CHAPTER. y sio arr It has already been said that the construction of

75 Pages·2012·4.79 MB·English

CHAPTER. y
sio arr
It has already been said that the construction of
the canal involved at once the greatt piece of
constructive work and the greatt piece of de-
atructive work ever undertaken by man. We have
seen something of the constructive work, and we
will now descend into Culebra Cut tú see the other
phase of tilia great work. We ente the Cut just
below Matachin.
Note the salid etone wails on either side. Through
tilia ilint-like rock the workers have cut a channel
three hundred feet wide st the bottom, and st
placee nearly two hundred feet deep. The depth
of the Cut at varioua pointa ¡a indicated in the dia-
gram. In the Cut milliona of pounds of the dyna-
inite we saw unloading at Cristobal have been dis-
charged. As we go up the Cut you ny witness
a blast of severa¡ tons which will displace thousands
of yarda of the granite-like masa, on which the eteam
ahovels are set tú work. You will notice st, the top
of the bank of rock and tú tbe riglit several queer-
looking machines. These are the compreesed sir
drilla mftnipulated by West Indiana, and used in dril-
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TEZ DIO
ing holes br the dynsmite charges. The charges
are detonated by means of electric connectiona, and
it is done with Buch ekill and care that accidente
in the way of prematuro diseharges, so common lii
the handling of explosivos elsewhere, are now en-
tirely relegated te the past.
As we pass np the Cnt te the next point of attrae-
tion we may rnÁke sorne observations of interest.
'%
Cut begins at Sas Obispo aud the excava-

tion gr&lualiy mercases lii depth for a dist.ance of
fin miles te Goid Hill, where it reaches the
about
maximum elevation of 534 feet on the east bank,
312 feet on the center lime, and 410 feet on the
west bank. (Seo diagram aboye.) At Goid Hill,
Culebra, the Pacifie 8lope begine, and the Cut
continues down the southern incline te Pedro
Miguel, a distance of three miles. While the Cut
proper, as tite engineers define it, is said te be nine
82 tEZ WTOEt OF PANAMA
miles in length, the excavation ja continuoua fron
San Pablo to Pedro Miguel, a distance of ¿tteen miles.
The amo ant of excavation tbroughout Uña diatance in
the Cut ¡a estimated st something near 100,000,000
cubic yarda, equivalent to a mound of earth three
hundred feet high, three hundred yarda wide, and
two miles long. fle total excavation for the canal ¡e
estimated at nearly 200,000,000 cubie yarda. You may
now exteud our little mound two miles farther. Te
inake theee figures more concrete, imagine a team of
horses and the ordinary one-yard gravel wagon ab
work moving tWa dirt an average distance of twenty
miles, and you han the size of the job.
You will notice that the banka of the canal en
either eMe are rising higber tve us. We are
approaching Culebra. fle suspension bridge over
the canal at Empire hanga high abon ow track, and
atill the side wafls of the canal are rising. fe hilla
rising beyond Culebra are the famous Goid Hill and
Contractor's Hill. Through these the Bteam ahovela
are gradusily bat surely cutting their way. M.any
obstacles present themaelvee, bat all are insigniñeant
in comparison to the one in evidenco yonder - the
famous Culebra elide, which, like the mighty Ameri-
can glacien of days gone by, ¡a working ¡te way,
¡noii by mcii, toward the prism of tbe canal. It ¡a
now estimated that tWa asid other elides involve the
removal of an extra seventeen milhion cubic yarda
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1 Iit,1;çI it.ilsLLJ ).lIIITEEN FEET uIUL-ujf ilu:,
SUflE (IP TUE BflOKE EAMT RANK, uNE, !ID
1. CULEBRA CUr FROZ CONTRAfl')fl's HILL, AI'HII,.I920 (84
crr 85
TEZ RIO
cfdirt.. Thebulkjustin.frontofuziaonlyoneOf
ruany subsidiar)' elides - the mere breaking off
from the main bulk of buge chunks which twnbIe
luto the Cut like avalanchee, burying steam ehoveis,
can, locomotivee, tracks, everything in their way.
There are two kinds of elides; those which alowly
and imperceptibly moyo toward the Cut, such as
the Iargest Culebra elide, covering an ares of nearly
thirty acres, and the Cucaracha elide, covering an
ares of about fiíty acres; and thoee that break off
asid topple over precipitately luto tite Cut. The
latter are inaignificant in point of size as compared
WIth the former. The total ama involved by tite
alides in Culebra Cut is one hundred asid sixty acres,
equal in ana te a good-sized farín ¡si the States.
The Cucaracha elide began moving ¡si 1884, or
twenty-eight years ago.
The Culebra asid Cucaracha elides are the most
notable among the obstados te the speedy com-
pletion of the work in the Central or Culebra Divi-
iori. These caused Colonel Goethals te say in an
interview ¡si New York that the oWy significant ele-
mente in tite uncertainty as to the date of the com-
pletion of the canal are tite two big elides, asid the
obstacles growing out of t.hem. The mound of earth
there in tite middle of the prism asid te tite Ieft of aur
trackz jo one of these obstacles. The mound le tite
result óf tite buckling of the bottom of the prism,
88
TEE STORY OP PANAMÁ
aupposed te have been caused by the preure of the
broken eaat bank.
If you could bravo the tropical sun sad maite the
climb te the top of Goid Hill, you would get a spien-
did view of the Cut, and such en appreeiation of the
magnitude of the work as you could not otherwise
get. Here dio canal makers han had te cut through
solid rock for a distance of nesrly fin hundred feet.
By climbing these steps we abail come up inte the
town of Culebra, and ineidentally get, through the
muscular sense, a concrete notion of the depth of the
Cut. As we come out en level ground we may get a
second concrete notion of the magnitude of the work,
for it is near the middle of the month, and the pay
caz has anived te present "the laborer with bis hite."
Frorn ono end of the Zone te the other tWa train goes
en ita errand each month, distributing dic earnings
of die makers of the canal.
Before we lean this spot, notice the b!g steam
ahoveis at work below us. They seem almost linman
when at work. Under favorable conditionz the big
feliow there MII load a Lidgerwood caz lii about two
minutos, and a whole train of cara in leas than fifty
minutes. Wateb him as he dipe down for his mouth-
ful of dirt, then watch him hoist the seven or eight
tons of clay and rock, swing it over te the caz, and de.
posit it again with leas show of effort than would be
displayed by a hoy with his tay ahoye!.
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