The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1905-09-15
WORK ON TINE GREAT CANAL.

Social and Climatic Conditions
Improved Under Uncle
Sans Management.
Welsh, La, Sept. 10.
Editor RICE BELT JOURNAL:
In response to Your request and
to that of many of my friends, | will
try to answer some of the many qnes-
tions as to conditions on the Panama
canal.
One of the first questions invaria-
bly, is, twill it ever be built" and
"Will it be a sea level canal?' We
who have been on the isthmus really
know very little, if any more about
what plan will be adopted than those
in the states, who have not seen Pana-
ma. Any opinion advanced is merely
a personal guess. | have no doubt
but that the canal will be built. 1t
will follow the French location, for
they had some work done on nearly
the entire length of the canal, besides
our surveys show that their engineers
had made very thorough surveys OF
the route. The construction work of
all kinds done by them was well done,
and it seems that all that prevented
them from finishing the canal, was the
fright and flight of the hen that laid
the golden eggs necessary to keep the
work going.
The only thing in which they seemed
to "fall down." was in the location of
sites for dams and locks: especially
the site at Bohio, their proposed site
of the first lock and dam from the At.
lantic, proved to be unsuitable as our
borings showed bed rock to be many
feet deeper than a caisson has ever
yet been sunk.
| AS to how the canal will be built
and when completed, both points are
still a guess. The next congress will
have to decide on one of four plans
and also as to whether the work is to
be done by contract or not.
What have we done SO far? Com
paratiYely little as far as actual dig
cling is concerned and that, at a great
disadvantages; that of trying to
move dirt before they were ready.
AS to it's being impossible to build a
canal at Panama, it is only the prop
osition of digging big ditch and OF
moving whole lot of dirt under dis
agreeable circumstances.
The conditions; the serious part OF
which is handling wet dirt from wet
cut. over tracks laid on wet dumps,
coupled with the inevitable sickness
when large numbers of laborers are
punched together in mosquito count
ry, and the miserable good.for-noth-
ing character of the labor, from my
own experience | would say, that one
average white American would do as
much as four tropical negroes;) are
such that the work is much slower and
will take much longer than handling
the same amount of material in tenn
perate climate. But with money
enough to pay the bills, it is simply a
question of time enough to get it out.
With these conditions in view, it is
estimated that it will take Is years to
dig a sea level canal, and everything
now points to that, though no one
knows that it will be sea level or any
other level, until congress meets and
decides it.
/ What have the engineering depart
ment done in the fifteen months since
they went to the Isthmus in June. 1904?
Congress ordered the Isthmian Canal
Commission to find out the relative
cost of sea-level canal, Lock canal
with thirty-foot central lift, a lock can
al with sixty-foot lift and lock canal
with ninety-foot lift.
The entire isthmus had become over
grown with bush since the cessation OF
work by the French company. SAM
tary conditions were nil. The French
buildings were in various stages OF
delapidation. There we're practically
no laborers there, with no fit quarters
| for men and no materials for repairing
or building them. Beginning under
such conditions, the sanitary depart
ment has made the settlements along
the line look like different country,
discovered railroad tracks, trains,
sheds filled with machinery and ma.
chinery under the great shed usually
occupied by Louisiana rice binders,
all of which had been lost to sight I'm.
der the rank "bush." The carpenters
r. L.