Excerpt from Papers From the Notes of an Engineer
The names of De Lesseps, Suez, and Panama, whatever may prove to be the issue of the latter venture, will always remain great among the chapters in the progress of civilization. To review the career of F. De Lesseps and fully appreciate the vast ness of his projects is to become forcibly impressed with the man’s extraordinary genius as the projector of startling under takings and his unsurpassed ability as a. Successful promoter. A broad view of his achievements inspires a degree of admiration for this magnetic character only comparable with the intense in terest felt throughout civilized countries regarding the success of his globe-remodeling projects and their important bearing on the interests of commerce and navigation. More minutely scru tinized, however - passing, as it were, from the poetic to the prosaic side of this talented Frenchman’s schemes - we meet with some disappointment regarding the execution in detail and probable fate of his last great engineering and speculative un dertaking at Panama. This concern for the future of the canal and for the prestige so long enjoyed by De Lesseps grows but of an impartial attitude toward the undertaking, in which the present condition of things on the Isthmus is contrasted with the original promises officially advertised by De Lesseps and his company.
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