early days of the American regime, the conditions on the Isthmus were so insanitary and uninviting that unusual inducements had to be offered to attract skilled Americans; and wage rates and benefits having been once established they could not well be changed after Isthmian conditions had improved. Unskilled laborers received from 10 to 24 cents an hour, which was a higher compensation than they had ever known before. In addition to the high wages paid, mess halls and hotels were provided throughout the Canal Zone where non-housekeeping employees secured excellent meals at reasonable rates.

SANITATION METHODS.

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The sanitary work has been, and will ever be, largely preventive in its character. It having been scientifically demonstrated that the stegoymia mosquito after biting a patient infected with yellow fever and then biting a non-infected person, transmits this deadly disease, and that in like manner the anophyles mosquito transmits malaria, various methods were adopted by the sanitary department to exterminate these two classes of mosquitoes. To this end the houses of canal employees (which were provided without charge) were screened, marshes were drained, and the rank grass of the nine months of the rainy season of the Isthmus was cut in order to destroy the breeding places of these death-dealing insects. Ponds and pools of water not drainable, and streams near inhabited places, were covered with larvaecide which operated to destroy the breeding

mosquitoes. An interesting sight was often to be met in a jungle ride, in the form of a barrel of larvaecide trickling drop by drop into a mountain stream whose impregnated waters were carried far down into the valleys, past the habitations of canal employees, destroying the breeding spots of the deadly pests. In addition the strictest quarantine has been maintained against infected ports.

CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

In the department of Civil Administration were grouped the various civil branches, such as the courts, police and prisons, fire department, schools, posts, customs, and revenues, public works, steamvessel inspection service, etc. The civil work was not spectacular like the works of engineering and sanitation, but, in its way, it was just as important, for it was an indispensable pre-requisite to the success of the actual construction of the Canal.

Schools for white children and schools for black and native children, all carefully graded, have been maintained; also excellent high schools; and through the work of the courts, the police, and other civil divisions, law and order-as indispensable as sanitation-have been effected. Splendid macadam roads-the best in Central America -were constructed in the Canal Zone, convicts being employed for that purpose. The Commission had power to, and did, enact laws for the Canal Zone; first upon general matters, and later upon tax, sanitary and police matters. Other laws obtaining in the Zone were portions

of the Colombian laws inherited from Panama, executive orders of the President of the United States, and acts of Congress.

One of the chief objects of the Commission, in addition to providing adequate sanitation, was the establishment and maintenance of civil and social conditions which would attract and hold all needed employees. Judging by results, this object was successfully plished.

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Chaplains of different denominations were employed by the Commission and churches were established and maintained throughout the Zone. Also, the Commission built splendid Y. M. C. A. clubhouses in the principal Zone towns. These club-houses were conducted under the regular Y. M. C. A. auspices, and were social as well as moral centers. They have performed a splendid work.

ABOLISHMENT OF COMMISSION. The Isthmian Canal Commission served until April 1st, 1914, when, agreably to the Panama Canal Act of August 24th, 1912, it was abolished on the ground that the canal had progressed so far toward completion as to dispense with the necessity of the further service of the Commission. Thereupon the chairman of the Commission, Col. Geo. W. Goethals, was appointed Governor of the Panama Canal, and is now in general charge of canal operations.

OPENING OF CANAL TO NAVIGATION.

On August 3, 1914, the Panama Railroad S. S. "Cristobal" had the distinction of being the first ship to

pass through the Canal from ocean to ocean, this being a test trip to try out the Canal. On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Railroad S. S. "Ancon," made the first formal passage through the Canal, making the voyage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, and returning. Since then, the canal has been open to general traffic, and many ships have navigated the canal, although the European war has, to a considerable extent, curtailed the shipping in Latin American waters.

CANAL SLIDES.

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The famous "slides" of Culebra Cut have also interfered with navigation of the Canal. These slides imposed a vast amount of labor throughout the construction. period. They began to move in the days of the French operations, and ever since have continued, and will continue, although in lesser degree, until the great slopes of the Cut reach the "angle of repose." fact, Culebra Cut has proved to be the second great factor in canal construction and operation-the Chagres River, as already pointed out, being the first. This great chasm has been excavated from an original elevation, in the French period, of 534 feet above sea-level to a present depth of about 40 feet above sea-level, in order to extend the canal through the continental divide. No one who has not stood on the rim of the Cut can conceive of its immensity and impressiveness. All engineering skill and equipment have been brought to bear in dealing with its difficult problems. Cucaracha slide, alone, has involved in it about 75 acres of