OCR Text |
Show I O'BRIEN LOOKS ; . AT BIO CANAL : ' 1! Bid on Nine Miles j;!, . of the fck. ! I - Most Difficult Part f Con- ; structfon Wlay Se Done , ' by Utahns. i ' GoVernment Trying to ImproV tho Abominabla Sanitary Conditions s of tho Isthmus, I I I , ) nHAT an Important part of tho -work j H of building tho Panama canal will 1 I J he dono by- a Utah firm Is wholly 1 within tho rongo of probabilities. ' fW. M. O'Brien, cashier of tho Kelth- ' O'Brien company, and W. IL Wattle of the Utah Construction company, havo Just returned from a trip to tho Isthmus, Isth-mus, which was taken, with tho. view ' i ot looking- over the canal routo for the 1 purpose of obtaining facts and- data. ' which will enable them to mako intelll- ! cent bids on certain portions of tho I great work. In the event that the Gov ernment decides to havo the work done 1 by contract, which sterns at this time .very probable. , Nine allies Through Mountains. The particular part of the canal which , I these gentlemen are most likely to bid I , upon Is the Culebra cut, the portion of ' i I the route which passes through tho I mountains, and which will be the most ' difficult of construction. The cut is j nino miles In length, and they will se- curo the contract for all of It, If pos-I pos-I ible. The Utah Construction company, j having had much experience In bulld- I lng railroads through mountainous I countries, l.i naturally partial to that kind of work, In preference to oxcavat- lng the swamps. ! Tho gentlemen left New York for Panama on March Jiflth, In conipany , j with the Canal commission, which went I down to get Its bearings on tho great I work which Is before It. The party also 1 I included a corps of doctors, who went i to study Uio sanitary conditions of tho 1 1 Isthmus, Among those was Dr. Gorgos, I the eminent yellow fever expert, who made tho Important discovery that 1 mosquitoes cause the spread of lnfec- I tious diseases In the tropics. I i To Raise- Healthy Mosquitoes. "The plan of the doctors Is now to J raise a healthy mosquito," said Mr. H? , i O'Brien yesterday. "Of course, they . intend to do away with the pest as ' far as possible, but It Is impracticable to kill all ot them, so they purpose keeping the disease from the Insects, by j l if olutlng every case the moment It np- I , , pears. The United States Government i will make a speedy and marked change for the better In the sanitary conditions . 1 of the Isthmus. The town of Colon, t) 'I which is built in a swamp,' will be I ruJsed at least six feet, and both Colon 1 1 and Panama will be provided wltlr sys tems of sewerage and supplies of pure water.. "Willie these improvements will 1 , make life far more bearable, they will by no means transform that country ,' into a health resort. The Government 1 enn't change the climate, which Is sim- I ply abominable. While the' average temperature is only about SO, the hull hu-ll anidity Is bo great that life Is unbear-?'!, unbear-?'!, ij able -at all limes in a closed room, j I ' "Where both growth and decomposition ' of vegetable life and matter are so ,, rapid, It must of necessity be unhealthily unhealthi-ly iul for human life. Every person who " remains there any length of time contracts con-tracts malarial fever; there is no es-;( es-;( cape, j' ! "Went Through the Canal. "We went over the full length of the canal, walking through the mountainous mountain-ous section and taking passage In a ' nmall Indian canoe through the swamp district from Bohio to Galun, a distance i of about ten miles. The canal has been ' dredged by the French from Bohio to Colon, but they, havo only fairly 1 scratched the surface, In comparisbn to , what remains to be done. The canal at present is only fifteen feet In depth i t at the deepest place, while It must be i ' thirty-five feet deep; and the width Is I ' not over eighty feet at the surface, whereas It must be 150 feet wide at the . bottom and from ISO to 300 feet at the i , top. This gives something of an Idea of the work that remains, to be done. , At Gatun tlie Chagres river has brolcen into the canal and washed It r.o full of Bllt that there was barely room for . j our canoe In the canal proper. i "Expensive and useless machinery ! 'bought by the French conipany is ,j scattered all along the canal a relic of tho extravagant, probably grafting, 1 xnethoda employed. There Is enough of this machinery to build a dozen such j canals, if It were up-to-date; but it is nil obsolete and will be of no uso at fill. Negroes Do tho "Work. "There are no highways on the Isthmus Isth-mus and no cultivated lands. The natives na-tives get their living mainly from tho banana and cocoanut trees scattered promiscuously through the Jungles, which are a veritable Jumble of every kind of vegetation known to a tropical trop-ical climate. Tho natives are a mongrel mon-grel race, a mixturo of the Jamaica negro, the Chinaman, Spaniard, Portuguese Portu-guese and Indian. They are lazy and Ill-looking. On our trip down the canal wc met a gang of about 400 Jamaica negroes who are still working for the French conipany. They aro much larger and better looking that the Panama na tlvcs, and are about the only people who can do the work, ia that climate, that is required to be done on the canal. .White men could never stand It. Theee peoplo were Jubilant over the prospect of their improved condition under United Unit-ed States rule. "Employees of the Panama railroad are about the only Americans on the Isthmus at this time. They aro there for the reason that they arc paid CO per cont higher wages than they can get In the States not because they like it. They aro a jolly crowd of boys and they, too, aro happy over the changed conditions which are to come to tho country with the advent of tho North Americans to build the canal. They welcome everybody from the States as though ho was their long-lost brother. The only white man wo found in business busi-ness in Colon was a saloon-keeper named Higglns, who must be the exact counterpart of the original of Peter Dunne's "Mr. Dooley." He Is fully no original In his conversation as that col-, ebrated character and has a heart as big as an ox. Ho has made a fortune there and has spent it all caring for poor' homesick fellows who havo dropped into that slnkholo of malaria and needed the money to take them back home. Great Dam at Bohio. "The only work In connection with tho building of the canal on which white workmen are likely to be employed em-ployed is the building of the dam at Bohio, which will be tho greatest engineering engi-neering feat known to the world. They will want American masons to do this work, and of courso they will havo to have special care and will receive special spe-cial pay. There will undoubtedly be opportunities to mako big money on the isthmus whllo tho canal building is In progress, but it will be at great rlBk to Hfo and health. No one will want to remain there longer than Is absolutely necessary. "Several American ships are In the harbors of both Colon and Panama, anda detachment of marines Is camped In the mountains at Empire. The marines ma-rines have been in good health until quite recently, but when we were there they had begun to tako the fever. Four boats make regular trips from New Tork to Colon, the voyage taking sov-eral sov-eral days each waj". A line of freight steamers runs down from New Orleans Or-leans in Ave days. We touched Cuba on the way down and on the return trip passed close to Haytl, tho picture island of the ocean, whose mountains, green to the very top, rise seven thousand thou-sand feet out of the water." |