"The Path Between the Seas" [.]

[fiefoe]

Achieved:

• ".. the single noticeable difference was the more complete absence of insect life.. And this on the slope of the death-dealing Chagres!"
• The most obvious differences between the French and American efforts at Panama... were in the application of modern medical science, the methods of financing, and the size of the excavation equipment used.
• (First trial lockage): the most fascinating aspect of this phase of the operation, so far as the spectators were concerned, was the quantity of frogs that came swirling in with the muddy water.
• That an earthquake should strike just four days later seemed somehow a fitting additional touch, as if that too were essential in any thorough testing-and-proving drill.
• That so vast and costly an undertaking could also be done without graft, kickbacks, payroll padding, any of the hundred and one forms of corruption endemic to such works, seemed almost inconceivable at the start, nor does it seem any less remarkable in retrospect.
• For those on board a ship in transit, the effect for the greater part of the journey was of sailing a magnificent lake in undiscovered country. The lake was always more spacious than people expected, Panama far more beautiful. Out on the lake the water was ocean green. The water was very pure.. and being fresh water, it killed all the barnacles on the ship's bottom.

The author’s energetic, sinewy prose roped in many arresting personalities.

• Nicaragua thereafter had been "Humboldt's route."  Humboldt... was a university unto himself, as Goethe would say.
• It's difficult to imagine (Humboldt & Jefferson) not discussing a Central American corridor.. as Jefferson's pet mockingbird swinging in a cage overhead.
• The messiah (of the Saint-Simonians) was... Claude Henri de Rouvroy, who wrote, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work." The world was to be saved... through immense public improvements, networks of highways, railroads, (canals).
• Mohammed Said... liked to have his pashas wade through gunpowder carrying lighted candles to test their nerve.
• One of the many who (got out of the isthmus) was the painter Paul Gauguin... It was Gauguin's first attempt to escape the atmosphere of Europe.
• Mrs. Emily Crawford... was among the ablest foreign correspondent of the day, a handsome middle-aged Irishwoman who knew just about everyone in power.
• (The Race of the Oregon episode:) It steamed by the tiny sloop Spray, upon which, sailing all alone, was Captain Joshua Slocum... then on the last leg of the first solitary cruise around the world.
• Richard Halliburton... was the first to persuade the authorities to allow him through the locks. So based on his weight, 140 pounds, he was charged a toll of 36 cents.
• John Stevens lived to experience the thrill of a Pan American Clipper flight.

Micawber-fashion,  'bell the cat', Sitka (then known as Russian America),
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; / But will they come when you do call for them?
__ The level of the Pacific was not twenty feet higher than that of the Atlantic, as had been the accepted view for centuries. Sea level was sea level.

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