The copper era and Morenci leader., 1913-01-31

of intense interest; it really dates back to the voyages of Columbus, for all it was not so much a new world he wanted to discover as a new rouI e
 to India, and in trying to find a chan nel through the great barrier of land he had encountered, he in 1501 search ed every cove along the Isthmus of
 Panama and died believing such a channel still existed. The town of Colon, the port on the Atlantic end Of the Canal, is named after him. It is not likely, however, that Columbus ever saw the Pacific Ocean, which dis and the port at the Pacific end of the Canal is named after him.
 The Isthmus then became the stamping ground of Spanish, French Portugese and English privateers, buc- cancers and all kinds of rascaleers, who pillaged the natives, plundered the country and played the devil gener ally, in the name of God and their king, for 300 years and more.
 The first suggestion to construct canal across the Isthmus is said to have been made to Charles of Spain, by Cortez, the conquisador of Mexico, and survey for a canal was made by order of the king in 1534, and while four different routes for canal across the Isthmus have been seriously consider ed at various times by various peoples, the original route surveyed in 1884 is %01 for the present canal-
 It may be said that the subject never grew cold, but little more than surve ys were made and a roa:. con structed across the Isthmus unti. 1S14 when Spain took active steps towards building the canal, but internal puli- tical troubles brought about a cessa- tion of the work.
 In 1S49 gold was discovered il; Cali fornia and as there was no transcon- tinenta1 railway, and it took six months to reach California by OK train from anywhere in the east, the :. Isthmus again came to the fore, as a popular way of going around to San Francisco. Then the Panama Rail 
 prises. which proved a gold mine in itself; it was completed in 1855. But still the Canal hung fire.
 At last, in 1881, the great work was commenced in earnest. We all re- member the French company which | Count Ferdinand De Lesseps organi- zed to construct the Canal; with what | 1xoDdor and enthusiasm if was taIIS- l ed of, to the credit of the French peo- pie and the renown of the French en- gineers.
 The story of this effort to perform the greatest physical task ever at tempted by man is at once glorious and sad. A sea level canal was de cided upon, and the estimates called for the expenditure of $24O,O0O, O,OO0.V0 to complete the work.De Lesseps had achieved great reputation in connec- ton with the building of the Suez Canal, and was chosen to direct the work. The magnitude of the task and the difficulties had been sadly under estimated, but the romantic nature of the undertaking appealed to the
 
 to the coffers of the company only to be spilled like water without getting anything like adequate return. The company became the milch COW for all kinds of grafters; it's management was extravagant in the extreme; any one with any kind of a digging ma chine could sell any number to the company by granting a fat commits sion to some official; all kinds of ma chinery the use for which was abso- lutely unfindable, was sent out from France by the shipload and dumped ( in the jungle, the wonder of the alli- gator and wild boar. The unhealthy ( conditions of the work decimated the laborers; the cost of maintaining the ( hospitals was enormous; floods, fires and pestilence, obstacles natural and l artificial of every conceivable kind {; initiated against the work and rend cred success under such an organiza- ( tion impossible. '
 De Lesseps himself, though man { of nearly so, pushed the work with l great courage and energy and, fired t with optimism, minimized every diff ( culty, and not until the money finally ( ceased to flow into the coffers of the ( company and unfulfilled promises ren- ( dered it impossible for him to coax I any more out of the pockets of the g poor peasants and servant girls of S France did he admit failure and relin- y quished the dictatorship. Then came t the great scandal, when he and oth- t CTS in the directorate were arrested V