The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1913-08-26
our ~AVALANCHES

pCNu tdhcn OU1. and was
toid that there were only sixty-nva
Hfiihohs Yet to dig. The ac,ual
a'houht taken out has been 30 ~
ctht above that, and there are abnn,
"soVo,ooo cubic yards still to b. moyed
oeicre the Cuiebra cut Will he fr-
shed M
The Andes Versus h Desert.
lease tel me in simple language
ma ,oo,ooo'ooo cubic yards mean
IL means SO much" replie3 -,
Ialiiard. that it is hard to comnre-
memo. When the French first opened
me Suez canal they had taken ont
'2,o0o, cubic yards. What we baye
excdvated in the Culebra cut alone \.
one ana one-half times as much. Be
Sioes. the excavations in Egypt were
nlostiS made up of soft material and
the SANDS or the desert. The greater
part OF our material has been rock.
winch We had to blast out with dyna-
mite and carry miles away 10 the
dumps.
/ IN simple language, if what We
have taken out could be piled with
vertical sides in Il square inside the
building ines of a Washington city
block, 1t would make a shaft reaching
70 a height Of over six miles, and if it
We're lo@de on railroad trains, at 400
cubic yards to the train, the cars hold
ing the stuff would fill one continuous
track reaching twice around the world
at the equator. If you could put the
material into a railroad embankment
~forty-hve feet wild at the bottom. fiji
teen feet high and wide enough al the
top for a double track line. that en-
bankment could be stretched from
washington to many miles beyond
Chicago, and still it would not hold all
the EARTH
How much more digging have YOU
had to do than was calculated at the
beginning
II have shown you that we have al
ready taken out over 40, 600. 600 cubic
yards more at Culebra than was est
mated when we began work there. In
the whole the excavation will be
more than double the original esti-
mate. The international board of con
sulting engineers figured the total ex
cavatiOn for the completed lock at
9O,OOO,0O0 cubic yards, and it is now
known that the excavation will be in
the neighborhood of 22O, OOO, 900 cubic
yards. Some Of this increase has come
from the widening OF the canal, and q
great deal iS due to the additional
work caused by slides and breaks
Uncle Sans Culebra Avalanches.
What have the slides amounted to?'
S far they have added over 20,
100000 cubic yards to the material il
AN SuASOAo wv dAOA1O. a ullAALOu Cu
bic yards Is equal to a solid block 80
feet square and 500 feet high. Such
block would have a base of more thar
two acres, n it would rise to tn
height of a twenty-five or thirty stor,
building. Twenty such blocks woult
be equal to a solid block Of two acre
more than a mile high. Talk abou
mated to contain 1000, 900 cubi,
yards. Six or seven such pyramid
have slid down into the Culebra cut
and we have a to move them out.
/. How the Mountains Flow.
| What are these slides?"
They are Of two kinds" said Col
Gatllard. lone is tho slide proper
which consists Of the movement 0
material lying on h bed rock. The,
are composed OF clay and earth, an
may have a great deal Of rock nike
with them. They are masses Of earth
g moving by gravity on a smooth inclin
: ed surface Of harder underlying mate
rial. The other class is known as tn
8 break" 1t comes from the weak
ness of the various states far unde
the surface. They are squeezed on
by the enormous weight of the mate
rial lying above them.
Take first the slide proper In thi
case the motion is very like that OF
e glacier, and il ranges In speed from
few inches a month to fourteen feet
day. in the large slides the motion
e uniform. In II instance the spec
was about ten feet perday, n tn
t variation during the first ten days
n the movement did not amount at an
= time to more than 10 per cent. Ths
0 was the famous C~ucaracha slid
which covered forty-seven acres, an
e carried down a mass Of moving mate
j. rial of several million cubic yards
FL The Danger to Ships.
n as there any possibility Of one
n those slides dropping down on
s. steamer in transit and swallowing
d up?"
Il think not replied Col. Gailfar'
% The slide would have to move IL
more rapidly than say wo have had
fall upon a steamer in. transit. ~
At only way that a ship could be anecte
d would be by one Of the breaks, whel
&. the material In the bottom OF the CT
ic nal might rise up and the snip {
Ia aground. You remember the hun
Il that occurred when we were tQeeth'