Birdseye Views of Far Lands Part 14

Banton, are some gigantic screws which were made in Sweden. It so happened at that time that Sweden was the only country that had machinery to make such screws, and while we could have easily constructed such machinery, it was cheaper to get them from Sweden and this was done. After making this statement, Mr. Banton got the drawings and explained them, and later on I saw some of them in the Gatun-Locks.

If I remember correctly they are about eight inches in diameter and forty or fifty feet long.

Speaking of drawings and blue prints this official said: "There are more than eighty thousand drawings in this one room." Of course, the original blue prints and complicated drawings of the ca.n.a.l are sealed up in a great bomb-proof vault, kept dry by electricity. Although I had pa.s.sed through the ca.n.a.l on a s.h.i.+p and rode up and down it on the train it was only after talking an hour with this engineer and then going into the control station tower and watching boats taken through the Gatun lock system, going into the tunnels below and watching the gigantic cog wheels and wonderful machinery, that I began to appreciate the real ingenuity and brain work of this colossal achievement.

On his last voyage to the new world Columbus visited Panama and was told by the Indians that beyond a narrow strip of land was the "Big Water."

He sailed up the Chagres river a distance, failed to find it, and died believing that they were mistaken. About ten years later Balboa climbed to the top of a tree not far from where Culebra Cut is located and saw the "Big Water." Four hundred years later almost to the day the water was turned into the ca.n.a.l and thus America united the world's greatest oceans.

After completing the Suez Ca.n.a.l and thus uniting the world's greatest seas, the French people believed they could dig across the Isthmus of Panama, but digging through Culebra Cut thousands of miles from home was much different from digging across the level plain of Suez only a few hundred miles away. A ca.n.a.l without locks is entirely different from one where great ocean liners must be lifted eighty-five feet above sea level.

Then Panama was a jungle, where disease-carrying mosquitoes were swarming in districts where heat was almost unbearable. True, their medical skill was the best and their hospitals of the latest design, but where they cured hundreds thousands died like flies. Added to all these disadvantages was extravagance and waste, greed and graft, mismanagement and misappropriation of funds to say nothing of palaces and princely salaries for officials.

The result was that after spending more than two hundred million dollars of the people's money, the whole scheme collapsed, and the work stopped.

De Lesseps himself was arrested, disgraced, and imprisoned and died with a broken heart a little later in an insane asylum. The French had worked seven years, and now for four years not a wheel turned. Then they organized a new company and worked at intervals ten years more until 1903, when we bought them out. During these years a half dozen nations developed projects and made surveys but no digging was done except by the French until we took charge in 1904.

The Ca.n.a.l Zone is a strip of land ten miles wide across the Isthmus of Panama, the distance being about forty miles from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. It is less than this, however, in a straight line. The ca.n.a.l runs from northwest to southeast, the Atlantic end at the north being about twenty-two miles west of the Pacific end at the south. This seems rather strange but we must remember that the Isthmus is in the shape of the letter S and it so happens that the shortest point runs in the direction named.

Of course it would have been impossible for us to have dug the ca.n.a.l without a tremendous loss of life had it not been for the advance of medical science. Until we took charge this was one of the worst fever-infested districts on the globe. But just about this time it was discovered that the mosquito carries the germ of yellow fever and other contagious diseases. These pests breed in stagnant water and it was discovered that kerosene on the water forms a film on the surface that means death to the newborn mosquito. Then began one of the greatest battles of all history, the fight to eradicate the mosquito pest.

Colonel Gorgas had charge of the forces and he was determined to do the job well. Tracts of the jungle were burned over, ditches to drain stagnant pools were dug, and every barrel was looked after. Hundreds of Negroes with oil cans sprayed almost every nook and corner of the Zone with kerosene. Houses were screened, every case of sickness was looked after, and the result was soon manifest. A mighty victory was won by Gorgas and today the Ca.n.a.l Zone is as healthful as any tropical country on earth. Of course, people criticized and joked about the mosquito brigade, but the colonel went ahead pouring oil upon the water, cleaning up filth, and compelling sanitary measures, paying not the slightest attention to the harping critics.

At the north end of the Zone are the cities of Cristobal and Colon, the latter in Panama. The fact is they are practically one city, the railroad being the dividing line. While Cristobal is clean and beautiful much of Colon is dirty and rum soaked. Somebody said to me: "Colon is that part of the city where you can buy a drink," and it sure looks it.

While it is only about forty miles across the isthmus yet the ca.n.a.l is fifty miles long. The fact is they had to dredge out to deep water which is about five miles at each end. Entering the channel at the north it is about seven miles to the Gatun locks. There are three pairs of these locks and they lift the vessel to Gatun Lake, which is eighty-five feet above sea level. It is twenty-four miles across this lake to Culebra Cut, which extends about nine miles through the hills, and to the first lock on the Pacific side. This lock lowers the s.h.i.+p about thirty feet to Miraflores Lake, which is a little more than a mile in length. Here are two pairs of locks which lowers the s.h.i.+p to sea level and then it is about eight miles or a little more to deep water. Counting all the distance occupied by the locks we have the fifty miles.

Gatun Lake was made by a great dam across the Chagres river. This dam is a stupendous piece of work, being a half mile wide at the bottom, a mile and a half long, and more than one hundred feet high. A gigantic spillway allows the surface water to run over. During the dry season, about four months, the river does not supply enough water to run the locks so Gatun Lake must furnish the supply. This lake at present covers one hundred and sixty-four square miles, and last year it was lowered five feet during the dry season. The land has been purchased for the extension of the lake and the great spillway can be raised twenty feet higher if necessary so that a shortage of water is practically impossible.

Each lock in the ca.n.a.l is a thousand feet long, one hundred and ten feet wide, and the average height about thirty feet, so they hold a tremendous amount of water. Every s.h.i.+p pa.s.sing through empties two lock chambers full of water into the ocean at each end. It is an interesting fact that at the Atlantic the tide only makes a difference of two and a half feet, at the Pacific side the difference is more than twenty feet.

While the low lock gates at the Atlantic side are sixty-four feet high the low lock gates at the Pacific side are eighty-two feet high.

I was permitted to go into the control station tower at the Gatun lock system and see three s.h.i.+ps taken through, also into the tunnels below to see the machinery in operation and it is a sight never to be forgotten.

To take a s.h.i.+p through these locks the operator sets in motion twice ninety-eight gigantic electric motors and it is all done without an audible word being spoken. Every possible emergency has been provided for. Could an enemy s.h.i.+p by any manner of means get into the ca.n.a.l and undertake to ram the gates it would be helpless as far as any damage is concerned. Mighty chains guard the gates and it is impossible to get the gates closed without these chains being raised to their places.

Emergency gates are provided so the water can all be shut off, the locks emptied and repairs made in the bottoms of the lock chambers, if necessary.

At the continental divide the Culebra Cut is almost five hundred feet deep and more than a half mile wide at the top. The channel itself is three hundred feet wide and forty-five feet deep. There have been half a hundred slides and a single one of them brought down an area of seventy-five acres. Think of a seventy-five acre field all sliding in at once, every foot of which had to be dug out!

The worst trouble was when the bottom bulged up from below. Some little time before my visit a large tree came up from the bottom. It had been rolled in by one of those fearful slides and long afterwards came up from the bottom. Somebody has figured out that if all the dirt that has been taken from Culebra Cut was loaded on railroad cars they would, if coupled together, make a train that would reach around the world four times.

The ca.n.a.l cost about four hundred million dollars. The tolls now amount to almost a million dollars a month so it is more than paying expenses.

The s.h.i.+p upon which I pa.s.sed through paid seven thousand dollars toll, but it was one of the largest s.h.i.+ps that pa.s.s through. Now that the danger from slides is practically over and trade routes are being established it ought to be a paying investment.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD

A few years ago the editor of one of the great magazines of America sent out a thousand letters to as many scientists and great men scattered among all civilized nations in an effort to get the consensus of opinion as to what might be called the seven wonders of the modern world. A ballot was prepared containing fifty-six subjects of scientific and mechanical achievement and blank s.p.a.ces in which other subjects might be written. Each man was asked to designate the seven he felt were ent.i.tled to a place on the list. He, of course, was not confined to the printed list and could write in others that were better ent.i.tled to a place than those on the printed list.

About seventy per cent of these ballots were returned properly marked and the result was most interesting indeed. At once it was discovered that a complete change in human intelligence or judgment has taken place since the ancient Greeks made their list of the seven wonders of the world. Today the standard of measurement as to what should be cla.s.sed in such a list is _service to humanity_, while in the old days the standard of measurement was or at least had largely to do with brute force.

It is not surprising, therefore, that wireless telegraphy should have the highest place on the list. Guglielmo Marconi is far more worthy to be remembered than the king who built the great Pyramid in Egypt. This brilliant Italian, when but fifteen years of age was reveling in the dreamland wonders of electricity and when but twenty had the theory practically worked out and his patience and enthusiasm were simply amazing. He actually tried more than two thousand experiments along a single line before he was able to demonstrate the truth of one of his own theories.

No one crosses the Atlantic Ocean these days who is not impressed with the marvels of this wonderful discovery. Through it the seven seas have became great whispering galleries. One of the greatest races the writer ever saw he did not see at all. For three days and nights two great ocean liners raced across the deep and never came in sight of each other at all. Yet every few hours we all knew just which s.h.i.+p was gaining and it was really a most exciting race. A few hours after Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee I heard the news by wireless although I was on board a s.h.i.+p in the China Sea on the other side of the world.

The telephone was given second place in the list of modern wonders. It is hard to realize that the telephone only dates back to 1875. It was during that year that Alexander Graham Bell and his a.s.sistant, Thomas A.

Watson, were making experiments in a building in Boston. Mr. Watson was in the bas.e.m.e.nt with an instrument trying without success to talk with Mr. Bell in the room above. Finally the latter made a little change in the instrument and spoke and Mr. Watson came rus.h.i.+ng upstairs greatly excited, saying: "Why, Mr. Bell, I heard your voice distinctly and could almost understand what you were saying."

The next year the imperfect telephone was exhibited at the Centennial in Philadelphia, but for a time it was the laughing stock of most people and hardly anyone ever dreamed that it would ever be more than a mere plaything. One day Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, who knew Mr. Bell personally, came in. With him was Sir William Thompson, the great English scientist. The emperor was given the receiver and placed it to his ear and was suddenly startled, saying: "My G.o.d, it speaks." This amused all, but greatly interested the man of science and thus the telephone was brought into prominence. While at the World's Fair in San Francisco I sat with a receiver and heard a man speaking in New York as plainly as though he were in the next room. Sitting within the sound of the waves of the Pacific, I was connected up with Atlantic City and heard the waves of the Atlantic.

The third largest number of votes were given to the aeroplane and since the birdmen played such a part in the world war these scientists were correct in giving the flying machine a place among the wonders of the modern world. The fourth place was given to Radium, the fifth to Antiseptics and Ant.i.toxines, the sixth to Spectrum a.n.a.lysis, and the seventh to the marvelous X-Ray. Had eight subjects been called for the Panama Ca.n.a.l would have had a place, for it lacked but eleven votes of tie for seventh place. It can, therefore, be called the eighth wonder of the modern world.

How different were the ideas of men during the days of ancient Greece.

It is a remarkable fact that among the seven wonders of the ancient world only one of them was of any real service to humanity. True, one or two of them served as tombs for the dead and one of them was a sort of a pleasure resort, but it proved a curse rather than a blessing. The one of real service was the Pharos, or lighthouse, at Alexandria, Egypt.

This was a gigantic structure more than four hundred feet high on the top of which a great fire was kept burning at night, thus serving as a lighthouse. The structure was so large at the base and the winding roadway so s.p.a.cious that it is said a team of horses could be driven to the summit. The entire building has long since disappeared, but while in Alexandria its location was pointed out to me.

In the list of ancient wonders, however, the Pyramids of Egypt were given first place. There are seventy-seven of these pyramids altogether.

Three of them are located less than a dozen miles from Cairo, the others being up the river Nile a half day's journey. The largest is known as the Pyramid of Cheops and is nearest Cairo. It covers thirteen acres of ground and is four hundred and fifty feet high. My first sight of it was a disappointment for after all it is nothing but a pile of stone, and seems smaller to the eye than it really is. When one walks along by its side and begins the ascent to the top, however, its immensity begins to grow and impress the mind.

Heroditus, the Father of History, says a hundred thousand men worked on this pyramid at one time and that it took twenty years to build it. It was scientifically and mathematically constructed ages before modern science or mathematics were born. The one who planned it knew that the earth is a sphere and that its motion is rotary. It is said that in all the thousands of years since it was built not a single fact in astronomy or mathematics has been discovered to contradict the wisdom of those who constructed it.

On the north side of the pyramid, about fifty feet up, there is a narrow tunnel that runs down at an angle of twenty-six degrees to the center of the field that forms its base. The tunnel is so true that from the bottom one can see the star, that is near the North Star, which is supposed to have been directly in the north when the structure was built. After you have descended eighty-five feet in this tunnel there is another tunnel that runs up to the center of the structure where there are some large rooms or chambers. The pyramid was supposed to have been built for a tomb and these rooms are called the king's chamber, the queen's chamber, etc. In these rooms there are large mummy cases, but they are empty at the present time. One great satisfaction for me in visiting the pyramids was the fulfilling of a life-long desire to see all that is left of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

The third ancient wonder was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. These gardens were in reality a great artificial mountain built upon ma.s.sive arches. It was four hundred feet high and terraced on all sides and according to historians beautiful beyond description. Not only were beautiful flowers and shrubbery kept growing, but large forest trees as well. On approaching it this great mountain seemed to be suspended or hanging in the air--hence the name. Water was brought from the river and the ruins of these vast waterworks are said to be the marvel of civil engineers even to this day.

It seems that these hanging gardens were built to please the wife of one of the most powerful monarchs of the old days. This queen had been brought up among the hills, and as Babylon was located on a great level plain she was dissatisfied and pined away for the hills and forests of her home land. To please her the king accomplished this mighty work.

Today the whole thing, in fact, the entire city of Babylon, is nothing but a pile of ruins. Portions of the city have been excavated, however, and old records have been found in the ruins that throw light on many customs and phases of life in those days. Even the paving brick were stamped with the name of the king and anyone who visits the British Museum in London can see samples of them today.

The next in the list of ancient wonders was the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. It is said that this temple was two hundred years in building.

It was more than four hundred feet long and half as wide. The foundation was made earthquake-proof. The temple proper was supported by one hundred and twenty-seven columns which were sixty feet high. Each of these columns was a gift from a king. They tell us that the great stairway was carved from a single grapevine and that the cypress wood doors were kept in glue a lifetime before they were hung on their hinges.

The image on the top of this temple was said to have fallen from heaven, but in reality it was carved from ebony and the men who did the work were put to death so they could not deny its celestial origin. It is said that around this image stood statues which by an ingenious invention could be made to shed tears. Another invention moistened the air in the temple with sweet perfume. The treasures of nations and the spoil of kingdoms were brought here for safe keeping and criminals from all nations fled to this temple, for when they reached it no law could touch them. No wonder that when the preaching of the Apostle Paul interfered with the business of the tradesmen who sold souvenirs of the image that they gathered up a mob and cried out for the s.p.a.ce of two hours: "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," and ran the apostle from the city. Today this temple with the city itself is nothing but ruins.

Pa.s.sing not far from the Island of Rhodes some years ago I tried to at least imagine that I could see the great statue called the Colossus of Rhodes which was given a place among these seven ancient wonders, but as not a vestige of it remains on the island it required a great stretch of the imagination to behold it. But although given this prominence it was not as large or as beautiful as the Statute of Liberty that graces New York harbor. It only took twelve years to build it and after standing fifty-six years it was overthrown by an earthquake and after nearly a thousand years the metal was used for other purposes. The other ancient wonders were the Statue of Jupiter that was made of ivory and gold by Phidias, and the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Both of these have long since pa.s.sed out of existence.

Brute force is no longer the measure of power or influence. Neither are towering structures or mighty tombs. The standard of measurement these days is the ability to serve. We are learning that the Galilean carpenter told the truth when he said: "He who would be great among you let him be servant of all." Service is one of the greatest words in human language. The man, or the inst.i.tution, or the magazine that can render the greatest measure of service to the largest number of people is more powerful and influential than all the seven wonders of the ancient world put together.