Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose

by Willis J. Abbot

This attitude of apprehension on the part of the public is scarcely surprising. If the Capitol Park at Washington, with the National Capitol cresting it, should suddenly begin to move down into Pennsylvania Avenue at the rate of about three feet a day the authorities of the city would naturally feel some degree of annoyance. And if the smooth and level asphalt of that historic thoroughfare should, over night, rise up into the air 18 feet in spots those responsible for traffic might not unreasonably be somewhat worried.

Such a phenomenon would not be so startling in mere magnitude as the slides which added so greatly to the work of the engineers on the Canal, and made tourists, wise with the ripe fruits of five days’ observation, wag their heads knowingly when Col. Goethals calmly repeated his assertion that the water would be turned in by August. The Colonel, however, had not withdrawn or even modified this prophecy so late as June 10, 1913. Despite the almost daily news of increased activity of the slides he clung with tenacity to his purpose of putting a ship through in October.

Courtesy of Scientific American

THE ORIGINAL CULEBRA SLIDE
A Y. M. C. A. club had to be moved to escape this slide which in 1913 was still moving

If these slides were an entirely new and unexpected development for which no allowance of either time or money had been made in the estimates of the Canal builders they would of course justify the apprehension they have awakened in the non-professional mind. But the slides were in fact anticipated. The first slide recorded during our work on the Isthmus was in 1905; the others have only been bigger, and have been bigger only because the Canal being dug deeper has weakened the bases of even bigger hills along the banks. All the same, the proportions of the slides are terrifying and the chief geologist declared that they would not cease until the angle of the Canal bank became so gentle that gravity would not pull the crest down.

The slides are of two sorts. The simpler is a mere swift rush of all the loose surface dirt, sand, gravel and stone down the surface of the bank. These gravity slides, mere dirt avalanches, though troublesome, present no new problems. To stop them it is necessary only to carry the crest of the bank further back so that the angle will be less steep. But the great, troublesome slides are those caused by the pressure of the hill-top on its undermined and weakened base. These originate at the top of the hill, making their presence known by gaping fissures opening in the earth and extending in lines roughly parallel to the Canal. Once started the whole mass, acres in extent, moves slowly toward the cavity of the Canal, three feet a day being its swiftest recorded progress. At Culebra the slides compelled the moving of a large part of the town away from the edge of the Cut, lest it be swept into the gorge. The Culebra Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, the largest on the Zone had to be torn down to escape this peril.

As the slide moves slowly downward, its colossal weight applied at points where nature had made no provision for it, forces the earth upward at the point where it can offer the least resistance, namely the bed of the Canal. Sometimes this upheaval, so mysterious to the non-technical mind, attains a height of eighteen feet. Again, the friction of this huge mass of stone and gravel creates heat, which turns into steam the rills of water that everywhere percolates through the soil. The upheaval of the Canal bed, and the occasional outpourings of steam have led at times to exaggerated and wholly unfounded reports in the newspapers of volcanic action being one of the new problems with which the Canal builders had to grapple.

The story told about the extent of the slides is sufficiently alarming, but the calmness with which Col. Goethals and his lieutenants meet the situation is reassuring. According to the official report there were twenty-six slides and breaks in Culebra Cut to January 1, 1913 with a total area of 225 acres. Since that date many others have occurred. It is estimated that because of slides between 21,000,000 and 22,000,000 cubic yards of material in excess of the original estimate will have been taken out of the Cut before completion. This is just about one-fifth of the total amount of excavation, dry and wet, estimated originally for the whole Canal. But the attitude of the engineers toward this addition to their labors was merely one of calm acceptance of the inevitable and a dogged determination to get the stuff out of the way. The slides were an obstacle; so was the whole isthmus for that matter. But all that was necessary was to keep the shovels working and the slides would be removed and the isthmus pierced.

To my mind one of the finest evidences of the spirit animating the Canal force was the fashion in which this problem of the slides has been approached. It was at first disappointing, almost demoralizing, to find over night the work of weeks undone and the day when “finis” could be written to the volume put far over into the future. But the only effect was a tighter grip on the pick and the shovel, a new determination to force through the Canal. Culebra was approached as Grant approached Vicksburg. To reduce it and to open the Canal to traffic, as Grant opened the Mississippi to the steamboats of the nation, took more time than was at first expected, but it had to be done. The dirt could not always slide in faster than it could be carted out, for in time there would be no dirt left to slide. And so, undismayed and intent upon success, the whole force from Col. Goethals to the youngest engineer moved on Culebra and the doom of that stubborn block to progress was sealed.