s, the protection
afforded the employees against mosquitoes, and the abolition of mosquito
conditions. The natives and negroes are immune to yellow fever, but not
to malaria. As most of us know, Major Ross of the I.M.S., in 1896,
proved the connection of malaria with the anopheles mosquito; and in
1902 Mr Reed of the U.S. Health Commission tracked the yellow fever to
the stegomyia mosquito. Yellow fever requires six days to develop. It
should be noted that the stegomyia insect is common in India, but
luckily has not yet been infected with the germ of yellow fever. And it
may also be here mentioned that the connection between bubonic plague
and rats, and the fleas that infest them, was discovered by the Japanese
scientist, Kitasato.

The history of the canal may be touched on, if only to show the American
method of securing a desired object, certainly a quick, effective and,
after all, the only practical method. The Panama railway was built by
Americans in 1855 to meet the rush to California gold-fields. The De
Lesseps Company bought the road for an enormous figure, and started the
canal works, to be abandoned later on, but again taken up by a new
French Company. In 1901 Uncle Sam got his "fine work" in when he bluffed
the new French Panama Company into selling it to him for 40,000,000
dollars, simply by threatening to adopt the Nicaragua route. Yet the
Company's property was well worth the 100,000,000 dollars asked for it.
To carry out the bluff, the Isthmian Canal Commission (U.S.) actually
reported to Congress that the Nicaragua route was the most "practical
and feasible" one, when it was well known to the Commission that the
route was so impracticable as not to be worthy of consideration. At
least common report had it so. In 1903 Colombia refused the United
States offer to purchase the enlarged canal zone. At once Panama
province seceded from the State, and sold the desired zone to the United
States for 10,000,000 dollars, conditionally on the United States
recognizing and guaranteeing the young Republic. The deal was cleverly
arranged, and was again perhaps the only effective method to obtain
possession.

The tide at Panama measures 20 feet, at Colon only 2 feet. In 1905 the
International Board of Consulting Engineers, summoned by President
Roosevelt, recommended, by eight to five, a sea-level canal (two locks).
But Congress adopted the minority's 85-feet-level plan (6 locks), with
an immense dam at Gatun, which d