Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-11-12
PANAMA CANAL TODAY.
The Present Condition Of the Machin-
cry and Work.

canal company has taken over, presents
a curious picture of mingled beauty,
degeneration, industry, promise, and
failure. One first sees signs of the canal
wien he awakens in the harbor of Col
on and looks out over the Bay of Luzon.
Southwards, and a little westwards
from the steamers deck. is the long
point of made land where the houses of
De Lesseps and of his son were erected.
Here the statue of Columbus is set up,
| to point out the course of the canal.
When the stranger visits this labori-
ously constructed point of Columbus,
which was prepared, with characteris-
tic showiness, as an eloquent proof that
the great work was well under way,
one gets his first glimpse of the long
sea level Atlantic section of the canal.
| Upon the shores of the canal there lie,
in various conditions of decay, derricks,
| cranes. dredges, tugs, and other floating
property of the old company. Despite
| the sitting in which has taken place in
1.-THE years since work stopped, this Sec
ton has considerable value. 1t extends
some fourteen miles into the interior,
and ends near the highlands of Bohio
The great engineering problem of this
portion has to do with the relations be-
| tween the artificial channel and the
capricious tropical river Chagres. The
plans for finishing the canal which have
of late years received most attention
all include the construction of a dam at
Bohio. in the narrow gorge of the Cha
gres. Hereby the discharges of the
| Chagres from above that point are to
| be collected in a lake of some $4,000
acres. This lake will constitute the
| channel of the canal for some miles,
| The great Culebra cut has been often
described and photographed. 1t passes
directly through the divide between the
two oceans, at the point on the Isthmus
where this divide is lowest and most
penetrable. AT present it is somewhat
near a mile long, and the hill has al
ready been bodily removed to an aver
age depth Of about $50 or 100 feet. The
| sidets are in some places very steep.
The definite slope will be about 45 de-
Irees. The soft material of which the
upper layers of the cutting are compos-
ed long gave apprehension that the cut
could not be made to bear the floods Of
the rainy season of the Isthmus. But
the rock lower down is harder; and
fairly steep sides are now regarded as
distinctly feasible. The cut, when fin
ished, will be faced with stone.
From the heat here to be expected
heat of which We had been much warn
LED in advance-we suffered no whit.
There were no mosquitoes!
n large number of negroes, now I'M
employed, are waiting in the neighbour
| hood of the canal works, at various
points, hoping for a future job. They
/ live on bananas,, or shoot occasionally
Ia deer in the prolific jungle. They are,
Eon the whole, quiet and inoffensive folk.
4 The first question that interests me,
at the moment, is this: Do these peo-
pie, these Colombian subjects of varied
stock, whom I see about me, need any
thing that. I'VE can hope peacefully to
give them, not tomorrow, nor by magic,
nor in o short time, but gradually, and
in strict consistency with our obliga-
| tons under the treaty, and as whole
some social consequence of our coming
here?
| The canal will pass through the summit
cutting at Culebra thus piercing the
| continental divide, and will then descend
| through locks to the sea-evel section, a
| short portion of which has already been
dug, out on the Pacific side. The course
| of the canal will run generally southeast
from Colen to the Bay of Panama The
plans for the height of the lake level to be
| determined by the dam at BOho differ
So, too. the relation of the Bohio lake to a
still higher lake in which the waters of
| the upper Chagres are to be impounded
| all the plans for canal with locks may
| be sooner or later abandoned in favor of
a Sea-level canal, with some other set of
/ TipVIcnS nj ha hoe rAc
| River.
No one doubts, however, that whatever
| is done with the locks and the Chagres,
| the canal if completed must pass
! through the great summit cut at Culebra
whore the old French company met with
its final defeat. and where the deepest
cutting has already been made Here
| the new canal company has done the most
of its work, and bore. even at this mo-
| ment of the greatest suspense and mac
| tivity on the Isthmus, a small body of
| workmen is still kept busy. How large
| a proportion of the entire work of the
canal may be regarded as already accom-
| plished is a matter that cannot be decided
| without knowing what plan for the COM
| plotting Of the task is finally adopted.
| Even then, estimates must greatly differ
as to the extent to which the old work
| needs alteration and repair, and as to the
| proportion of it that can be made useful
| at all for the newer plans. The most
sangune estimates of the new canal COM
pany have represented the whole task as
| fully two-fifthS completed. The Walker
commission far reduced this estimate,
which was no doubt decidedly excessive.
On the other hand. all the fair judges
seem to agree that much of what has
| been done on the Isthmus remains good
work, despite the hopeless extravaganza
of the methods by which it was accom-
plished.
| This question most interests me. be-
| cause this promises to be an unique social
| experiment in establishing our influence.
both in the tropics and among our Span
| ish-American brethren. Elsewhere. con-
| quest, forcibe colonization. or other mis-
adventures, such as led to our entrance
| into our present Oriental undertakings,
| have formed the conditions upon which
| the influence of Northern people in the
| tropics has been founded. But here, GER
| tain authority over a very narrow strip
| of territory will turn the definite basis
of what. as | venture to hope, may prove
wide and pervasive indirect influence of
our civilization upon the Colombians. All
! depends upon how We begin. upon how
we organize and, upon how We combine
| forbearancc, and the strictest fidelity to
| our treaty obligations and limitations,
| with a tactful use of our social advant
| ages and with a determination to sec
| that good it done here.
| Well as to the needs of the community,
| there is general agreement that it needs,
| first, a lasting peace, not merely the pres
|