El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-06-01

the holes for the blasting. 1t drives
the augurS, each as big around as your
leg, down into the heart of the Andes,
cutting holes from Is TO 80 feet deep,
In which the dynamite IS sunk TO tear
up the rock
Last year" says Col. GailIard, the
holes We put down. If Joined end TO
end, would have reached 900 miles
They would have equaled a pipe run
ming all the way from Philadelphia TO
Chicago, or if sunk straight through
the earth would have reached almost
One-1Ourth of the way TO the center.
As we 90 on ask Col. Gaillard some
thing as TO the amount Of explosives
needed on the canal He replied that
the consumption Of dynamite for y
months was over 5iUvO,UOO pounds. ET-
cry hole requires 20 pounds, and the
consumption in one year would more
than load five trains Of the Lidger-
wood cars which carry the earth and
rock out Of the cut As 1 watch them
charging the holes. observe that the
dynamite is wrapped in pink paper.
and ask Col Gaillard the reason. He
replies
That is to keep track of it and pre-
vent the wrokmen stealing it to dyna-
mite the waters for fishing. such a
charge kills the fish, and they rise TO
the surface and can be easily caught
The loss from this source was consId-
cradle, but this pink paper can be seen
great distance, and now whenever
we catch a man with dynamite so
wrapped we arrest him"
How the Earth Slides.
As we make our way down into tho
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
VIII have TO be moved, as they are al
ready sliding down into the ditch.
There is one great crack here at Gu
Zebra which inclOses four acres, com
prisins million or more cubic yards,
which are already moving, although so
slowly as to be impercepuble. The
crack IS about a foot wide and it
steadily grows. Another movement of
the same kind is apparent at Empire,
where Col. Gaillard has his headQuar-
tiers, and the Workmen in pointing to ii
IaceuOusly say that mother earth is
ABOUT TO take her revenge on engineer
Galllard for the scars he is making
upon her old body at Culebra.
As we go on 1 ask the colonel to tell
us something about the slides He
shows US that these cracks mark their
beginning, and later on in the cut we
watch the 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 composed Of clay and
OIner earth, and they may have a great
deal OF rock mixed in them. Such a
slide IS caused by the digging away
and also by the increased weight made
by the water Of the heavy rainfalIs
This aids in carrying the earth down
into the canal
Watching a Slide.
Indeed, most Of such slides, occur at
that time, although there are some al
so in the dry season. I watched one
such mass Of earth moving today. 1t
comprised about a million cubic yards
equal to block 800 feet square and
800 feet high, and was going forward
at the rate of is inches per day As
1 stood in the bed of the canal the
place where the clay Joined the rock
could be plainly seen. 1t was a sort
Of hollow in the hills where the rock
OF the cut had been blasted so that
one could follow with his eye the line
where the clay ended and the bed
rock began. There was a 90 ton steam
shovel at the foot of the rock, and it
was catching the earth as it fell and
loading the cars. 1t was working just
Iast enough, I was told. to keep the
stuff from the slide out of the way. /
could see the earth fall now slowly
and now in great masses, continuously
dropping into the cut
The Mighty Cockroach.
These surface slides have carried
down great masses of material Take
the Cucuracha on the east side of the