Oh the mind of man! Frail, untrustworthy, perishable--yet able to stand
unlimited agony, cope with the greatest forces of Nature and build
against a thousand years. Passion can blind it--yet it can read in
infinity the difference between right and wrong. Alcohol can unsettle
it--yet it can create a poem or a harmony or a philosophy that is
immortal. A flower pot falling out of a window can destroy it--yet it
can move mountains.
If Man had a tool that was as frail as his mind, he would fear to use
it. He would not trust himself on a plank so liable to crack. He would
not venture into a boat so liable to go to pieces. He would not drive a
tack with a hammer, the head of which is so liable to fly off.
But Man knows that what the mind can conceive, that can he execute. So
Man sits in his room and plans the things the world thought impossible.
From the known he dares the unknown. He covers paper with figures,
conjures forth a blue print, and sends an army of workmen against the
forces of Nature. If his mind blundered, he would waste millions in
money and perhaps destroy thousands of lives. But Man can trust his
mind; fragile though it is, he knows it can bear the strain of any task
put upon it.
All over the world there is the proof: in the heavens above, and in the
waters under the earth. And nowhere has Man won a greater triumph over
unspeakable odds than in New Orleans, in the dredging of a canal
through buried forests 18,000 years old, the creation of an underground
river, and the building of a lock that was thought impossible.
The Industrial Canal
and Inner Harbor of New Orleans
History, Description and Economic Aspects of Giant
Facility Created to Encourage Industrial
Expansion and Develop Commerce