diameter, and did not quite fill up the hole made by the bottom of the section, thus overcoming all skin friction, and permitting the full weight of the series of sections to fall on the lower one. A jet of water was forced around the sinking pier all the time it was going down, and this made its progress the more easy. At times the weight of the superimposed sections was sufficient to force the pier down through the soft mud, while at other times the material became so heavy that even a 25-ton weight on top of the pier scarcely moved it. At one place a stratum of material was struck about 25 feet below the surface which yielded sulphuretted hydrogen gas. This affected the laborers' eyes, and some of them had to go to the hospital for treatment. The work of digging out the material was continued until the lower section reached bed rock, where it was anchored. The sections themselves were tied together with heavy iron rods. After they were firmly in place the interior was filled up with concrete, itself reinforced, so that the foundations became, in reality, a series of huge concrete piles, 8 feet in diameter, anchored to bed rock.

The coaling plants at the two terminals will be the crowning features of the terminal facilities. With an immense storage capacity, and with every possible facility for the rapid handling of coal, both in shipping and unshipping it, no other canal in the world will be so well equipped. The coal storage basin at the Atlantic end will hold nearly 300,000 tons. This basin will be built of reinforced concrete, and will permit the flooding of the coal pile so that one-half of it will be stored under water for war purposes. It is said that deterioration in coal is not as great in subaqueous storage, and at the same time the pile is less subject to fire. The plant will be able to discharge a thousand tons of coal an hour and to load 2,000 tons an hour. Ships will not go alongside the wharves to be coaled, but will lie out in the ship basin and be coaled from barges with reloader outfits. Special efforts have been made to provide for the quick loading of colliers in case of war. The coal handling plant at the Pacific entrance will have a normal capacity of 135,000 tons and will be able to handle half as much coal in a given time as the one at the Atlantic end.

There will be big supply depots where ships can get any kind of stores they need from a few buckets of white lead to an anchor or a hawser; a laundry in which a ship's wash can be accepted at the hour it begins its transit of the canal, for delivery by railroad at the other end before it is ready to resume its ocean journey; an ice plant which will replenish the cold storage compartments of ships lacking such facilities. In short, it is proposed to attempt to do everything that may be done to make more attractive the bid of the canal for its share of business.

CHAPTER VIII

When the United States took over the road someone described it as being merely "two streaks of rust and a right of way." While the Panama road as acquired by the United States in its purchase of the assets of the new French Canal Company might have been all that this phrase implies, it was none the less as great a bargain as was ever bought by any Government, and probably the greatest bargain ever sold in the shape of a railroad. It was not the rolling stock that was valuable, nor yet the road itself; the real value was to be found in the possibilities of the concession. Not only was this road destined to render to the United States a service in the building of the Panama Canal, worth to Uncle Sam a great many times more than its cost, but it was also destined to yield a net profit from its commercial operations which in 10 years would amount to double the price paid for it. Since the Americans took it over it has been yielding net returns ranging from a million and a quarter to a million and three-quarters dollars a year. In these 10 years it has brought an aggregate profit of some $15,000,000 into the coffers of the United States.

While $7,000,000 may have been a high price, judged from the standpoint of the physical value of the road, it was a very reasonable one, indeed, as compared with the price paid for it by the new French Canal Company. This company, which sold it to the United States for $7,000,000, paid the Panama Railroad Company $18,000,000 for it 23 years before. When the French Canal Company decided to undertake the building of the canal, it found that the Panama Railroad Company held concessions that were absolutely necessary to the construction of the canal. The Colombian Government had granted the company the concession to complete the road in 1849, and had agreed that no other interoceanic communication should be opened without the consent of the railroad. This gave to the railroad company the whip hand in trading with the canal company and it was able to name its own price.

When the United States wanted to buy the rights and properties of the new French Canal Company the shoe was on the other foot. There was only one buyer—the United States; and it could choose between the Panama and Nicaragua routes. If the United States did not buy the property its principal value would have been what it was worth as an uncertain prospect that at some future time a second Isthmian canal might be built. That is why the United States was able to buy from the French for $7,000,000 property that they had bought for $18,000,000.

After the United States acquired possession of the railroad, one change after another took place—now in the location, now in the rolling stock, now in directorate, and again in location—until almost all that remained of the original road was its name. It is now built almost every foot of the distance on a new location and the permanent Panama Railroad is a thoroughly modern, well-ballasted, heavy-railed, block-signal operated line of railway, built along the east bank of the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Nearly half of the old right of way lies on the bottom of Lake Gatun, while the new line skirts that artificial body of water along its eastern shore, at places crossing its outlying arms over big bridges and heavy trestles. The construction of this new line was attended with much difficulty and probably no other road in the world has such a great percentage of fills and embankments in proportion to its length. One embankment, a mile and a quarter long and 82 feet high, required upward of 2,500,000 yards of material for its construction. The road is built about 10 feet above the water's edge, and more than 12,000,000 cubic yards of material was required to make the fills necessary to carry the road bed at this elevation.

When the United States took over the French property it was decided that the canal work and the railroad operations should be maintained as distinct activities. It was agreed that the Canal Commission should have the right to haul its dirt trains over the Panama Railroad, and in compensation therefor the commission undertook to build a new road to take the place of the old line, which was in the way of the completion of the canal.

The work of relocating the road was undertaken early in the construction of the canal in order that it might be completed by the time the old road had to be abandoned. It was built at a cost of approximately $9,000,000, or close to $170,000 a mile. It is interesting to note that the cost of this thoroughly modern railroad was only about a million dollars more than the cost of the first Panama road which has been built with rather less than usual attention to grades, and with small rails and light bridges. The relocated Panama Railroad was turned over to the railroad company in 1912.

How good a bargain the United States secured when it acquired the Panama Railroad is shown by the fact that during the 10 years of canal work the net earnings of the railroad company have reimbursed the United States for the cost of the old road and the construction of the new one, to say nothing of the invaluable aid rendered in the building of the canal.

The relations existing between the Isthmian Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad Company during the years of the construction of the canal were somewhat peculiar. The Panama Railroad Company is as much the property of the United States as the canal itself, yet the books of the two organizations were kept as carefully separate and distinct as though they were under entirely different ownership. The Panama Railroad Company, being a chartered corporation, under the terms of its ownership could engage in commercial business with all of the facility of a private corporation. Money received by the Isthmian Canal Commission from outside sources had to be covered into the treasury and reappropriated for distinct and special purposes. On the other hand, the railroad company could use its money over and over again without turning it back into the treasury. This advantage of operation was a useful one in conducting the road itself, and also in the construction of the canal.

There was another reason which led the canal authorities to advocate the maintenance of the two organizations as separate entities. This had to do with the concession rights. Under the terms of the concession of the railroad company the property was to revert to the Republic of Colombia in 1967, or at any earlier date should the company cease to exist as such. While most authorities agree that with the secession of Panama and the setting up of the new Government all of Colombia's rights in the railroad company passed with the territory, and while the treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama expressly provides that the United States shall have "absolute title—free from every present or reversionary interest or claim" in the railroad, the Republic of Colombia contends that it possesses some rights with reference to the railroad and, not desiring to complicate matters, the canal authorities thought it best to live up to the letter of the treaty, in spite of Panama's express grant of title free from reversionary interest or claim.

While it was deemed desirable to have the Panama Railroad operated as a separate organization, it was equally important that it should be operated in a way that its interests always would be subordinate to those of the canal. It was decided that the best way to accomplish this was to make the chairman and chief engineer of the Canal Commission the president of the railroad company, and the members of the commission its directors. The stock of the company is held in the name of the Secretary of War, with the exception of a few shares held by the directors to entitle them to membership on the board. There are also a few directors chosen from other parts of the Government service, but their activities are purely perfunctory.

In addition to the railroad, the Panama Railroad Company also operates a steamship line between New York and Colon. This line was acquired with other properties of the new French Canal Company as a part of the Panama Railroad's holdings. There were only a few years during the construction period when this steamship line did not show a loss. But the advantages of having a steamship line for carrying the supplies of the canal were so great, because of the special facilities that could be provided, that the loss was more than compensated by them. During the year 1912 the cost of operating this steamship line was $305,000 greater than the revenues derived from its operation. But, at the same time there was a return of net earnings by the Panama Railroad of over $2,000,000, at least a part of which was made possible by the operation of the steamship line. Even after deducting the losses sustained in the operation of the steamship company there was a net profit of more than $1,700,000, which for a railroad of less than 50 miles in length is no small item.

As a matter of fact, Government ownership of railways as applied at Panama is remarkably successful from the standpoint of the Government, and partially so to the patrons of the railroad. Probably no railroad in the United States could show net earnings per mile of line anywhere comparable with those of the Panama Railroad.

The rates for passengers and baggage across the Isthmus were rather high for first-class passengers, the fare for the 48-mile trip being $2.40, or 5 cents a mile. The second-class rate was only half as much. On the handling of freight the railroad had to divide the through rate with the steamship companies of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but, while the rates were high, judged by American standards, and the percentages of profits very large, the service maintained was so superior to that encountered on the privately owned railroads of the Tropics that no one ever seriously complained of the charges.

One of the most important services rendered by the Panama Railroad Company in the construction of the canal was in connection with the commissary. It had more to do with the maintenance of a reasonable standard of living cost on the Isthmus than anything else.

When the canal was nearing completion it became advisable to determine what rôle the Panama Railroad should play after the permanent organization went into effect. Should it be continued as a separate entity distinct from the canal but controlled by the canal authorities? Or should it be merged into the Canal Government and operated purely as an auxiliary of the canal with no separate existence? This matter was carefully weighed by the canal authorities and the Government at Washington, and it was finally decided that the best plan would be to operate them as separate entities, but to have all the work done by single organization. Another question that arose was whether the Panama Railroad Steamship Line should be operated as a Government line after the completion of the canal. Recalling the fact that the line never had been a profitable one, and that there was no further reason why it should be continued in operation with an annual deficit, the recommendation was made by the chairman and the chief engineer that the ships should be disposed of and the line discontinued.

As the tide of tourist travel set toward Panama, the serious problem of taking care of thousands of visitors confronted the canal authorities. There were times when every available facility for taking care of lodgers was called into requisition, and still hundreds of American tourists had to find quarters in cheap, vermin-infested native hotels at Colon. Believing that the situation demanded a modern hotel at the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, and having in mind the success of the Government in the construction and maintenance of the Tivoli Hotel at the Pacific side, it was decided by the Secretary of War that the Panama Railroad Company should build a new hotel at Colon, to be operated by that company for the Government. The result was the beautiful Washington Hotel, in whose architecture one finds the world's best example of northern standards of hotel construction adapted to tropical needs.

Built of concrete and cement block, it is constructed in a modified Spanish Mission style that makes it cool and comfortable at all times. Its public rooms, from the main lobby to the dining-rooms, from the ladies' parlor to the telephone and cable rooms, from the barber shop to the billiard room, are large, airy, and most attractively furnished. Its ball room, opening on three sides to the breezes borne in from the Caribbean is a delight to the disciples of Terpsichore, while its open-air swimming pool, said to be the largest hotel swimming pool in the world, affords ideal facilities for those who otherwise would sigh for the surf. Persons who have visited every leading hotel in the New World, from the Rio Grande southward to the Strait of Magellan, say that it is without a superior in all that region and, perhaps, without an equal except for one in Buenos Aires.

Here one may find accommodations to suit his taste and largely to meet the necessities of his pocketbook. The best rooms with bath cost $5 a day for one, or $6 for two. Table d'hote meals are served at $1 each, while those who prefer it may secure club breakfasts and a la carte service. Anyone who has visited the Hotel Washington, situated as it is on Colon Beach, where the breakers sweep in from the Caribbean Sea, feels that Uncle Sam is no less successful as a hotel keeper than as a builder of canals.

The Panama Railroad, under the American régime, has always looked well after the comfort of its patrons. The coaches are of the standard American type, and enough of them are run on every train to make it certain that no patron need stand for lack of a seat. The most popular trains carry from 8 to 12 cars. These trains are run on convenient schedules, permitting a person to go and come from any point on the road in any forenoon or afternoon. All coaches are supplied with hygienic drinking cups, and in every way the Panama Railroad shows that Uncle Sam is solicitous for the welfare of his patrons.

All the rolling stock on the Isthmus is built on a 5-foot gauge, this having been the gauge of the original Panama Railroad. As the rolling stock of the Canal Commission had to run over the lines of the Panama Railroad, it also was built on the gauge. When this rolling stock is disposed of it will be necessary to readjust the gauge to meet the ordinary American standard which is 2¹⁄₂ inches narrower. It has been estimated that the engine axles can be shortened for $750 per locomotive and those of cars at prices ranging from $27 to $31 per car.

The first attempt to build the Panama Railroad was made in 1847, when a French company secured a charter from the Government of Colombia for a building of a road across the Isthmus. This company was unable to finance the project and the concession lapsed.

In 1849 William H. Aspinwall, John L. Stevens, and Henry Chauncey, New York capitalists, undertook the construction of the road. The terms of the concession provided that the road would be purchased by the Government at the expiration of 20 years after its completion for $5,000,000. The loss of life in the construction of this road, serious as it was, has been monumentally exaggerated. It is an oft-repeated statement that a man died for every tie laid on the road. This would mean that there were 150,000 deaths in its construction. As a matter of fact, the total number of persons employed during the six years the line was being built did not exceed 6,000. But among these the death rate was very high. Several thousand Chinese were brought over and they died almost like flies. Malaria and yellow fever were the great scourges they had to encounter, although smallpox and other diseases carried away hundreds.

The road was completed in January, 1855. Before the last rail was laid more than $2,000,000 had been taken in for hauling passengers as far as the road extended. The way in which the original 50-cent per mile rate across the Isthmus was established is interesting. The chief engineer encountered much trouble from people who wanted to use the road as far inland as it went from Colon, so he suggested that a 50-cent rate be established, thinking to make it prohibitory. But the people who wanted to cross the Isthmus were willing to pay even 50 cents a mile. Hence for years after the completion of the road the passenger rate continued at $25 for the one-way trip across the Isthmus.

The railroad proved to be such an unexpectedly good investment that the Republic of Colombia began to establish its claim to acquire ownership of the road at the expiration of the 2-year term, which would take place in 1875. It was necessary therefore, that the railroad company should take steps to save the railroad from a forced sale with $5,000,000 as the consideration. Representatives were dispatched to Bogota with instructions to get an extension of the concession under the most favorable terms possible. As it was realized that the Republic of Colombia held the whip hand in the negotiations, the railroad company understood that if it wished to escape selling its great revenue producing road for $5,000,000 it would have to meet any terms Colombia might dictate. The result of this mission was an agreement by the railroad that in consideration of an extension of the concession for a term of 99 years it would pay to the Colombian Government $1,000,000 spot cash and $250,000 a year during the life of the concession. That annual payment was continued as long as the Isthmus remained a part of the Republic of Colombia. Under the terms of the treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama it was resumed again in 1913, to be paid by the United States to the Republic of Panama throughout all the years that the United States maintains and operates the Panama Canal.

CHAPTER IX

When one looks about in an effort to place the credit for these great sanitary achievements he must go back to Cuba, where the yellow fever commission, consisting of Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agrimonte, made the remarkable investigations proving that yellow fever is transmissible only through the bite of a mosquito. He must go still further back to Maj. Roland Ross of the British Army, and his epoch-making discovery that malaria is conveyed only by the bite of another kind of mosquito. And, if he is just to all who have contributed to the establishment of the insect-bearing theory of disease, he must not forget Sir Patrick Manson who first proved that any disease could be transmitted by insect bites. It was he who discovered that filariasis is transmissible by this method alone. It was from him that Ross gathered the inspiration that is releasing humanity from one of the most insidious of all the diseases to which mortal flesh is heir. And it was from Ross's malaria discoveries, in turn, that Reed carried forward to successful proof the theory which had persisted in some quarters for generations that yellow fever was transmissible through mosquitoes; a theory already partially proved by Dr. Carlos Finley, of Havana, 20 years earlier.