The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-05-07

] bar will be begun, and Chief Engineer
Menocal Ia confident that with ls ala aau
the completion OF the breakwaters. a deptn
Of thirty feet can be secured ana ha'n-
tanned at the entrance to the canal
The railroad is on the south SIDE OF tne
canal, a few hundred feet away and nearly
parallel with it. The track has been iaia
nine miles into the interior and the grazing
is we'll advanced a mile further. Inc olsar-
ing has been made thee miles beyond, 70
the foot of the divide, where the rock need
ed in the construction OF the breakwater Is
to be quarried. Over the greater part OF
the nine miles the road is laid upon an EN-
Il bankment made of tho sans excayated from
the canal. This is a coarse, gravelly sahu,
heavily weighted with lron, nnd very aatK
in color. Owing to its great weight 1t IL e1-
ttemely we'll adapted for the construction
of a roadbed. 1t is carried on platform
cars to the place where it Is reoulrea, ana
there dumped by a contsivance like a snow.
pillow, which is drawn FROM end to end OF
the train by a cable attached to the loco
motive. The road is of the standard gauge.
laid with fifty six pound steel rails OF Amerl-
can manufacture on ties also brought from
the United States. 1t will be extended to
Ochoa on the San Juan. about thirty
seven miles from Greytown, and Is intend
ed primarily for the transportation OF
materials. but it is expected to secure con-
siderable paving traffic at that point IN the
transportation of rubber, coffee, and other
produce brought down ty the river from
the interior. When completed it will be
one of the busiest ROADS in the world. as
the transportation of material Will require
a train every eight minutes.
The canal opening has been extended
eleven miles inlsnd to the base Of the foot
hills, and through it are visible the tops OF
the distant mountains. The opening
through the forest is 1856 feet wide, and the
canal excavation go feet wide. The canal
itself is now cut over 1,300 feet inland from
the west bank of the Greytown lagoon,
and throughout that distance has twenty
feet of water.
The Cana, Construction company bought
the entire plant of the North American
Improvement company, which did the
dredging for the collapsed Panama canal,
and six of its seven mammoth dred4es are
in this harbor. The other, the De Lesseps,
like the fame of it's pronominator. went
down on the way here from
Of Paris and the NJ. A. Slaven, are
now at work on the canal
dredging on opposite banks. Each has
forty-two huge iron buckets travelling by
an endless chain up and down an inclined
plaus. he buckets have a capacity for
lifting 4 cubic meter of earth each, but they
| actually lift only a cubic yard. At their
present rate of working they are excavat-
ing fifteen cubic yards n minute, and they
advance about twenty five feet a day OF
ten working hours. The plane over which
they travel is raised and lowered by a huge
crane, and swung from side to side by guys
| worked IN steam winches. They are now
| cutting about six feet above and twenty feet
below the surface of the water. The earth
excavated is dumped into a we'll about
seventy-tve feet above the deck of the
| dredge. Three eight-inch streams of water
thrown into the we'll force the sand through
a discharge pipe six feet in diameter and
| POO feet long. The water runs of into the
bordering forest and the sand remains in
immense embellishments on either side of the
canal.
The cutting down of the forest covered
the earth with a tangled and impossible
mass Of logs and underbrush. This was re-
moved by burning The species of fig al
ready spoken of and many other trees IN
the forest rest upon huge radial roots that
spread out over the surface of the ground
and present formidable barriers to dredging.
These roots are blasted out by dynamite Ill
advance of the dredges, and when a charge
is fired there is an upheaval of earth much
resembling in appearance the watersnouts
seen by our party on the way down here.
The present width of the canal will be
extended TO the great divide, where the
width at the surface of the water will be
100 feet, with %ten-foot boom on each side
ten feet above the water line and sloplng
banks to the top of the divide. The great
est depth Of excavation on the divide will
be 1927 feet and the average l5O feet. At the
point where the canal crosses, the divide Is
three and ihree-quarter miles wide. We
start early tomorrow morning to
follow the line of the canal across
the divide and up to Ochya on
foot, the only means of transportation
at present possible. The uniform depth of
the ANAL below the water line is to be
thirty feet. 1t has already been said that
the depth SO far as cut is now twenty feet.
When the advance dredges are somewhat
further along two other dredges will be set
to work behind them to dredge out the ad-
ditional ten feet.
An important part of the preliminary
work of the company was the erection of
buildings for office purposes, the
dation of its men, and the protection of its
stores and machinery. Selections for the
sites of all the buildings except the machine
shop were made north of the canal and the
northern end of the lagoon. he lagoon,
by the way, is about three miles long, three
quarters of q mile in width, and IS a deep
and excellent harbor.
The settlement made by the company is
|. called America, though | cannot help think
ing that the name applied to it by the Mica
raguans, La Fe, (the faith is more ap-
Q propriate. Altogether there are %forty-two
buildings, nearly all of two stories and
many of them very large structures. The
2 location is on the grassy strip bordering the
ocean, and there are no trees between the
buildings and the beach, upon which there
is nearly always a booming surf. No sea.
a side resort III the Omitted States is half 81
n breezy. As | write the wind i4 bowling
round my quarters, and it has been dolnS
!, the same thing night and day ever since
Q arrived here. Nowhere on earth is there
more cooling. refreshing, healthful breez
y than this northwest trade, and the officer
: of the com oany tell me that it blows witt
the same 70 ce nearly every day in the year
t Every member of the party is dclighte
Il with the temperature of America, and sew
) eral have expressed a determination t
Q come down here every spring. The thel
d mometer rarely rises above eighty-two de
grees i'll tie shade in the day and falls t
h about seventy-fve at night. Greytown
& not 80 cool because it is shut out from tn
sea by Ii strip of woodland.
n The company's experience completed
8 disproves the popular belief in the Unite
% States of the unhealth1ness of tins ~localit,
: Although it has a working force of Gt
IS men, it has not had at any one time MOI
than thirty patients in the hospital, an
If there have been only two or three deatl
" altogether. This record has been made j
spite of the fact that many of the men haN
d at times been forced to work for hours Il
% to the armpits in water. Much credit, how
ever, is due to the excellent sanitary pre-
tx cautions and regulations of DIR. Stubbel
h and his corps of assistants. At the time q
v our arrival there was only one patient i
as the hospital, and the doctor actual
is beamed with pleasure when ex-Senatt
IN Macarthur was turned over to his car
~ The senator is able to 60 about again and
er almost we'll.