260 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



district was coming to arrange terms. The first visitor had secured a monopoly 

 and the second man was too late. Both of the iron-men had come over on the 

 same boat; one had driven straight to the patentee on landing, the other had 

 gone to get his breakfast. 



Before the process was three years old it was the means of producing half a 

 million tons of steel per annum. — Globe- Democrat. 



THE ISTHMUS CANAL. 



Mr. Theodore H. Growney, a practical engineer, who has been for two years 

 employed on the Panama canal, has returned to San Francisco, and gives a rather 

 discouraging account of the work. He says that there has been an enormous 

 expenditure of money without any commensurate results. Every step taken in 

 the prosecution of the great enterprise has been characterized by prodigal waste 

 and inconceivable mistakes. The company spent a large sum of money in build- 

 ing up the town of Colon, at the Atlantic terminus, which should have been 

 devoted to digging the ditch. The town would have grown of itself with the 

 progress of the work. It is essentially French in its architecture, population, 

 language, and, in fact, in all its characteristics. 



The first division of the canal extends from Colon to Gatun, seven miles. It 

 was supposed that all the digging on this division could be done with dredging 

 machines, and the contracts were made accordingly. At the end of tv/o miles, 

 however, the machines struck a coral reef, whose existence was not suspected, 

 and they could do nothing more until a passage was cut through the reef. The 

 dredges were floated over the obstruction at high tide, but the canal has not yet 

 been cut through the coral. The machinery is wearing out, and a great deal of 

 money will have to be expended in replacing it before much effective work can 

 be done. 



The second section extends from Gatun to Palo — four miles — and runs 

 through rocks, alternating with swamps and jungle. Nothing has been done on 

 this section yet except to clear away the surface obstructions, and consequently 

 not much money has been spent. From Palo to Fijole the line of the canal has 

 been marked by clearing away the timber and leveling the hillocks. The ditch 

 must be dug through red clay and rocks. A good deal of money has been ex- 

 pended in making roads for carrying the dirt to dumping places. About $4,000,- 

 OQO has been expended in preliminary work between Fijole and Chagres. 



Mr. Growney goes over the whole twelve sections and gives the condition o{ 

 each, and the summing up of the whole is anything but encouraging. Colossal 

 blunders have been made in the original estimates which put the costs far beyond 

 anything that has yet been conceived of. Up to June 28, 1884, according to the 

 engineer's estimates, $50,000,000 had been expended. The route through the 

 Emperador section was changed after $3,000,000 had been wasted in experi- 

 mental work. 



