The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1916-04-19


Culebra slide sin the current Canal
RECORD, here to-day journal usual
1y devoted to the dryest of official no
tees of approved prices of linen col
lars and runp steak. The story which
the writer tells is that of the grave
yard watch in the night work OF the
dredges on the slides of Culebra. The
Canal Record preserves the anony-
NIFTY of the author, but one feels that
there is more in the canal work for
this man than his engineers pay and
civil service rating on the lists He
writes in part:
'"The Graveyard Watch, as the men
of the dredging fleet call it, begins
at midnight and ends at eight o'clock
in the morning.
Shortly before midnight the watch
boat Chame leaves the landing at Pa
raiso, with sleepy men lying about
the decks, and makes for the Cut at
CuIebra,, where dredges are digging
away the slides. Tt is very dark, al
though the stars are bright with dry
season brilliancy; and it is so chilly
that one questions theta degrees Fab
renheit, shown by the Thermometer.
The men crowd around the funnel or
crouch behind the cabin house to hide
from the draught. AS the ship makes
the turn between Paraiso and Cu1ebra
the thousand lights of the dredging
fleet come into sight, brilliant in the
SHADOWS OF the enclosing giving
the appearance of a city street when
electric signs are lighted. No time
is lost in changing the watch. The.
Chame steams down to the dumping
ground in Gatun Lake, relieves a tug
crew wherever it finds a. tug, and de-
livers it's cargo of tired men at Pa
raise about two O'Clock in the morn
ing.
Scraping the Bottom.
1.-THE break in continuity of work is
scarcely perceptible. Hardly has the
watchboat cast off before the new
crew on the dipper dredge has begun
to lift great dipPerfuls of rock and
earth from the bottom of the channel,
40 feet below the surface. On the
ladder dredges, the groaning of the
buckets crunching over the tunbler
shaft does not stop at all, while the
new crew steps into the place of the
old. So on all the vessels-athe sue
t.on-dredge operator speaks few
words to the man he relieves, and all
his crew falls into place. while the old
crew scraInb1es over the coamings of
the watchboat; the drill barge ceases
hammering for a minute only; and
the towboat masters leap from the
watchboat to the tugs, and apparently
automatically begin where the other
captains left off.
s.Eighty-four vessels are engaged in
the dredging work. Most of these are
working along the west bank in a
space about 1000 feet long, for this is
the part of the slide on which action
has been centered for the present
Mud, soft rock, and hard rock are dug
according. as the dredges. work on the
surface, or lower down. Up against
the bank all classes of digging are
encountered.
s.The Cascades brought up one dip
per of clay, another of mixed clay and
rock, and a third-on the third it
staggered. The engineer dropped
the dipper. again and brought the
stick up several feet almost vertically,
then the craneman forced the dipper
forward; the whole vessel shook, the
engines ran slow; the spuds gave
from the vertical; but the stick rose
rose steadily on its track When the
dipper emerged from the water it held
in its teeth a rock that would have
blocked a highway; the boom swung
it around above the barge, and the
engineer and craneman working to-
gether tilted it off. The supervisor
said:
" Probably weighs twenty-five tons.
and they brought it up from 40 feet
below the surface.
The Veteran of the Fleet.
.The veteran of the fleet, an old
French ladder dredge that began ser
Twice thirty years ago, is working on
the east side of Cucuracha.
| 1.-THE big ladder dredge Coroza1 is
| working on the east bank, opposite
| CuIebra, eating away at the slide. OF
less capacity than the large. dipper
dredges, not able to handle large rock
it is, nevertheless, the most relentless
type of digging machine in the Cut.
i Its endless chain of one and one
quarter yard buckets travels. over the
4 immense tumblers hour after hour,
I seraping the bottom of the canal fore
u r. xr = 49,.
weight of the vessel. From the bridge
| fifty feet above the water the master
| watches the, buckets as they come up
! loaded with whatever the bottom
yields, and thus judges the placing
of the dredge that it may work to best
advantage.
t'In and out among these diggers. all
night long, goes the supervisor, direct
| ing the work. At Paraiso the resi-.
dent engineer and the superintendent
of dredging are asleep with a tele-
phone beside thei rbeds. At field Of
fees on the bank at either end of the
slide section a log is kept of the work.
When anything demanding their pres
ence occure, the chiefs at Paraiso are
called and in few minutes a launch
delivers them alongside.
From the bridge of the Coroza1
could be seen an 1, 80O-ton barge load
ed to the coamings with rock and
earth, moving silently away from one
of the dipper dredges without appa-
rent cause for motion. 1t swung
slowly into the stream and pointed
| 1akewards. AS it passed the Corozal,
the tug became visibIe-the De Les
| seps a boat only seventy feet long
and fifteen feet wide, one-third the
length and width of the barg$; yet it
handled this load of about 1000 tons
as easily as the dipper dredges pick
up a cotton rock.
Each barge brought back from the
dumps is warped alongside the bank
at the station. and there is inspected
carefully to see that the doors of
the hoppers are closed, the hinges and