ovement, and are broken up into irregular shelves and chasms, so that
at some points the channel resembles a natural ravine rather than an
artificial cutting. One thing is certain,--that for some years to come
the channel will only be kept open by constant assiduous dredging. But
it is, of course, easier to dredge out of water than to excavate in the
dry. The material excavated from the Culebra channel will aggregate
nearly one hundred million cubic yards. Some of it has been utilized in
reclaiming land; much has been carried out to sea and heaped into a
break-water three miles long, which runs out from the Panama or
southern end of the Canal, and will check a coast-ways current that
might, if uncontrolled, silt up the approach. The Canal is a triumph,
not of man's hands, but of machinery. Regiments of steam shovels attack
the banks, exhibiting a grotesque appearance of animal intelligence in
their behavior. An iron grabber is lowered by a crane, it pauses as if
to examine the ground before it, in search of a good bite, opens a pair
of enormous jaws, takes a grab, and, swinging round, empties its
mouthful onto a railway truck. The material is loosened for the shovels
by blasts of dynamite and, all the day through, the air is shaken by
explosions. Alongside each row of shovels stands a train in waiting;
over a hundred and fifty trains run seaward each day loaded with spoil.
The bed of the Canal is ribboned with railway tracks, which are shifted
as required by special track-lifting machines. The masonry work of the
locks is laid without hands. High latticed towers--grinding mills and
cranes combined--overhang the wall that is being built up. They take up
stone and cement by the truck-load, mix them and grind them--in fact,
digest them--and, swinging the concrete out in cages, gently and
accurately deposit it between the molding boards. How sharp is the
contrast between this elaborate steam machinery and the hand-labor of
the _fellahin_ who patiently dug out the Suez Canal! But there are, so
to speak, edges to be trimmed: this mass of machinery is to be guided
and controlled, and there is work to employ a staff of over thirty
thousand men. Some four thousand of them are Americans, who form a
superior service, styled "gold employees" in order to avoid racial
implications. Their salaries are calculated in American dollars. The
remainder, classed as "silver employees," are paid in Panama dollars,
the value of which is half that