The Cast of Victory.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 23 October 1914, Page 8

The Cast of Victory.

Fighting the forces of Nature is an expensive business both in life and money. The Panama. Canal, which now joins ,the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, has cost thousands of men their'lives, in addition to the £80,----000,000 that it has cost to make. When this gigantic task was first undertaken :by De Lesseps, for the French, he was: told on all sides that he was attempting; the impossible, and sul (sequent events seemed to show this to be the case, j Workmen died from foyer like flies, and the difficulties were such that eventually the work was abandoned, the greater part of' the costly' machinery being left to the 'tender-mercies of af.ropical climate. In all about £15,000,000 was entirely lost. In 1901- the United States undertook to carry on the work, and, since then and now, have spent an additional' £65,000,000. Forty thousand 'men have worked"-unceas-ingly, beset by' flood, fire, landslides, earthquakes, and disease. /But Nature has had to give in, and today the Panama Canal is an accomplished' fact. -