Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-12-14
FRENCH JUNK FROM PANAMA.
Machinery That Cost Millions In the
Scrap Heap.

The lSthmlan Canal coHlIiisSioh
has begun the job Of transporting
about 100, 900 tons Of old French junk
from the Isthmus to this city. The
Junk includes old locomotives, dump
carts, tanks, barges, boilers, girders,
dredges, sheet iron, parts of old
machinery and other things for which
the French canal company paid mil
lions Of dollars and which it left to
60 to ruin on the Isthmus.
The commission Is selling on COM
petitive bidding all the old iron and
steel along the canal route except
such parts as may be reserved for
canal work.
About 700 tons will be moved to
the states every two weeks by the
steamships Ancon and Cristobal. 1t
will take three years to transport all
of the junk. Most Of 1t will be scrap
ped where 1t lies on the Isthmus
The commission will ship no pieces Of
more than twenty tons in weight
This will permit the shipping Of To-
comotive boilers with fire boxes and
flues.
Most of this old material Is Of for
eign manufacture, and as 1t is landed
in New York Uncle Sam is confront
ed with the proposition Of being
obliged to pay himself 81 a short ton
on the entry Under a provision In
the sundry civil act Of May, 1908,
this duty will be returned by Uncle
Sam to the canal funds, but to ac-
complish this without a special ap-
preparation each year 1t will be ne
cessary to have the sale consummated
only after the junk has passed
through the New York Custom House.
Each contractor will be under bond
of $4,000, and payments are to be
made to the canal commission after
each delivery.
The sale Is being made at this time
chiefly for the purpose Of getting out
the old material that lies in the great
basin of Gatum Lake before the basin
Is filled with water. There are large
quantities Of the junk in the lake
basin.
Each of the locomotives left by
the French yields between $400 and
$500 worth Of copper alone. The
commission will save the old steel
rails on the Isthmus to be used as
reinforcement in the concrete work
and as telephone and telegraph poles.
Some of this old French junk has
been found in extraordinary places
Dredges have been discovered almost
completely buried in sand, hundreds
of feet away from any body of water
and overgrown with dense tropical
vegetation. Apparently they have
been carried away from the river
bed by high water or the river itself
had shifted it's course. Several or
these buried dredges were in a fairly
good state of preservation and are
now doing work on the Isthmus.
Some of the junk has been lifted
from the bottom of the Chagres river
and from the bottom Of the old
French canal prism, where hundreds
of thousands of dollars worth OF
equipment sank after the French
abandoned the work. Some OF the
relics in the canal prism near the
crossing of the Rio Grande river
were dislodged only after heavy
charges Of dynamite had been explod-
ed under them. Others have been
raised from watery graves and are
now helping to link the Atlantic with
the Pacific.
The profit from the sale Of the
French junk will be small compared
with the value Of the service that the
commission already has derived from
the cast-off equipment. For the first
two years Of their work the commits
sion relied absolutely upon the old
locomotives left by the French. In
1906 there were LOG Of these wealth