The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1904-07-19
THE PANAMA CANAL.
Survey Of Work to Be Done
on the 1sthmus.
MAGNITUDE OF THE PROTECT.

Dr.. G. A. stephens, who Made q Trip
Of Observation. Says q Tidewater
Canal Would Cost Over 5000, 1000. 900
and Take 10000 Lnborers Nearly
Half q Century-Culebra Cut Big
gest Work Of. Its Kind-value Of
Chagres River.
DR.. G. A. Stephens. who has been
we'll known for a generation as a writ
er of stories of adventure for boys, has
recently visited Panama, where lie has
had excellent opportunities for observ-
ing the great project the nation has
undertaken there, says the Washington
correspondent Of the New York Post.
Americans speak glibly Of the posi-
bility of a tide level canal at Panama.
OF this DR.. Stephens says: at 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 t%hirty-five feet be-
low low tide at Colon and at La BOca
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, 0 10000 cubic yards as a very con
sentative 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 thirty-ive
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. It is agreed on
all hands, however, that they have
worked with a fair degree Of diligence
and with honesty.
During their most successful year,
1897, the new company employed 5000
men and removed, mainly in the Guile
bra cut, 100000 cubic meters, chiefly
earth. This was by far the best ever
done by the French. Adding 40 per
cent to this 100000 meters 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, 600, 600 cubic meters 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 advantageous
" worked there. At best. therefore,
allowing nothing for contingencies or
accidents, a tidewater canal at Pana-
ma could not be completed before 1886,
so that few Of the present generation
would see it.
GAS to the cost of a tidewater canal
at Panama, reckoning laborers' wages
at only a dollar a day and the salaries
of engineers, foremen, ETC., at equally
reasonable rates; adding present cost,
figures for machinery, tools, explosives,
transportation, hospital equipment and
maintenance, with the thousand other
minor expenses. and to this the inter-
est on the money as used for thirty
years at 3 per cent, / am unable to
find the amount called for to construct
a tidewater canal at less than $780,
nal from the French company, $780,
100000"
DIR. Stephens in other ways makes
more distinct than do the formal re-
ports the size of the project. The
Culebra cut he describes as, the great
est thing of its kind ever undertaken
by man. When complete 1t will be
t%hree-ffths of a 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 1t to a depth Of t%hirty-1ve feet.
From the top Of the Culebra on the
north side of the cut the depth will be
nearly OF quite 400 feet.
These figures. he says, convey little
idea Of the tremendous quantity of
earth and rock which must be remoy-
ed. 1t is not until n descends into
this vast trench and marks how tiny
the locomotives and steam excavators
look when seen in the prodigious depth
and breadth Of the excavation that a
conception of the herculean labor
dawns on the mind. 1t is like Niagara
and must be contemplated for awhile.
At first sight it might be thought that
these steam ~excavatOrs. would dig 1t
out in a year. but by the time the WIS.,
itor 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
sides of the excavation accumulate
heat like the walls of an oven. The
seething steam boilers add to the Gallo
rife glow. 1t makes the eyeballs ache
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