The experience of the Panama Canal Company, has only been a repetition, on a large scale, of that of the Panama Railway projectors. That line was commenced in 1850 and completed in 1855. The distance which it traverses, between Aspinwall and Panama, is 47½ miles, and the cost of construction was 48,600_l._ per mile, as compared with an average cost of under 12,000_l._ per mile for the railways of the United States as a whole. The great summit-level was attained at a height of 264 feet above the mean tide of the Atlantic, and the ascent required gradients of 1 in 18. The greatest source of the heavy expense of the Panama Railroad was the labour difficulty, resulting from the influences of the climate. Of this Dr. Otis[187] says:— “The working force was increased as rapidly as possible, drawing labourers from almost every quarter of the globe. Irishmen were imported from Ireland, coolies from Hindostan, Chinamen from China, English, French, Germans, and Austrians, amounting in all to more than 7,000 men, were thus gathered in, appropriately, as it were, to construct this highway for all nations. It was now anticipated that, with the enormous forces employed, the time required for the completion of the entire work would be in a ratio proportionate to the numerical increase of labourers, all of whom were supposed to be hardy, able-bodied men. But it was soon found that many of these people, from their previous habits and modes of life, were little adapted to the work for which they had been engaged. The Chinamen, 1000 in number, had been brought to the isthmus by the company, and every possible care taken which could conduce to their health and comfort. Their hill-rice, their tea, and opium in sufficient quantities to last several months, had been imported with them; they were carefully housed and attended to; and it was expected that they would prove efficient and valuable men. But they had been engaged upon the work scarcely a fortnight before almost the entire body became affected with a melancholic suicidal tendency, and scores of them ended their unhappy existence by their own hands. Disease broke out among them, and raged so fiercely that in a few weeks scarcely 200 remained. The freshly-imported Irishmen and Frenchmen also suffered severely, and there was found no other resource but to re-ship them as soon as possible, and replenish from the neighbouring provinces and Jamaica, the natives of which, with the exception of the northmen of America, were found best able to resist the influences of the climate.”