The Panama Canal and Its Makers the Rise and Progress of South American Republics

AT the present moment the Canal Zone of the Isthmus of Panama is the most interesting place in the world. Here is gathered an army of 40,000 men engaged in the epoch-making work of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and here is the greatest collection of machinery ever massed for the accomplishment of one undertaking.

If the present rate of progress continue unchecked, the Canal, it is calculated, will be opened in 1915. Then will that Isthmus, which has hitherto been a barrier between two oceans but has failed to act as a bridge between two continents, be pierced by a waterway capable of floating the largest ships now built or building. Then will the Pacific coasts of the Americas be accessible from ports on both sides of the Atlantic without the necessity of a voyage by the Straits of Magellan. Then will the distance from New York to San Francisco be shortened by 8,400 and that from Liverpool by 6,000 miles; the distance from New York to South American ports will be shortened by an average of 5,000 and that from Liverpool to these ports by an average of 2,600 miles: then for the first time Yokohama on the north and Sydney on the south will be brought nearer to New York than to Liverpool or Antwerp, and then will New Orleans and the ports on the Mexican Gulf be brought nearer than New York, by sea, to San Francisco, South America beyond Pernambuco, Australia, and Japan.