Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . , Member of theCommission and Division Engineer in charge of theCulebra Cut, estimated in 1912 that in all 115,000,-000 cubic yards would have to be removed. To the general public the slides seemed to menace 201 hension on the part ofthe public is scarcelysurprising. If the Cap-itol Park at Washing-ton, with the NationalCapitol cresting it,should suddenly begin tomove down into Penn-sylvania Avenue at therate of about three feet aday the authorities of theY would naturally feel somedegree of annoyance. And if theAvoRKiNG ON THREE LEVELS smootli an
Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . , Member of theCommission and Division Engineer in charge of theCulebra Cut, estimated in 1912 that in all 115,000,-000 cubic yards would have to be removed. To the general public the slides seemed to menace 201 hension on the part ofthe public is scarcelysurprising. If the Cap-itol Park at Washing-ton, with the NationalCapitol cresting it,should suddenly begin tomove down into Penn-sylvania Avenue at therate of about three feet aday the authorities of theY would naturally feel somedegree of annoyance. And if theAvoRKiNG ON THREE LEVELS smootli and Icvel asphalt of that historic thoroughfare should, overnight, rise up into the air 18 feet in spots thoseresponsible for traffic might not unreasonably besomewhat worried. Such a phenomenon would not be so startling inmere magnitude as the slides which added so greatlyto the work of the engineers on the Canal, and m^detourists, wise with the ripe fruits of five days ob-servation, wag their heads knowingly when Col. 202 PANAMA AND THE CANAL. THE ORIGINAL CULEBRA SLIDEA Y. M. C. A. club had to be moved to escape this shde which in 1913 was still moving Goethals calmly repeated his assertion that the waterwould be turned in by August. The Colonel, how-ever, had not withdrawn or even modified thisprophecy so late as June 10, 1913. Despite thealmost daily news of increased activity of the slideshe clung with tenacity to his purpose of putting aship through in October. If these slides were an entirely new and unex-pected development for which no allowance of eithertime or money had been made in the estimates ofthe Canal builders they would of course justify theapprehension they have awakened in the non-pro-fessional mind. But the slides were in fact antici-pated. The first slide recorded during our workon the Isthmus was in 1905; the others have onlybeen bigger, and have been bigger only because theCanal being dug deeper has weakened the bases ofeven bigger hills along the banks.
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Keywords: ., bookauthorabbotwil, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1913
