The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

though it were feathers and, loosening its 1 lower lip, drops 1t into the car. The mass
 falls with q loud explosion and the car has not finished quivering before the
 giant has bitten out five more wagon 1 loads of earth and dropped them on top. Look again. The shovel has taken up a rock too big to pass through it. It has bitten off more than it can chew. See 1 how it throws the rock back on the dump, and knocking it this way and that with it's checks, twists and turns it so that 1t may pass inside the shovel, That rock weighs over 10 tons, and the engine roars and the steam puffs as the great jaw jacks and rises and falls jolting 1t down on the car.
 Now look once more at the machine and see the brains which made 1t move as though 1t were human. It all comes from that white pygnny in blue cotton clothing. That is steam shovel man. He has small rope in his band, and with this he jerks the machinery which makes the mighty giant move at a touch.
 The Wonders of the Shovels
 We walk on a few yards to another shovel which is taking up wagon-loads of rock at each mouthful and dropping them down into the cars with its alligator-lS jaw. See how intelligently 1t works. As the pile grows uneven 1t smooths out the rocks with it's chin. It turns gigantic masses with a nod of the head and sink ing its teeth deep into the Mother Earth, takes up rock and clay, two hogshead- 1 fuls at a bite. and spits them into the cars This machinery here is the wonder of the world and it does its work without kicking. It never stops and never strikes
 It Is a tool of the gods, but little man works it with touch of his finger. 1 One will load a flat car holding 10 l tons to five bites. and we have shovels which have loaded more than 4O0O cubic l yards in a day. Records are kept of the work of each. and single machines fre- quently load 65,0o0 cubic yards of earth and upward of, material were loaded upon two-horse wagons it would take 13o.oo0 horses to haul it, and esti- mating each wagon at 4o feet. the loaded wagon train of a single shovel would fill roadway TOO miles long.
 As we look I take out my watch and time the loading of car The shovel drops mouthful weighing from five to eight tons every 16 seconds, and the car Is filled in little over a minute. In one days work single shovel has loaded more than 5000 tons and last March 51 shovels excavated on an aver age almost So.00o yards each.
 The Lesson of the Ant As we watch the work one of the shove1s comes to rest and I remark to the man who forms the brains of the giant upon the mighty power he is han ding.
 Yes" he replies. this machine Is stupendous. but 1t is nothing in com parison with that of all nature about us We have ants here in Culebra which drag along leaves four times as big as themselves and fye times their weight. Their machinery is more won derful than this, and I tell you God has man beat every time"
 But let us go on. Look up at the ihills we are now passing through. The tops of the canyon are of the greenest of green. and they look reefshing in contrast with the scared desert down here in the cut See the railroad trains moving on that level above us. There 1 is another caravan on the level be- low, others in the cut and high above us are 20 cars flyinE away down 10 Balboa. There is a train at the right, at the left and trains everywhere car ryings rivers of rock. They make us 1 think of the battle of Balaklava--en- zines to right of them, engines to left of them, engines in front of them vol leyed and thundered.
 Unloading the Spoil
 Now stop and look at the cars. Did you ever see such engines before? They are giants in comparison with those of l our railroads. They puff out great vol