The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1913-03-14

country might be of interest to
your readers as they have been
hearing of the Panama canal so
much. 1t is certainly a wonder
to see and | can't imagine such
an undertaking; in fact it is be-
yond describing. 1t is about
AZ miles long. They are now
working forty thousand men
and about three hundred dirt
trains of 25 cars each. One big
job is to get some place to put
the dirt and rock that they take
out. They haul most of it 20
miles and make regular noun
tains of it. They get train of
dirt out every three minutes.
The big steam shovels fill car
at three dips. l went on a
sightseeing train. This train
runs every day and carries
from two to three hundred visi-
tors to see the wonder works.
Nearly all the visitors are
Americans. This train carries
you down in the canal for near
ly ten miles, where they have
cut it through Culebra noun
tain. At one point it is $50
feet deep and half mile wide
at the top and is nearly all
rock. The canal is three to five
hundred feet wide at the bottom
and the water must be not less
than al feet deep at any place
in the canal.
The French government
worked on this canal for a num-
Der of years and it was about
to break the government so
they gave it up. Then a private
company undertook it and spent
forty or fifty million dollars and
they fell down and gave it up.
Then the work stopped for
about twenty years when the
United States bought it and are
hard at work at it. Some of the
natives here say that it will
never be finished. The. engi-
neers say they expect to turn
water in it next September at
the Atlantic end for six or
seven miles and at the Pacific
end mile or so. Through the
swampy parts they dig it with
suction dredges and force the
mud out through 20-inch pipes
into hollows or low places.
Some places they run it out a
mile or more. The unfinished
parts have eight or ten rail
road tracks and as they get the
dirt out they shift the tracks
back and forth.
When the French abandoned
the Job they left most of their
machinery, steam plows, loco
motives, cars, and thousands of
things standing right where
they stopped work and today
you can see miles of old cars,
engines, etc, rusted to pieces,
the tracks rotten and trees and
bushes growing among them.
At one place they turned the
course of river. The river is
nearly as large as the Catawba
at home. They built a dam one
mile and quarter long and a
half mile thick at the bottom.
this turned the course of the
river and made a lake which
covers three hundred and thirty
square miles.
Panama City is a considerable
place of $4,000 inhabitants. The
streets are all paved with Pitts
burg, Pa, brick and the pave
ments all cemented everywhere,
all done by the United States.
The United States has built
hundreds of homes, in fact they
have a town nearly the full
length of the canal for the en-
ployes of the canal. Most of
them are nice large houses of
from 8 to % rooms, and some
large fine hotels. ! also visited
Old Panama City, which is out
seven miles from the present
city. This old destroyed city is
on the Pacific coast and has a
long sea wall to protect it from
the water. 1t must have been
a considerable place. 1t was
destroyed and its inhabitants
killed by pirates, | think, in
1474 Anyway, it was not Cap
tain Kidd but Captain Foster
and his men There old walls
and towers aIe standing, some
In good -hap. and as much ass