The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-03-20
Frank G. Carpenter Makes a Personal
Inspection Of the Canal and De-
scribes the Excavations.
$500 LABORERS NOW at WORK
FRANCE is WEARY OF THE UNDER
TAKING, AND MIGHT SELL OUT.
A Shameful Waste of Money, and Some
Stories of How Americans and 9th
ers Made Great Fortunes.
Copyright. 1898. by Frank G. carpenter.)

Copyright, 1898, by Frank G. Carpenter.)
PANAMA, March 7.--For the past three
years 1900 men have been steadily working
here on the Panama canal. There are $500
negroes at work here to-day, and a remark
able amount of cutting, dredging and build
ing up of earthworks has been accom-
plished. have gone over the route of the
canal and have taken number of photo
graphs of the work as it is in March, 1898.
This morning 1 went on the cars out to the
Culebra cut and watched 800 men working
there, and was told that there were 1900
employed within three miles of where 1
stood. The Culebra is you know, the high
est 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 ma
terials and dumping them on the banks.
Immense steel dredges, each as tall as a
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 holes in the rock for immense
charges of dynamite and from away over
there at the right came the boom, boom,
boom of the explosions of another gang a
mile away. At the station of Emperador, 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 big barrel. Connected with
each dredge were trolley lines. upon which
the loaded buckets were carried in the air
off to the points where the rock was needed.
oP
drawn rapidly along by screening locomo-
tives and q thousand negroes were digging
down rock, loading cars and drilling for the
blasting. I had letters from the chief Off
Gals of the canal here at Panama directing
that everything was to be shown me, and
l was able through these to get some idea
of the condition of affairs to-day, There
is no doubt but that the work now being
done is honest, economical and effective
and also that If the present company had
enough money 1t could complete the
canal AS to just how much is needed 1
have not been able to ascertain. asked
the chief of construction to-day what
amount he thought was necessary. He
shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands
and his eyebrows as he replied: "A great
sum! A great sum-
THE CANAL ROUTE.
But before L further describe the work
that is being done now, let me give you
the story of the canal in a nutshell. The
Isthmus of Panama is much like the neck
of an hour glass, of which North America
and South America are the two globes 1t
is a wonderfully slender and an exceedingly
tough piece of land. 1t is about as long as
the distance between Washington city and
Boston via New York, and ranges in width
from one hundred and eighteen miles to
about thirty miles. Low mountains run ir-
regularly through it. 1t has plateaus and
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 than
forty miles, but the railroad line is forty
seven miles long, and the route laid out for
the Panama canal is still shorter. Some of
the mountains Of the isthmus are over 15o0
feet high Along the line Of the canal the
highest elevation is at the Culebra ridge,
the point that I visited to-day.
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
far from the mouth of the Chagres river, on
the little island of Manzanillo, and 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 irregularly
until 1t 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 worse rock on many Of our 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 creek when l
passed along it yesterday, but in the wet
season it sometimes rises thirty feet in a
night and bears along everything in its
floods. This river and the big excavation
are the engineering problems of the canal.
De Lesseps's idea was to hold back the
Chagres by a big dam and let it out grad
ually. 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-
troIled. and also, after looking over the en-
tire route of the canal, ventured the state
ment that the building of a sea level or
lock canal here was feasible.
WHAT THE FRENCH HAVE DONE.
Every one has heard of the Panama canal
scandals. The truth is worse than any
thing that has been published. I will, fur
Their on. give some stories which / have
heard here of the extravagances and
frauds of the first companies, when cham
payne flowed like water and gold was al
most as plenty as copper is in some parts
of Montana Within less than ten years
they spent more than sos, 0OO. 900, and mill
lions of this were almost openly stolen by
the contractors. At the same time the work
that was done remains, and If the canal is
sold to other parties completed by the
French it will not have to be done again.
About twenty miles of the canal is practi
cally completed The fourteen miles at the
eastern end have been somewhat filled up
by the Chagres river. but slight dredging
would make this part of the work clear. I
visited it last week and saw that nothing
had been done for years. Then there is
about six or eight miles finished at the Pa
cific end Of the canal and the dredges are
now at work there deepening the harhor.
This is new work and Is of news interest.
The present company have just completed
a wharf a thousand feet long at this point,
and it is stated by them that within a
comparatively short time ships win be able