40 
chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, to whom we are 
indebted for various helpful courtesies. 
On December 21 we crossed the Isthmus and located at 
Colon, the northern terminus of the Panama Railroad. This 
town, though politically distinct, is essentially continuous with 
the American settlement Cristobal, which is at the Atlantic end 
A ae silk-cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra) with epiphytes, at Ahorca 
Fig. 
(agate: ee 
of the Panama Canal. Colon and Cristobal are situated on what 
was originally Manzanillo Island, which was largely a mangrove 
swamp, fringed to the seaward by a coral reef. A fill along the 
line of the railway has converted the former island into a penin- 
sula. The coral reef along the northern margin of this island or 
peninsula is exposed to almost the full force of the surge of the 
