The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1880-03-26
ACROSS THE IsTHMUs.

Ne
Captain Eads, in speaking of th'
railway across the Isthmus, says:
clam confident of success, and think
it the sheerest waste Of time ON thu
part of Congress or the public to he dis
cussing canal, when II better method
which can be put in operation In one
quarter of thestime and for one quar-.
ter of the money, has the highest and
most emphatic approval of the ablest
engineers and shipbuilders In America
and Europe. If NJ. de Lesseps were
an engineer he would not spend his
time ON scheme 80 hopeless rs q
canal.
"The discussion that has now opened,
reminds one of the discussion which
preceded my proposition, in 1878, to
deepen the mouth of the Mississippi by
jetties. Almost every one thought the
Fort st. Philip Canal was the only
way the river could be opened. I said
other rivers have been successfully
yes, but they were all small rivers,
was the reply. To-day urge that
vessels are transported by rail and have
been for forty years, and the answer is
the same, sYes, yes, but they are small
ones-canal boats, schooners and the
like In the jetty controversy the op-
posers said the quantity of sand mud
that was carried In the Mississippi
river was SO great that it could not be
controlled; and to-day they cry out
the cargo is so great in a big ship that
She cannot be carried without straining
the ship. The most eminent ship
builders in the world say this is all a
mistake. They tell US that one of the
imperative rules OF their art requires
that a ship shall be built of such
strength that if she be lifted up by a
force at each end, and without support
in the middle, she shall remain unin-
juretl; and in like manner, if she be
only at the middle, her hull
shall be so stiff that it will not be in.
jurcd thereby.
"1 am not without practical knowl-
edge on this point. have built four.
teep iron-clad vessels for the United
The first eight she ever owned
built, and I know that tho strength
of a ships hull to stand the storms of
tho ocean, must he calculated just as
we calculate the strength of bridge
girder. Naval architects calculating
the requisite thickness of iron for ships,
treat the proposed vessel as though it
were bridge girder. When tho Bo-
russia founded last fall, have no
doubt that the iron of her bottom was
of a poorer quality than her architect
was promised, or that it had become so
injured by rust that it could not stand
tho tension put upon tho bottom plates
when her bow and stern were lifted at
the same moment by two different
waves. When the ship is up-borno at
the middle by n single wave, and the
bow and stern are without support,
the deck plates arc strained in tension,
while the bottom plates have their
strains reversed to compressive ones.
Iron, like everything else used in con-
vessels and bridges, is elastic.
A strong iron gfrler 400 feet long, If
heavily loaded, will defect six inches
with perfect safety under the load, and
ships $40 feet in length, in heavy seas,
simply impossible to keep them from
under such strains, but as the
elastic limit of tho iron Is not exceeded
it does them no harm whatever. The
main arch of the st. Louis bridge, $40
fcet in length, DETECTED under the test
load Of eighty-four locomotive engines
and their tenders about three inches.
The arch is of steel, and its form re-
'ists bending much better than that Of
, girder. a girder of the same strength
and depth would have DETECTED twelve
inches. Ships on a railway could not
be subjected to any such strains as
these, as the road-bcd cannot bend,
md as she would be supported
throughout her length by the road"
The New York News got the fol-
lowing from small boy: "The cat
which we had fore we got Nose was
yelicr and didn't have no cars, and not !
eny tail, too, cos they were.cut off to