Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir. Senator MORGAN. And they would not get away from you, would they? Mr. WALLACE. Not if I had influence enough to do anything. Senator ANKENY. There is one other point that I had in my mind that I wanted to ask you about: In advocating the contract system, which I understand you do, how would you dispose of your plant; Í mean your machinery, your shovels, etc., which belong to the Government. What would be your suggestion? Mr. WALLACE. I would turn them over to the contractor. Mr. WALLACE. I would turn everything down there over to himyour shops, your old machinery, and your new machinery, and everything else. Senator ANKENY. If either type of canal were completed (we will call them, for convenience, the lock and sea level), what, in your opinion, would be the cost of maintenance? Which would be the greater expense to this Government, or which could we maintain easier? Mr. WALLACE. Of course, it is a very difficult matter to figure on those expenses. Senator ANKENY. I know it. Mr. WALLACE. But I should judge you would save at least a million dollars by the sea-level canal; that it would be at least a million dollars cheaper per annum to maintain. Senator MORGAN. Per annum? Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir; per annum. Senator DRYDEN. That makes no allowance for the capital invested? Mr. WALLACE. None whatever. The CHAIRMAN. I think we had better take a recess until 2.15. Senator TALIAFERRO. There is one question that I wish to ask, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Very well, Senator. Senator TALIAFERRO. You spoke of the estimated cost to the Government of these lands that would be submerged by the lake in the lock-canal plan. What have you to say about the lands that would be submerged by the Gamboa dam? You Mr. WALLACE. The difference is simply this: There is a very small population in the Chagres Valley above Gamboa, and the larger part of the population in the Zone is in the valley below Gamboa. will find that, as a rule, the more numerous and the smaller the holdings are, the more trouble you will have with them. Senator TALIAFERRO. As a matter of fact, does not the Government own more of the land than would be submerged by the lakes in the lock plan than they do in the upper Chagres Valley that would be submerged by the Gamboa dam? Mr. WALLACE. I doubt it. Those titles are very much involved. We supposed that we got from the treaty a sufficient amount of land between La Boca and Corozal. We supposed that we had that. At least I understand that that was General Davis's view and Judge Magoon's view. But we found, when we commenced to dig into it, all sorts of complications in regard to the title. So I think you will find, when you get at it, that whenever there is any particular piece of land that you want that the Government does not own it in such a way as to relieve you from having to pay somebody else for it, just the same. Senator TALIAFERRO. Have you made any estimate at all of the acreage that would be submerged by this Gamboa dam? Mr. WALLACE. No, sir; I told you that was just simply a round, off-had guess-that 25,000,000. Senator TALIAFERRO. I am speaking of the Gamboa dam. Mr. WALLACE. That depends on the height of water that there will be. I have not the tables with me, but that is worked out in a set of tables showing the area at different heights of water. It is very easily determinable though. Senator MORGAN. The amount above the Gamboa dam at the time of the Hay-Varilla treaty was made had very little value. Mr. WALLACE. That is true, both above and below; but there is a very small population above Gamboa. I have been up there, and after you get away from the river it is simply a jungle for miles. Senator MORGAN. And steep hills? Mr. WALLACE. And ravines that ramify in all directions. This shows it, approximately [indicating on map], all these depressions you see. There are no inhabitants up in here [indicating on map]. Occasionally, at these little towns, there will be one or two or three families in thatched huts. Senator MORGAN. There is a little village between Gamboa and Alhajuela, is there not? Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir; but it is practically a wilderness after you get above Cruces there. (The committee thereupon took a recess until 2.15 o'clock p. m.) AFTER RECESS. STATEMENT OF JOHN F. WALLACE, ESQ.-Continued. Senator KITTREDGE. Mr. Wallace, what is the character of the material under the dams at La Boca, Sosa Hill, and from Ancon Hill to Corozal, as proposed by the minority? Mr. WALLACE. I can explain that to you better from reference to one of these maps. At the mouth of the Rio Grande these are mud flats; and the mud, I understand, depending on the depth of the water, is all the way from 25 to 55 or 60 feet in depth-a soft mud or ooze. In between Sosa and Ancon, of course, there is rock at a moderate depth, but there is soft material in the line of the other dam between Corozal and Ancon. The cross sections of those dams, as shown by the minority report, of course show those depths, but the situation is a little different from what it is at Gatun, on account of the fact that underneath all of this soft material there is practically a bed rock, and the dam is of a more moderate height. It is to contain about 55 feet of water. The difficulties in the way of its stability are, of course, much less than they are at Gatun, but they consist of this: If you put any weight on that soft mud the soft mud is pressed out from under the weight that you put on it, and before you get a stable structure the entire area of soft mud will have to be pushed out from under the dam. If any of that soft mud should be contained in it in a pocket any undue pressure on one side of the dam or the other might cause the pressure of that soft mud to operate along the lines of hydraulic pressure and might impair its integrity at some time. In other words, it is necessary, at the La Boca dam, that all of that soft mud be removed by some process or other, either by filling in the hard stuff in the center each way and pressing it out each way, or else by its removal by dredging or pumping, before the dam is constructed. Senator KITTREDGE. How do the conditions that you have described in regard to the location of the dam at La Boca, as proposed by the minority, compare with the conditions in the railroad construction across Salt Lake? Mr. WALLACE. They are practically similar to what we would find in a place like the Lucene cut-off, where the Union Pacific Railroad built its line across the Salt Lake; and it is a condition that you frequently meet with where you build railroad embankments across marshes. That is, you never get stability of a railroad embankment across a foundation of that character until the soft material has been eliminated in some way or other. Where you have a hard surface below, what occurs is that the weight on the soft surface will push that soft stuff up. It may be 100 or it may be 500 or it may be 1,000 feet away, and it will come up at some other place. But if you will notice the cross section that is shown of that dam it is several hundred feet across, and before that dam can be brought to a state of stability all of that soft mud underneath it will have to be eliminated, either by crushing and pushing it away or else by dredging, before the dam is constructed. My understanding from my reading of the minority report is that they intend simply for the embankment to be built in that material, and that material to be compressed by it. Senator KITTREDGE. This morning a suggestion was made, or a question was asked, concerning a sea-level canal from the Atlantic to the vicinity of Obispo, from the Pacific to the vicinity of Miraflores, and a lock structure or canal between the points Obispo and Miraflores. How much less money would it cost to construct a canal along those lines than a sea-level canal? Mr. WALLACE. Of course that, Mr. Senator, would depend upon the details of the plan; but I presume that there would be a difference of possibly $50,000,000 between those two plans that is, in round numbers. Senator KITTREDGE. That is an estimate, as I understand you? Mr. WALLACE. Yes; that is simply an off-hand estimate. Senator KITTREDGE. I wish you would tell us in regard to the difference in time of construction between the two plans proposed by the Board of Consulting Engineers and the minority. Mr. WALLACE. My own estimate is that I know of no elements in that problem that could possibly make that length of time longer than about three years. That is predicated on the supposition, if you will pardon me, that the excavating of the central divide is the controlling element. Now, personally and individually, I doubt very much whether or not these large locks, with the immense amount of concrete and structure that has got to be put in by labor more or less skilled, and put in in forms, and depending upon material coming there just in right quantities at the right time, I doubt very much whether the central excavation could not be taken out at Culebra for a sea-level canal as soon as these immense locks could be constructed. It is an open ques tion in my mind. I think the minority have underestimated the time it will take to construct those locks. Senator KITTREDGE. Mr. Stearns or Mr. Noble, or both of them, in their testimony given to us last week, said that it would require fifteen years to construct the sea-level canal. Mr. WALLACE. Of course there is one thing I would like to remark, if I can do it without egotism, and that is this: I do not know of any of the engineers that have been connected with this work, on either the regular Isthmian Canal Commission or the Advisory Board, that have had any large amount of experience in handling steam shovels and railroad trains and the disposition of material. I think I can honestly say that I have had more experience than all of those men put together in the handling of excavated material by train and by steam shovel, and the proposition for a sea-level canal is simply “dig, dig.” Senator SIMMONS. Do you include Mr. Stevens in that statement? Mr. WALLACE. No, sir; I do not. Mr. Stevens is a man that has had a great deal of experience in railroad work, and his experience I think more nearly meets my own than any of the other engineers connected with that work. He is a man for whom I have the highest respect; but I do not know what his experience has been in steamshovel work, except that I know that he has had a very large and long railroad experience. But I have had a peculiar kind of work that very few engineers have had, and that has been in the shape of gradereduction work, double tracking, and the work of excavating large quantities of material and disposing of it along and adjacent to operated lines of railroad. This proposition at Culebra, as far as a sea-level canal is concerned, is practically a railroad proposition. It is just the same as if you were relocating the Panama Railroad and reducing its grades, making a big, heavy cut along its line, using that line as one of the instruments to do your work with; and whether you run a railroad through the bottom of that excavation after you get it done, or whether you let water in it and float steamships through it is entirely immaterial. But the sea-level proposition, as far as that central cut is concerned, is simply a railroad proposition. Senator KITTREDGE. And what do I understand you to say about the fifteen-year period suggested by Mr. Stearns and Mr. Noble? Mr. WALLACE. I said I thought it was too long. In the appendix to the report of the Advisory Board, I furnished that Board a series of diagrams that took the heaviest half-mile section there was there and showed exactly how I would place steam shovels to do that work, how I would arrange the tracks to serve them, and the cars to serve them, the different dates at which steam shovels could be installed, when the first steam shovel could be installed, and when the last would be, and a scheme covering that whole work, on a tentative basis that is, on the basis of those steam shovels handling 1,000 yards per day and working twenty days in the month. I also made a similar diagram on exactly the same principles for a 60-foot level canal; and the difference between the two figured out, I think, less than two years and a half. It may not be clear to the members of the committee, but it is a fact that the length of time that it will take to do that work is not in proportion to the amount of yards to be moved. The length of your cutting affects it and the width of your cutting. It is not as if you were digging a ditch with a spade. That work has to be begun by putting steam shovels in along terraces. The more terraces you get and the wider your cut is the more steam shovels you can work at the same time. So, from the date of commencement for about three years you will be continually adding shovels, and then you will be working for a few years the same number of shovels, and then you will work gradually less and less until you get down to the bottom. In other words, the difference between the rate of progress is affected by the amount of what you can do in the maximum year and not by your average per year. I do not know whether I have made that matter clear to you or not. For instance, on the 60-foot plan, say that the first shovel started in January, 1906; the last shovel would complete its work in August, 1912. That is on that supposition. On the sea-level plan, which you will find in this report, my recollection is that the time was a little under nine years. Senator KITTREDGE. I wish you would call attention to the page when you find it. Mr. WALLACE. That diagram is diagram No. 3, and you will find it between pages 373 and 374. On the sea-level plan, with the first shovel starting on the 1st of January, 1906, the last shovel completes its work in December, 1914. That is practically nine years. This diagram shows exactly the dates on which every shovel will start; and while this is only a tentative plan, it is one that a contractor would expect to exceed in efficiency rather than fall below it. A thousand yards a day is about one-fourth of the loading capacity of those large steam shovels that are now on the Isthmus, in ten hours, provided they are properly served with cars and the material is properly blasted ahead of them. In other words, to get that result you will only have to work those machines to 25 per cent of their capacity, and do it for twenty days in the month. Senator KITTREDGE. Is there any difficulty in doing the blasting work necessary to serve the shovels to that extent? Mr. WALLACE. No. Of course that is something that has to be looked after. The limitation on all steam-shovel work, as a rule, is the arrangement of the tracks and having plenty of tracks and plenty of cars, and seeing that your shovels are continuously fed. I got out as high as 1,800 yards in one particular day with one particular shovel when I was down there. Along in the dry season it ran about 800 yards a day per shovel. The reason that we fell below the maximum was because we did not have any facilities, except the shovels, that properly went with them. That is, we did not have proper drills, and we did not have proper track. We had those old French cars and those old French engines, and our tracks were poor; we did not have any ballast for them, we were short of ties to keep them up, and in fact, we were short of everything. But in spite of all those disadvantages there were several months there in which we got from 750 to 800 yards per day out of those shovels, and I do not think it ever fell below 400 yards a day. Senator MORGAN. In the dry season or the wet season? |