It is quite liberating to realise that my "Picture of the Day" doesn't have to be one of my pictures. Despite my great age, I must stress that I didn't take this picture of a group of American engineers on a visit to the Panama Canal workings in February 1909. The picture comes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Library website. One of their recent Objects of the Day was the original letter from President Theodore Roosevelt to the engineer John Ripley Freeman asking him to take part in the investigative visit. The photograph - which forms part of the on-line exhibit - shows the six eminent engineers : Isham Randolph, Frederic P Shearns, Allen Hazen, James Dix Schuyler, Arthur P Davis, and John R Freeman. The gentleman at the left on the back row is listed as being Henry A Allen. He wasn't one of the engineers appointed by Roosevelt nor can I find any listing of him as being connected to the canal project. So who was he? One of the great delights of the Internet is that someone will know and at some point - probably many years in the future - they will let me know.
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