The Nicaragua Canal

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Harper & brothers, 1900 - 334 pages

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Page 310 - That the sum of ten million dollars is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, toward the project herein contemplated by either route so selected. And the President is hereby...
Page 92 - Not less so are the cecropia trees, with their white stems and large palmated leaves standing up like great candelabra. Sometimes the ground is carpeted with large flowers, yellow, pink, or white, that have fallen from some invisible tree-top above, or the air is filled with a delicious perfume, for the source of which one seeks around in vain, as the flowers that cause it are far overhead out of sight, lost in the great overshadowing crown of verdure.
Page 310 - ... protection of a canal connecting the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean by what is commonly known as the Nicaragua route, shall through the said Isthmian Canal Commission cause to be excavated and constructed a ship canal and waterway from a point on the shore of the Caribbean Sea near Greytown. by way of Lake Nicaragua, to a point near Brito on the Pacific Ocean.
Page 15 - Phthisis Pulmonalis 3 Dysentery 47 The disease which is most liable to prove fatal is Dysentery, but this characteristic of that grave disorder is the same in all climates. Most of the diseases met with have been mild in type, this being especially true of Bronchitis and Pneumonia, the latter frequently having its crisis on the sixth day. The cases of fever, when of the remittent or intermittent types, are very amenable to treatment and not of long duration ; the former generally disappearing in...
Page 309 - That the President of the United States be, and is hereby authorized to acquire from the States of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, for and in behalf of the United States, control of such portion of territory now belonging to Costa Rica and Nicaragua as may be desirable and necessary on which to excavate, construct, and protect a canal...
Page 43 - Pacific coast, possesses, both for the construction and maintenance of a canal, greater advantages and offers fewer difficulties from engineering, commercial, and economic points of view than any one of the other routes shown to be practicable by surveys sufficiently in detail to enable a judgment to be formed of their relative merits, as will be briefly presented in the appended memorandum.
Page 148 - For large spaces the whole ground seems resting upon a boiling cauldron, and is encrusted with mineral deposits. There are also many places where the ground is depressed and bare, resembling a honey-combed, ferruginous clay-pit, from which sulphurous vapors are constantly rising, destroying vegetation in the vicinity, but especially to the leeward, where they are carried by the wind. By daylight nothing is to be seen at these places, except a kind of tremulous motion of the heated atmosphere near...
Page 234 - I saw were killed through the large harlequin beetle (Acrocimis longimanus) laying its eggs in the cuts, and the grubs that are hatched boring great holes all through the trunk. When these grubs are at work you can hear their rasping by standing at the bottom of the tree, and the wood dust thrown out of their burrows accumulates in heaps on the ground below.
Page 234 - ... are as tough as cord. They then proceed to score the bark with cuts, which extend nearly round the tree like the letter V, the point being downward.
Page 148 - ... yards. Hot springs, and openings in the ground emitting hot air, smoke, and steam, called infernales, are common around the bases of these volcanoes. For large spaces the whole ground seems resting upon a boiling cauldron, and is encrusted with mineral deposits. There are also many places where the ground is depressed and bare, resembling a honey-combed, ferruginous...

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