Panama Hats
very fine plaited hats made from the fan-shaped leaves of Carludovica palmata, a dwarf palm tree which grows in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, and is called Jipijapa in Central America.
PANAMA, ISTHMUS OF, formerly called the Isthmus of Darien, has a breadth of from 30 to 70 miles, connects North with South America, and separates the Pacific from the Atlantic. The coast is low and swampy along the Caribbean Sea, but less unwholesome along the Pacific.
PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSITION, Exhibition held in San Francisco in 1915, contemporaneously with the fair at San Diego, and with a like object, namely the celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal. A total of $20,500,000 was raised for the purpose, but the initial cost was estimated to have exceeded twice that figure. The buildings included twelve great palaces, and around these were the pavilions of the various States of the Union and of foreign nations, with race track, thoroughfares, drill and pleasure grounds alternating. The preliminary work took nearly four years and the area covered 635 acres. The Court of the Universe, with sunken gardens, formed the core of the exposition, having decorative features representative of the different nations of the world.
The Arch of the Rising Sun, the Court of Abundance, the Court of the Four Seasons, the Tower of Jewels, the Palace of Fine Arts, the palaces of mines, metallurgy, machinery, transportation, horticulture, education, and manufactures, formed wonderful ensemble. The pieces of statuary ran into thousands.
Over eighty different States and nations participated and sent exhibits. a