The Republican journal., 1916-05-18

cut City VI oIiolud, tue eApO6ILlO0 now
going on there, the bull fights, and lastly
the wonderful view from Balboa Heights
over the cities of Panama and Balboa,
and out beyond, over the jungle with it's
Japanese-i like conical mountains, and up
the canal with it's locks as far as the
flaming red clay sides of Gold Hill, at
| Culebra Cut. These, and the view of
the Constellation of the Southern Cross,
not visible before a late hour in the
evening, and seen between the dances
from the piazzas of the Hotel Tivoli,
brilliant in the clear atmosphere of the
tropics as Its four stars rose over the
Pacific, are such as linger in ones men,
ory.
The Slides.
went over the railroad in one of the
private motor bus cars visiting the points
of interest with some Of the officers, and
also passed through the cut and out into
the lake in one of the official boats with
the man in charge of all canal traffic, SO
l had good opportunity to see things.
The people on the Zone have become
accustomed to the stupendous size of the
undertaking of building the canal, and the
magnitude of the work accomplished,
and their attention is now focused on
the slides. These are of three general
clsses, well-detined and easily recognized,
and have been described as follows:
81. Those caused by the material as
Stunning it's natural slope, in cases where
the banks were left sleeper than the
angle of repose for the particular ma
terlal through which the excavation was
carried.
2. Those due to the fact that material
more or less permeable reposed on re-
latively harder strata which inclined to-
ward the cutting. When the excavation
reached level near or below the inter-
section of the harder plane with the sides
of the prism, the superimposed mass
moved into the excavated area.
3. Those which resulted from the
breaking of weak strata underlying the
anks, rupture being produced by the
concentration of the weights of the banks
due to the removal of the material from
the prism.
The first two classes were designated
Slides With the third class the cause
was the breaking up structurally of the
natural material, and they were called !
shrooIe, in rtipotiop to tho eIidov
although after the break occurred, the
movement of the mass above the tract
ured strata into the excavated area, pro-
duced the same general effect as slide
of the other classes"
Much has been written by scientists to
explain why these occur, and how they
may be remedied, but the cold man," as
everybody on the Zone famiiarly and af-
fectionately refers to Colonel, now Gen.
eral, Goethals, has decided that to which
ever class they belong, and whatever
their cause, their effect in interrupting
traffic is practically the same, and the
only sure way of removing them is to {
keep digging, until the natural angle of l
rest for the adjacent material is reached. J
The various methods commonly in use
on smaller projects have been tried to I
prevent the occurrence of the slides here,
such as the planting of grasses and We {
getation on the slopes, the building of
retaining walls, the driving of piling, the
use of reinforced concrete, and the cover [
ing of the face of the bank with glass
like coating of cement to prevent erosion
by surface water. None of these pro- I
duced the result desired, and all have
been abandoned for the tedious but COM
paratlveiy simple process of removing
the earth from the prism of the canal as
soon as it comes down. When you see
the broken character of the surface, the
steepness Of the sides, and the magnitude
and weight of the areas and masses in
volved, you realise the futility Of trying
to control them by grass roots and the
like.
The engineers do not consider that
there is anything mysterious about these
sliues, and the men on the work did not
seem at all appalled, by them. 1t is pro-
bable that they will continue to occur for
some years to come, but with the dredges
and other machinery at hand it is conf
IDENTIFY believed they can be taken care of
as they occur, and SO quickly, as not seri-
ously to interfere with the traffic passing
through the canal. In fact, the recent
trouble was solely due to the unfortunate
simultaneous occurrence of slides at
points opposite each other, thus filling up
the channel in Culebra Cut, and forming
the famous Goethals' Island. Had either
the slide from the side of Gold Hill or the
one from that of Contractors Hill oppo-
site it, alone occurred, the powerful
dredges could have taken care of either
with comparative ease, and might even
have maintained an open channel for
ships around the edge, or toe of the slide,
from the date of its occurrence. By dint
of persistent question: e, l got the i'm
preston that the cherished hope of the