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Joseph Pennell's pictures of the Panama Canal

XV THE CUT—LOOKING TOWARD CULEBRA

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Illustration from Joseph Pennell's pictures of the Panama Canal Reproductions of a series of lithographs made by him on the Isthmus of Panama, January—March 1912, together with impressions and notes by the artist

THIS is the most pictorial as well as the most profound part of the cut. Culebra, the town, is high above—some of it has fallen in—on the edge in the distance—on the left. The white tower is an observatory from near which the lithograph No. XIII of the cut was made. The drawing is looking toward the Atlantic. The engineer of the dirt train—the smoke of which is so black because the engines burn oil—climbed up to see what I was at, and incidentally told me he was paid $3,600 a year, had a house free and two months' holiday. It is scarcely wonderful he has little interest in home, but the greatest pride in "our canal," and his only hope was to be "kept on the job" and run an electric locomotive for the rest of his life.

Illustration from Joseph Pennell's pictures of the Panama Canal Reproductions of a series of lithographs made by him on the Isthmus of Panama, January—March 1912, together with impressions and notes by the artist
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