Omaha daily bee., 1912-06-02

and can be easily caught. The loss from
this source was considerable, but this
pink paper can be seen great distance,
and now whenever We catch man with
dynamite so wrapped we arrest aim."
b. How the Earth Slides.
As We make our way down into the cut
we can see cracks everywhere. 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 .o be
moved. as they are already sliding down
into the ditch.
There is one great crack hero a. Gu
Zebra which incloses four acres, conipris-
ing 100000 or more cubic yards, which
are already moving, although so slowly
as to be impreceptible. The crack Is
about foot wide and 1t steadily grows.
Another movement of the same kind is
apparent at Empire, where Colonel Call
lard has his headquarters, workmen in
pointing to 1t facetiously say that Mother
Earth is about to take her revenge on
Engineer Gaillard for the scars he Is
making upon her old body at Culebra
As we go on l ask the colonel to tell us
something about the slides. He shows US
that these cracks mark their beginning,
and later on in the out we watch tire
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 COM
posed Of clay and other earth md they
may have a great deal Of rock mixed in
them. Such slide Is caused by the dig
ging away Of the material which holds it
in place and also by the increased weight
made by the water Of the heavy rainfalls.
This aids in carrying the earth down irto
the canal
Watching a Slide.
Indeed, most of such slides occur at
that time, although there are some also
In the dry season. I watched one such
mass of earth moving today. 1t com
prised about 100000 cubic yards, equal
to a block 300 feet square and 200 feet
high, and was going forward at the rate
OF eighteen inches per day AS / stood
in the bed of the canal the place where
the clay Joined the rock could be olainly
seen. It was sort Of a hollow in .he
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
was a ninety ty-five-ton steam shovel at
the foot of the rock, and it was catching
the earth as 1t fell and loading the cars.
1t was working just fast enough, l vas
told, to keep the stuff from The slide cut
OF the way. l could see the earth foil
now slowly and now in great masses,
continuously dropping down into the cut.
Mighty Cockroach.
These surface slides have carried down
great masses Of material. Take the
Cucuracha on the east side of the canal. |
The word Cucuracha means "cockroach,"
and this cockroaeh is the biggest of it's
kind upon earth. 1t covers an area of
forty-seven acres and forms great mass
of earth which has broken off 1870 feet
from the center line of the canal.
1t began when the French were still
working, and 1t has caused us trouble
ever since we started to dig. We have
already moved out of it mass of earth
amounting to 100000 cubic yards, and il
is still active. At one time 1t came on
ward at the rate Of fourteen feet every
day. Nevertheless the steam shovels ate
II up as 1t came, and there is no doubt
but that the shovels and dredges will be
able to take care OF II and all other slides
OF the future. The ordinary slide can
be handled by one shovel. and this is
so even when the slide is long one.
At Las Cascades a shovel moved up and
down a slide 100 times going back and
forth and chewing off It's toes as they
were pushed into the cut.
Thers is big slide on the west side