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Show DEVELOPING EFFICIENCY AljMl Maximum Results With Minimum Expenses in 4 the Canal Work. BIG TASK DIVIDED . INTO THREE DIVISIONS Engineers Have Friendly Rivalry That Secures -Best Results. BY FUSBEIGK JrHAISW- ANCON, Canal Zone. Much has been heard of late about "efficiency" in the sense that that word ia used to denote de-note the seientifie msnsgement that increases in-creases the product of labor without proportionately ineressing either the amount of work done or the cost there-of. there-of. ' Although the canal builders hsve sot adhered to any particular ayttem of "scientific management," they have nevertheless so managed their work that they are now accomplishing a great deal more than thev did two years ago in proportion to the number of men at work and the amount of money expended. In two years tha eost of steam shovel operation in Culebra cut haa been decreased de-creased from 11.5 to 8.88 cents per cubic ?-ard of materia excavated. The dis-snee dis-snee which the excavated material mutt be hauled has increased from eight to twelve miles in tba two years, yet the cost of. hauling it has been cut down from 18.54 to 15.23 eents per eubie yard. A ton of dynamite ia made to do twiee as much work now as it did two years ago. Expert attention given to the lubricating oil aupply has effected a saving of $500 a month. And so it is throughout the eanal work. Efficiency ia the watchword maximum raaulta with minimum ex-. ex-. penr.es. The fact that the best engineering engi-neering talent in the world ia at work to develop this efficiency is of course responsible for these enormous savings, but there 1 another reason. Initial eosta were in many instances too high for the precise reason that the engineer ing talent waa not given full swsy. Record for Excayation. Four years ago, in 190T, the American publie was impatient to aee "the dirt if v." There waa mora or less skepticism skepti-cism concerning tha can si project, and as nothing would satisfy the peopja but h.. """-flying dirt, and as the people were spending their money for the canal and had it in their power to abandon the work altogether, there waa nothing to be dona but make the dirt fly. Therefore the eanal authorities ad-' ad-' dressed themselves to the task of proving prov-ing to the American people that the canal project waa featible by the only possible method ocular demonstration. demonstra-tion. Thev went to work digging, regardless re-gardless of whether or not every requirement re-quirement of engineering skill for proper preparation had been met. During Dur-ing the first nine montha of the new regime re-gime 12,000,000 eubie yards had been excavated. During the next year, 1908, th excavations amounted to the stupendous stu-pendous total of 37,000,000 cubic, yarda, a greater amount of material than ever waa excavated in a single yesr by any one organisation in all the history of the world, and a record that probably never airain will be reached. By this time the popular demand for flying dirt had been satisfied. Also the amonnt ef material to be removed had been inereased, by changee jB the plana for' broadening the Culebra eut and for other purposes, until the total excavation required for the eanal was 182,000,000 enbie vsrda inttead of 103,-000,000 103,-000,000 aa waa originally estimated. Troablaaoim Slidea. Also, tba room for steam shovels and dirt trains had become more limited, nnd it was patent that if the canal were to be finished on time tba shovels nnd trains that eoold find working apace would hsve to ineresse their ca pacity for work. If the limit of eoet were not to be exceeded the cost of handling each eubie yard of material must be reduced. Pacing these new problems, the eanal bnilders set about increasing the efficiency effi-ciency of their mighty machine of men nnd metal. Preaident Roosevelt, by executive ex-ecutive order, gave the chief engineer a freer hand in eontrol of eanal affairs. and' although it appeared then that the last word in efficiency had been said, the engineers worked on. A weak spot waa diteovsred here, n man changed here, n bit of machinery altered ia another an-other place, all with the result that nnit costs have been redueed to a minimum that would not have been regarded as possible two years ago. . Aa Culebra cot grows deeper it also frows narrower, and the diffuenlty of andling the spoil trains increases. The slides all tha time are becoming more troublesome, and nothing bnt unexam- Sled efficiency will permit unit eosta be held down there. Yet it is the ' aim of the engineers to make the unit eoet for the present fiscal year aa low at that of last year Blvalry of Engineers. Tha eanal work is now divided into three divisions. The Atlantic diviaion is in eharge of Lieut. Col. William L. Sibert. who also is a member ef the eanal commission. The central division. . including Cnlebra cut. is in chsrgo of Lieut. Col. D. D. Gaillard. also a member mem-ber of the eoramiesion. The Pacific division di-vision is ia chsrge of 8. B. Williamson, n railroad engineer from private life. A healthy rivalry exists, and each engineer en-gineer ia oa his mettle to produce the b showing he can. During ths Isst fiscal fis-cal year the eost of concrete in piece at Gaton. Atlantic division, including plsst charge and division expenses, was 7.355 a enbie jrsrd, aa compared witk .0S at Pedro Miguel, a Pacine division. di-vision. - ' Even in so small a matter as rtment tags a saving of nearly (50,000 a month is made. The eemmiaeioa haa at asneh cement aa possible shipped ia bags instead of barrels. The manufacturer give aa allowance of tVi cents for , ' each beg returned. Nine-tenths of ths UContinned, on page 4.) DEVELOPING EFFICIENCY (Continued from page I.) bags are ssvod. and the cement shaksa out of them pays for baling bet sua twenty five and thirty thousand bags a .day, , Han dUnf ths Dirt. In such vast mechanical plant as that in use on the isthmus it is to be expected that expert studr will reveal opportunities for added efficiency. This study goes oa all the time, the engineer, engi-neer, being constantly oa the lookout. As the disposal of the excavated mi- terial, or spoil, is the greatest factor in determining the rapidity of the work, it was necessary nrst of all to look sfter the dirt trains, especially since trackage space in Culebrs cut is constantly con-stantly diminishing. The dirt is piled by the shovels on flat cars. These are hauled to the dumps and there unloaded by the Lid-gerwood Lid-gerwood unloader. This contrivance unloads a twenty-ear train at a time, dumping 800 tons in ten minutes. On a car next to the engine is s large revolving re-volving drum, or windlass, controlling cable attached to s huge plow which stands at the rear of the last of the twenty cars that compose the train. This plow sweeps the entire width of the train. The drum next to the locomotive loco-motive is revolved by steam power, the cable is wound around it, the plow is pulled toward the engine, the dirt is & lowed off over the side, and the train i ready to go back; for another load. Kept! ring Breaks. The cars have a sideboard oa one tide, but not, of course oa the other. This resulted in the bulk of the load resting on, the wheels under that side furnished with the sideboards, as the dirt would be piled higher on that side. The floor of the car was extended eleven inches ovsr the wheels oa the other side, and now ths load is equally distributed. This device has increased the capacity of the ears, saved wear and tear on the trains, which is money, snd also has enabled the plow to throw the dirt further away from ths track. This is but one of the scores of devices de-vices that have been employed to correct cor-rect some time wasting or equipment wearing error or weakness" ia connection connec-tion with these dirt trains. For in stsnce, the breaking of a Lidgerwood cable under a sudden strain formerly caused much trouble and wasted a I great deal of time. Kow a link weaker than the rest of the cable is attarheed next to tha plow. If anything break this waak pits-a will go, aad aa it is next to tha plow and not aovared with dirt, and extra linka are always at hand, tha repair work takea but a few minutea. After the Lidgerwood plow remove all the dirt from a train, a spreader mutt be used to foree the epoil down ever the ever widening embankment, i Fifty -one improvements have been made on this spreader since it wag first brought to the isthmus. All these things explain why the unite of eoet have been reduced to inch a remarkably remark-ably low figure. Progress Better Than IIxpectexL . The calendar year 1909 wee followed by g record surpassing even that of 1908, if the lock and dam const ruction be considered in addition to the ex cavation, while the calendar year ltfio witneeaed a no less remarkable result. Approximately thirty-three million en-bie en-bie vards of exeavated material was handled, nearly four million rerde of wet material was pumped into the damp and a million and a half yards of concrete con-crete was laid. While the excavations fell off some four million yards as compared com-pared with 1908. the total results were larger. it is difficult to convey aa idea of how much more rapidly the canal work is progressing than was hoped for at the beginning. W hen congress first authorised au-thorised the construction of the canal it was estimated thst the excavation would s mount to 103.000,0)0 cubic vards. The optimists predicted that lb it eould be done ia nine years, while the pessimists refused to believe that it ever could be done. Yet in four years the exeevatioa actually done reached a totaj of lft0.00,000 cubic yards, or, in other words, the canal diggers dig-gers did more, by 25 per cent, in four veers, than the most san -ruins engineer believed could be done Tn nine 'ears The average annual excavation has been about thirty-two million yards, while the aversge as predicted, at the beginning was leas than twelve mil lion. Tomorrow; THE PANAMA CANAL. T. A Oovsrameat Bailroad. |