.53 
ENGINEERING EEPOETS. 
The average haul per cubic yard per 100 feet, moved beyond 
the first hundred, has been put at 10 mills for earth and 15 for 
rock. 
A considerable portion of the earth can be excavated by na- 
tive labor. The Indians residing in the villages, could prob- 
ably move, by the cubic yard, the portions of the road pass- 
ing in their immediate vicinity ; but remote from settlements 
or haciendas, it will be necessary to build ranchos for the 
accommodation of themselves and families, because when they 
have their wives and children around them and proper means 
for obtaining food, they can have no excuse for being absent. 
By making it a pleasure for them to work, they can be count- 
ed on with a good deal of certainty. The present total want 
of employment, the anxiety evinced to obtain it, the scarcity of 
money on the Isthmus, all combine in placing labor at a low 
rate easily attainable by the company. It would probably be 
necessary to work them in gangs, away from the foreign la- 
borers, with one intelligent overseer to about every twenty 
men. They certainly could do the clearing and grubbing a 
good deal cheaper than foreign laborers — as the handling of 
the machete is their principal/b^fe. 
The Cum of one of the towns near the line of railroad informed 
me that he could furnish and control from 500 to 1500 men, and 
wished to be apprized by letter when the company expected to 
commence work, in order that he might spread the information 
amongst the natives and make all necessary calculations for this 
object. About 500 of them, mostly Juchitecos, were employed 
on the carriage-road in Chivela Pass, under the direction of the 
engineers of Don Jose de Garay, where they had an opportunity 
of learning the use of the shovel, pick, and barrow, and are 
therefore not totally ignorant of the character of the work to be 
done. 
The price of daily labor in the United States is nearly three 
times the price of native labor on the Isthmus, and allowing 
that a native will do only half the work of a foreigner, it can 
be safely calculated that what work is done by natives will not 
exceed in cost, but most likely fall short of that done by 
foreigners. The company can send down foreign laborers in 
