FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 245 



nurseries with several kinds of mosquito) are oiled, 

 such undergrowth as might hide either stagnant 

 water or hatches of the insect is forcibly removed. 

 There is no end to this great work of cleaning out 

 the Augean stables, and it is woefully unfair to 

 those engaged on it to express any apprehension 

 of the geographical enlargement of yellow fever 

 from its centre of distribution in the Caribbean 

 until they have had a fair chance of showing what 

 they can do to combat such a result. 



Of the other interest of the Isthmus, the 

 engineering work of the past, present, and future^ 

 the limitations of a brain impatient of mathe- 

 matical formulae and mechanical principles pre- 

 vented my enjoying an intelligent view. Only 

 my own ignorance was to thank for the very slight 

 impression I brought away from the Culebra Cut, 

 for thanks to the courtesy of Mr Sullivan, acting 

 chief engineer during the absence of his chief at 

 Washington, I was given an excellent insight into 

 what was going on. Running smoothly up and 

 down the tracks on his private Oldsmobile, listening 

 to his entertaining comments on the difficulties and 

 the triumphs, with practical illustration by the small 

 drills and gigantic steam-shovels, I had, thanks to 

 arrangements made by Colonel Gorgas, a most 

 enjoyable day, but find myself quite unable to give 

 the information that the reader will reasonably ex- 

 pect. What most impressed me, perhaps, was first 

 the colossal strength of these great shovels, each of 

 which, like a mammoth guided by a couple of puny 

 men, savagely tears up the rock and dirt as an 

 elephant would gather leaves, the huge arm swing- 

 ing round in search of new loads absolutely like an 



