The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1914-01-13

through the locks into the LAX and
| tried to cross to Culebra. This man
drifted about this way and that and
| finally lost himself in the Trinidad
| river, from where he was brought
back by an exploring party into the
channel. Marti is one OF the char-
acters Of the Canal Zone. He was a
! foreman of the biggest dynamite
gang, and at one time was blown
| thirty feet into the air. When he
came Town on the rocks 1t was
thought that all Of his bones had
been broken. He recovered, however.
and is now receiving $50 a month as
the best pilot Of the canal commits
sion.
We leave Gamboa and ride over the
I spot where the dam was thrown down
when Lake Gatun was let into the
cut. We soon come to the slides and
see the dredges at work. In some
parts of Culebra there has been con-
siderable motion during the past few
weeks. n we see fresh masses Of
clay and rock which have rolled
down, hiding the green. Most Of
these slides do but small damage.
they enter only the sides CT the chan
mel, n the dredges have no trouble
in cleaning them out.
A little farther down we come to
Empire, where some Of the greatest
slides begin, and farther still to
Cucuracha, the slide of the cockroach,
where the earth has been moving for
the past thirty years. That slide COW
ers forty-seven acres, and at one time
it was moving down the mountain at
the rate Of fourteen feet a day. There
{ is another slide which cover seventy
five acres, from which enough earth
; and rock ave been taken to equal
, a great column 800 feet square and
1 higher than the Washington Monu-
, ment.
t The slides altogether have now COW
cred an area of Isl acres. They
t have ranged in area from one acre
to seventy-five acres and their mass
e is fncOnceivable. Two hundred and
e fifty acres would make a good-sized
farm, and the volume of earth is es-
r timated by the tens Of millions OF
e cubic yards. Already enough Side
material has been taken out Of the
canal to make a wall as zig as q
two story house and more than three
feet in thickness, reaching from Bos-
ton almost to Chicago, and by the
time the canal is completed we shall
y have dug out from the slides alone
Is a mass equal to a dozen pyra,
IS mids as big as the biggest in Egypt
III with still some earth to spare.
Admiral Rousseau tells me tina
81 there is no doubt that the time o
a dangerous slides Is rapidly comm,
IS to an end. There has been a dimi
ID mutton of them since the water can
in, and the breaks OF the humpin;
er up OF the bottom of the canal has al
S together disappeared. We have no1
forty feet of water in Culebra GU,
10 and we shall have forty-hve shortl
OF after the LIST of January. If it wer
m not for the Cucuracha slide vessel
q i AAf.k >s-AA
X go through he canal This IS tn
In draft of the Olympic and the Mature
e tania and vessels Of that class, BIT
les they draw that much only when hea1
OK lily loaded. and they are seldom :
n loaded.
les Turning our launch toward the A
re lantic, we steam pack through tt
ne cut n out into the Lake of Gatu,
Ire This sheet OF water is an artifici
un one. 1t has been made altogether /
VI the Gatun dam, which runs acre
en-. the outlet and between two great hill
be about twenty-four miles away. tt
Ia lake Is supplied by numerous lit
II rivers. of which the greatest is Il
ar Chagres. 1t has been steadily risi,
OF Tor more than a year, and it's su
face is now over eighty feet abo
la!. the level Of the ocean The wat
lth has spread out over the valleys. al
ere: the lake now covers an area as lar
OF as 1000 eighty-acre farms all pate
KS, ed together.
in Coming from Camboa We fret .
,ry- ter the valleys of the. Charooe n,
rsty is narrow near the end Of C,,oh
ery- Cut, but it soon widens out to a h;
mile or more, winding in and abe
Rilo among hills that are eautif
the green, There arc naI,r 49,. 49,
ing on the edge of the water, and
see them standing out against /,
on sky, on the tops of the hills.
ncn FARTHER out on the lax we $
and about the shores of beautiful islan
and and we now and then yass float
atun islands, consisting of tron,cal quo ~
the which have been lifted from fh
han foundations by the water and
tug carried by the winds here and tn