along the line of the canal, instead of making a detour and crossing this Chagres River three or four times; and it seems to me to be entirely practicable if you could bring up the line of that railroad on the right bank of the Chagres River to Gamboa and from Gamboa to the great cut at Emperador and Culebra and carry it right through that cut down to Miraflores.

Mr. SHONTS. Well, Mr. Senator, if we do that we always stand the chance of having our trains held up by the construction trains. This cut is all to be given up to the establishment of the tracks on each one of these levels.

Each one of these tracks will come down to its own common yard, and the engines that will haul the material from the steam shovels down to this common yard are smaller engines than are used on the main line of the railroad in point of construction. And I do not believe that it would be possible to get the service for the Panama Railroad, which is a very busy piece of road, through this cut as well as over the cut-off that they have built right around the cut. It is all finished and in good shape, and where this track, leading from the various levels, comes to the main line of the Panama Railroad farther on, in order to take care of both the commercial business and the dirt from the cut, that is where we double track.

Senator MORGAN. My suggestion is, instead of doubling the track right along on the route that goes behind this cut-off that you spoke of, side by side, parallel to it all the way through, that one of these tracks should pass through the cut.

Mr. SHONTS. Senator, you do not quite understand. We are not double tracking back of this cut-off.

Senator MORGAN. Oh!

Mr. SHONTS. No; that track is already built. We are double tracking from the end. For instance, if it comes around there [indicating on diagram] we go on and then come around this way [indicating on diagram]. Then these tracks come down here from these various levels, and we double the track down here [indicating on diagram] and not back of the cut. Is that plain?

Senator MORGAN. Yes. The real difficulty in my mind is, and the suggestion of the minority of the Commission is, that we shall put in a great dam at Gatun and make a lake there that practically runs to Miraflores and runs up the Chagres River above to Alhajuela.

Mr. SHONTS. There are two lakes; one runs up the side of the cut and the other runs from Miraflores down

Senator MORGAN. I understand that. The great lake, though, that they propose to construct there, with the dam at Gatun, runs back up the Chagres River to Alhajuela, and forms a lake up there which runs through Trinidad and through Obispo and through all the affluents of the Chagres and the smaller streams that finally concentrate in the Chagres River; and that lake would be at some places 5 miles, 10 miles, and even 15 miles wide.

Mr. SHONTS. Yes.

Senator MORGAN. So that that lake would run out the entire roadbed of the present Panama road, and you would have to take it up the right bank of the Chagres River on the edges of the hills?

Mr. SHONTS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. And you would have to cross that lake with a bridge in some place unless you carried it through this cut?

Mr. SHONTS. Now I understand what you are trying to get at, Senator that in the construction of that type of canal we might have to do that.

Senator MORGAN. That is the point.

Mr. SHONTS. We only got that minority report day before yesterday, and we, or at least I, have not had time to study it in connection with the Panama Railroad and the question

The CHAIRMAN. Had we not better proceed with the other matters

Senator MORGAN. The same result with a less amount of bridging would be arrived at if you built a sea-level canal. You would have to cross it. Whatever railroad is there after the canal is completed is obliged to pass up the right bank of the Chagres River and through that cut. You can not put it anywhere else without crossing the canal with a railroad bridge, which is an impossible thing to conceive of. The final location of the Panama Railroad, if it is to be left at all after the canal is built, whether it is a sea-level or a lock canal, is to be on the right bank of the Chagres River, and from Gamboa or that neighborhood right through that cut from Paraiso to Miraflores, or wherever you make the point there, I do not care where it is. If it is practicable in the reconstruction of that road in shifting the tracks at the present time, it is a very important consideration that it should go through that gap, and if it should cross through the gap on a bench that is somewhat too high to produce the proper gradients that you should lower it to the next bench and make your preparation in digging with a view to that particular thing.

Mr. SHONTS. That is all the more reason why we should have the type of canal settled as soon as possible.

Senator MORGAN. I understand that. We must settle it; but it makes no difference, in my judgment, as I think I see the situation, whether it is a lock canal or a sea-level canal in respect to the route that the Panama Railroad is obliged ultimately and finally to take. Therefore, we ought to examine that subject carefully to see whether the Panama Railroad can not soon-not immediately, but soon-be transferred permanently to the right bank of the Chagres River, with as straight line as you can go to reach through this cut.

Senator HOPKINS. That is secondary to what we are after now. Senator MORGAN. That is the point that has been troubling mewhat we would do with the railroad. I want to add one more suggestion to it. It seems to me that this railroad has a very much more important connection with the interests of the United States as a road to haul dumping spoils out to the proper place than it has as a commercial road for the interchange of commerce between the different parts of the earth while we are digging that canal. I am afraid we are trying to do too much to carry on commercial relations across the Isthmus there expeditiously and comfortably while we are trying to use the same railroad for the purpose of digging this canal. Mr. SHONTS. I can only say in reply to that, Mr. Senator, that we settled the policy when we were there the first time, in July, that when it came to a question of favoring either interest we would favor the construction of the canal; and we did follow that out, and were criticised for it for a time; but now, with our increased facilities there is no reason, if we can get rid of the freight at the west end or

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south end promptly, why we can not do both, without any trouble, in my judgment.

Senator MORGAN. In regard to criticism, Mr. Shonts, I think the President, or the ruling spirit in that establishment, and nearly all of those below him, ought immediately to toughen themselves, so that they will not regard any criticism that any mortal man makes, unless it comes from a source of superior information.

Mr. SHONTS. I can only say in reply to that, Senator, that I do not know what the criticisms are, unless some kind friend cuts them out and sends them to me. We are too busy working to read what is said about us. We are too busy thinking about what is for the best interests of the canal.

Senator GORMAN. Returning to the point that I was asking you about, as to this excavation, here is what the Secretary of War says in his last annual report, page 81:

"When Mr. Wallace left, the pay roll contained the names of 8.000 persons. Since Mr. Stevens has taken hold, in three months this has been increased from 8,000 to 13,000. Under Mr. Wallace it was thought wise by the old Commission and by Mr. Wallace himself to make experiments in the cost of excavating earth from the cut. He did this with some new excavating machinery, but principally with the old transportation machinery, and he reached some results, the value of which is in dispute.

"He feels confident that he has shown by his calculations that the cost per cubic yard in excavating the Culebra cut may be reduced below half of that fixed by the Commission, and this is used as an argument in favor of changing the type of canal from a lock to a sealevel canal. Upward of half a million of dollars was spent by Mr. Wallace and the former Commission in these excavations. Mr. Shonts and Mr. Stevens have not deemed it wise to continue them, because they think the conditions under which the experiments were carried on are not like those which will prevail in the actual excavations, for the reason that the disposition of the spoil must be made at a very much longer distance and with a very much greater expense. I do not stop to pass upon the difference in judgment between the engineers."

That is what I referred to. I wanted a fuller statement from you than I have understood you to make of why that was a mistaken policy in spending $500,000 at that time by Mr. Wallace.

Mr. SHONTS. I will say this: I think we would have been more fortunate if when we purchased that canal we had not received with it any old equipment or any old engines.

Senator MORGAN. You say we would have been more fortunate?

Mr. SHONTS. Yes, sir. I think if Mr. Wallace had not found any old cars or old engines there he would not have undertaken to remove any material, because he would have had to wait until the new equipment was purchased and manufactured in the United States, and in the meantime he would have given all his attention to repairing houses and doing sanitary work. He purchased, and very wisely, these large excavating steam shovels, some of them with a capacity of 5 cubic yards per bucket. The old French dumps that are there will only hold about 6 and 63 cubic yards; they have rigid trucks, and they were operated over these tracks constructed of these old

French rails that I have described, and pulled by these little French engines.

The result was that in loading one of these little cars with a big steam shovel sometimes one bucket would hit the car in the center and would pretty nearly fill the car, and if it did not hit it in the center the dirt would drop off to the sides, so that you would have to make two lifts of the 5-yard bucket in order to fill a 6-yard car, wasting on the side. Twenty to twenty-two of these cars when loaded made a train for one of these small engines, or about 130 to 140 yards per train. The results from equipment of that kind are, as the Secretary said, necessarily much different from the results that would be obtained if they had larger and more modern equipment.

On the other hand, Mr. Wallace did this work in the dry season and with a short haul, so that when he moved what he did move for 43 cents a yard he had all the conditions favorable. But with the same plant, the same cars, the same engines, and the same character of haul, a little later on, when the wet season came on and the track troubles commenced, ran the cost up, as I say, to $1.53 a cubic yard. I presume reports of this were made to the Secretary, and it was on that account that he has made his remarks.

Senator GORMAN. Yes.

Mr. SHONTS. I can not say more than I said a little while ago, that I think it would have been better if we had never undertaken to do any work originally until all the preparatory work had been well under way. At the same time I say, as I said before, that hindsight is better than foresight

Senator MORGAN. It would have been better if we had had no French railroad trains, or cars, or rails?

Mr. SHONTS. I think we would have been better off without either the French cars or their French engines.

Senator GORMAN. Very good.

Senator MORGAN. We got them cheap-at only about $20,000,000. Senator GORMAN. I assume, from those statements, that it was a mistake, and that there may have been a loss of money from that experiment, under the conditions you have described. How long were you on the Isthmus on this first visit?

Mr. SHONTS. I was there two weeks.

Senator GORMAN. During the two weeks' stay there, and with the information you received from those who had been there longer, are you under the impression that this mistaken attempt to excavate delaved the sanitation or the construction of buildings or the paraphernalia for the road which was necessary?

Mr. SHONTS. The sanitary work was going on, I think, very well indeed, and I think that the repairs to buildings was going on as rapidly as the material was arriving; so that I do not believe that that work was delaying either the sanitary work or the construction of buildings very materially.

Senator GORMAN. Or the equipment of the road?

Mr. SHONTS. Or the equipment of the road. The orders had been placed, and the equipment had to be manufactured.

Senator GORMAN. As I understood you a moment ago, you account for the delay by the fact that the purchasing agency was not equipped to secure the material promptly up to the time when you took hold?

Mr. SHONTS. I have never gone back to see just when the orders were placed, but when I got here there was a great accumulation of orders, and the purchasing department was not sufficiently organized to promptly take care of it; but they were doing the very best they could, and hurrying things out as fast as they could.

Senator GORMAN. But there was delay in getting the material? Mr. SHONTS. Yes, sir; there was delay in getting the material to the Isthmus.

Senator GORMAN. It has been improved because of your improved organization, as I understand?

Mr. SHONTS. It has been improved not only on that account, but because some of the material-lumber, for instance-began to arrive when we were on the Isthmus. That was fortunate, and we got the benefit of that, you understand.

Senator GORMAN. Yes; you had the benefit of it in making your arrangements?

Mr. SHONTS. In carrying forward our work; yes.

Senator GORMAN. So that, then, you had no very great embarrassment growing out of the previous conditions in going on with your new plan, if I may so term it, or in developing your plan? Nothing that the old Commission or the old engineer did seriously delayed you?

Mr. SHONTS. No.

Senator GORMAN. In making your preparations?

Mr. SHONTS. No, sir; a great deal of what they did we got the benefit of.

Senator GORMAN. I see.

Mr. SHONTS. Some of the material began to come in just when we got there, and it helped us very materially.

Senator GORMAN. Yes; I notice that statement that you increased the number of laborers in three months from 8.000 to 13,000.

Mr. SHONTS. We did. We began to build up the force very rapidly. We were short of laborers. For instance, the next day after I got there a complaint was made that we did not have laborers to unload some of the ships that were in the harbor with this lumber that we needed so badly to repair these houses.

Senator GORMAN. I see.

Mr. SHONTS. And we stopped the work on the foundation of Governor Magoon's house, and took 125 men who were working there right over and put them at work unloading the ships.

Senator GORMAN. I see. Then you made special preparations, in addition to what Mr. Wallace had done, to secure laborers from the islands or elsewhere?

Mr. SHONTS. Yes. We sent to other places.

Senator GORMAN. Was there a department specially organized for that?

Mr. SHONTS. Mr. Wallace had a department of labor and quarters. He did not call it that, though. I believe he called it a quartermaster's department, which was more in the nature of an army name. We named it as a branch of labor and quarters, so that the man that Mr. Stevens put in that branch not only has charge of the securing of the laborers, but of the quartering of the laborers.

Senator GORMAN. Had 'you any difficulty in securing all the labor you wanted, in numbers?