The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-03-04
Vagabond
from
Indiana
ERNIE PYLE

nCALA, Fla. March 4.-When
" We got out of the car on the
edge of the bare sand bank. out
there in the lonely middle of Flor
ida, young fellow in khaki pants
and boots stepped up and said. I'm
Inspector So-and-So. of Items %. 3
and T."
He was one of 81 such inspectors
Government men watch every move
the contractors make. They see
that the work camps are according
to Hoyle, that the food is good. and
ventilation all right. and sanitation
o. K.
They see that safety rules for
workers are observed. They see
that they excavate just the right
way. They see that they don't use
more machinery than they're sup
posed to.
A ROAD has been built along
~ this 20-mile stretch where
canal excavation is now going on.
You could hardly call it a road
they've just smoothed down the
sand. 1t runs along the canal bank,
within 80 feet of the edge.
It's little hard to describe what
the canal looks like right now.
Suppose we take just one item"
We look down into an item" which
is a big hole. It's probably two
blocks wide. and maybe half mile
long. and 40 feet deep.
Down in the bottom men and trac-
tors and scrapers are working. The
banks of the ditch aren't straight
up and down. They slope. This
slope. in canal terms, is the earth
slope" The ledge where we're
standing, about 100 feet wide. is
called the BERN" I couldn't find
out why. Then, back of the
"berm,' they pile all the sand they
take out of the hole. 1t forms a
big wall alongside the canal. This
is called the spoil bank"
1t is thrilling to look into one of
these vast holes. have never seen
such beautiful earth. 1t is a bright
golden yellow. 1t is pure sand
It is moist. and almost as fine as
powder. You'd love to take off
your shoes and play in it.
COONER or later. as they dig
- down, they will hit rock. On
some items" the top surface of the
rock is as smooth as a billiard table,
and when the contractor finishes,
the bottom of this Item" is abso-
lutely level. An airplane landed on
one of them the other day.
But in other items" the rock
rises in jagged peaks, 10 and IS feet
high. They stand up there from the
floor of the pit like the grotesque
image in the Dakota badlands.
This rock is Ocala limestone. It's
as white as a freshly laundered
sheet. And it's so soft you can
crumble it in your fingers. 1t has
no grit in it either. It's almost like
soap
The queer thing is, that when it's
exposed to air for some time it
turns gray and hardens, like cement.
Since the entire bed and walls of
the canal will be dug through this
rock, it means they'll never be
bothered with slides.
The limestone goes down, without
changing texture, for hundreds of
feet. Occasionally you can see the
imprint of sea shell in it.
VXTHEN the contractor and his
w men get down to the rock,
they're through. In this 20-mile
section the top of the rock is still
60 feet above sea level, and 90 feet
above what the bed of the canal
will be. That means they'll have to
dig down through 80 feet of rock.
So the contractors will strip off
all the earth, down to the rock,
over the whole length of the canal.
Then the Army engineers will build
huge hydraulic floating dredges.
They'll start these at either end,
to eat their way through the canal.
Drillers will drill hundreds Of
holes in this rock, and blow it to
bits, and then the dredges will
come along, suck up the rock and
water, carry it through a long pipe,
and pour it out on top of the spoil
bank" along the canal, where it
will settle and dry and become the
permanent ridge that will run the
entire length of the canal on
either side
They won't start building these
dredges until they're assured of a
new appropriation for continuing
the work. They'll build ii of them.
1t will take 10 months to build each
one, but they'll build several at
once.