| Show MILLIONS IN panama march 10 1898 sue biggest enterprise on the isthmus lm pat gama tama outside of the canal and i panama railroad ilithe manganese aw which has been lately opened up ty baltimore parties on the atlantic v whytt pot about forty miles above colon oh company is now shipping from to tons of manganese a th and they have I 1 am told over I 1 tons in sight and are discovering MW d deposits right along at the pres I 1 cost of working their mine a hun thousand tons will net them more a 3 million dollars and this is it is just the beginning of their work t nese inese is you know one of the t of metals it is used in making eel el and is needed in the manu of armor plate and gun forgas s it makes the metal tougher more ore alexi flexible ble there is a little nese lese found in virginia georgia arkansas but mr J M hyatt i distant superintendent of the i here tells me that we annu annually uce only ily about tons tone while toon netlon is tons the ader we buy from russia and e manganese costs according ty from 14 to 16 15 per ton it tn in a great lump or deposit on of a mountain and is mined like ke iron mr hyatt says it he e company only about 4 per ton t out the ore and land it in balti jor so BO that there is a clear profit of 0 a ta ton or at the present ship of from to a 1 h 0 within the past year and a this his company has shipped and it is now only two years it got possession of the property company is capitalized at the chief stockholders are john K a of the baltimore and ohio rall rail mr woods the president of the fland and steel company and henry tot f 33 baltimore altimore story of the mine as told to me y is in as follows was discovered said mr hyatt at spaniard who showed specimens ff ore to a man named popham was a united states inspector of anop a at colon popham went to ul K he e did not then know mangan esst from stove blacking and had no whether hether Wr the stuff was worth any w or not he took specimens how p to new york and every one told teat if there was much of the stuff better than a gold mine he ined the e baltimore pax parties ties and they experts down to examine the arty their report was that there several thousand tons in sight a company was at once formed y the mine and develop it this two 0 years ago we now have nine of railroad running from the port tore e de dios where our wharves to the mines we have put up js and are now employing employ in er about aaen the superintendent of the Is E B williams of connecticut mc las 41 charge of the works and I 1 at aws ta to the railroad and shipping W did it come that the mine was gujt Ww discovered sooner I 1 asked t aona know was the reply there grgat great boulders of manganese lyp the top of the ground but I 1 we ex pach alx prospectors as saw them 1 too looking bg for gold and had no idea ly tuff stuff was wap of value 16 mining very difficult dl moult no was the reply we blast down the ore with dynamite and load it into buckets which run by gravity on an overhead cable line down to the cars at the foot of the mountain the loaded buckets carrying back the empties as they go down the ore sells in the shape that we take it out without smelting smelling sm elting or any other treatment are there other deposits in the same region 1 I think there are said mr hyatt we have bought all the land in sight and have prospectors out all the time we have discovered some new deposits but nothing bothin like the first one in this deposit we have already gone down feet and are not yet at the bottom at the top of the mountain the body of ore is about feet thick but it widens as it goes down and we dont know how thick it is I 1 took a ride with the superintendent over the panama railroad yesterday this road Is one of the best beat paying pieces of property in the world it has made big fortunes for its owners in the past and today its receipts are far in excess of its expenditures what would you think of paying to ride from new york to boston or for a first class r railroad a ticket from new york to chicago 1000 to go from the atlantic to salt lake city or 1500 to be carried over the iron tracks across the continent to san francisco such a rate would be about 50 cents per mile and this Is just what the panama railroad company received for every passenger it carried for more than thirty years of its existence the length of the r road oad Is forty seven seve n miles and the fare up until 1889 was 25 I 1 in gold all through passengers on ithe new york steamers who have tickets for panama are now charged 10 in gold for this railroad trip and the local fare from colon to panama Is 4 in gold but the baggage rates of 8 cents a pound make this much higher as only fifteen pounds are allowed free the panama railroad is emphatically a an n american institution though the majority of the stock Is now in the hands of the panama canal company being in tact fact about the only valuable a asset aset the company has the road was built by americans and today all of its officials als including the ticket agents conductors and engineers come from the united states it is a golden monument to american pluck and energy the concession for it was granted to an american syndicate in 1850 and this included all the rights of way across the isthmus of panama which is as I 1 told you miles long no one can make even a wagon croaa croaa across the isthmus without this company companas comp anys I 1 a permission and so far no road of any kind has been attempted As we went over the railroad colonel shaler the superintendent in told me that the natives whom we found walking or riding on the edge of the track were able to do so only by the sufferance of the company the original grant gave the company all the public lands on an the line of the track and provided that the ports of panama and colon were to be free ports this last Is the case today the original concession was for only forty nine years but it has since been extended with some modifications to ninety nine years during which the company pays the government a year for the privilege it took five years to build the road roa d when it was begun the isthmus was a miasmatic wilderness and the line ran through the swamps and along the valleys of the chagres chagares and rio grande rivers crossing the mountain range at an elevation of feet forty seven miles of such road could be easily and cheaply built in the united states here it cost by the time it was completed it began to earn money as soon as the first few miles of track were laid and when the road was opened for traffic in 1866 1855 it had already received over for transportation a and within four years its earnings were more than its original cost and the owners were walking on velvet during one year it carried castled passengers receiving from that source alone it has carried canted as much as tons of freight in a year and within twelve years after it was finished worth of specie passed over it on its way from san francisco to new york it got all ail the gold passengers of the early who crossed the isthmus and made them pay heavily for carry carrying theil theia gold mining outfits in addition to tle itle a 25 fare even at these rates the trip was waa a cheap one for it shortened the danger of the fevers which often caught these gold hunters who crossed on foot the ride by rail is less than four hours boum by mule or on foot it took two or more mom days the health of the isthmus was then worse than it Is now during the building of the road the company ran a funeral train and it is said that there were more deaths than there are ties liea in the entire line I 1 was talking yesterday with an american who ran the funeral train he says they put the dead in rows piling one row crosswise on the top of that beneath it until the big hole made for the days burial was n nearly early filled when earth was thrown in to fill up one thousand Chi namon were imported for the work within a month a number of them had died and hundreds of the remainder committed mi eted suicide so that the station abe where re they worked to is now called mato chine which means kill chinaman we brought down a brooklyn boy with us who has the job of station agent at this place I 1 would not take the place for the isthmus I 1 met yesterday a gra graduate cuate of the boston school of technology who has come here to the railroad he told me he received a month which was better than he could do in the states but that he had just gotten up from an attack of malarial fever I 1 met a baltimore man a Mr Hodges who is employed in the general offices who told me he had had a siege of yellow fever last year and in short I 1 have found but few americans who have not been fever stricken at some time or other during their stay here many of them say however that the isthmus bisno worse worm than some of our southern ports nd that if one takes good care of himself 1 1 there is not much danger I 1 am told that of all the foreigners americans stand the climate best english next then french and then Va italians lians the ride across the isthmus to Is a dir delightful one the country after you yon pass the few miles of lowland on the atlantic side rises into many wooded hills and the distant views make you think of the forest covered rolling lands of the united states rather than of the tropics there are few palm trees though you now and then past pass a banana plantation you go bevill by vill villages of thatched huts and the buildings of the canal people are everywhere to be seen the road runs very smoothly I 1 and the track is well kept it is a five foot gauge equipped with lignum vitae ties and fifty six pound rails these ties are about the only on ones P 9 except iron which will withstand the ohp attack of the wood enting pa ting ants which are bof found here they are from tre trees es so small that a tree seldom furnishes more than gnp tie and the wood is so hard that cannot be driven into it hoten have to be bored for every bolt and this extra work makes the ts ex pensive each bach ofte costs about in the telegraph poles are of iron all of the rolling fock comps comes from the St states sites the superintendents n denta private observation car tn in which we brae was made in wilmington and some of fit the locomotives came from philadelphia the first class cars have halter wicker seats like those of some of our smoking cars the second class are built like long street cars with the seats running lengthwise under the windows I 1 crotle tor for some time second alassio class alas sto to see the people half of df the passengers were jamaica negroes one third was made up of chinese and the rest reat were natives colombians the chinese were the best beat dressed of the tot and the neatest As the american conductor came iry in I 1 asked him as to his health and was told that he had been traveling over the road for seven years and had not been sick a day alk AH wages of americans are paid in gold and those of the common laborers in silver engineers get a month conductors a month and telegraph operators froni from 15 6 to the brakemen are natives and they hey receive a day in silver common laborers get from 85 35 to 75 cents a day and most of those who work on the tracks are jamaica negroes they put in ten hours a day beginning at 6 a m and working until 11 most of them bring their first meal of coffee and bread to the track and eat it there at eleven they stop for breakfast which to Is usually made up of rice and aalt a judt of dried meat wad and at I 1 go to work alln and work until 6 when they go batt for din dinner fier host fostof of the americans here are well eft educated bated rhen men and many of them have traveled all over north and south some have literary ability and I 1 hav hava been much interested in a little volume ot poems by an american bained gilbert here lip Is one which will be appreciated Prec by any man who has spent much time in the tropics it describes the isthmus and might be entitled where the longitudes mean and the latitudes low where the hot winds of sumer perpetually bew where the mercury chokes the thermometers moin mo meters eters throat and the dust is as an thick as the hair on a goat where ones onee MID mouth jtb ts to dry as an mummy accurse ac there lieth the land of perpetual thirst the following to is morre more glowing by far thin than the reality rev alty the chagres chagares is really a beautiful stream and not half so bad as am painted paip ted the terrible miasma was 1 at its worst years ago when the 1 swamps were duir dug up for the canal and fi dad aqda the isthmus is comparatively ively health beyond the chagres Ch chagares agres river are paths that lead to death to fevers deadly breezes to mal makarias arias poisonous breath beyond the tropic foliage where here tue me alligator watts waits Is the palace of the devil his hid original estates beyond the chagres chagares river are paths forber unknown with a spider neath each pebble A scorpion neath each stone Ms here the boa constrictor mis fatal banquet holds and to his bip slimy bosom his hapless victim folds beyond the chagares chagres river burko the panther in his hia lair and ten hundred thousand dangers are afe in the noxious air behind the be fremb trembling ing leaflets B beneath it the fallen reeds are the ever present perils of a million different breeds beyond the thi chagres chagares river said Bald the storys old that lead to mountains j of purest virgin kald but itis m my firm conviction whatever tales tale they tell Y that at beyond the chagres chagares river AU all paths lead straight to hell we crossed the MUM and about a 4 hundred other waterways waterwaY 8 during the p abid saw aa women with little or v nothing on them washing their clothes in the streams all washing here is done with cold water and my towels at the hotel are frequently ornamented with burs caught from being dried upon the bushes and weeds PRANK FRANK G CARPENTER |
