Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1903-04-04
PANAMA CANAL TASK.
Ex-senator Harris Tells What
We Are Undertaking.
CONSTANT MENACE OF FBvERa

Great Natural Obstacles and EnEf-
neering Problems OF Unprecedent-
ed Difficulty That Must Be Met and
Solved In Building Isthmian Wa
terway-Sea Level Canal Deemed
a Dream.
Ex-senator Harris of Kansas, who
for six years and until March last
was a member of the senate committee
on interoceanic canals. has personally
investigated the Panama canal route
as we'll as the Nicaragua route. Mr.
Harris is famous civil engineer. He
built the Kansas Pacific railroad. In
speaking the other night to the New
York Worlds correspondent at Wash
ington of the tremendous task the Unit
ed States will undertake in completing
the Panama canal Mr.. Harris said:
Immediately on taking possession
the great problem of sanitation must
be confronted. Panama and Colon are
both recognized as centers Of infection
for yellow fever, while the whole line
is continually menaced by remarkably
virulent forms of malarial and other
fevers.
THE water supply everywhere is bad
and insufficient. For over 800 years
Panama, now a town of $4,000, has
been inadequately supplied by water
carts from all sorts of impure and fe-
YER breeding places. The treaty re-
quires that Panama and Colon shall be
provided with an adequate water sup
ply and with proper sewerage. 1t is
doubtful whether this work can be
done in two years, while all along the
line an adequate supply of pure water
by distillation or other means must be
provided.
"WOrk in the great Culebra cut will
measure the time required for the COM
pletion of the canal. This cut is located
about twO-thirds of the way from Co
lon to Panama and is the continental
divide. Our commission estimates that
44,OO0.O00 cubic yards of earth must be
removed to make this cut. The cut is
only seven or eight miles long and is SO
concentrated that it makes it difficult
to attack
ITO realize the difficulty of perform
ing this work in the limited space it oc-
cupies let one imagine all of the cutting
INV Wv CNA III oOlliI VI OuA AOll5CSA AAllCo VI
railroad concentrated in little over
seven miles. The cutting at the top
would be nearly n half mile wide, with
a depth in many places of over 200 feet.
The canal itself is to be 80 feet wide
at the surface and So feet deep.
"Our commission has recommended
the construction of n dam at Bchio
somewhere in the neighborhOOd of
5000 feet long. For seventy feet of
that distance pneumatic caiSsOns must
be sunk below the water level from
120 to 1877 feet. The greatest depth to
which pneumatic work has been car
ried on-in the case of a few isolated
bridge piers-has been about Il hun
dred feet, and even ut this depth it has
been found that men can only work
four hours out of twenty-four in four
shifts of one hour each. Fifty per cent
of the best men only are able to stand
this work at all.
1.-The French plans provided for an
additional level and a much smaller
dam, with locks of much less lift, and
1 am strongly of the opinion that the
plans proposed by the international
commission of engineers and adopted
by the French company will ultimately
be found much safer and less eXpen-
sive.
"Our commissioners recommended fix
ing the summit level at about ninety
feet. with two locks immediately to-
gether or in tandem, each with a lift Of
forty-five feet. The dimensions of these
locks and the height of the lift are also
far beyond anything known heretofore
and involve new and untried problems
in securing foundations and in methods
of operation and maintenance.
''Much has been said in the public
press as to the possibilities of n sea
level canal at Panama. De Lesseps him
self expressly declared at the begin
ming of his work that he had adopted
the Panama route because he believed
a sea level canal could be constructed.
This idea was long ago abandoned by
the French people as impossible with
the time and money which could be Sc
cured. In fact, it was given up by them
as an engineering impossibility. Our
commission did nothing more than to
hint at it and passed it by with the
suggestion that it undoubtedly would
require twenty years time and certain
" not less than $250.000,000.
''The fact is that no practical way OF
disposing of the Chagres river has been
suggested The Chagres river must be
kept out of the canal because of its ire
mendous floods. In my opinion 1t may
as we'll be conceded that, beautiful as
the idea may be of Il sea level canal, 1T
will never be constructed. The practf-
cal advantages can be obtained by a
lock canal, and the American people
will not be willing to sacrifice the time
or the money in the pursuit Of this iri-
descent Dream