Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-10-19

three different times and have made notes
Of Its construction.
The two undertakings are vitality diff
ferent. The Suez canal is little more
than a great ditch through the desert,
and although it Is just about twice as
long as that planned for Panama it does
not compare with the latter in its me-
chanical difficulties The ground here is
comparatively level That Of the Panama
route Is up hill and down; 1t goes
right across the backbone of the Andes,
and we shall have to take out Of the
eight or ten miles of the Culebra cut as
much earth and rock as the Egyptians
lifted in their whole 100 miles at
SueZ. The amount excavated here was
100000 cubic yards, or just about
100, OOO. 900 tons of dead weight. While
was at Panama Mr.. Wallace, who was
then the chief engineer, told me that the
rock taken out of Culebra would be
100, OC0, 600 cubic yards, and, as I figured
it then, it would just equal ditch three
feet wide and three feet deep and long
enough to go two times around this
%, OOO-nile globe with 10000 miles of
ditch to spare.
This great ditch at SueZ, however was
so made that the dirt and sand taken out
could be thrown on the banks and left
there; that of the Culebra cut has to be
carried by cars some miles away and
the greater part of the material is rock
rather than sand 1t is so hard that most
of it has to be blasted out, and 1t re-
quires heavy machinery to handle it.
The SueZ canal was eXcavated almost
by hand. Twenty thousand and more or
the Egyptian fellahs were employed upon
It at time, and they scouped up much
of the dirt in their hands and carried it
away in baskets. They were paid from
10 to Is cents a day at the start, and
boys under twelve got only cents After
time they were not paid at all. The
khedive agreed to furnish them. and they
worked for the French under the lash
just as the Hebrews did for the Egyp-
tians in the days of Pharaoh ages ago.
Our steam shovels are estimated to be
each equal to the work of 800 men. We
have some which will lift five wagon
loads of earth per minute, gouging it
out of the hills and dropping it on to the
cars. Wh7n the canal construction Is in
full play we shall have 100 such shovels
In operation both night and day. They
will be equal to a force of $4,000 men,
and we shall be able to handle our eXca-
walton more cheaply than the L rench did
that Of Suez. This will be SO, notwith-
standing our native labor will be paid
from ten to twenty and more times as
much as the French paid the Egyptians.
Such Americans as are working at Pan
ANA are getting more money than they
can make in the United States. and the
native carpenters, painters and masons
are receiving more per hour than the
Egyptians received per day. With the
present canal-dredging machinery and
steam shovels this work at Suez could
probably be reproduced at one-half it's
actual cost. and the actual cost was
probably quadrupled through the money
spent in graft, extravaganza and high in
terest rates by the French and Egyptians
in connection with 1t. When Ismail
Pasha was forced from the throne he
left Egypt In debt to the amount Of $780,
600, 600 the most of which was directly
or indirectly caused by the canal
What Egypt Gets.
One would think that Egypt ought to
receive big revenue for the right of way