Evening star., 1898-03-19

@es&yg1 building UP of earth
works has bean ac-
z@&-=E5bh complished. / have
5E gone over the route
of the canal and have
taken a number of photographs of the
work as it is in March, 1898. This morn
ing 1 went on the cars out to the Culebra
cut and watched 500 men working thera,
and was told that there were 200 employ
ed within three miles of where 1 stood.
The Culebra is, you know, the highest
point on the canal route. The scene was a
busy one. Long trains of iron cars loaded
with rock and clay moved over the canal
tracks. carrying the excavated materials
and dumping them on the banks immense.
steel dredges, each tall as two-story
house and ten times as big as the largest
thrashing machine, gouged out rocks and
gravel, and catching up loads of this heavy
material in big iron buckets fastened to
Two endless chains, carried them high into
the air and poured them out into cars
Here thirty Jamaica negroes were drilling
noes IN the rock for immense charges of
dynamite, and from away over there at the
IISht came the boom, boom, boom of The
explosions OF another gang Il mil. away
At tie station of Emperauor a few miles
further on, seven enormous dredges were
scooping up rock and raising it in buckets
each OF which would hold more than a biz.
barrel Connected with each dredge We're
trolley lines. upon which the loaded buckets
were carried in the air off to the points
wnere the rock was needed. Thera were
Cther trains of iron cars here drawn rap
1dly along by screechihs locomotives, ard
u thousand negroes Were digging down
f6ck' loading cars and drilling for the
blasting L had letters from the chief Off
Gals OF the canal here at Panama direct
ing that everything to be shown me-
ana was able through these to get some
Ida of the condition of affairs today There
Is 10 doubt but that the work now being
done Is honest. economical and effective,
ard also that if the present company had
eiousn money they could complete the
caraE As 20 just how much ttey need
L Rave not been able to ascertain. 1
asked the chief OF construction today what
amount he thought was necessary. He
shrugged his shoulders ard raised his
hands and his eyebrows as he replied: "a
great sum- great sunni
The Canal Route.
But before 1 further describe the work
that is being done now. let me give you
the story of the canal in a nutshell. The
1sthmus of Panama is much like the neck
of an hour glass, of which North America
and South America are the two globes 1t
is wonderfully slender and an exceedingly
tough piece of land 1t is about long
as the distance between Washington city
and Boston via New York and ranges in
width from ore hundred and e.ghteen miles
to about thirty miles. Low mountains run
L
plains, and near the coast swamps and
morasses. Where the canal is being cut
the distance from one coast to the other as
the crow flies is probably not more
line is forty-seven miles long and
the route laid out for the Pana-
ma canal is still shorter. Some of the
mountains of the isthmus are over 500
feet high. Along the line of the canal the
highest elevation is at the Culebra ridge.
the poirt that ! visited tc5ay.
The canal begins AT the port of Colon or
as you may call it. Aspinwall. though
Colon is the name used here. Colon is not
Tar from the mouth of the Chagres river on
the little island of ManzanilIe. ard at the
terminus OF the Panama railroad Starting
here, the line of the canal runs through the
valley of the Chagres cutting the. stream
In many places. until at about fourteen
miles or more the ground rises irregularIy
until IL reaches the top at Culebra. There
Is all told about twelve miles Of deep cut
ting TO be done. and thence to the sea the
excavation is comparatively easy. There
is much worsc rock on any of cur railroad
lines than that Of the Culebra. One diff
Guilty is in taking care of the waters of the
Chagres river This Is now about three
hundred feet wide and two feet deep 1t
looked little more than a creek when /
passed along il yesterday. but in the wet
season IL sometimes rises thirty feet in a
night and bears along everything in its
Hoods This river and the big excavation
are the engineering problems Of the canal.
De LesseD's idea was to hold back the
Chagres by a big dam and let Ii out grad
ualiy. The Chicago engineers who made
the Chicago drainage canal and who are
now in Nicaragua said while here the other
day that the. Chagres could be easily con-
trolled, and also after looking over the en-
tire route Of the canal ventured the state-
ment that the building of a sea level or
q lock canal here was feasible
Whnt the French Have Done.
Every one las heard of the Panama ca
raj scandals. The truth Is worse than any
thing that has been published. 1 will. fur
ther on. give some stories which 1 have
heard here of the extravagances and
FRAUDS OF the first companies, when cham
payne flowed like water and gold was AL
n est as plenty as copper Is In some parts
of Montana Within less than ten wears
they spent mere than $265. 900 000 and mill
ions of this were almost openly stolen by
the Contractors. At the same time the work
that was done remains. and ff the canal is
sold to other parties or completed by the
French II Will Lot have to be done again.
About twenty miles Of the car al Is practi-
caiy comple ted. The fourteen miles at the
eastern end have been somewhat filed up
by the Chagres river. but slight dredging
would make this part of the work clear. I
visifec IT last week and SOY that nothing
lad been done for years. Then there is
about six or eight miles finished at the Pa
cifc end Of the canal, ard the dredges are
row at work there deepening the harbor.
This IL new work and Is of pews interess.
The present company have Just completed
wharf o thousand feet long at this poins.