The Springfield herald. (Springfield, Baca County, Colo.) 1887-1919, 1912-12-20
lCNEp oATUN LocKCSS NEARING COMPLETION

the workmen and talk with them: he
must get down into the culverts be-
meath the locks and stand by while
they lower forty-ton valve gate into
place; he must get out beneath the
dam and into the cut, out over the
foot-bridge that sways 200 feet above
the locks, and off around the complet-
ed parts of the Atlanti. and Pacific
divisions.
Especially one must be willing to
spend days at Culebra cut. From the
platform up on the side of the cut
you cannot adequately feel that here
1t was that the French and American
engineers struggled against appalling
odds for years. You cannot realize
that out OF this single stretch Of the
canal 9o.00O.00O cubic yards of earth
have been dug and that another TO-
100000 will be taken out before the
canal is pronounced complete. But
begin your day with climb down the
long flank of an earth slide" to the
bottom of the cut. and then try to
scramble out again. II you succeed
In either OF these ventures, you will
have found at least one way of COM
Gus proportion. and what the digging
OF Culebra cut meant to the men who
have almost finished digging 1t.
Down In Culebra cut. where giraffe,
like drills are boring into the bed
rock OF the isthmus. and long dirt
trains are Gathering away with what
remains OF the foundations of Mount
Culebra and Gold Hill. one is literally
overwhelmed by the magnitude of
this, the canal-diggers' greatest ac-
cnmplishment. At the bottom of the
cut you gaze toward the crest of Gold
Hill. towering into the sky, thou
sand feet above. Up there, where
Balboa is said to have climbed to see
both the oceans. the tall palm trees
are bending to the breeze, but here
the workers arc sweltering in the dead
heat of the midday sun. far down in
the foundations of the earth.
At the Bottom Of the Cut.
II you go down to the Panama canal
this winter. go down into Culebra cut.
Try there to make yourself heard
against the din of the steam hammers
and drills; against the incessant dull
thunder of the dynamite blasts;
steam shovel; against the scream OF
the locomotives and the crazy clatter
of the dirt cars. Dodge about the
labyrinth of tracks to escape the ten
mile-an-hour onslaught of the buster
ing engines. as they make their way
toward the sea. hauling their strings
of laden cars; get close beneath one
OF those long-armed steam shovels
which swings its tons of rock and dirt
in every direction with such seeming
recklessness. At last lose yourself
among the swarms of human ants who
are shoveling away the soft dirt that
has come down the long slope of
Mount Culebra in one OF the slides"
that one SO often reads about
After all this, II you are not fairly
staggered at the immensely OF the
accomplishment of our engineers, then
you are of stuff less impressionable
than the isthmian rocks. For Culebra
cut is the masterpiece of the 100000
900 canal job; its completion will rep
resent the ultimate fulfilment of the
work. The locks and gates at Gatun.
Miraflores, and Pedro Miguel are won
derful. In that they represent the
largest of their kind in the world.
So also is the Gatun dam, which has
made possible the impounding OF the
dirty Chagres river water in the Gatun
lake. and which has made out of an
entire countryside an inland sea. But
Culebra cut transcends them all. Here
is not merely the largest thing of its
kind. Here the Continental Divide,
the rocky backbone of the Americas.
has been carved through. after defy
ing all the efforts OF the French for
twenty years A mountain has been
hewn away