Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1912-12-25

kAH SO the rough and ready esti-
mates have it, will go south
W during the four winter months,
beginning with the first OF De-
cember, and extending to the end OF
March, to visit the Isthmus of Panama
and see what they may of the result
of the eight years work which Col.
George w. GoethaIs and his army OF
$4,000 men have brought almost to
completion. The Panama canal is
nearly done; only the part of another
year remains before this $400,000000
waterway will join the Atlantic and
the Pacific. Next September will
mark the completion of the task. And
flooding of the canal will mean that
most of the work will be forever hid
den from view
However many go to the isthmus,
1t is safe to say not more than ten per
cent. of them will come away with
more than vague conception Of what
has really been accomplished by the
engineers. The fault will not have
been with the canal That fairly
matches all that has been said about
it. The fault will have been with the
visitor For, notwithstanding all his
careful guide-book preparations before
hand, he will not, after all, see more
than the surface aspect of things down
in the Canal Zone. In this manner he
will resemble the majority of visitors
who have already been to Panama;
one of every ten of these, perhaps, can
boast that he descended to the bottom
of the giant locks, there to grope his
way through the concrete culverts or
gaze up at the spans, like cathedral
arches, of these great steel gates that
next year will lock in the waters Of
the completed canal One of every
twenty, perhaps, can tell you that he
climbed down into Culebra cut, to
spend q day In the eternal hustle of
the deep canyon which man has made
through the hills, and which so soon
will be the channel of great ships as
they plow their way from sea to sea.
From the Observation Train.
The average visitor to the Panama
canal sees the Gatun dam from the
that is pushed out over that pile of
21,000,000 cubic yards of rock, sand,
concrete, and earth once a week For
this seat he pays a dollar. Never does
he get out and look about for himself
The hired lecturer explains everything
so well. To see the locks the average
visitor may tiptoe gingerly to the
Cd !, 81
a minute, only to turn fearfully away
and spend the rest of his hour watch
ing busy cement-mixers that are ex-
actly like any other cement-mixers.
The tourists impression of the Pan
anna canal has not been allowed to
sink in. A three days stay on the
isthmus does not permit Of that The
man who has spent seven to nine
days at sea from New York, dreaming
of the wonders he will find, spends
brief hour at Gatun, half an hour at
Mirafores, another hour at Culebra,
and then is off to his train or to din
ner. Most of the canal he sees from
the rear platform of his train on the
way across. Deep, wide, and long as
train as the engine sweeps around
the bend is distinctly disappointing.
All about are towering hills which
dwarf the cut that winds in and out
among them. You get out your
glasses, but before you get them ad-
justed, the train has started, Culebra
is hidden from view, and the concrete
tops of the Pedro Miguel locks are
seen. Yet because they are only the
tops Of the locks they appear small,
and you get another shock of disap-
pointment.
The fact is, it Is only by getting out
"on the job" that one can obtain a
comprehensive understanding of what
the canal has cost, in energy and time
and brains. One must rub elbows with
the workmen and talk with them; he
must get down into the culverts be-
meath the locks and stand by while
they lower a forty-ton valve gate into
place; he must get out beneath the
dam and into the cut, out over the
eoot-bridge that sways 200 feet above
the locks, and OF around the compIet-
cd parts Of the Atlantic 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