San Blas Chief 274 An Indian Girl 274 An Italian 274 A Timekeeper 274 A Spaniard 274 A Negro Boy 274 Testing the Emergency Dam, Gatun Locks 275 Col. Harry F. Hodges 275 The Ancon Baseball Park 298 Caleb M. Saville 399 Gatun Spillway from Above and Below 299 An Electric Towing Locomotive in Action 306 Blowing Up the Second Dike South of Miraflores Locks 307 DIAGRAMS A Graphic Illustration of the Material Handled at Panama 25 A Cross Section of the Gatun Dam 35 Plan of the Gatun Dam and Locks 36 A Profile Section of the Canal 40 From a Model of Pedro Miguel Lock 48 A Cross-section of Locks, Giving an Idea of Their Size 49 One of the 92 Gate-leaf Master Wheels 64 A _Mauretania_ in the Locks 67 The Effect of Slides 72 Average Shape and Dimensions of Culebra Cut 75 The _Corozal_ and its Method of Attack 85 International Shipping Routes 351 A Map Showing Isthmus with the Completed Canal 379 The Panama Canal "_I have read the chapters in 'The Panama Canal' dealing with the engineering features of the Canal and have found them an accurate and dependable account of the undertaking._" GEO. W. GOETHALS. THE PANAMA CANAL CHAPTER I THE LAND DIVIDED--THE WORLD UNITED The Panama Canal is a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, cut through the narrow neck of land connecting the continents of North and South America. It is the solution of the problem of international commerce that became acute in 1452 when the Eastern Roman Empire fell before the assaults of the Turks, and the land routes to India were closed to Western and Christian Europe. Forty years after the Crescent supplanted the Cross on the dome of St. Sophia in Constantinople, Columbus set sail to seek a western route to the Indies. He did not find it, but it was his fortune to set foot on the Isthmus of Panama, where, more than four centuries later, the goal of his ambition was to be achieved; not by discovery, but by virtue of the strength and wealth of a new nation of which he did not dream, although its existence is due to his own intrepid courage.