Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1904-07-06
MAGNITUDE OF PANAMA.
A Gigantic undertaklng-Survey OF Work to
be Done on Panama Canal.

DIR. G. A. Stephens, who has been
well known for generation as a
writer of stories of adventure for
boys, has recently visited Panama,
where he has had excellent oppor-
tunities for observing the great pro-
ject the nation has undertaken thee.
Americans speak glibly of the pos
sibility of tide.le canal at Pan
anna. Of this DIR. Stephens says !:
cit is not an easy matter to estimate
the, exact amount of earth which
would have to be removed to get a
clear channel across the Isthmus,
thirty-five feet below low tide at
Colon and at LaBoca, on the Bay of
Panama. But computing it at the
various levels, step by step up TO the
Culebra, through this vast cut and
beyond, deducting what the French
appear to have done, we obtain 446,-
100000 cubic yards as very con
servatiye estimate of what remains
to be removed in order to have an
open ditch from ocean to ocean, $50
feet wide at the bottom, with 35 feet
of standing water in it. AS to the
length of time required, we have to
guide us only what the new French
company have done. 1t is agreed on
all hands, however, that they have
worked with fair degree of dill
gence and with honesty.
"During their most successful year,
1897, the company comployed 5000
men and removed, mainly in the Guile
bra cut, 100000 cubic metres, chiefly
earth. This was by far the best ever
done by the French. Adding 40 per
cent to this 960, 900 metres, for better
American methods and better ma
chimes, and assuming that the United
States will employ 10000 laborers in
place of 5000, we find that to remove
the 341 100000 cubic metres forty-six
years and nine days will be required,
or until 1861. BY employing 10000
laborers the work might be done in
about thirty-one years. More than
10000 men could not be advantage
ousl y worked there. At best, there
fore, allowing nothing for contin
gencles or accidents, a tidewater
canal at Panama could not be COM
pleted before 1936-so that few of
the present generation would see it.
IMMENSE COST UF CANAL.
GAS to the cost of a tidewater
canal at Panama, reckoning laborers'
wages at onl y dollar day, and the
salaries of engineers, foremen, etc,
at equally reasonable rates; adding
present cost, figures for machinery,
tools, explosives, transportation, hos.
pital equipment and maintenance,
with the thousand other minor ex-
penses, and to this the interest on
the money as used for thirty years,
at B per cent, am unable to find
the amount called for to construct a
tidewater canal at less than $780,
100000, or adding the price of the
canal from the French company,
$6l0,000,000."
MAGNITUDE OF TIE Project.
DIR. Stephens in other ways makes
more distinct than do the formal re-
ports the size of the project to which
we are already committed. The
Culebra cut he describes as the great
est thing of its kind ever undertaken
by man. When complete it will be
three fifths of mile wide at the top,
falling off TO a width of $50 feet at
the bottom, into which the great lake
made by the dam at Bohio will flow
back, filling it to a depth of 35 feet.
From the top of the Culebra on the
north side of the cut the depths will
be nearly or quite 400 feet.
These figures, he says, convey little
idea of the tremendous quantity of
earth and rock which must be re-
moved. 1t is not until one descends
into this vast trench and marks how
tiny the locomotives and great exca-
vators look when seen in the prodi.
gious depth and breadth of the exea-
walton that a conception of the her
culean labor dawns on the mind. 1t
Is like Niagara, and must be contem-
plated for awhile. AT first sight it
might be thought that a thousand
men, operating 90 or 100 of these
steam excavators, would dig it out
in year; but by the time the visitor
has walked and climbed about the
cut for an hour or two he can readily
believe that the task may occupy
5000 men, with machines, for ten
years.
The temperature in the cut he de-
scribes as intense. The lofty, bare
side of the excavation accumulate
heat like the walls Of an oven. The