Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1899-09-22
is IT NOT FEASIBLE?
ANCIENT AND MODERN APPLI-
ANCES IN CANAL WORK.

ANCIENT AND MODERN APPLI-
ANCES IN CANAL WORK.
The Crude Tools of the Past Only Needed te
Be Backed by Brawn and Determination te
Accomplish the Greatest Of Engineering
Proiects-A Bare Glance at Past Achieve
mcnts Shows How Feasible, With Moderr
Appliances Is the Construction of thu
Olymp;a'Gray's Harbor Canal.
BY ELIAS PAWN
The great French naturalist, in hi:
essays on organic evolution, said
"What cannot nature effect with such
means at her disposal? She can do all
except create and destroy. These two
extremes of power the Deity has re.
served for himself only, creation and
destruction are the attributes of his
omnipotence."
But this great world of nature ir
matter and materials is mans inheri.
tance. Through the evolution of time
a ceaselessly reproducing growth ol
new ideas, development has taken
place, and higher vitality with its
concommitant, electric energy, has
brought forth by degrees the possibili.
ties of matter, under the subsection
of man, and from stage to stage he has
gradually extracted its values. By his
unceasing persevering and educating
his genius, he has thus vanquished
natures secrets until gradually the
world is being laid under subsection to
the control of his enlightened will, en-.
forced by recent scientific discoveries
In nothing does this become more ap
parent than in labor-saving machinery
We see the unfinished works of the
toiling masses of the past, who were
accustomed to work the most insig.
nificant results of enterprise at vast
extent of time and labor, requiring
an almost superhuman degree of pa
tience, leave to our times the complete
construction of the Suez and Corintll
canals, OF which there were but the
fragmentary remains to be seen and
the success of the Nicaragua canal
1t is not to be conjectured that all
tools are the growth of our times
Holy Writ records that many tools
now in use were household word.
amongst the early Egyptian and Jew
ish people,: "Yet they had file fol
the mattocks and for the coulter and
for the forks and for the axes and tc
sharpen goads. Sam. xIn-21. "Thou
shalt not plough with an OK and an
ass together.-Deut. xxII.1O." "Now
therefore make a new cart."-I Sam
VII. We have authentic history thai
the manufacture OF iron was carried on
in ancient Arabia. Egypt and Canaan
some specimens are credited to an era
in advance, or, at least, contempOr.
aneous with the erection of the pyra
mids of Cheops in which iron tools
have been discovered, and granite cut
ters realize that steel tempering must
have been we'll known art by the en-.
craving on syenite granite on the Tenn.
pie of Karnac. Besides Damascene
swords are as old as the city OF Damas.
Gus. The Egyptians were a creative
nation. Theirs were the first survey.
ors on canals and their architects on
temple and pyramid building. They
borrowed nothing from the arts and
sciences of any other people. They
constructed for strength and durabil
ity. Works executed more than forty
centuries ago, impress the beholdeI
with awe by their sublimity, the mas
siveness OF their parts, and the majesty
of their style. Rollin says: "Bul
the most wonderful circumstance is
That the ancient Egyptian should
have had the art and contrivances to
dig in the very quarry canal through
which the water OF the Nile ran in a,
the time OF its inundation from which
they raised columns, obelisks and
statues on RATS proportioned to theil
weight in order to convey them into
lower Egypt" All these labors were
slow. Their mechanical means to
move large bodies inland were doubt
less by means of the sled. 1t was used
in Egypt to move large bodies OF stone
In one sculpture, a statue is seer
drawn by 172 men, and there are OF
men, bosses and relays. Lagard':
Babylon and Nineveh" portrays one
hauling a winged bull. 1t is a low
sled on which is rack or frame worl
to steady the image. The image i.
further steadied by guy ropes ant
forked props, held by two men, te
each guy rope. Long drag ropes, foul
in number and double, fastened to eye
lets in front and back of the runner
with men attached to them by bri
coles. These men are apparently
dragging the sled. There are Others
attached in the same way to carts
loaded with ropes, and multitude
marching in single file, apparently
carrying rollers and other materials
whilst others are using levers ant
other means to help the mass forward
So it has been from the time when the
megaIethic monuments of the worlt
were erected, every great undertaking
seems to have been done by the coop
esation of human bodies. History re-
cords but few changes in the burden
bearing on public works from th'