The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1914-08-31
BIG SLUMP DELAYS
OPENING 10 MONTHS
$50 ACRES SLIDE INTO PANAMA
CANAL AND STOP BIG
DITCH.

Washington, DC, Aug. 31-The only
reason ships were not using the Pana
ma Canal ten months ago when the
locks were first ready is that Nature
was battling to the last ditch in her
efforts to thwart the purpose of man
to put a shipway through the vitals
of proud old Culebra mountain" writes
William Joseph Showalter, magazine
writer, who visited the canal zone
many times during the progress of the
work there, in communication to the
National Geographic Society at Wash.
ington, d. c.. E
"Over $50 acres Of ground lying out.
side of the intended banks of the
canal, and containing over 30 million
cubic yards Of material, were swept
by Nature, with silent but terrific
force, down into the canal" he writes
Now this onslaught demoralized an
entire railroad system; now It put the
compressed air and water systems out
of commission; now 1t bottled up one
end of Culebra Cut with an avalanche
OF debris; now ut imprisoned dirt
trains and wrecked steam shovels.
Consider what the removal of 10000.
600 cubic yards Of material means. It
Is enough to build a sort of Chinese
wall feet thick and feet high reach.
ing from New York to San Francisco.
1t is more than could be drawn by all
the horses and mules in the United
States. 1t would fill million and
half big Lidgerwood cars, enough to
make string 10000 imles long.
when you reflect that each yard of
this sliding material rendered doubly
difficult the getting out of three yards
of other material, the true meaning OF
the slides begin to appear. There have
been ITO trains going out of the cut
enc day at the south end, only to be
stopped entirely the next day by o
slide. Again, half a dozen tracks
would suddenly be put out of commits
sion. 1t is the greatest engineering
wonder of the age that in spite of these
difficulties 1c6,OOO,O0O cubic yards of
material were removed from the cut
in less time than it was estimated 3d.
100000 cubic yards could be removed
And this wonder grows when look at
the cost sheets and see that cubic
yard was removed fo~ Al average of
60odd cents, when it was estimated
thai, unhindered by slides, the cost Of
removing a cubic yard would be 90
cents.
Prior to 1910 the slides presented
no serious obstacles. U1 to that year
the excavations on account of slides
we're only 1877 per cent OF the total
excavations During 1910 seven weeks
were required to take care of the 1888
per cert of oil excavations Which -,p-
resented the slide debris .akcn out.
In 1911 y required 10 we,ts TO take
OUT the material the slides brought
into the cut, this material amounting
to $3.50 per cent of the total excava-
tons for the year. During the fiscal
year of 1912 34.5 per cent of the ex-
csva"c5s were Of slide ma. sriul whose
removal required IS weeks Forty-six
per cent G. the total excavations in
.19f?s, We 70 ron slides, which accounts
for "a weeks work. Last year, begin
ming July /, 1918, saw only two months
required for the final bottom to be
reached in the cut, outside of the ma
terial brought in by, the slides, SO that
at least A weeks are chargeable
against the slides. The. more than six
weeks remaining until the opening of
the canal on August Is were taken up
with the removal of slide debris, more
than two years and three months in
all. II Fe&
Zone of the wonderful things about
the building of the canal was how Col.
Goethals and Col. Gaillard were able
to drive down unit cost as the mercury
in the difficulty thermometer sped up
ward. In 1908 it was estimated that
the cost of removing yard of soil
would be around SO cents for the whole
cut In 1909 this was hammered down
to 7s 2-3 cents. With the slides more
troublesome than ever in 1912. they
forced the unit cost down to 54v3-s
cents. Than this there is no prouder
showing in the history of business
economy or of engineering"