The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1915-02-09
STUDIES NEW METHODS
Experimenting With SoIidify-
ing Fluid, Newly Discovered,
Which is Designed to Turn
Soft Earth Into Rock New
and More Powerful Dredges
Have Been Ordered .

oJoseuh I. g. Clarke in New York
Sun.)
Col. Goethais sails for II to-
day with a promise to nave the canal
cleaned up by June. In All exclusive
interview obtained for The Sun yes
terday he made light Of the slides
along the nine mile Culebra cut and
salt that there is little for ap-
prehenSion respecting future miShapS.
While in Washington he made ar
rangemcnts with the Standard Com
mission for tests of a solidifying fluid,
newly discovered, which is designed
10 turn soft earth into rock. II is
planned. if the tests prove favorable,
10 inject this fluid into the threaten
ing banks along the Culebra cut and
thus to turn them from 50 much soft
earth into solid walls.
The slides, if they continue. Col.
Goethals says, must be dealt with as
they ecu New and more power
full dredges than have heretofore been
used ave been ordered and will soon
be digging up the sides of Cold Hill
which slipped into the Culebra cut
and reduced its depth from 40 to 80
feet.
Col. Goethals, sitting in an office
looking out on the snowclad Battery
Park, looked maybe a trife older than
in the heyday Of his fine supremacy
in the making Of the canal. but there
was the erect, manly figure and the
quiet. cheerful smile or The Colonel"
himself
At his courteous invitation I had
called to talk to him, or rather to hear
him talk, about the bOthersome
slides Since my visit to the canal
two years e the matter of the
slides had been in my mind as an
ever threatening danger to it's nagi-
tpntinn Whnn tho uynfnro chn1,l1 ho
let in and the canal open to the
public. At that time the great Cucur-
racha slide near the Pacific side of the
nine mile Culebra cut was filing the
whole canal excavation for a half mile
with coarse red earth interminglel
with rocks n trees hat had come
down from the hills above. 1t was a
fearsome sight. 1t looked like a grea;
descending wave of earth with which
there was 10 way to deal except rad.
cally, namely, to remove the crest OF
the hill bodily and reach a state OF
quiescence by leaving nothing to come
down. This, in effect, has since been
done. The side away from the canal
was carried off and the top sluced
down, while in the canal prism and
on the Cucurracha shore the steam
shovels carried off the earth that haC
come down and this work was carried
into the base of the hill until a widen.
ing of the canal by 100 feet at tina
point had been accomplished.
Dbl at Gold Hill.
Gold Hill is a mountain on tn,
other side nearly opposite. 1t had beer
accounted safe by the biologists. |
had been drilled for "fauls'' and non,
were found, yet it was there that tn,
latest and very big slide developed las
fall. The cause would seem to hay,
lain in the action Of the water on tn,
soil.
1t was a question before the waite
was let in hat it it's effect would b
on the sides of the excavation. TIL
lan Of engineering opinion wa
that it would nav a sustaining effec
that it would the effect of a pusl
again the walls. While not KNOWN,
enough to gainsay that, l considere,
that the dissolving effect of the waite
on the walls and the bottom. was tn
factor most to be eckoned with. Co
Cocktails, l may say, still believes tina
on the whole the effect of the waite
mas peer OF sustaining character
though admitting tha, IN the case q
Gold Hill slide the dissolving effect ha
operated. One must remember tina
along the whole nine miles of the Gu
the earth and rock tower at a perilou
looking steep angle. making on
feel that almost anywhere along this
distance that dissolving effect may OF
crate insidiously and at any time prt
cipitate fresh trouble.
Col. Geothals did not deny that DO:
sibility. but looked on it only as
remote possibility. He is no alarms
but he can see where CONS lete safe,
Is a~ttainable. My pr opposition lhs
along tho whole Culebra the cutti:
down OF the taE.:s, giving them
much wider flare than they have no,
was desirable and ultimately shou
be done even at a cost Of some mi
lions Of dollars ELECTED the respons
Yes. but the practical difficulty