THE PANAMA CANAL.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 420, 1 February 1909, Page 11

THE PANAMA CANAL.

TO BE EINISHED IN FIVE YEARS. „

STORY OF A VISITOR

Mr. Geo. A. Walker, of Chicago, a coin'mer-" oial man and a traveller of wide experience, who is at >pres,ent in Wellington, visited Pahama a-year ago on business, and has some interesting things to'say regarding the big work which may mean much to this countij. "The excavating work is proceeding in fine shape/ , he says, "but what strikes ono is the big things that have been done to make the place sanitary. The Sanitary Board have cleaned up tho .place from end.to end The old towns and ruins of xowns have been swept away,"and new towns,have been built here and there along tho i'i ir.iles of canal , lijie on tho most improved, and saintaiy system. Each house ib surrounded by a broad verandah, and round the whole structure is it wire screen (made of some composition thatjWoh't rust) to keep out tho mosquitos. This is the same kind of screening wo have over our doors and windows, in the 'United States. . ,' ( , "Tho-houses are raised sevoral feet above the gronivl to allow the air to circulate, and the ground under each house is concreted Spcciarattention is given to the disposal of tho sowago, and the drinking-wfiter for everyone employed on tho works is distilled, and delivered to the houses, hotels, and moi},'e quartern m ten-gallon g?jss bottles JW the'result of all these precautions, there is now no yellow fever at Panama, and it is only in the rainy season that cases of malaria occur, and.then but rarely. ,"So stringent are tho rules that every iteamer, arriving at Panama is met, and pamphlets are 4 distributed to those on board telling them exactly what they should and raußt.dq. So effective were the arrangements hat I nevor saw a mosquito when t was there last February. ."There js a fino Government-owned hotel at Panama, equal to anv in New Zealand, arid' the visitor can travel the full length of canal—from coast to coast—and back again during the duy, and abo stop here and i there to inspect tho work going on. The biggest obstacle js the Culebra cut, from which 123 trains of steel trucks pull out daily— long trains pulled by 100-ton locomotivos. - "Tho pick and shovel men are mostly negroes—natives of Barbadoes and Jamaica, who can best stand tho climate. They have splendid quarters, and aro noil-fed, all the food being brought from the States in steamers fitted mth refrigerators. "Tho'work is being carried out under the War Department, and all tho engineers are Army engineers, who arc oidered to Panama as they would be ordered anywhere in ivar time It is a fine practical training for them, end rowarde aro k> bo had foi any specially good bit of work. The engineers aid not make the railway—that nas constructed across the isthmus ai far back as 1848, during tli* rush to the Cahfonuan goldflolds, to transport tho miners riom coast to coast" Mr , Walter said that in conversation with th* admmistrntois of the different divisions he gathered that, if no special obstacles 1 aros*, tho work should bo finished in fivo years,