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Show Ijjjfe PANAMA CANAL ' Ug-- By Frederic J. Haskin instruction of the Panama canal ingest cntcrpriso over undcr-man, undcr-man, and the United States .. bringing it to a successful itiou. When it is dono it will r.rctest material accomplish-his accomplish-his createst of nations. As un ngfcnl it stands first. As to aoncy. V ono yet knows how will take, but it will be be-50000.000 be-50000.000 and $500,000,000-r0 $500,000,000-r0 thau any other singlo work "(Mhc most remarkable arti-nco arti-nco in geography over acconi-Tho acconi-Tho American canal digccra of working at the rate thej aro k could dig the Suez canal in 'Tlio Panama canal will have cftoct on world commcrco and lit!C3 than any other one work nu nbovo and beyond all at things, it will give and as-the as-the United btates of Amorist Amori-st plee among nations, iv of 25,000 men is constantly constructing this giant wnter-: wnter-: will Hft the biggest battle- nn eighty-live foot stairway , it again on the other side, army keeps the zono healthy, car alone they cleaned a mil-,r mil-,r feet of ditches in Panama, 13.000 foot more, and funngat-000 funngat-000 cubic feet of house spaco 'caution against disease. To the mighty army ot workers m is spendinc $2,000,000 a r supplies. f'four millions a month" na can, the workers are making iat many cubic yards of .dirt the problem of digging the not so much one of gotting tho as it is of making away with after they have gotten it out. oiteil States when a contractor rs a piece of construction work ;aul of more than 50Q yards, B it on the basis of that dis-iled dis-iled free, and the remainder ho for at whatever the cost is be. On the canal the average ho excavated material is more miles. And as the work nears m the problem of getting tho it of the way will grow more the hauls becoming longer as 0. by. . otwithstanding the increasing s that are besetting tho canal ihev are continually setting tandard.' At the Y. M. O. A. r.lierc on public occasions you i or, or sec projected upon a I'our million's a mouth." A ccts it every time. And there-res there-res the spirit of the men who inc the canal. There was re-dii re-dii the canal a year ago last iv'ifii it. was announced that m ji unllion cubic yards of dirt a .'xeuvutcd. At home it was t it was just a spurt at making flv. On the zone, however, rot v i ' v it that way. Steam ipii. drdur men, dirt-train men ,. h h ".ui u ?'t their pegs ;wo mi v rnrlw eh Uio d'llicnlties of iho rainy ibov kept crowding the notch oil closer until in Decombor of r thev were able to offer Uuclo Ihristmiis gift of a two million-cord. million-cord. But even then .they did i on the oars of achievement, million a month" became the crv, and after two efforts, in which they mado new advances their thrceMnillion riiark, " ", in T tho present year tlicy wrote he highest excavating records dc anywhere nearly three and million cubic yards in a singlo In April they almost duplicated no. Then tho dry season ended, nz the summer they will worry ith something over two million ards a month. But everybody rinc himself for a dash at that llion mark next December, rho know tho temper of tho men tbey will touch it. ra cut has long been regarded crcnt task of the undertaking, hero thfit the French made their aults on the great barrier be-the be-the Atlantic and the Pacific , It is the only place along the there work has never been sua-from sua-from the time the first French ons began.' It was thought until r that the length of time it would o die the' Culobra cut would length of time it would take to it the canal. But recent develop- arlfHtP0- 1 to tn0 Gatun dam as the .'ijMp'fiiiie factor in tho completion fcWKlcrialtinjr. Culebra finds hcr-thf'Bfcf hcr-thf'Bfcf i catcn aTra.Y bv the greedy ifrtmSrti a hundred 6tcam shov-ffOru.'"!B,I!ic shov-ffOru.'"!B,I!ic rato of moro than a million HcJ s a month. At that' rato 5o1d yield up her last vard lBJ is m leW3 llmn tlirco ani1 a half !pBBu' as the cut grows deeper it 1C courae cow narrower, and the 13 ''Ru ?m ''novels thoy can opcralo fJKJ" torer dirt train tracks , they Ml K,the smidk-r tho amount of cx-Mp.ftMurhl cx-Mp.ftMurhl there will bo per J'carscomo and go. Mr'1 intoresting feature of the l.aat under tho present, manage-fMiu, manage-fMiu, ttonth they manage to make v "cord than thoy made during jp,'lBwp0nllnE :n0th of the prc-,jtt..Hi prc-,jtt..Hi vHv r'or instance, during tho ap" B;0f,My, in tho Culebra Cut, the apefr"' Ml, 1 material romoved was thirty-' thirty-' tjt..' Kj C48.t greater than the amount i 1 month of 1907, although tho rainfall in I Alay, 1907, was less than seven inches, ' as compared with nearly thirteen inches 1 "p"r of t,,e current vear. They do things on a big scale on this Culebra Cut. Go through it and vou will see some two dozen steam shovels in sight at a time, and as many dirt trains attending them. You will see some twentvfivo or moro big well drills operated by compressed air from an air compressor plant, ncrhnps the larg eat in tho world. Each of them is boring a well of fair diameter. In the course of a 3-ear these wells, end on end, would nmko a hole in the ground about 110 miles deep. Tnto these wells they sink tons of dynamite. At noon, or after the force has stopped work one hears a roar from these blasts that makes him think of a great artillery duel. A few months ago thev sot off a blast of nineteen and a half tons of dynamite, distributed in twenty-five holes, whoso depths varied from thirt'-ijyJ0 thirt'-ijyJ0 n,,ncty feet. It broke up over 1 0,000 cubic yards of earth. m It costs something to keep things going go-ing in tho big cut. It takes about 30,-uuo 30,-uuo tons or coal a year, which costs over half a million dollars. The wages paid arc said to average from fortv to sev-onty sev-onty per cent higher than in tlie States, and the coal costs about $6.50 per ton. as compared with $3 and $3i50 per ton in the states. It takes about 200 locomotives loco-motives and other rolling stock in proportion pro-portion to haul tho excavated material troni Culebra Cut. The most of it is hauled away in tweuty-ton Lidgerwood dump cars. Sixteen of these are made up into a train. Five shovclsful of the large type of shovel loads a car, eighty shovclsful making a trainload. The train is pushod to the dumps and in ten minutes the entire load of 320 cubic yards of dirt is removed by a mechanical mechan-ical unlcader. When tho latest available figures were made out, it was costing the government gov-ernment about eighty-two and a Tialf cents a cubic yard for tho excavation in , Culobra Cut. But as tho output of ma-1 ma-1 tonal has boon increased .by nearly a half, with onl3' a comparatively small mcronse of force, it is probable that thoj' have been able to reduce these figures fig-ures to the neighborhood of fifty cents per cubic yard. The work that is being done by the dredges is costing vorv much less. For instance, there aro the big sea-going dredges, "Ancon" and " Culebra. n the rormer workiug at the Atlantic side and the latter at the Pacific end. They operate in a section of the entrance channel about 500 feet in width and a mile and a qunrter in length. Starting at the inner end and moving seaward slowly, with their big 20-inch centrifugal pumps in operation and their drags sucking up the mud as they go, by the time they get to deep water their .bins are full and they carry the mud out to sea and dump it. This is dono by opening open-ing tho gates in the bottom of the vessels. ves-sels. They then steam back to the channel, chan-nel, having closed tho gates of the bins, and repoat tho operation. When the gates are closed, water is shut into the bins up to sea level. As tho mud is pumpod in the water flows out, thus enabling them to always fill tho bins with dredged material. They work day and night, requiring a crew of about sixty. Besides tho two big sea-going dredges, thoy have in operation 011 the canal three twenty-inch suction dredges, throe-dipper throe-dipper dredges,' five French ladder dredges, and several others. They are also fitting up several more of the old French dredges, and when they are all in commission tho dredging plant will have a capacity of not far from two million cubic yards of earth a month As tho rainy season makos very little difference with the dredges, that part of tho work will proceed without much iulyrruption from now honceforth. . There are a little more than fifty million yards of material to bo moved, so that counting only h million j'ards a month for all the dredge aquipment, it would take but little more than four years to complete the dredging end of tho work. There is now one part of the canal where they see the finish. That is tho big spillway at the Gatun dam. The' have gotten down to the final level on this, una by tho first of Oeto.ber it will have been completed, and the concrete con-crete work thcro can begin. - A few studies in figures will serve 1 - i . t ti,. ...-i. .1..,. are doing. Tho excavations of a single month in tlic dry season would make a pile of dirt throo hundred feet high, throe hundred feot across and over a thousand feot long. Tho pyramid of Cheops is 750 feet square at the bas and 451 feet high. It is said to have takon 100,000 men ten years to build tho road from the quarry to the oyra-mid, oyra-mid, and tho same number of men twenty twen-ty years to build the P3ramid itself. During the month of Jfarch, tho canal forco removed a pile of dirt larger by a tenth than the pyramid, and if they realize their ambit.1611 of four million yards a month, they will bo hauliug dirt equivalent in bulk lo five pyramids ever' four mouths. Tho Suez canal required re-quired twenty years to build. At the rato of excavation for March tho Isth mian canal forco could dig a Suez canal in iusl about one year. The Manchester ship canal, one of tho largest in the world, connecting Liverpool and Mnn Chester, ia over thirty-five miles long, and required many years to build. The commission moved enough earth in March to make a rate which, maintained main-tained from month lo month, would en able them lo dig a Manchester canal in less than fifteen months. (Copyright, 1008, by Frederic J. Haskin.) |
