davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02

them. For this reason long iron pipe is dropped down into every drill hole be- fore It is charged. It is left there for 10 minutes and then along the pipe one can find whether there is a hot place in the hole as this heats the pipe at that place. Some premature explosions have oc- cured owing to the lack of this test. and I am told that some of the material now being handled would fire dynamite if brought near it.
 I Investigate Geyser
 In going through the cut with Colonel Gailiard the other day I climbed the side of a hill to the place where the steam was pouring forth like a geyser. The smell of sulphur and birthstone were strong, and had to get to windward to prevent being overcome by it. The col- onel warned me also that the gas might be poisonous. reached down and put my hand in the steam. It was scaiding At that place the ground was yellow with sulphur and the steam was oozing out over an area of several square yards Colonel Gaillard took manila envelope and held 1t over one of the cracks, and the heat was such that it destroyed 1t. It even charred piece of white pine lum- Der. although 1t did not bring 1t to a blaze.
 In looking at the earth near the steam vents 1t seemed cool, and put my hand on the surface. There was no sign of heat, but when I scraped away a bit of the crust was almost burned by the con- tact.
 In loading this stuff the mass is some times so hot that the brakemen cannot ride on the loads, and they hang outside, holding on by the irons, as the trains move on toward the dump.
 would say, in closing. that there is no danger from these heated areas. The geologists of the commission have exam- ined them, and they say they are due to the oxidation of pyrites and other ma- terials which generate heat on their ex@ posture to air.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02

tor. The doctors first report was high ly favorable, but he wanted to defer judg- ment until the following day, to make sure the patient had not been excited Nn- duly. The next day the patient was un- questionaby better. She not only was better. but eager for another outing.
 In the first seven days Miss Burlington had four patients to take out In the sec- ond she had nine In the third she had all that she could take care of comfort ably. She had children, young women, old women. old men. She had invalids who had not been one block away from their homes for more than one year, and she had one who had been bedridden for two years.
 It was this third week that Miss Car rington discovered she had under-esti- mated the possibilities of her idea, and had not fully comprehended the peculiar ities of her own sex. One of her patients, after a trip through the park, made an engagement for two days later, but not for journey through the parks. She practically had been a prisoner at home for six months. She wanted to go down town to the great stores. She wanted to see the shops, to look af the pretty things. to take advantage of the bargains. And Miss Darlington took her, wheeling her from the car into one of the great dry goods establishments. It was a glo- rious day for that invalid Next came the suggestion from one of her patients, a rather gay old boy, who had locomotor ataxia, and had been exiled from Broad way thereby. He longed to see a show and he saw one. Miss Darlington took him down in her Invalid's Automobile wheeled him into a great playhouse, and the two of them saw one of the brightest and gayest performances that is on the boards. The old boy felt that life was worth living once more.
 At the end of three weeks Miss Caring ton was in distress. She had more calls than she could attend to. She had a wait ing list that was growing steadily. so that it was worrying her. She drove her car around to the agent to tell him her troubles. He smiled.
 I've been watching you" said he, "and have not been idle. I expect to have another car for you within 10 days. It will be larger and far better appointed
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02


 than the one you are using. Now what you want to think about is the matter of getting other young women and nurses to work under you You are going to have three or four of these cars in conn mission before the summer is over. Your idea is bigger than you appreciated It Is catching on faster than I thought. It is not necessary to confine ourselves to elec- tric vehicles. Some of your patrons will want longer trips than they now get You must provide variety. We can use some low-slung gasoline cars for country jour neys am having the new car fitted with a medicine chest, and I am having a man study the subject of how to im- prove the interior of the car so that every need of the patient can be met"
 It is queer how a good idea, once 1t Is launched in a city like New York. broad ems and grows. It is less than five months since Miss Darlington got her first car. She has five in commission now. In one or two instances it has been necessary for her to use men to drive the cars and have nurse sit with the patient, but she expects before long to nave enough good nurses who are good drivers of cars to dispense with the male employees
 Rich women have strange notions. Some of them who have two or moro au- tomobiles of their own and rafts of ser wants employ Miss Darlington or one of her assistants. Sometimes they journey out into the country, sometimes they go to the shops. They are very delicate. or they think they are. Some of them are overwrought from the winters social campaign. To have a nurse with them on a shopping expedition gives a sense of security to them. It is costly, but money does not count with them.
 Miss Darlington takes their business. but she prefers the line which she started out upon. It is more gratifying to serve those who are i'll and are searching for health than those who merely think they are ailing. Her patronage has grown to such proportions that she expects soon to establish a garage of her own. She Is making money and she is doing good. She know1 now that she has struck her right field of endeavor. and her friends no longer think she Is vacillating or that she is unsuccessful. What Is better than all else, so far as she is concerned. is that she finds positive joy in her work. It no longer Is confining. It is delight and a recreation. She has the pride of achievement, of adding one more field of usefulness for women. It will not be long before she has other women emulating her example in this city. and many others in the other cities of the union.
 Copyright. 1912, by Richard spillane.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02

Margaret Darlington is willing to sub )cribe to the old adage that necessity Is the mother of invention. It was necessity that drove her into discovering new business for women. The discovery came when she was a bit o.sgusted with her. self and when her friends thought she did not know her own mind or did not have application to stick to one thing long enough to make a success of 1t. She is 2s, bright, clever, cultured. She has had more education than the average woman, and has had more advantages than the vast majority. Eight or 10 years ago. when domestic science was all the rage, she took course at Pratt insti- ute. Later on she went to Barnard and studied there. Just when her folks thought she was going to do something surprising she came to the conclusion that domestic science was not her forte.
 Then she studied art, architecture, in- terior decoration, wall paper designing, rug making These things claimed her attention for nearly two years. but she did not make the progress she expected and gave them up. Most young women do. It takes years to master them, and the rewards are small unless person has decided talent. Next she tried nursing. She is a natural nurse, and was perfect " content With the hard training she got in the hospitals and the general oDurse she took preliminary to graduation.
 But last winter she found that nursing was Zoo confinng. Doctors told her she had better give it up. It Is all very well for a doctor to tell you to give thing up and to explain if you do not follow his advice your health is likely to fail, but sometimes it is difficult to do what the doctor orders. There were various req sons why Miss Darlington could not give up nursing. In the first place, nursing was congenial to her. In the second, she needed the money 1t brought to her, for her father had died a year ago and left little or nothing There was one other reason that weighed as much with her as all the others. That was the knowledge that her friends would look upon 1t as an- other evidence of her vacillation, of her Inability to stick to one thing for any length of time, and of her apparent in- capacity. Yrfde Is a mighty good quali- Hcation vvSn properly employed. Miss Carrinessa Aad a good deal of pride. She aeterminr,- rIe would not give up nurs- Ing. but would find some way of making t less confning to her.
 There are some lucky young yomen who get employment as traveling nurses.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02

have already been shifted. This is one Of the necessities of the work, however and it will all be remedied when the canal has been properly sloped and the earth Is again in equilibrium.
 The Rainfall
 The surface slides will likewise stop as soon as the natural slope of the earth has been reached, although in this account will have to be taken of the immense rainfall, which adds to the weight. The rains here are often exceedingly heavy, son the clay flows down like river and it takes time to clear the railroad Of mud. As an instance of the rainfall, there are some places on the .isthmus where it has spurts as heavy as anywhere in the world. At Porto Bello in Decem- Der, 1911, two and one-half inches of wa ter fell in three minutes, the rain falling in sheets so thick that one could hardly see his hand before his face. Had 1t con- tinued at that rate a man standing still on a flat plain inclosed by water tight walls would have been drowned in two hours, and did the rain last all day, at It's close the water would be 100 feet deep. Such rains are extraordinary here for even @ short time and the rainfall at Culebra is far less than at Porto Bello. Nevertheless 1t Is such that it must be reckoned with in connection. with slides.
 The Baby Volcanoes of Culebra
 As we make our way through the cut with Colonel Gaillard we can see the baby volcanoes which have alarmed the ig- norant as to the future of the canal. They are not really volcanoes, but are heated areas where the chemical condi- ticn of the earth Is such that 1t oxidizes upon exposure to the air and generates heat. In some places the cut steams, and in others the ground Is so warm that you cannot put your hand in it.
 These hot spots are found at various depths, and they are often of such tenn perature that dynamite would explode if put down into a hole, drilled through
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02

which are so powerful that they can compress 17,000 cubic feet of air every minute. The air feeds the drills and keeps them chugging away day and night boring the holes for the blasting It drives the augnrs, each as big around as your leg. down into the heart of the Andes, cutting holes from 15 to 30 feet deep. in which the dynamite is sunk to tear up the rock.
 Last year." says Colonel Gaillard, the holes we put down, if joined end to end. would reach 300 miles. They would have equalled pipe running all the way from Philadelphia to Chicago, or if sunk straight through the earth would have reached almost one-fourth of the way to the center"
 As we go on I ask Colonel Galllard something as to the amount of explosives needed on the canal. He replied that the consumption of dynamite for 12 months was over 5,000000 pounds Every hole re- quires 20 pounds, and the consumption in one year would more than load five trains of the Lidgerwood cars which car ry the earth and rock out of the cut. As I watch them charging the holes, I ob- serve that the dynamite is wrapped in pink paper, and ask Colonel Gaillard the reason. He replies;
 That is to keep track of 1t and to pre- vent the workmen stealing 1t to dynamite the waters for fishing. Such a charge kills the fish, and they rise to the sur face and can be easily caught. The loss from this source was considerable, but this pink paper can be seen a great dis tance. and now whenever we catch a man with dynamite so wrapped we arrest him."
 How the Earth Slides
 As we make our way down into the cut we can see cracks everywhefe In some places they are so wide that you could put your foot in them. and others would hold only your finger. There are cracks all over the hills, and some of them mark out bodies of earth which will have to be moved. as they are already sliding down into the ditch.
 There Is one great crack here at Cule- bra which incloseS four acres, comprls ing a million or more cubic yards, which are already moving, although so slowly as to be imperceptible. The crack is about a foot wide and it steadily grows, An other movement of the same kind is ap- parent at Empire, where Colonel Gaillard has his headquarters, and the workmen in pointing to 1t facetiously say that Mother Earth is about to take her re- venge on Engineer Gaillard for the scars he is making upon her old body at Cule- bra.
 As we go on I ask the colonel to tell us about the slides. He shows us that these cracks mark their beginning, and later on in the cut we watch the earth coming down. There are several classes of slides. The first are those from the surface, consisting of the material lying above the bed rock These are composed of clay and other earth, and they may have a great deal of rock mixed In them. Such a slide Is caused by the digging away of the material which holds it in place and also by the increased weight made by the water of the heavy rain falls. This aids in carrying the earth down into the canal
 Indeed. most of such slides occur at
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02

tains hide it from view. It Is altogether nine miles in length, and about 300 feet deep. In some places the cutting back that has been made on account of the slides Is almost 2000 feet wide at the top and the sloping goes down in ledges to the bottom of the canal, where the width Is 500 feet. Looking at the country the edges of the ditch are ragged and hilly In some places the mountains rise high over it. and in others they slope down and then rise again.
 It is impossible to conceive the vast amount of earth that has been taken out. The figures convey no Idea of the concrete dimensions. I will only say that up to a year ago we had taken out enough earth and rock to have built a wall 300 feet high, 12 feet thick and long enough to reach from the Capitol to the White House in Washington, or enough to have made six pyramids the size of cheops and left something to spare. In one month we have taken out enough stuff to fill a ditch three feet wide and three feet deep from Boston to Chicago, and most of that was of such a nature that It had to be blasted. If you should blast out tunnel over 1000 miles long and so big that a hog could crawl through 1t you might have some idea of the work Uncle Sam did in that month
 Dynamiting in Andes
 As we pick our way down Into the cut we can see the mighty work everywhere going on. Flying trains of earth are nov ing this way and that. Scores of steam shovels are puffing and grooming as they drop the earth and rock on the cars, and everywhere are gangs of negroes who are drilling the ledges and putting In dyna- mite to break up the earth for the shovels.
 As we start we pass the pipe line which carries the air for the drills. This Is 10 inches in diameter, and 1t. runs from one end of tho cut to the other. It is fed by three air oompressors, each of which has a dozen furnaces fed by fuel oil and
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02

that time, although there are some also in the dry season. I watched one such mass of earth moving today. It com prised about a million cubic yards, equal to block 300 feet square and 300 feet high, and was going forward at the rate of IS inches per day As I stood in the bed of the canal the place where the clay Joined the rock could be plainly seen. It was a sort of a hollow in the hills where the rock of the cut had been blasted off sheer so that one could follow with his eye the line where the clay end- ed and the bed rock began. There was a 90 ton steam shovel at the foot of the rock, and 1t was catching the earth as 1t fell and loading the cars. It was work ing just fast enough. I was told, to keep the stuff from the slide out of the way. I could see the earth fall now slowly and now in great masses, continuously drop ping down into the cut.
 The Mighty Coclroach
 These surface slides have carried down great masses of material. Take the Gu curacha, on the east side of the canal The word Cucuracha means "cockroach," :" and this coclroach is the biggest of it's kind upon earth. It covers an area of 47 acres and forms great mass of earth which has broken off 1920 feet from the center line of the canal.
 It began when the French were still working, and it has caused us trouble ever since we started to dig. We have already moved out of it a mass of earth amounting to 100000 cubic yards, and 1t is still active. At one time it came on- ward at the rate of IA feet every day. Nevertheless the steam shovel ate it up as it came. and there Is no doubt but that the shovels and dredges will be able to care for it and all the other slides of the future. The ordinary slide can be han dled by one shovel and this is so even when the slide is long one. At Las Cascades @ shovel moved up and down a slide 100 times, going back and forth and chewing off It's toes as they were pushed on Into the cut.
 There is a big slide on the west side of tho cut near Culebra which covers 8 acres, and another on the east side, north of Gold Hill, where about TO acres have broken off, beginning 1200 feet back from the center line of the canal. So far an area something like 157 acres of slides has been taken out, and there are many acres still in motion Colonel Gailard, who has seen the glaciers of Alaska, tells me that these slides move just like them. The earth flows down the sloping sur face of the bed rock, the lateral support of the masses having been removed. by the digging. It is just as though the earth were made of molasses and held back by dams at the sides. These dams were taken away by the digging of the canal.
 Squeezing Old Mother Earth
 Tn addition to these surface slides or flows there Is another class of earth mo- ton which is carrying great masses of rock into the canal These masses do not come from the top, but from the strata of which the canal banks are made. Some times they come from below the canal bed and force themselves up in humps through it, overturning steam shovels and throwing down the railroad tracks.
 During my walk through the cut this morning, at a point just opposite Gold
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02
Setting B9d Precedents

From the Boston Transcript.
 Landlord-You owe me now for fouv months rent, and the first three months you paid so promptly.
 Tenant-Yes. I know it; I shouldn't have done 1t
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02

Hill, I saw a hump or great hill which had risen up in the bed of the canal dur ing the night, moving the four railroad tracks which ran parallel across 1t. The rails were twisted and torn, and the ties were pulled out of the earth. Colonel Gaillard and myself stopped to watch the men who were 1ettlng ready to re- pair the tracks and were bringing up shovels to take out the hump, when To. right under our eyes. we saw the earth rise and throw the railroad ties and all. to one side. had my camera ready and made photographs of the ground while 1t was moving I had just finished taking my last picture when one of the tracks fell clear over and rolled down the side of the hill. This hump was right in the bed of the cut and almost on the bottom of what will be the permanent bed of the canal
 Where Rock Moves Like Water
 Shortly after this went with Colonel Gaillard to one side of the canal where the rock was such that the strata could be plainly seen The walls of the cut contained many differenet layers of rock of varying degrees of density, lying one upon the other. Here was a stratum of shale, there one of lava, and above it one of limestone or a layer of volcanic dust hardened to stone. There were also strata
 
 Now, before we began exoavating, as these stratas lay one upon the other, the weight of the mass was equally dlstrfb- uted, bed upon bed, So that it was not possible for any of the strata to move, no matter what lay above them. Then the great ditch was cut and the weight and pressure on that side were taken away. This allowed the great weight above to exert It's force on the weaker strata beneath, and 1t has squeezed some of them out into the canal. You may imagine how this could be if you will re- gard some Of the weaker strata as like thick fluid say molasses, or the jelly in layer cake. The layers above will force the molasses out at the sides. and if you press on the cake the jelly will ooze. Now, tho Ignite strata especially are of this nature, These give way to the weight above and force themselves out into the canal bed. or if the stratum is under the bed of the canal it Is squeezed out so that it humps up and throws the railroad as I have described.
 Slides Can Be Controlled
 Slides of strata such as I have de- scribed are common, but the engineers know how to control them. They have occurred so often that they are now taken as a matter of course. The hump I saw today will be all out, of the way before night. Four hundred men are working at it and sending it down to Balboa.
 Colonel Gaillard tells me that there has not been one week during the past three years when the bottom of the canal has not been heaving and rising, but he adds that the heaving grows less and less as the weight from the sides of the cut is removed and the upper banks properly sloped. At present the only place where the earth Is so working is right under Gold Hill. The trouble occurs within a length of perhaps POO feet, whereas 1t formerly extended over 2000 feet The humps make it necessary to rebuild a great deal of track. and on this account altogether more than 100 miles of track
The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-05-03
CHEF DESIRES A
WOMAN POLICEMAN
To Suppress Washers and
Apprehend the Busy
Store Thieves.

A woman cop, for the sole purpose
of apprehending mashers, is an addi-
tion to the local police force which
Chief Gormon thinks is badly needed.
He says a woman officer could do
much more effective work in suppress
ing these pests than a male officer
The masher who stands in the store
entrances, and flirts with the women,
could be easily picked up by the flirt
cop, enticed to the auguests presence
of some masculine oficer and then
placed under arrest The woman cop
would also be an invaluable asset to
the police department when unusual
occasions call out large crowds and
the dips" and "come-ons" get busy,
and for use in department stores
where sleight-of-hand performers op-
crate to the detriment OF the cash
balance of the store owners.