Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/523

Spain, have been eminently satisfactory, and convinced me that thereby the dredge could acquire new qualities, reducing the expenses and the risk of accidents by unforeseen obstacles met under water."

"Such a distribution of power under electrical form will practically leave on board the dredge but an insignificant number of men, and one may readily understand the extraordinary economy of such a system of excavation, producing 6,500 cubic yards in twenty-four hours with three shifts of 15 men, say with 45 men a day, even admitting the average abnormal price of $3 per man. The price of excavation proper will be reduced to $135 for 6,500 cubic yards, or about two cents a cubic yard, for the labor. This will be associated with a very reduced amount of expense for the repair of machinery, owing to the employment of electricity, and with no expense to speak of for the generation of power, which will be given by the fall of Gamboa Lake.

"The transportation would also be realized at a cost of perhaps one cent a cubic yard.

"The scows would have electric-driven screws and would take their power from a trolley line along the summit level and on the lake. One line would be for scows going to the dump and the other for scows returning. Assistance of tugs would only be required near the dredges, near the locks, and near the dumping places.

"I firmly believe that such a plant would reduce the price of excavation to a level difficult to believe.

"From every point of view, one must consider that the substitution of wet for dry excavation, if so understood, will Create a veritable revolution in the prices and in the output of the work, owing to the great economy, efficiency, simplicity, and limitation of labor thus realized."

Mr Bunau-Varilla proposes that the sea-level canal when completed shall be 600 feet wide at the surface and 500 feet wide at the bottom and have a minimum depth of 45 feet at low tide. This would mean a canal three times wider and 10 feet deeper than the sea-level canal described on pages 462-464. He makes the further astounding claim that this immense sea-level canal by the process of dredging can be built in the same time required for the small sea-level canal (twenty-five years) if the latter is excavated by the dry process, and that the former will cost $300,000,000 as against $230,000,000 for the latter.

The Isthmian Commission have now from 11,000 to 12,000 men at work, and of these 1,500 are Americans; 2,000 of the men are employed by the sanitary department, while the others are engaged in constructing sewerage and water systems, in building and repairing houses, in constructing tracks for cars, and in getting everything ready for active digging of the canal. From 500 to 1,000 men are landing at the Isthmus each month seeking employment. They come from the West Indies principally, and a good number from Colombia.

Of the labor problem, Secretary of War Taft says in a recent report:

"The French Panama Company did much of its work with Jamaica negroes, and a large part of the 3,000 employés now engaged by the Commission is composed of Jamaicans; but it will not be easy to secure all the Jamaican laborers that will be needed. The governor of Jamaica, Sir Alexander Swettenham, whom I visited at Kingston, was unwilling to consent to our taking 10,000 laborers from the island unless we deposited five pounds sterling ($25) per