The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-15

during the neXt-nine years a sum suffi-
cient to defray the cost of constructing
the deviation required by the canal
plans.
This deviation will be no small piece
of work, as it will mean the rebuild
ing of practically all that portion of
the road now situate on high ground
The canal plans provide for an arti-.
fetal lake stretching from Bohio, four
teen miles from Colon, to Ledro Mi
guel, on the Pacific side, a distance
of about twenty-five miles. This lake
will be formed by d monster dam at
Bohio, and will result in submerging
all of the country for miles about on
either side of the present line of the
railroad between Bohio and Pedro Mi
guel, and it's level will be, approxi-
mately seventy feet above the level
of the railroad at Bohio. 1t follows,
therefore, that the railroad must
change its route. This it will do,
starting from a point between Bohio
and Colon, running to the eastward
and climbing the hills and mountains
until it reaches an elevation higher
than will be the surface of the pro-
posed lake. 1t will then run in the
direction of Panama, skirting the
shores of the lake, and, passing
through an extremely picturesque
country, will connect with the present
route a short distance outside of Pan
anna. The cost of this deviation will
be heavy, but so will be the profits
from the operation during the nine
years that will elapse before the gates
of the Bohio dam are finally closed
and the Chagres river is made to sub
merge the present line and all the
country thereabout.
The ga Life for Every Tie" Yarn.
The heaviest cost of this work will
probably be in human life, for the
sanitation measures to be applied along
the route of the canal can hardly ex
tend to it, although the line of it will
be we'll within the canal zone we shall
acquire. The cost will not, however,
be as great as was the corresponding
expense during the original work of
canal construction. There is a story
which has gone round the world and
become classic that every crosstie in
the Panama Railroad represents
human life lost in the building" That
is, of course, false. ]. S. Higbid once
ventilated it in proper style. Mr.. Hig-
hid lis roadmaster of the Panama
Railroad, and a few months ago he
crossed with a party of missionaries,
who related the story to him and
asked:
Where are the graves of all those
people who died?"
"Well you see it was like this" Hig-
bid answered. Everything buried in
this country petrified, so as each one
of those men died they buried him
right under a tie. 1t is awful hard TO
get wood in the isthmus that will last
in contact with the soil, and the idea
was that when the crosstie rotted the
body of the man buried under it would
be petrified, so they could remove the
tie, raise the petrified body and in that
way have a stone roadbed all the way
from Colon to Panama"
Higbids explanation was a fitting
answer to the story, which, while pre-
posterous in fact, is true in that it
implies that construction work in this
country, wherever excavating is neces-
sary, exacts a terrible toll in human
life. 1t will exact that toll from the
deviation unless, in planning sanitary
improvements, the United States shall
extend it's scheme of sanitation, pure
water supply, etc, to include the pro-
posed new route of the canal.
Road Is Isthminn Benefactor,
In its operation at the present time
the railroad is the great benefactor of
the isthmus, no matter what it may
once have done towards depopulating
these parts of the earth. Without it
the isthmus would now be in the vir-
gin state of undevelopment, for the
road is the one support of all these
people. In it's executive offices, To-
Gated at Colon, Americans only are
employed. Americans compose, also,
all of it's train crews, and they are
paid excellent wages, an engineer
drawing S16O (gold) month, or the
equivalent of about $500 in the "mon-
key-money" of this country. But for
track and dock laborers, along the en-
tire line and at either terminal;
agents at the way stations; crews of
yard engines; brakemen on freight
trains, and the unskilled labor in the
shops and about the yards, native
Panamaians or the more intelligent
West Indian negroes are employed.
For these the road maintains a silver
pay roll it's disbursements amounting
to thousands Of dollars monthly. From
this source everybody on the isthmus
(among the natives, except the few
shopkeepers and professional mem
who pretend to live according to civil
lied standards draw his means of a
livelihood. The railroad pays them
we'll in the money current here, and