Kimball enterprise. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1883, 1883-05-04
THE PANAMA CANAL.

Il meets Oh ~ AVerpTlSc-l
Work of Digging Vigorously Be-
gun.
Boston Advertiser.
Cap& Nathan Appleton, who has been
= ndentified with the International Com
Epany since the time ofthe Paris congress
(which voted for the Panama route, a
warm friend of M. De Lesseps, and
pne of the earliest to put faith in the
canal enterprise, having spent a fort
night or more upon the isthmus, has
lust returned home to Boston. He
says that to get ar idea of what
is doing on the canal n need only
cross the isthmus upon the railroad
train, from which abundant signs of
[theGextensive progress already made
can be obtained. About 5000 men are
employed. These are partly native In
dams, and partly negroes from Jamaica,
of whom large numbers have been
brought over. Until within the last
six months the work has been
principally preparatory. Houses
Tor the workmen haze been erected at
intervals along the line, the trees and
! tropical growtl,s have been removed,
and one can now ride on q horse along
! the AK of the canal-that is, the line
which marGs its exact centre from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. The canal COM
the fact of there being a railroad there
has proved an economy III time for ca
nal building of several years. Miles of
extra track have been laid for the exca-
v%ations, large hospitals have been put
up at both ends of the canal, and a vast
amount of machinery has been sent to
different points and put in readiness fo1
operation. The digging of the cnnal las
now fairly begun. AT Calebra ss the
nights point on the line, some 300G feet
above the level of the sea. An Ameri-
can, Mr.. Albert Millct, has the contract
for excagating and removing some 81
100000 cubic metres. His place is called
the American camp, or section, from
the fact that almost all his machinery
was made in the United States; and its
est, and ever jealousy, by the French
men and others, who are very
fast coming to recognize the superiori-
ty of American machines and Ameri-
can inventive talent. He has an
%excavator built at Albany. N Y, digging
sharply into the m~ountain-side, dump
ing into cars made in Springfield, and
which are hauled by a locomotive made
in Boston. From Calebra several miles
toward the Pacific and ten miles or more
toward the Atlantic the laborers are at
at work digging through this, the back
bone of that part OF the Andes. A con-
tract has recently been made with an
American for dredging ten miles on the
Pacific end of the canal, and at the At
lantic terminus work has already begun.
Two Dire kding machines, each with a ca
pacity OF about LOCO cubic metres IL day,
are employed there. The American
Dredging. Company has the contract for
dredging ten miles of the Atlantic end,
and it will put at work there three col
Ossal machines, IL of which is now on
It's way there, and the other two which
are now building at Philadelphia, each
costing 1925, 900. The material that is
brought up from the bottom ofthe canal
at Colon,..where these smaller dredges
are at work, is pure white coral, which,
when wet in its place, is cut through as
easily as cheese.
The canal company is now paying out
not far from $500, 900 monthly on the
isthmus. and another half million dol
lars is being spent at the Paris and New
York Offices for supplies and machinery
Of all kinds. That is, the work is being
pushed ahead at the rate of a million dol
lars Il month, and the company has su11i
Gent money to go or on this basis for three
wears to come, at which time the work
will be SO far advanced that it will con
tinue by its own momentum. In every
thing that is done, Capt. Appleton says
the inspiring mind and the controllin.
hand of NJ. De Lessop is seen. He ha:
not only the happy faculty of choosiue
the right men to put in the various po-
sitions connected with the work, but O
inspiring them with an enthusiasm fol
the work, and q personal loyalty and de
votion to himself.
One matter which is Of course of great
interest is the sanitrry condition OF the
isthmus. There are on the average
about $50 pat ientsin the company's hos
pital at Panama, Of whom only compar
atively few were stricken with fever
The others we're suffering from various
diseases and injuries received IL work
There were only thirty five patients a
the Colon Hospital. When it is consid
cred that any of the 5000 workmen wht
are taken i'll are sent to one or the Other
of these hospitals it is apparent, MI
Appleton says, that the isthmus is no
the pestilential place it is commonly be
lieved to be. The water from the sol
is not fit to drink, and the canal com
pany has imported hundreds of thou
sands of bottles of spring water which
is sold cheaply.
The time has now come, says Capt
Appleton, when Americans should re
alize that the canal is not an imaginar.
affair or the company aspeculative organ
ization. 1t is a great reality, becomln
stronger and stronger every day, an
our people should take part in the worl
in a n worthy of the position the.
occupy, geographically and politically
The lille talk which has been not uncom
mon in congress and in the America
press has had no effect in frightenin
the people of Centraland South Amerlc!
and it has not tended to increase thei
respect for the United States. The
know that the international Company
which is only French in the sense of be
ing organized by the great canal dlggel
who happens to be a Frenchma1
and having its administrative office
in Paris, while really the fla
of the United States of Columbia float
over it and protects tit is doing tn
work which has bt en- the dream OF ira
elers, of navigators, of merchants, an
of statesman for many years. The sta
ue of Columbus, sent over by the En-
press Eugene, now stands on the shol
at Colon. Doubtless, some day, one wi
be erected to Balboa where the wave