The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1907-01-31
THE PANAMA CANAL.
Big Work of Shonts During the Past
Twenty Months.

chairman of the Panama Canal COM
mission April 8, 1905, little less
than two years ago and began work
immediately Since then a great deal
more has been accomplished than the
public is aware of.
The Panama railway has been
practically rebuilt and double-tracked
for considerable distance. Termin-
al yards have been created on both
oceans The rolling stock and equip
ment have been increased by 1S4 To-
comotives, 3,460 cars, sixty-three
steam shovels, twenty-three earth
spreaders, twenty-five rapid unload
ers, seven dredges, seventeen steel
barges, two tugs, ten cranes and one
pile driver.
The harbors have been dredged
and new wharves have been built
with the most modern machinery, so
that the largest ships can come up
to them and be unloaded with great
speed. 1t is possible to unload the
cargo of vessel every FIVE days.
The City of Panama has been paw
ed, severed and supplied with an
abundance of fresh water. Two years
ago it had neither pavements nor
water supply. 1t was hot-bed of
disease. Today it is the best paved,
best-watered and the best severed
city between the United States and
Chile and the Argentine Republic.
Colon has been paved with vitrihed
brick and crushed rock, and has been
made as healthful as its low condition
will permit
Colon has been given reservoir
containing 5Os,OOO,0OO gallons OF
fresh water.
Yellow fever has been driven per-
manently from the isthmus- That,
Mr.. Shonts thinks. is the supreme
achievement. For fourteen months
there has not been a single case
among the 10000 employees.
The canal zone is as healthfui as
New York city. During the most un-
healthful period of the year 1906, in
the rainy season, August, SEPTEMBER
and October, there was not one death
from disease among the 5000 white
Americans, including 1900 women
and children.
The greatest construction plant
ever known has been created at a
cost of $12,000,O0O. Every piece of
machinery, every locomotive and car,
every labor-saving contrivance had
to be set up and tested in this coun-
try then taken apart, transported
1000 miles by sea and set up again
before it could be put to. use To
do this vast machine shops lad to be
erected, equipped with all{orms of
modern appliances and several thous
and machinists employed. Every foot
of lumber, every tool, every nail,
every pound of paint, every bit OF
plumbing material every piece of
furniture and almost every article
that is in use on the isthmus by those
who are digging the canal had to be
transported 1000 miles.
Nearly every ounce of food con-
sumed IN the canal zone duri az these
two years has been carried from the
United States in refrigerator steam
ers and distributed along the line of
the canal daily from refrigerator cars.
In the messhouses meals are fur
nished to the higher grades of en-
ployes at 80 cents each, and recent
ly the government has undertaken, as
a sanitary precaution, to board the
common laborers, and is furnishing
them three hot meals of nourishinz
food per day at 10 cents a meal. Chief
Engineer Stevens believes that this
will increase their efficiency, and DR..
George is confident that it will in
crease their power to withstand dis
ease.
Up to Jan. 81, 1907, $4,000, 900 had
been spent; $4.500,000 in sanitation
and the establishment of a govern
ment; 100000 in the construction
of quarters and other buildings; rail
ways docks, wharves, water works,
ETC.; $4,000, 900 in permanent ma
chinery and construction plant; 81
SOC, 900 in material and supplies, and
81 500, 900 in sewers waterworks, paw
ing and other improvements in Pana-
ma and Colon, which will be ulti-
matelx refunded to the government.