In direct contrast to these are the splendid engines sent to the
Isthmus by the commission--200 locomotives, not of the largest,
but about of the medium size one sees on the American railways;
2000 splendidly constructed steel dump cars for the hauling of rock
and debris; 300 air-compressed drills for boring into the rocks in
blasting operations; 125 steam shovels of 75, 90 and 125 tons capacity;
apparatus and machinery for the moving of railroad tracks, so effective
that a railroad track can be slung 10 or 12 feet to one side or the
other, laid down and spiked almost as fast as a man can walk; great
steel plows that are pulled across strings of gravel cars, plowing
the gravel or debris off the cars on one side so rapidly that a long
train of 25 or 30 cars can be unloaded in a few minutes. The stationary
machinery is of the best quality that genius and money can construct,
and so effective have been these means of labor saving that the work
has been accelerated from time to time until it is now a realized fact
that the canal will be actually constructed a year and a half ahead of
time.
When the Canal Commission first began their work after the completion
and the adoption of their plans, it was estimated that 110,000,000
cubic yards of debris must be excavated from the canal prism. This
debris must be taken and deposited at some place so remote that it
could never wash back into the canal by the rains and floods. The
debris taken from the cuts on the high lands could not be used in the
structure of the Gatun dam, as it would be too liable to percolation.