i64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Those first employed at Panama had a force of twenty-four horse- 

 power, -while the powerful machines more recently sent out have a 

 force of ninety. The French have lately employed in connection 

 wdth their excavators a mechanism similar to the elevafeur, already de- 

 scribed. It is called the transporteur, and consists of an elevated 

 structure which performs the same service for an excavator that the 

 elevateur does for a dredge. The earth is deposited from the buckets 

 upon an endless belt. This passes round two drums about two hun- 

 dred feet apart, and in the interval rests upon friction-rollers. The 

 earth is thus carried outward from the excavation, and at the same 

 time upw^ard. 



While, owing to the power and size of her digging mechanisms, the 

 Panama undertaking has quite an advantage over Suez, it is not to be 

 assumed that this advantage may not be further increased. Upon 

 this contingency the decision of important questions may depend. 

 Whether the canal be finished, at least provisionally, as a lock-canal or 

 cut immediately to the sea-level, is possibly one of these. But the 

 decision as to locks will have to be expeditiously arrived at ; and if 

 inventors are to step in and afi"ect in any sort of way the result, 

 they have not much time for contrivance and experiment. At all 

 events, we may hope much from the fact that the undertaking is prob- 

 ably in the best hands to which it could have been intrusted. Owing 

 to the completion of former contracts, or the substitution of later for 

 earlier ones, the greater part of the work devolves at present upon 

 French or American contractors. The portion undertaken by the 

 American company consists, it is true, wholly of dredging — the easiest 

 part of the work. There can be no doubt as to the satisfactory, and, 

 should it prove necessary, rapid completion of this part of the under- 

 taking ; the chief difficulty lies in the excavation of dry earth and 

 rock, and this is chiefly in the hands of the French.* But American 

 inventions and skill may be as serviceable here as in any other section 

 of the work. It is a pledge of earnest effort that the two republics 

 which have the work in charge have also a greater stake than others 

 in the completion of the undertaking — France, because French capi- 

 tal has furnished the funds ; America, because of our need of a 



* According to the plans of the company, as described recently by Charles de Lesscps, 

 Vice-President of the Suez and Panama Companies, part of the work which it was 

 thought must be done by excavators may be effected by dredging. With this end in 

 view, he tells us, the company is making preparations. It is proposed to introduce into 

 the works, between Gamboa and Paraiso, the waters of the upper Chagres. An analo- 

 gous plan served the same purpose at Suez : fresh water was introduced from the Nile ; 

 nine dredges were carried up by a lock and floated upon it. These operated upon a 

 temporary lake, whose level was seventeen feet above the Mediterranean. Whether 

 such a plan, by some thought impracticable, may be successfully applied at Panama, re- 

 mains to be seen. 



For a description of the manner in which the Xile water was employed, see Fitzger- 

 ald, vol. i, pp. 100-194. 



