, 1912-04-20
THE AVIS.
Uhristiansted, st. Eroix.
Saturday, goth April, 1919.

the 10th of May, 1919 we published a trans
lation of an article contributed by Herr
Holger Rosenberg to the Nutionahide3,de of
30 March.
Some CT our readers may remember that
the article was headed Are We Awake ?"
and was III part u criticism of the Danish
Colonial Office for not taking active measures
for preparing, by the thorough Improvement
Of st. Thorn IS Harbour and the erection of
wharyes &c, for The opening of the Panama
Canal which he then thought was tolerably
certain to take place in 1913. Herr Rosen-
berg has since seen reason to change his
opjn1on, for he commences u lecture given
before "Foreningen De danske A%tlonter-
havsoer" CThe Danish Atlantic Islands AS
sociatiol) on the Goth of January, by say
ing --latest the list of January 1915, per-
haps as carly as the 1st Fully 1914, war
ships from Ill lards-we may hope therefore
also from Denmark-will assemble in the
small Limon Bay at Colon to sail amid great
festivities. not only across but up over the
Isthmus of Panama from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, to the honour and praise Of the Unit
ed States, the fame of the American engin-
eer and altogether as q mighty "reclame" for
America.
The lecture thus commenced is entitled,
1.-The Panama Canal and its significance for
the Danish West Indies" and is published
in the January number of AtIanten, the organ
of the Association. It is a very instructive
lecture, of which we will here give a brief
sketch.
''That which viii happen ON the date nam
ed is nothing less than the realization of o
thought several centuries old, the compile
ton Of the Worlds greatest engineering
work and the union of two mighty oceans;
which hitherto have been so very far apart,
by a caual, a coming main waterway, which
in many ways will entirely revolutionize
trade, intercourse and navigation"
The lectu. er then tells the story of the
canal idea from the early Spanish times i'll
these waters till the days OF Lesseps, He
tells of the ~latter's difficulties, arising from
the deadly climate, and the dense vegetation.
Lesseps had under-rated these difficulties
and two others which surpassed them,
namely the Chagres River aud the Culebra
Mountain. To the natural difficulties were
added the reckless, and consequently III many
cases short, lives of the Europeans working
on the isthmus. The money was spent, while
only q small part of the work was done, aud
the Company that Lesseps had founded be-
came bankrupt. The lecturer mentions the
new Company which took over the conces-
sion from the bankrupt Company and finally
sold it to the United States. Then came the
'CIldtIlllL1 ltG'6 I6NOlAUlOH III L JtlA OOtOO3
Which under the protection of the United
States broke away from Columbia and on
4 November 1903 constituted itself an inde-
pendent republic, which ceded to the States
the strip on each side Of the canal known as
the "Canal Zone"
The purchase cost was 40 millions of dol
lars paid to the second Canal Company and
10 millions to the Republic Of Panama for the
Canal Zone. It was estimated that the work
would cost 1875 millions more, but it will in
reality cost three times that.
I'm 1904" says the Lecturer "The Ameri-
cans began at Panama. But they did
no'begin at the wrong end, rs the French
had done. They began with the health
question. Colonel Gor9"s, an American
military physician, who had practically
banishtd ~yellow-fever from Havana, was
sent to the Isthmus, where he warred
on the mosquitoes. laid pavements and
sewers, enforced stringent sanitary rules,
planted the swamps with eucalyptus trees,
and improved the hospitals left by the
French and built new ones.
When the work was started under con-
tract it was found not to go well. President