OLD ROADS TO A NEW ISLAND 9 



It was not only that they had too Httle money 

 for such a tremendous task. Their trouble was 

 worse than that. They could not keep men well 

 enough to do the work. The workmen whom 

 they brought over from France and Spain and 

 down from the United States fell sick and died 

 from malaria and yellow fever just as newcomers 

 had alwavs done on the Isthmus. No one had 

 learned what caused these diseases or how to 

 prevent them. 



In 1904 the United States bought the rights 

 and the supplies of the French company, and ten 

 years later the old dream of an ocean-to-ocean 

 waterway had come true. The canal that * 'divided 

 the land, united the world," was finished. 



The Americans were good engineers, and they 

 were fortunate enough to know how to treat 

 malaria and yellow fever. For two or three years 

 some American physicians had known that both 

 diseases are carried by certain kinds of mos- 

 quitoes. Working as quickly as they could, the 

 Americans killed off the mosquitoes near the 

 Canal, destroyed the places where they could 

 lay their eggs, and screened the houses where the 

 workmen slept at night. Within a few months 

 the Canal Zone, once called the unhealthiest spot 

 in America, became known as the healthiest 

 place in the world. 



The French had at first intended to make a 

 sea-level canal. They expected to cut down 



