24 Mr. J. Milne Barbour on 



engineering and climatic difficulties there were hopeless 

 extravagance and corruption, and additional capital had to be 

 raised at an ever-increasing cost. The cost of transport over the 

 Panama railroad was so excessive that the undertaking had to be 

 acquired by the company at a fancy price ; and, finally, after 

 incurring a total indebtedness of 380,000,000 dollars, or, according 

 to another authority, after expending 260,000,000 dollars, every 

 effort to raise more capital met with failure, and the enterprise 

 passed into the hands of a receiver in 1889. Despite the 

 mismanagement which had characterised the French undertaking, 

 the company had done a large amount of work, much of which 

 had been turned to account in the present canal. It was not due 

 to any lack of engineering skill that the French company failed 

 to accomplish their purpose. The chief cause of failure was the 

 ravage of disease, the death-rate amongst the men employed on 

 the work rising at one time to 240 per 1,000. The receiver 

 estimated the value of the assets taken over by him at ninety 

 million dollars, and a committee nominated by him considered 

 that the Canal might be completed by the expenditure of an 

 additional one hundred million dollars. The whole scheme was 

 again thoroughly reported on. Just then, however, the United 

 States Congress granted a charter to an American corporation to 

 construct a canal on the Nicaragua route, on which work was 

 started and continued for three years, when the available capital 

 of twelve million dollars was exhausted and work ceased. Other 

 events now occurred, which provided a different incentive to the 

 construction of a waterway, these including the war between the 

 United States and Spain, which found the American Government 

 with its most powerful battleship stationed on the Pacific coast ; 

 the war between Russia and Japan, the alliance between the 

 latter country and Great Britain, which did away with the 

 necessity for the retention of a British fleet in Japanese waters ; 

 and the friction between Japan and the State of California. 

 Having traced the transmission of yellow fever and malaria, the 



