The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1912-04-09

with the exception Of Sundays. This
Is so OF all the marine work at this
end Of the canal. The men work
IN two shifts Of ten and twelve hours
ana are paid accordingly. The ten
hour men are Americans. The
twelVe-hour men are II OF French
men and other foreigners who came
mere Years z INC who have STAYED
with the work.
We ove farther out to the ssa.
following i barge which i taking
thousands Of tones of rock t. be drop
ped into the. deep Pacific. We pass
a boat upon which is Il great dlpper
l1tng w~agonloads of earth out Of the
water and throwing them into barges.
Ihat dipper holds two wagonloads Of
rock and ii looks almost human as
IT rises and swings about through the
air. 1t poises g the boat and then
~lelsurely drops its Jaw, throwing into
the dredSe a great quid Of tobacco
lke earth weighing four or five tons.
The Great Suction Dredges.
And then there is the great ~teaIner
dredge. the Culebra, which through
pipes sucks in mighty streams Of mud.
gravel and rock and pours them into
the mud bins which form 4 part Of
its construction. 1t is Just IKE its
ioAN1 Tx -All1olI. IL Is 81 q n
on the other side Of the isthmus.
These dredges make me think of the
old song:
The prettiest girl ! @ver saw
Was sucking cider through Il straw
Each has two gigantic straws Of
steel which extend down at the sides
and pierce the mud flats or gravel
bed. and suck at everything that is
small enough to pass through the six
by nine-inch holes in their shoes.
The best material for them is gravel,
and the most difficult is heavy clay OF
rock. Solid rock cannot be ~eXCaNated.
but Jumps as big as a mans head are
carried through the imp without
harming them.
No long ago the culIra drew
about sixty feet of steel chain from
Panama bay ~ threw it into The
bins, and on the other side of the
isthmus the. Ancon lifted a cannon
ball from the bottom of Iimon bay
Quantities of fish, cells and shells ar
taken up in these pies and throw
with the mud and rock into the stOnl
ach-like bins. The Culebra came
with its own steam all the way from
Chesapeake bay into the Pacific
through the Straits of Magellan, ant
the AncOn, the Atlantis suction
dredse. steamed down from <orfoll
in the same way.
As to the work of these dredses
in her first ten months the CEiebr:
sucked almost four million cubi
Yards out OF the ocean and the An
con did even better. -Four millio,
cubic yards would be enoGch to max
a mighty prism three hundred fee
cn1aro and h}vha, than tho Eifff
Tower at Paris. The base Of tina
prism would cover thirty thousan
. square feet. almost three-fourths Q
: an acre. and it would he solid a
:. the way TO the top, which woul
I, reach twice as high as that of tn
Washington Monument. Multiply thu
. by two and YOU will see what thes
two dredges did in ten months.
Among the other dredges we Sc
as we go on are some brought i
e by the French. They lay for tWent
yards in the mud. but Uncle Sa't ha
e cleaned them up and they are dom
i noble work today.
Tn Sand of the Works.
AS one Of the French machine
pointed out to Us, Mr.. Comber tel
me that a French dredse is now tai
!" ing ont ali the sand needed for I'll
8 concrete work on the Pacific division
: There is no good sand on the iSth1a,
" proper, but about twenty-five mile
: from here up the coast the engines
$ have discovered i bed Of almost pu.
silicon. 1t is a white sand which
easily %dredged and which IS beiT
brought Down in barees. Alreal
: Mor&than a million cubic yards i
it have been used, and this has "a
been goused out by the t'rench~n;
chinery
Entering the Canal from the Pacifi
is But We are now we'll out in II
n canal, where the ships Will steam
e from the Pacific ocean. What a bea'
g tiful entrancei The sea here is spo
n ted with islands. which stand i'll
sentinels guarding Uncle San
n mighty construction. They are 90
y cred with green and the. rise out
IL a vast SllverN expanse. which uDd
tho CI,l e nnuy ~" Ika III