Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1915-10-27

excavation II through Ii the mass.

excavation thrOug t5S the mass, ne
i encountered a wild -Eariet OF mater
| ial. The igneous rock remained Il Sc
curely in place, despite his blasting
lana digging;; but the remainde CON
lsisting chiefly OF this dried mud
(for 1T is little else), showed but
little stability, and in many places
/! flowed into his cutting with the
same persistency with which the
! sand rolls in upon the wooden
spade ct the. child as he digs upon
1.-THE ocean shore. If els y u
| AS matters stand today. ev-
! erywhere throughout the 50--mile
length OF: the Panama Canal, Natures
angle of repose OF the banks has
been reached, anG the work is per-
manent and stable The only excep-
ton (and it is a. mighty big and
troublesome one) is found at the
great Culebra Cut, now called the
Gaillard Cut in honor OF the engi-
neer who gave his life in the work
Here the cut is carried through the
mountain divide. At the highest
point, known as Gold Hill, where the
depth Of the excavation is over 300
feet, was found one Of those masses
OF hard, igneous rock resulting from
the volcanic upheaval when Pana--
ma was formed. Where the Canal
passes through this rock the sides
OF the cut are stable and will re
main so forever; but on each 4. side
Of Gold Hill, north and south, is
a mass OF plastic material lealed
rock" by the engineers before
they cut into it, but now frequent.
ly spoken Of as mud) which is $50
feet in depth against the rock OF
Geld Hill and diminishes in depth
along the Canal as it follows the
slope Of the divide toward the
Pacific. and the Atlantic. "a
n When the survey and preliminary
plans for the Canal were made. it
was believed that this plastic mater
teal to- horizontal. AS the cut
went deeper and the sides Of the
slope grew more lofty, the material
en- both sides Of the Gold Hill rock
refused to. stand at the slope de-
The lower strata would
be crushed and disfntegrated under
the enormous load OF the superpo sed
material; or great cracks would
occur at the surface, parallel to the
Canal and often several hundred
feet back from the edge of the cut
ting, to be followed, sooner, or later,
by the gradual flow of the whole
mass into the Canal prism.
The Cucaracha slide, lying to the
south Of Gold Hill, and the Culebra
slide to the north OF it, have be-
come familiar terms. Both Of these
have proved troublesome through
cut the whole Of the period covered
BY the building CT the Canal; but
1T the tine .of its op ening they ap-
peared to have been mastered and
10 have become quiet. The Sclenti-:
lie American suggested, when the
water was admitted into the cut, that
possibly the softening of the bottom
10 feet Of depth at the toe 4 Of the
slides, by the infiltration Of the wa
er, coupled with the heavy rains
# the rainy season, would set them
n motion, possibly in enormous vol
lme And this is what has happen
ID, first at Cucaracha, and now on
staggering scale to the north of
1o'd Hill, in a slide which reaches )
400 feet along the channel and ex-
ends several hundred feet. back
RON the edge Of the Canal. The to-
al area covered has been stated to
'e s175 acres, and the total amount
f material in motion, according to
Washington dispatches, is 100000
ubic yards.
1T has been found that the natural Z
4nglo Of repose which Nature de-
hands is L to and this indicates
hat there is nothing for it but
to dredge out the mat erial
Until this angle has been reached. |:
The Canal has been closed indefinite
y, and Col Goethals has recalled
lis resignation 4 and returned to
AXE charge Of the work until this
,roble4n, at once simple and prodigi- I
'us shall have been definitely mas
cred and any chance of further slid
ng removed. 5aI