When the United States took over the road someone described it as being merely "two streaks of rust and a right of way." While the Panama road as acquired by the United States in its purchase of the assets of the new French Canal Company might have been all that this phrase implies, it was none the less as great a bargain as was ever bought by any Government, and probably the greatest bargain ever sold in the shape of a railroad. It was not the rolling stock that was valuable, nor yet the road itself; the real value was to be found in the possibilities of the concession. Not only was this road destined to render to the United States a service in the building of the Panama Canal, worth to Uncle Sam a great many times more than its cost, but it was also destined to yield a net profit from its commercial operations which in 10 years would amount to double the price paid for it. Since the Americans took it over it has been yielding net returns ranging from a million and a quarter to a million and three-quarters dollars a year. In these 10 years it has brought an aggregate profit of some $15,000,000 into the coffers of the United States. While $7,000,000 may have been a high price, judged from the standpoint of the physical value of the road, it was a very reasonable one, indeed, as compared with the price paid for it by the new French Canal Company. This company, which sold it to the United States for $7,000,000, paid the Panama Railroad Company $18,000,000 for it 23 years before. When the French Canal Company decided to undertake the building of the canal, it found that the Panama Railroad Company held concessions that were absolutely necessary to the construction of the canal. The Colombian Government had granted the company the concession to complete the road in 1849, and had agreed that no other interoceanic communication should be opened without the consent of the railroad. This gave to the railroad company the whip hand in trading with the canal company and it was able to name its own price. When the United States wanted to buy the rights and properties of the new French Canal Company the shoe was on the other foot. There was only one buyer--the United States; and it could choose between the Panama and Nicaragua routes. If the United States did not buy the property its principal value would have been what it was worth as an uncertain prospect that at some future time a second Isthmian canal might be built. That is why the United States was able to buy from the French for $7,000,000 property that they had bought for $18,000,000.