The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1910-01-05
FRENCH JUNK
FROM PANAMA.
Machinery That Cost Millions
to Be Transported.
FINDS MADE IN ODD PLACES,
Old Locomotives, Cars, Dredses and
Girders Will Be Sent to New York
to BE Soid-How They Helped Us on
the Canal Before Being Condemned.


the Canal Before Being Condemned.
The isthmian canal comission has
begun the job of transporting about
100 900 tons of old French junk from
the isthmus to New York city. The
junk includes old locomotives. dump
cars, tanks, barges, boilers. Orders.
dredges, sheet iron, parts of old ma
chinery anS other things for which the
French canal company paid millions
dollars and which it left to go to ruin
on the isthmus.
The commission is selling on CON-
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 steam
ships Ancon and Cristobal. 1t will
take three years to transport all of the
junk. Most of 1t will be strapped
where it lies on the isthmus. The COM
mission will ship no pieces Of more
than twenty tons in weight. This will
permit the shipping Of locomotive boil
ers with fire boxes and fiues.
Most of this old material is Of for
eign manufacture, and as it is landed
In New York Uncle Sam Is confronted
with the proposition of being obliged
to pay himself ST short ton on the
entry Under a provision in the sun
dry civil act of May. 1908. this duty
will be returned by Uncle Sam to the
canal funds, but to accomplish this
without a special appropriation each
year it will be necessary to have the
sale consummated only after the junk
has passed through the New York Gus
tom house. Each contractor will be
under a bond of $4,000, and payments
are to be made to the canal commits
sion after each delivery.
Much Junk In Gatun Lake Basin.
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 Gatun 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 $500 and 5000
worth of copper alone. The commits
sion 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 had been
carried away from the river bed by
high water or the river itself had
shifted its course. Several of these
buried dredges were in a fairly good
state of preservation and are now do
ing 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 thou
sands 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 We're dislodged only after
heavy charges of dynamite had been
exploded under them. Others have
been raised from watery graves and
are now helping to link the Atlantic
with the Pacific.
Relics Put to Good Use.
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 castoff 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 weather
beaten locomotives in service COM
pared with only fifteen American made
engines. Since that time the percent
age of the French locomotives has
steadily decreased.
French dump cars were used almost
exclusively by the commission i'll the
first two years At one time more
than 1000 of them were hauling dirt
from Uncle Sans shOvels. The French
relics furnished also many shop tools.
stationary engines and much repair
material in the early days of the con-
struction work.
In fact, Americans may thank the
old French equipment for the fact that
the canal is today just half completed.
Without the aid of this rusty. storm
battered assortment of French ma
chinery there would have been long
delays in providing an adequate equip
ment from the States. 1t is estimated
that the French supplies and equip
81 100000.