Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-10-08
The Panama Canal at Work.
III.-Fighting the Slides.
cuLEBRA, september as.-once in q
By Frederic J. Haskin.


tho Panama canal. This 10 tiny echo
from a mighty battle. 1t gives no idea
of the tremendous toll, tho ever-recur-
rent encouragement of the struggle
with Culebra mountain.
Putting the ships across the Isthmus
of Panama is a striking example of q
great task just barely accomplished
For twenty-five hours every day the
dredges crowd into the cut, digging and
sucking the mud and broken rock out
Of its bottom. For two hours, II the
work Is lucky, they back out, and with
infinite care the long procession of
waiting vessels is towed through a
channel just barely big enough to hold
them.
Once the canal lifted it's bottom two
feet between the time the dredges
tered the cut. The steamer Arizonan
of the Hawaiian Company,
drawing twenty EIGHT feet, suddenly
stopped dead, as though a great hand
had reached up through the waters and
clutched her keel. It took five tugboats
to pull the vessel of the mud and take
her through.
The best thing that can be said for
the slides is that they work in turns
II all of them
Slides on Both began pushing
Sides Active Now. mud ,. and rock
at once. all the dredges that could find
room to work could not possibly keep a
channel. Cucaracha, which started
way back in the days when the French
first cut a notch in the backbone of
stubborn old Culebra, is the most
famous Of the slides. but 1t is about
dead. Its last strenuous activity &C.
curhed about six months ago. But Just
as Cucaracha slowed down and Col.
Comber, who commands the fight
against the slides, began to shake
hands with himself, the east and west
Culebra slides Games to life one night
and pitched several thousand cubic
yards of earth and rock into the canal
on the other side of the mountain.
It 10 these two slides on either bank
Of the canal. on the Atlantic side of
the continental divide, that are caus-
ing all the trouble now: They are try
ing with all their might to pinch the
canal out of existence by pressing their
masses of mud together.
AS you sail between the two Culebra
slides you see on either hand a great
red cash on the mountainside. reach
Imagine that some Titan a mile tall
has plowed a furrow across the earth
that you are sailing across a puddle
of rain water in the bottom, of 1t and
you have a picture of the two Culebra
slides. Far above you can see where
fresh slices of earth are just cracking
away from the mountain. carrying bits
of the Jungle with them. You can see
the abandoned houses of the workmen
relics Of construction days. tottertng
dizxily on the edge before they fall
to destruction.
Scattered over the face of this Rrea,
red bruise on the mountainside ar.
groups of mer
Rocks Dynamited that look tiny
Into Little Pieces. as mes ., on n,
They are tho operators Of the steam
drills. They are boring holes in the
great mass of rock that the slides
bring down with them. Each Of these
rocks must be dynamited into littl.
pieces. else it would choke tho dredee
The fact that 1t takes half a dozen mer
and a steam drill to break up a sinel.
crumb OF the moving mass so that II
can be carried way gives a good ides
Of the immensely of this task
To understand the action of the slide,
you must know that Culebra mountain
like every other continental divide. Ia,
| a core Of solid igneous rock The deep
est and most laborious part Of the Pan.
anna canal u cut right through thit
| rock. Gold and Contractors hills are
| simply the two sides Of this cut, stand.
ing as sheer and solid as though hull
| by some Herculean mason. These srea,
masses Of igneous rock have nevel
! moved. It IL presumed that they viii
| stand forever Should they slip ant
como together the Panama canal would
| be literally squeezed out of existenc.
and the cut would have to be done ali
over again.
On the shoulders Of Culebra noun.
tain, however. this igneous rock la.
been weathersd: hence, there are Rrea1
strata Of soil and clay and broken AND
| metamorphosed rock lying like a cap,
| over the shoulders Of tho mountain
Take q round iron bar to represent the
| iRneous core Of Culebra mountain and
pour Q handful Of earth over 1t. and
you will sec exactly the relation Of thi,
| soft material to the core of the range
You will likewise see that II you fIe :
cut through this bar you would have :
nice, clean hole through the iron. hnl
] tho dirt would come sliding down