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THE PANAMA CANAL.

The New York Herald, with characteristic enterprise, detailed from its stuff a competent gentleman to go to Panama, to look over the ground, to takes notes of .what is being done, and to report. Tho first of this correspondent's letters has just been published. Its salient points condensed are :— At six of the sections there have been about 200 buildings erected, and two purchased in Panama proper. The total expense reaches over £100,000. Short sidings have been placed at several points. Twenty engines nnd , about 300 dumb cars are running, while all along the line smaller c.irs are pushed about by hand and others drawn by mule power. A few American excavators are at work, but hundreds more must be employed before any progress can be made. Up to the present moment no one knows what todo with the 500,000,000 cubic metres of earth and rock that must bo removed and put somewhere before vessels can pass from ocean to ocean. Upon this point the writer says ;— " At Suez, the sxnd excavated was piled at eacli side of the canal. This plan cannot be. followed here, and the question as to where the refuse is to go remains unanswered, except with respect to two or three minor localities. The whole of the isthmus is broken and hilly, if not mountainous. The railroad, by skirting round the feet of hills, and following water levels, is built at the lowest elevation. Everything excavated must consequently be lower than it, and naturally has to be dumped at a higher elevation than its place of origin. It cannot bo pulled straight up to the slope, therefore rail lines miles and miles in length must be constructed to enable the dirt to be carried away. Hence originates one of the most serious difficulties, inasmuch as the cost of haulage up extreme grades, added to the cost of construction, will enormously increase the total cost of the whole work. Care has also be taken that where the mountains of earth are thrown water is not backed up which may come down in the rainy season and flood everything in the vicinity. This circumtanccs prohibits the debris being disposed of in the valleys or along the sides of the hills whose slopes tend iv the direction of the Canal." What to do with the water is a still graver difficulty, The original proposition, to build a huge drain and close up the Ohagris River, lias been abandoned, because no engineer has been found with sufficient courage to build a tank 225 ft high to hold a river that is addicted to overwhelming freshets. Various plans have been proposed, but none of them are yet approved of. In view of this the i/ivtfW* correspondent says :— " Almost everything which is written about the canal— l admit there are exceptions — either praises the work with two much enthusiasm or declares it to be entiiely impracticable. I desire simply in this letter to call attention to a few facts. . The work is practicable, I but it will lequiro more money than people imagine, and many more years than M. dc Lcsseps so confidently asserts. It requires, in the first place, even if woik is to be continued, that practical and energetic men should be placed in charge of it— not ex -army and navy ofHceis, nor men whom their friends in Km ope find an easy position for owing to the complacency of Count dc Lesseps. As things aic going at present the money ot tho Company will have been expended betore five mile* of the cunal are concluded, and the homes, if not previously burned down in tho too frequent international or interseotional riots, will be pre-empted by the remnants of the dilt'ereut gangs of canal labourers, who will enjoy their oh ion enm dig., while b inanity giown on the ground cleared by the canal will furni-h them with an easy livelihood." As the mutter now s-tand.s no work has been done yet upon the cnnal proper. Two yours have born spent upon experiments, nnd three or four of the most important conditions of Miuce-iH remain unsolved De Le-s'seps has already called for more money, and Btates that the canal will cost much more thau the original estimate. The capital of the Company will bo exhausted before five miles of the canal are built. It is now quite certain that this Panama bubble will soon burst, but how toon is a matter of tune. The sufferers will be chiefly the French people, who have been duped and misled by their own papers that weie subsidised by the canal ring.sters It should be rcmembeied, however, that Ameiiuan opinion is bitterly hostile to De Leiscps' wink. — Exchange.

MkT. Lloyd, who has conducted the Statit for the past four yeaia, has retired from the editorship of that journal. Thk trustees of the Biitish Museum have lately received from Pekiu some typographical curiosities, in the shape of eight volumes containing portions of two Chinese works printed (luring the thirteenth century. These books, the At/ieufPiansAys, arc punted from wooden blocks, and display a inaiked inequality in the skill of type-cutters. The paper, which is the otdinary Chinese paper, is in the case of one work much discoloured by age. The volumes have evidently been carefully preserved, and at onetime belonged to the library of a Chinese prince, who in 1860 was condemned to die by a silken cord," Hence the dispersion of his library. Ni:\v CUnxi:\. — The Art/us summarises what is accurately known of the great island to the north of Australia thus : — The island of New (jJuinui is 1100 miles Jong, and in its widest portion is nearly 500 miles across, the total area probably exceeding 30i>,000 Mjuaru miles or a greater tenitory than France. The estimate of population is of the vaguest, and latigcsho'ii 2,000.000 to 8,000,000, but taking the lowest figure, New Guinea caiiiiot be regarded as an unoccupied country. Little is known of the tribes, less of the country. The Butch, considering how long they have claimed the one-half of the island, have added little to the scanty stock of available knowledge, and some of the most important surveys have been effected by the English. Among the more importaat expeditions may be mentioned that of H.M.S., Fly, in 1842-6, when the great river which runs into the heart ot the country was discovered, and was named after the \ essel. Captain Owen Stanley continued these labours in the Rattlesnake, and with him was the well-known Professor Huxley. It is worth noting that the three great workers in the nature of the generation, Huvley, Wallace, and Darwin, laboured in turn on northern Australian shoies, Wallace being the fiist white man who resided for any tune on the New (Juinca, island. The name of the commander of the Rattlesnake has been given to the range, which seems to attain its greatest height on the long peninsula, a part of •which he surveyed. It is probable that this range runs through the island from its south eastern to the north-western extremities. The Charles Louis range, in the north, is well developed, and when D'Albertis was stopped in his ascent of the Fly, he was in sight of a magnificent and lofty chain in the middle of the island, which was stretching to the south-east, and would probabiy connect with the Owen Stanley range of the peninsula. Our present intarest centres to a great extent upon this long southeastern peninsula, inasmuch as for many reasons it must be the scene of any European settlement in the first instance. The Owen Stanley range is of necessity the keystone of its physical character. The rivers flow from it on both sides to the sea, and in consequence of the shortness of their course and the height of the collecting ground, and the violence of the tropical rains, the streams are apt to be fierce torrents, and to rise and to fall rapidly. None of the peninsula , streams have so far proved of much service to explorers, the current being too strong for sails or oars, and the waterway soon becoming impeded for steam launches, but it io.yettoo early to apply this dictum to all.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT18830731.2.25

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Waikato Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1727, 31 July 1883, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,370

THE PANAMA CANAL. Waikato Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1727, 31 July 1883, Page 4

THE PANAMA CANAL. Waikato Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1727, 31 July 1883, Page 4

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