Joseph Pennell's pictures of the Panama Canal

THE idea of going to Panama to make lithographs of the Canal was mine. I suggested it, and the Century Magazine and Illustrated London News offered to print some of the drawings I might make.Though I suggested the scheme a couple of years ago, it was not until January, 1912, that I was able to go—and then I was afraid it was too late—afraid the work was finished and that there would be nothing to see, for photographs taken a year or eighteen months before, showed some of the locks built and their gates partly in place.