tect the rest of the world from the menace. After lengthy debate and
much conflicting testimony from experts a bold plan was endorsed. It was
decided to complete the digging of the Nicaragua Canal and blow up that
part of Central America lying between it and the Isthmus of Panama. It
was a colossal feat of engineering which would cost billions of pounds
and untold manpower, but the nations of the world, not without some
grumbling, finally agreed to the expenditure.

While technicians from all over the world directed laborgangs and
steamshovels, ammunitionships loaded with tons of explosives sailed from
every port for Panama and Colon. Though at first reluctant with their
contributions, the countries had reconsidered and poured forth their
shares without stint. All obsolete warmaterials were shipped to the
scene of action. Prisons were emptied to supply the needed manpower and
when this measure fell short all without visible means of support were
added to the roll.

Shortsightedly Costa Rica protested vigorously the proposed destruction
of its entire territory and there were even momentary uprisings of
patriots who proposed to defend their nation with the last drop of
blood, but commonsense and international amity prevailed, especially
when Costa Ricans were promised a territory twice as big as their native
country in the hinterland between Colombia and Venezuela, a valueless
tract both nations had been trying in vain to settle for decades.

Night and day the detonations of highexplosives killed fish on both the
Atlantic and Pacific sides of Central America and brought stunned birds
plummeting down from the skies to their death. The coastal plains fell
into the sea, great mountains were reduced to powder and little by
little the gap between North and South America widened.

But the progress of the work was infinitesimal compared with the advance
of the Grass. It swept over the ancient Aztec empire down to the Isthmus
of Tehuantepec. The ruins of Mayan civilization, excavated once, were
buried anew. The demolition engineers measured their daily progress in
feet, the Grass in miles. When the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific
met in Lake Nicaragua, the Grass was in Yucatan. When the first green
runners invaded Guatemala, a bare twenty miles of northern Panama had
been demolished and hardly a start had been made in the destruction of
Costa Rica.

Fleets of airplanes bombed the connecting strip in the area left by
engin