The last barrier in the Panama Canal was destroyed yesterday with a charge of 40 tons of dynamite, exploded by an electric current from Washington, and Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were at last joined by a Trans-
Isthmian waterway. Thus a project that has occupied men╒s minds for 350 years reaches what is virtually its successful conclusion. Already the ship which will be the first to pass through the canal, the Fram, Nansen╒s and Amundsen╒s famous Polar exploration vessel, is waiting at Colon, whence she will proceed by means of the new waterway to the San Francisco Universal Exhibition. The first part of the work was done, it will be remembered, by the de Lesseps company which ended in financial disaster; the completion has been the task of the American Government.
Since 1904, the United States of America have been in possession of the canal zone, a strip of land ten miles wide and reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast of the Isthmus. Their object in virtually annexing the country was to obtain complete and final control of the great undertaking, and their method of securing what they desired was the aiding and abetting of the revolution whereby Panama asserted her independence of Colombia. In all their dealings with a most intricate problem the American authorities have met with a deserved and almost un-qualified success, save only in their treatment of Colombia, where they showed a high-handedness that aroused apprehension in many of the Republics of the South. After the control of the canal zone had passed to the United States, some time was passed in considering matters of construction and administration. A board of thirteen consulting engineers, five nominated by European Governments, was appointed to inquire into the relative advantages of the sea-level and the lock systems. Eight of the thirteen reported in favour of the first, but the Congress sided with the minority, and the lock system was adopted. Tenders for the making of the canal were invited. None of those received was thought satisfactory, however, and Mr. Roosevelt decided that the Government should do the work. Finally Major (now Colonel) G. W. Goethals, of the Military Corps of Engineers, was appointed engineer-in-chief, and under his direction were begun the operations which have now been brought almost to their triumphant close.
