Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-18

creases in size and trip over the route
shows even the amateur that 1t Is the
most stupendous engineering construction
ever undertaken by man. AT the two ends
OF the route the canal runs through river
valleys, the Chagres on the Atlantic, and
the Rio Grande on the Pacific. Here the
ground is low and swampy and the exca-
walton will not be more difficult than that
of Suez little farther inward the land
begins to rise, but there is plenty of room
to pile the excavated materials on the
banks, and the work can be handled much
like that of the Chicago drainage canal.
FARTHER still you come to the mountains,
and you are in the Culebra pass, where
lies the great problem of the work, which
forms the chief subject of my letter today.
The Culebra Cut.
The Culebra pass is, in fact, one of the
lowest passes of the Andes, those mighty
mountains which in South America rise
more than four miles above the sea, and
which drop down as they cross the 18TH
mus on their way north to Join hands with
our Rockies. In this country these noun
tains are on the average only about one
third OF mile high, and here at Culebra
their highest peaks are just about 300 feet
above the sea.
This height the French have cut down $50
feet, leaving us in round numbers $50 feet
more to cut before we reach sea level and
about 200 feet before we get to the bottom
of Uncle Sans ditch, which will have to
be dug forty feet below sea level to accom-
modate the big ships of the day. In this
statement 1 assume that we will have
sea level canal. That is the general opinion
here at Panama, although no one is will
ing to make that statement for publication.
This cutting at Culebra will be on the
average eight or ten miles long for the up
per levels, but it lengthens as it goes down,
and it will be twenty-five miles long when
it approaches the level of the sea. 1t Is
cOmDOSad of rock and earth which will
have to be gouged out and carried away to
let the oceans flow through. In other let
ters I shall describe the problems of the
Chagres, the construction of the harbors
and the other engineering works now
planned. They are all, however, subordi-
nate to the big part of the job, which Is
the digging out and carrying away of this
great mass in the center of which sit.
A Ditch Twice Around the World.
1 wish could make you see it as it rises
about me- the rock and earth extending in
strata of various kinds up the sides of The
mountains, with car tracks running along
the levels, and the machinery and men
working away Here the rock Is hard,
there it looks like coal, and farther on it
seems as soft as clay. Some of the uppsr
levels are clay, and now and then land
slide occurs covering both men and ma
chinery. An enormous amount has been
done, and the chief engineer tells me there
to be gotten out before the canal prism
can be made. This 1OO,OOO,O0O cubic yards
is from the Culebra cut alone.
One hundred million cubic yards!
The figures convey nothing to minds be-
low those of the chief engineer or an Isaac
Newton, and 1 doubt If even they could
tell you what they mean. Let us figure the
matter out for ourselves cubic yard
of earth is block of earth a yard wide,
a yard long and a yard thick. Take a
hundred million such blocks and suppose
them to be the sections of a ditch yard
wide, a yard deep and 100000 yards
long, and you begin to see what the Culebra
cut means.
But stop. One hundred million yards is
300, 100000 feet. That is the length of our
ditch Now in round numbers 5000 feet
make a mile and dividing the 300O00,o00
feet by that we have 10000 miles as the
length Of our ditch. In other words, IL
the earth were solid the Culebra cut exca-
walton which Uncle Sam has yet to make
would equal a ditch three feet wide and
three feet deep, long enough to go two
times around this 25,O0O-mile globe with
10000 miles of ditch to spare The left
over would equal a tunnel three feet square
through the center of the earth and one
fourth the way back. A grizzly bear or
3O0-pound hog could crawl through that
tunnel
Take another comparison. It is only 240,-
600 miles from the earth to the moon. That
ditch, If the space between were soma
ground, could be dug one-fourth OF the way
moon is only 2,100 miles around such
ditch could girdle that great body twenty
five times and leave plenty over for side
tracks
What Handling the Dirt Means.
But there is another big element in the
Culebra problem which makes 1t enormous
Iy greater than the construction of ditch
of that kind. In our ditch the rock and
earth could be thrown on the banks. Here
it must not only be dug and blasted out,
but 1t must be carried an average
distance of ten or twelve miles away.
A thousand elevators could not lift
it over the hills on each SIDE OF
the cut. 1t could not be stored on the
stones of the mountains. All the valleys
about here could be filled up level with the
dumping of a hundredth part of 1t. 1t
must be carried on cars Tar on 10 other val
Ieys or dumped into the Pacific ocean,
which is about twelve miles away. This
means an enormous amount OF hauling
Indeed this whole mass would have to be
carried about ten miles from where 1t now
lies.
Let US take a homely glance at that
item. A cubic yard Is roughly estimated to
weigh ton. l am something OF farmer,
and in the Virginia hills where i've ton
is a good load for two horses. Suppose
this 100000 900 cubic yards. each yard
tom loaded on two-horse wagons ana give
each wagon and team space thaIly Iees
long on the roadway, making a chain or
100 coo 600 wagons carrying this mass OF
earth. Let the chain start at Panama and
move onward. Where would the hrst
wagon be when the last wagon Is loaded?
II would be ten times as far away as the
length of our big ditch. The train would
have to be 100000 miles long{long enough
to reach to the moon and back again with
enough left over to go almost five times
around the world. The whole line of
wagons would reach exactly twenty-four
times around the globe
The Question Of Time.
All this excavation work at Culebra has
to go on in the short space OF eight miles.
This limits the number Of men and ma