The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1912-05-12

various kinds. 40 rock drills and $50
punching machines. There was
floating drill which, ! believe, is now
in use, which was valued by tAc
French at $4,000 and other dreges
and drills, running into the millions.
There were thirty-four American 20
comotives, valued at 100000, and
more than 200 Belgian locomotives. to-
gether with hundreds of Smaller
steam engines. There were steel rails
enough to build over 200 miles OF
track and 5000 dump cars.
OF this machinery vast am unit OF
il was as good as when it was made,
although some had been left in the
Jungle and had rusted away. IN:
French watched out for their supplies.
They coated the machinery with par
afiine and other oils. and painted some
parts of it with white lead. 1t is ow-
ing 10 this care that we have been
able TO use so much of the stun.
French Dredges Which Work for
Uncle sam.
Take, for instance, the dredgcs. There
are French machines working at both
ends of the canal. This is SO of one
of the best dredges OF the Balboa chan
mel, which has bean rcmads ana
equipped with modern appliances. An
other dredge. which lay for twenty
years sunk in the mud near the Pa
cilc. was taken up. cleaned and re-
paired, and it is now gouging out and
loading all the sand used for the Paci-
ic end of the canal. Two big dredges
were taken out OF the mud on the west
bank of the Chagres and fioated down
to the dry docks at cristopal. Here
they were repaired and they are now
al work in Lnon bay.
We have even used the old dr,dges
of the ladder type. consisting OF an
endless chain of nineteen steel buckets
which scoop the mud from the bottom
of the canal and carry it out to
chute at the side into barge. These
dradgcs had good boilers. and the
machinery was found in excellent con-
dition on account OF It's careful OIL
ing and painting before it was aban-
doned
Those dredges cost tens of thousands
of dollars They were brought her. in
1885 and they remained in the mud
mere than twenty years. Their ten
ders were silted over by the bay and
We're closed in by bank of sand six
feet high, in which o tree forty fact
tall was growing. Our engineers had
10 cut channel forty feet wide into
the dredges and then take them out
and repair them. 1t is a wonder that
they could have been used at al, but
I am told that they have done excel
lent work.
There were four other ladder bridges
nearby which have been put to use
and on the Pacific side the hull OF a
ladder dredgc was raised and pre-
pared for work. The same is true OF
eXcavators of one kind or another and
also of locomotives and cars.
The French RnIirond Material,
A vast amount of the French rail-
road material has been used, and some
of this machinery is still working.
Many of the locomotives left were
worth $4,000 and upward apiece, and
there were 267 locomotive chanes each
of which. If we would have had to buy
them. would have cost $4,000.
Some of the locomotives were right
out in the jungle. remember when
l was here in 1905 / scared n lock of
bats from one of them and was at
tackled by a swarm OF yellow jackets
which had made their nests inside the
boiler of another. Great lizards, in
Guiding iguanas, crawled about here
and there under the car. wheels anu
we had to walk carefully for fear of
the snakes. That was near Bohio on
ground that is now covered by the
waters of Gatum lake.
Machinery Drowned in Lpke Gatum.
And just here that lake which we
are making by the great dam at Gatum
will be more or less impregnated with
iron from the French material which
will rust away within its bed a great
deal of the stuff has boon left in the
jungle. and saw. away off in the trees.
twenty thousand dollar excayator
twice as big as a threshing machine, UP