The man who is in charge of most of the mammoth undertaking in and around this seaport now bears the title of colonel. Before he entered his country’s service for the duration of the war he was known as one of the greatest engineers in America. His largest feat was the canal which connects Lake Washington with Puget Sound. To build this canal, which flows through the heart of the city of Seattle, the waters of the big lake, which is nearly twenty miles long, had to be lowered nine feet. To a man who could do that without difficulty or serious accident the work undertaken by our army forces in France was a mere matter of taking one step after another. The first step was getting men, and there was no difficulty about that. The draft furnished the men, or at least the mass of them. Voluntary enlistment furnished experts in various lines. And splendid men they are, those American builders in France. Of one regiment of engineers working for the most part as day laborers there fully sixty per cent. are college graduates. This seaport lies at one end of a vast railroad system which is carrying our men and all the army supplies from the ocean to the fighting front. It is a good harbor and a famous one from the time of the Romans and even further back than the Romans. But for present-day war needs it is not good enough. It has sandbars and shallows, so one of the engineering feats our men are doing is the deepening of that harbor to admit the largest ships. Another feat is the enlarging of docking facilities so that supplies for an army of three or four million men may be quickly unloaded. Another still is the building of a five-track spur from the docks to the main line of railroad. It would take many chapters to describe adequately all the construction work that is being done in and around this one city in southern France. Perhaps it is nobody’s fault on this side of the Atlantic that a great deal of the work has been delayed for lack of tools and machinery, but delayed it has been. For example, pile drivers that were urgently needed came slowly, and when they came were found to be relics of the past and practically useless. Locomotives of the vintage of 1868 were grudgingly furnished, and important work was held up while they were put into shape. Steam shovels came a piece at a time. But no matter. The engineers hustled while they waited and built with what material they had on hand. If Germany has spies in those camps, and if they have contrived to make reports on what is happening there, the knowledge will bring no comfort to Emperor William and his junkers. The Potsdam fire department which was to dispose of all the army that the United States could send to Europe will be assigned to a simpler task. The mere personnel of that working force of engineers in southern France is enough to make the Germans turn pale.