i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



has certainly taught him to look with some confidence. TVhen the work on the 

 Suez Canal was begun, and under climatic conditions much the same as those at 

 the Isthmus of Panama, the Suez Canal Company was entitled by its charter to 

 as many native laborers as it required up to forty thousand, and at an almost 

 nominal price. As these men were drafted into the conipany''s service by cor- 

 vee, England protested against a " revival of slavery " in Egypt. The Khedive 

 was constrained to break his contract with the company, for which he had after- 

 ward to pay an indemnity of thirty-eight million francs, and M. de Lesseps had 

 the mortification of seeing his little army of twenty thousand fellahs dispersed 

 as suddenly and as irrevocably as an April fog. 



The logic of the situation promptly suggested the replacing of the men 

 with machines; the putting of slaves without souls or sensibilities in the place 

 of slaves with both. The inventive genius of his countrymen was stimulated by 

 the gravity of the crisis, and in due time from eighty to one hundred dredges, 

 with an appropriate supply of barges, elevators, steam -tugs, locomotives, etc., 

 had taken the place of a large portion of the men withdrawn ; and this ma- 

 chinery, with only four thousand men, increased the monthly output from ten 

 thousand cubic metres to two million, and executed more excavation in the last 

 three years of the work than had been done in the previous seven. May not 

 the scarcity and cost of manual labor on the Isthmus in like manner develop the 

 means of dispensing with at least that portion which the labor market will not 

 cheerfully supply? 



The results already accomplished in that direction justify the expectation 

 that, to a considerable extent, it may. There are already at work on the Isth- 

 mus machines for dredging and for excavation, far more powerful and efficient 

 than any ever used on the Suez Canal or anywhere else. 



It is the opinion of Mr. Bigelow that De Lesseps's " remarkable ex- 

 perience " at Suez has led him to anticipate the forwarding of the 

 Panama work by similar means. This expectation is illustrated by an 

 incident of the Paris Congress. Lavalley, the inventor of the dredges, 

 was there — was in fact a member ; and to him De Lesseps referred at 

 one of the sittings as an engineer "who had already invented so many 

 machines, and who, under similar circumstances, would know how to 

 invent more," 



Mr, Bigelow observes, with regard more especially to excavators, 

 " There is no reason to suppose that, in the creation of such machines, 

 art and science have reached a limit in any direction." One might 

 say with Arago : 



" Croire tout invent^ n'est qu'une erreur profonde ; 

 C'est prendre Thorizon pour les bornes du moude." 



We can not suppose that an horizon of inventive impossibilities has 

 settled down about Panama. 



With regard to Mr, Bigelow's statement that there are at work 

 machines for dredging and excavation " far more powerful " than any 

 ever used elsewhere, it has been already stated that the greater power 

 of these mechanisms is chiefly due to their increased dimensions and 

 the higher steam-power employed. Let us take the "City of New 



