Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1905-04-29

LAS MATACHIN, Ponama.-Takc
- look NJ the biggest machine shop
N half way between the Atlantic
~ and the Pacidc in the mountains,
high up from the sea. II covers acres
and under It's galvanized iron roof Il
network Of wheels Is hummine away AT
the rate Of a hundred revolutions q
,n,nute. The floor Is covered with
moving machinery and gangs of Amcri-
cans and natives are AT work Hct"
they are grinding old French locomotive
wheels into new ones. there they a.u
drilling holes through iron plates AVA
bars and farther on steel planners are
shaving of iron as though It were
wood Travelling cranes moved from
the roof, pick up steam engines and
other enormous weights and carry them
from one part Of the shop to the Other
while IN the foundrios, adjoining, thu
boiling metal bubbles and secthos as II
Is carried from the furnaces by Jamal-
can and Colombian laborers who arc
making castings of more than q ton
I'm weight outside the shop the ground
is covered with acres of ear wheels
iron dredge buckets and steel rails.
iThe warehouses nearby contain NOR
than a million dollars worth of pumps,
dredges and machine tools, and the
whole is like one of the great industrial
institutions of Pittsburg or Chicago,
rather than a repair shop I'm the heart
of the backwoods of the Isthmus OF
Panama.
THE SHOPS AT EMPIRE AND
COLON,
Bias Matachin is the chief shop for
the work at Culebrd, 1t is where the
old French material Is being made iu-
10 new for use on the canal There are
other shops at Empire ana there are
also shops at Culebra itself, where the
actual work Of excavation is IN prog
less, At Empire there are fully 10 acres
OF buildings and storage tracks, and
there we have 30 locomotives, several
hundred cranes and a vast number OF
dump cars. At Culebra 100 mechanics
are making light repairs on the 1000
cars, 30 locomotives, seven eXCavators
and the new steam shoyels which are
working there. We have also big ma
chine shops at Colon on the Atlantic
and some at La BoCa on the Pacific, We
have a saw and planning mill running at
Colon, making the lumber for the new
buildings and repairs, and there are TIM
smith and blacksmith shops for the
same purpose at Ancon on the edge Of
Panama. Indeed the man who thinks
nothing Is being done on the isthmus
has but to see these shops to learn his
mistake.
A TALK WITH ENGINEER STROM.
! am here at Bias Matachin with Mr..
Carl a. Strom, the mechanical engineer
Of the commission. He has charge OF
all the machinery of the isthmus, and II
IL his duty to keep II in repair. The
commission has told him to get what
he can out Of the French supplies, and
he is doing this with o corps Of mechan-
zeal engineers, American foremen AMI
large number of native laborers. Mr..
Strom is one of the strenuous young
men of Uncle Sans corps He is about
six feet In height, broad shouldered
and muscular, and he looks as hough
he could defy malaria, yellow lever or
any KIND of hard work. He IL a Swede
by birth, and was educated at the
Royal Polytechnic Institute Of stock
holm, one of the best engineering schools
Of the world. After his graduation there
he came TO the United States and
learned the English language while act
lub as engineer Tor the Chesapeake g.
ohio and Southern railway When that
road was merged in the Illinois Central
ne went with II, ana soon became tho
mechanical engineer in chief Of that
system, with its enormous shops ANA
1000 or 5000 miles of track.
FOUND IN THE JUNGLEs,
Said Mr.. Strom:
We found these shops i'm the un-
CLOS. We did not know they existol
when came here last June, and il was
only when Colonel Hecker and | made
trip across the isthmus to look at the
French machinery that we discov-
cred them. We had stopped at Cor
gona, and, while moving about there
noticed the corner of this old building
peepng out OF dense vegetation We
made our way to IL through a mass
or car wheels, dumping buckets and
other machinery, and found a struc.
ture covering about a half dozen
acres, containing a complete euip-
ment OF machine tools for a big rn.
pair shop, There was not "A thing
lacking. All we had to do was TO mt
new foundations under the machines
clean them up and start the station.
airy engines running, After that we
began to clean up about the premises
we had gang OF maChete men cut