Evening star., 1902-02-06
CONDITIONS AT PANt MA
FORMER ROADMASTER BEFORE
SENATE COMMITTEE ON CANALS.
Commander Lucien Young Tells of the
DrouGhts and RainfaIIs on
the Isthmus.

Mr. s. F. Plume. from 1888 to 1888 road
master of the Panama Railroad Company,
| was today before the Senate committee on
| interoceanic canals and testified concerning
his observations while the isthmus. Mr..
Plume has for forty years been engaged in
various projects for the building of rail-
| roads in South and Central America. He
| described conditions at Panama.
Late yesterday afternoon Commander
Lucien Young of the navy was before the
| committee. He has for three years been
dock captain at Havana, and described the
costly operation of cleaning the bottoms of
| vessels after they have been a short time
| In tropical waters. He said the docking
charge for vessel of COCO tons would be
ABOUT SS,oo day the first day and sl.50o
day thereafter This was a very heavy
expense to vessels going in tropical waters
he pointed out that fresh water acts as a
poison TO the vegetable and other growth
that collects on the bottom of a shin. and
because OF that fact the fresh water OF
| Lake Nicaragua, through which vessels
Will pass going through that canal would
cause great saving.
Commander Young had visited Panama
several times. though never in an officiaI
| way. In 1886 he went there and went over
| the canal route with English, German and
| French engineers. He was told that the
| two hours.
| Senator Hanna questioned this statement.
| and Commander Young said that while he
| had not measured the rise himself he was
| given that information by men who claimed
| 10 nave seen and measured the rise and
they pointed out to him how far the river
| had gone up during times of rain.
Water Fails in Torrents
1t does not rain at Panama" said
| Commander Young, "it pours Sometimes
the precipitation is six inches day."
| He told how the Chagres, mot more of a
river than the Anacostia river here during
the dry season. becomes a rushing torrent
when the tropical rain comes down.
In order to divert this water" he said
| and control it, they made tunnel
through one of the ridges of the mountain.
| The tunnel was about 20 by 20 feet Then
| they built a dam, costing S5Oo00oO, in
order to turn the stream, but the first time
| 1t rained that dam was washed away"
He said it was either a feast or a famine
In water at Panama. While the torrent
| Jeopardized any canal work during the wet
season, there would not be enough water TO
operate the canal when the dry season came
on He knew of the project of the French
engineers to eXcavate a lake to store water
to use in the dry season, but he could not
See where they could get enough water for
that purpose during the dry season of the
year. He had looked for springs but had
not been able to see any of them there.
Climate Worse Than Havana.s
The climate of Panama he regarded as
worse than Havana ever was. He had yell
low fever there and had seen the awful
sickness that is experienced by people at
Panama.
Commander Young spoke of the underly-
ing strata of the fifteen miles of the Pan
ANA canal from Colon as being lava which
had not been eXcavated and would be
costly to cut out. 1t could not be blasted,
as its porous nature made the use of dyna-
mite useless. Cofferdams would have to be
constructed in order to get this lava from
the bed of the canal and that would prove
enormously expensive.
The witness said it would prove a great
problem to dispose of excavated material
from the Culebra cut. If il We're piled near
the canal it would be washed back by the
torrential rains, and the ocean was twenty
miles away. The fact that zone of calms
ranging from 10 to 20 degrees above and
below the equator exists at Panama vas
touched upon.
Commander Young said he had no inter
est in either of the canal routes and mad
no special prediction for one or the other
of them, his appearance before the commit
tee being in response to request to come
there from Senator Hawley of Connecticut.