The receiver of the Panama Canal Company assisted in the organization of another company known as the New Panama Canal Company. With a working capital of $13,000,000, it excavated more than 12,000,000 cubic yards of material. In 1890 it found itself in danger of losing everything by reason of the expiration of its concession. The services of Lieutenant Wyse were again brought into play, and he secured a 10-year extension of the concession. In 1893 another concession was granted, with the provision that work should be begun on a permanent basis by October 31, 1894, and that the canal should be completed by October 31, 1904. Toward the end of the nineties, it was manifest that the concession would expire before the work could be finished, so, in April, 1900, another extension was arranged, which stipulated that the canal should be completed by October 31, 1910. The New Panama Canal Company, as a matter of fact, had no other aim in view than to keep the concession alive in the hope that it could be sold to the United States. With all of their profligacy, however, the French left to their American successors a valuable heritage. What they did was done with the utmost thoroughness. The machinery which they bequeathed to the Americans was of immense value. There was enough of this to cover a 500-acre farm 3 feet deep, with enough more to build a 6-foot fence around it all. The French equipment was of the best. Dredges and locomotives that stood in the jungle for 20 years were rebuilt by the Americans at less than 10 per cent of their first cost, and did service during the entire period of construction. Although the New Panama Canal Company at one time asked $150,000,000 for its assets, it finally accepted $40,000,000. An appraisement made by American engineers a few years ago showed that the actual worth of the property acquired, aside from the franchise itself, amounted to about $42,000,000. Count de Lesseps lived to a great age. His last years were saddened and embittered by the volumes of denunciation that were written and spoken against him. Certain it is that no man ever went further than he to maintain confidence in a project that was destined to fail, and yet his partisans declared that his sin was the sin of overenthusiasm and not of dishonest purpose. Under the torrents of abuse that fell upon his head his mind weakened, and, fortunately, in his last days he realized little of the immeasurable injustice his misplaced zeal and overenthusiasm had wrought against the people of France. CHAPTER XVIII CHOOSING THE PANAMA ROUTE Proud as Americans now are of the success of their venture at Panama, in the beginning there was by no means a general agreement that the United States would succeed where France had failed. Indeed, the French disaster had much influence in strengthening the position of those who favored building the American canal through Nicaragua.