National Geographic: Adventures - Panama Canal: The Mountain and the Mosquito Page #3

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Closing brothels,

demolishing decrepit barracks,

building a new city of paved streets

and sanitary dwellings.

The Canal line begins to look like

a continuous city

under construction from one end

of the zone to the other.

As 1906 begins,

five months after being in Panama,

he feels he has made Panama livable.

He is ready to begin digging

at Culebra again.

A few months later,

Dr. William Gorgas declares victory

over The Great Scare.

"Take a good look at this man, boys.

For it's the last case of yellow fever

you will ever see.

There will never be any more deaths

from this cause in Panama."

Panama is busy again

- healthy... and fearless.

Along the entire length

of the Canal corridor,

the racket of hammers and saws

and the roar of engines can be heard.

President Roosevelt's dream

of splitting a continent

is being brought to life again.

As a new railway is pushed through the

jungles of Panama,

John Stevens rarely rests.

It is the summer of 1906,

Stevens drives himself to exhaustion-

and expects his men to do the same.

"I gauge everybody by myself.

I work from 14 to 18 hours.

You may make mistakes

but there is only one mistake you can

make that will be fatal with me,

and that is to do nothing."

Stevens believes his workers are safe

from the Great Scare.

But yellow fever has been

relatively easy to eradicate.

Now a far more formidable enemy

must be confronted... malaria.

"If we can control malaria,

I feel very little anxiety

about other diseases.

If we do not control malaria

our mortality is going to be heavy."

The Anopheles mosquito

that transmits malaria

is not the same insect

that carries yellow fever.

It is an entirely different species

and far more difficult to control.

She lives longer, flies further,

and thrives in the stagnant waters

of the Panamanian forests.

Right where John Stevens's

new railway is being built.

The latest arrivals from North America

and the West Indies are in gravest

danger from being bitten.

Most Panamanians, as Gorgas knows,

develop a natural immunity

to malaria in childhood.

But nearly every new comer-including

Dr. Gorgas and his entire medical staff-

become infected within months-

enduring recurring episodes of

fever, chills, depression,

and intense pain.

Gorgas warns Stevens that

the new settlements

he is building along his railway

are placing thousands of

American workers at risk.

"I suppose it is no exaggeration

to say that any man

who spends a night in one of

these villages will contract malaria."

John Stevens knows the danger

of malaria.

But also knows that work must continue

if the canal is to be built.

All along the line, the pace of

construction intensifies.

Laborers from North America, Europe,

the Orient and the West Indies arrive.

Many bring their families,

building a new life in a new country.

Feeding the masses is an enormous job.

Bakeries turn out 40,000 loaves

of bread a day.

Stevens builds laundries,

and recreation halls for the men

and their families.

An amazing ice house brings

the loudest cheers.

The very idea of ice-cream

in the jungle delights the crews.

Music fills the air.

They begin to call Culebra

"Stevens City."

But the deadly plague of malaria

is never far away.

Dr. Gorgas and his fumigation brigades

keep ahead of the track gangs.

Cleansing the new villages.

Pushing deep into the wilderness.

They drain swamps and spray oil

on cesspools

to prevent eggs from hatching.

Stagnant water is routinely tested

for the presence of larvae.

A modern running-water system

as good as in an American city

is installed and acres

of brush are burned.

Daily doses of quinine-

made from the bark of a tropical tree -

are part of each man's diet.

They call the bitter-tasting

drink a "Panama cocktail."

As Dr. Gorgas battles the mosquito,

John Stevens battles the mountain.

This is the ultimate roadblock-

the Continental Divide.

Stevens calculates that he must

dig a channel nine miles long

and 272 feet deep through

solid volcanic rock.

It will require that man

and machines move enough dirt

to build the Great Pyramids

of Cheops 63 times.

John Stevens has been given command

of the grandest construction project

in four thousand years.

"Even with the finances of the most

powerful nation on earth,

we are contending with

Nature's forces.

When we speak of a hundred

million yards

of a single cut not to exceed

nine miles in length,

we are facing a proposition

greater than

was ever undertaken in the engineering

history of the world."

Making a sea-level canal

from the Atlantic to the Pacific

means cutting deep into

the mountain range.

The French spent nine years trying,

and failed.

Now Stevens wonders

how he will conquer Culebra.

The problem is water.

The tropical rainy season

arrives in April.

Massive flooding, daily down pours

and the constant risk

of deadly landslides.

Stevens has never faced anything like

this in the Rocky Mountains.

He realizes that to build a sea-level

canal here will be a deadly undertaking

that could take twice

as long as anticipated.

And there is another enemy.

When the rain comes, the placid

Chagres River swells with anger,

rising 20 feet in just one day.

The floods will inundate any canal

Stevens tries to dig through it.

Even if he moves the mountains,

he cannot stop the rains.

"The one great problem in the

construction of [the] canal

is the control of the Chagres River.

That overshadows everything else."

Stevens now realizes that a sea-level

canal is not possible.

The mountain is too big.

To dig it all the way down

to sea-level

and transport it away is beyond their

current technological capabilities.

There is, however, another way,

one that will use the geography

of Panama rather than conquer it.

It is a plan that will change

the course of history.

But first he needs to

convince the President.

To sell his revolutionary new plan

to the President of the United States,

John Stevens must sail to Washington.

For a man who is chronically sea-sick,

the voyage is as forbidding

as the destination.

At the White House, Stevens unveils

his amazing new blueprint.

He intends to lift the world's

largest ships

up one side of the Continental Divide,

then down the other.

He will dam the Chagres River to

create a huge artificial lake.

And build a series of mammoth locks

to conquer the steep spine of Panama.

In essence, the mountain won't be

cut down to sea-level.

The ships will be floated up

to the mountain

and sailed across a bridge of water.

It is an audacious plan.

A clear statement that Stevens

believes that

the French struggled for nine years

and lost the lives of 16,000 men

to a doomed dream.

But in 1906 no-one knows if Stevens's

plan will work either.

Theodore Roosevelt has promised

Stevens his unconditional support.

Now he proves it.

In February of 1906, Roosevelt signs

a Presidential sanction

authorizing the construction of

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