Arizona republican., 1908-07-13

dredes "Andon" and "Culebra," the
 forrer- working at the Atlantic side
 anfhe latter at the Pacific end. The
 eos per cubic yard of dredged mater
 iais about four cents. They operate
 FinI section of the entrance channel
 tatut 500 feet in width and a mile and amarter in length. Starting at the fiser end and moving seaward slowly, lsth their big twenty-inch centrifugal Ifmps in operation and. their drags ? Hcking up the mud as they go, by the fme they get to deep water their bins Ire full and they carry the mud out to 'iea and dump it. This is done by opening the gates at the bottom of the vessels. They then steam back to the channel, having closed the gates of the bins, and repeat the operation. When the gates are closed, water is shut into the bins uD to sea level. As the mud Is pumped in the water flows out, thus enabling them to always fill the bins with dredged material They work day and night, requiring a crew of about sixty.
 Besides the two big sea-gOing dredges. they have in operation on the canal three twenty-inch suction dredges, three dipper dredges. five French ladder dredges and several others. They are also fitting up sev- eral more of the old French dredges, and when they are all in commission the dredging plant will have a capaci- ty of not far from two million cubic yards of earth a month As the rainy season makes very little difference with the dredges that part of the work will proceed without much interrup- tion from now henceforth.
 There are a little more than fifty million cubic yards of material to be moved, so that counting only a million yards month for all the dredge equipment, it would take but a little more than four years to com plete the dredging end of the work. There is now one part of the canal where they see the finish. That is the big spillway at the Gatun Dam. They have gotten down to the final level on this, and by the first of October it will have been completed, and the concrete work there can begin.
 A few studies in figures will serve to show the immensity of the work they are doing. The excavations of a single month in the dry season would make a pile of dirt three hundred feet high, three hundred feet across. and over a thousand feet long The Pyra- mid of CheOps is 75O feet sguare at the base and 451 feet high. It is said to have taken 100000 men ten years to build the road from the quarry to the pyramid. and the same num)er of men twenty years to build the pyra mid itself. During the month of March the canal force removed a pile of dirt larger by a tenth than fle py- ramid, and if they realize theb ambi- tion of four million yards month, they will be hauling dirt equivalent in bulk to five pyramids epry four months. The Supz canal required twenty years to build. At tie rate of excavation for March the Isnmian cd nal force could dig a Suez calll in just about one year. The Manchster ship canal. one of the largest in he world. { connecting Liverpool and Manchester, is over thirty-five miles loIs, and re- quired many years to build. The com mission moved enough cart in March to make rate which. mainained from month to month, would enble them to dig a Manchester canal fl less than fifteen months