These things being so, two results not unnaturally follow—the first, that it was difficult to get the highest class of labour to undertake the work; and the second, that the rate of wages paid, and the cost of the work generally, were exceptionally high. During the years 1884-85-86, the _personnel_ on the canal ranged between 12,000 and 25,000; and although M. de Lesseps announced in 1885 that the Company had undertaken to provide barrack accommodation for 30,000, it is doubtful whether that number was ever employed on the works at any one time. We have already seen that the first contracts made with a number of different contractors provided for the cost of excavation being brought under 3_s._ per cubic metre. Señor Armero, however, in a report made on the progress of the work in the latter part of 1887, stated that every cubic foot had cost at least 2 dollars, or 8_s._ 4_d._ for excavation, being nearly three times the amount at which M. de Lesseps stated the first contracts to have been placed, for something like one-half of the entire work. With calculations so entirely falsified by results, the Panama Canal Company found it necessary in 1887 to procure fresh capital. They thereupon offered half a million shares, of the nominal value of 500 million francs at 440 francs on 1000 francs, and succeeded in raising a further sum of about 114 million francs, making the total amount of cash received to that date rather over 1001 million francs, or, in other words, within 200 millions of the total amount for which the canal was to have been completed. How far the canal still was from completion at this time we may learn from the report made to the Colombian Government in November 1887 by Señor Armero, who says that the total amount excavated up to August of that year was about 34 millions of cubic metres, out of a total of 161 millions; that the upper and easier part of the work had been accomplished, and that greater difficulties would be encountered in working as the tide-level was approached; that the cost of controlling the water of the Chagres alone would amount to 471 million francs, or, roughly, one-third of the whole estimated cost of the enterprise; that the sum still required to complete the canal would be 3012½ millions of francs, or 120 millions sterling, being nearly three times as much as the whole original estimated cost; and that the amount to be paid on capital loaned during the next six or seven years would add perhaps 40 millions sterling to this amount. This unfavourable report had naturally a depressing effect upon the scheme when it was made public. And yet the reporter was not entirely unfavourable to the enterprise. On the contrary, he prefaced his report by the following remarks:—