B
THE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE: JULY 21, 1912.
How
Machinery
Copyright, 1912, by Frank G. Carpenter.)
ORGONA, Canal Zone. Panama.
G
I want to show you the
greatest Industrial exposition
the world has to offer. It is
now in operation on the canal
zone. It is not a dead mass
. of silent machinery, but a great, noisy,
1 whirling combination, drilling, digging
' and blasting a gorge through the longest
mountain chain upon earth. It includes
mighty dredges which are conquering the
ocean, and a myriad of trains which are
moving material faster than the wildest
creations of the dreams of Aladdin.
Much of the exposition has already been
pictured, hut the parts I shall show you
today are outside the great ditch. They
are not engaged in the work Itself, but tn
keeping the mighty forces in good order.
I refer to the repair shops of the Isthmus.
There are tens of acres of them, roofed
"with galvanized iron and Inhabited by
thousands of mechanics, who are creating
new machinery and repairing and
strengthening that now In use. There re
vast warehouses filled with all kinds of
supplies from bits of steel as fine as a
' -T.MM1 tn tVvA mlphtv armn wht.h lift th
J steam shovels, from the finest silk thread
fto cables as thick as your leg and from
'the hard bits of wood used in the patterns
to the log-like planks for repairing the
'ildgerwood cars.
Right here at Gorgona are more than
'twenty-one acres of machinery engaged
hn making repairs, and at Empire, only
habout six miles away, are other great
It shops where steam shovels are erected,
locomotives mended and broken heavy
machinery of all kinds made new. There
are smaller repair shops at Pedro Miguel
and Gatun, devoted to the construction
equipment of the locks near by, and, at
Cristobal and Balboa, still others de
voted to kaeDins the blr dredges In order.
The variety of work is beyond conception,
j but you can learn something of It by the
story of what I saw today.
Machine Shops nt Gorgona.
. Take, for Instance, Gorgona- This is
rthe biggest repairing establishment Uncle
Sam has on the Isthmus. It was begun
by the French, and when I was here In
1905, it had just been cut out of the
jungle. When we bought the canal the
engineers did not know of Its existence.
'It was hidden in a dense vegetation, and
they were surprised when they found a
building covering a half dosen acres,
containing a complete equipment of ma
chine, tools, including stationary engines
and over 100 carloads of foundry and
machine shop supplies. The works were
at once renovated and put to repairing
the French machinery for use on the
canal. At the time I first saw tnem,
they had already repaired 1,000 dump
cars, thirty or lorty locomotives ana a.
large number of cranes, excavators and
drills. Among these was an old French
! excavator, which was put into service
iin the Culebra cut, and used nearly
eighteen months, until replaced by a
steam shovel.
Shortly after that time the government
decided to make this its chief shop, and
since then it has been doing the most of
'the repairs with the exception of that on
the steam shovels and some of that on
the dredges. During Uiis trip I saw men
at work on the heaviest of the canal
equipment, handling the masses of Iron
and steel which weigh many tons and
can only be lifted by eteam cranes. 1
eaw them also working on clocks,
watches, adding machines, typewriters
and water gauges, and doing the finest
of Jewelry repairing under the same
roof. In addition to fixing the old tools
of the canal they were making new ones,
and were also adding to the strength of
the machinery just sent down from the
states. .
Inventing fiew Machinery,
I went through the works with the
superintendent, Mr. A. L. Robinson, who
Bias, under him, something like 3,000 me
chanics. He talked with me as to the,
etrengthenlng of the machines. Said he:
"Nearly every part of these big tools
sent to the isthmus has had to be remade
or strengthened, as the most of them
are not strong enough to do the heavy
work, here. Take, for instance, the
spreaders, which smooth out the dumps,
each doing the work of hundred's of men.
We ordered the strongest, but those
'which came were not sufficiently strong
ior the ! work. We then brought down
the inventors, and they stayed for two
months on the . isthmus studying the
.problem and trying to make pew ma
chines. One of these men designed a
; spreader, rhich looked all right upon
ipaper, and we ordered eight When they
came, we found that they were still
too weak, and we had to bring them Into
Jthe shops' and strengthen most of the
Iparts." ."- ' ' M
"Ab a result of this kind of work," con
tinued Mr- Robinson, "we have here en
the isthmus machinery which had never
"been used' before we began building the
canal. A, great part of the excavation
Is rock, and. the wear and tear is,enor-
pnous. Take our steel cables which are
used on the- Lidgerwood cars. ' The first
we had would unload only about 300 trains
and then break. We then got the manu
facturers at work developing better ones,
rand we have now a wire cable that will
unload 1,800 trains, or six times as many
YouNH
PlOTHE
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8&AD FIELD EEGUUT0K CO.. Atlaate. Ga
Mfl
CM
- " l A lilvrooi Train jj
ID U S'CaR v:Ua j
si T$ ms& ffiKm
as used at the start. This last cable Is
expensive. It costs us 44 cents a toot;
but it does the work."
Repairing: Lldgrervrood Cars.
We were walking through the car re
pairing shop when the above conversation
occurred and Mr. Robinson stopped me
to show me one of the new Lidgerwood
ears. Those now used are a creation of
Panama. The first sent down to the
Isthmus were. like the. common flat cars,
and the heavy work here ' quickly re
duced them to matchwood. Those now
employed are mighty trucks with beds of
plank so thick that they might almost
form the logs for a cabin. The trucks
are nine feet wide and forty feet long,
with a heavy plank wall as high as your
waist running along one side of them.
The wall It backed by supports of hard
wood and Iron, and It Is against It that
the plows work when dragged by the
cable to throw off the loads. Each car
will hold forty tons, and some of the
rocks which drop down upon them from
the steam shovels weigh eight or ten tons
each..
Others are so heavy that it is Impos
sible to move them after they are on the
car, and they are broken off there with
charges of dynamite. It takes heavy ma
terial and good workmanship to with
stand such traffic, and the care must be
strong throughout. As I looked 1 saw
some men laying a floor upon one of
them. They used sixty-penny spikes, and
drove them into the wood with a sledge.
A little farther on they were repairing
the steel cars which are dumped by com
pressed air. These have air tanks 'be
neath them,' which are connected with
th pomnreBsor on the locomotive. The
engineer touches a button and the air
shoves up one side of the car, and the
great masses of earth and rock roll out
on the ground. The doors of the steel
cars are another improvement made
down here at Panama. The wear and
tear is so great that they have to be
reinforced with seventypound steel rails;
The cars are so strong that the rocks
can be dynamited on the cars if they are
too large to go through the door open
ing. In the Locomotive Works.
All sorts of repairs are made, on cart
and locomotives here at Gorgona. The
shop has a record of having repaired
12,000 cars in ten months, and at. the,
same time having made heavy repairs on
about BOO unloaders, M0 spreaders and
140 track shifters. It builds new track
shifters as well, and It is fully equipped
for repaying locomotives and all other
rolling stock. The locomotives as they
come Into the shops are stripped of th?lr
rods and other ' outside equipment The
next operation Is to take out the driving
wheels. ......... '
The shops have no large overhead
cranes, such as we use Id the states, so
they have an invention of their own
consisting of a drop pit above which
the locomotives stand and the,, wheels
are removed by compressed air.' It used
to be that the engines had to be Jacked
up, and it took several hours to . get
the wheels out from one engine. As It
Is now, a full set of wheeis can be re
moved in thirty minutes. There are
other arrangements for recutting the
wheels, including great lathes which will
gouge off one-fourth of an Inch of metal
at a time, the steel rolling- off, In curls
Uke those of excelsior. .
Cutting Iron With Acetylene.
Indeed, the Iron-working machinery at
Gorgona Is wonderful. Tou can see every
form of Iron and steel creation. They
have an Iron foundry here, where they
make about 700,000 pounds of casting in
a month. The work is done by Jamaica
negroes, under the superintendence . of
Americans. They have also brass foun
dries and everything connected with cop
per and tin. 1 ,
lh the iron works I saw them cutting
immense blocks of steel with a blow-'
pipe. The flame was a mixture of oxy
gen and acetylene, and it, melted right
through the iron ' as though the latter
were butter. I was told that the prin
ciple was that of the blowpipe, and
that the pipe was fitted with a double
nozzle, the first of which carried oxygen
and acetylene and turned the iron to a
red heat. The second nozzle carried a
stream of pure oxygen, and this playing
on tho heated iron made it burn like
wood. It was just like cutting a piece
of pine with a red-hot poker, save that
the work was more quickly done. The
steel block I saw cut was about eight
Inches thick. The man who handled the
blowpipe wore green goggles, incased in
dust protectors, to shield his eyes from
the flame. I photographed him at work.
Safehreakers Wanted It.
As I saw this flame cutting into the
iron I asked the engineers whether It
would riot be possible to use the
Invention in .cracking a safe, "and "wan
told that the burglars who recently got
away with $15,000 In gold from one of
the Panama banks had planned to do
this on that job. They cargo here po
i
is Repaired and
Gorgona and Inquired how this flame
was operated, and they had even or
dered the oxygen and machinery for the
work from the states, claiming' that they
were going to use it in cutting' the gird
ers of an old pier In Ecuador. The
Gorgona engineers kindly showed them
the process, and they were fully equip
ped for using it In that safe burglary.
Indeed, the operating machine and the
gases , were found In the tunnel after
they Jeft. They had expected that the
safe floor would be steel, and to use this
for melting it. But the floor was only
eement, and it broke down upon them
before they knew It was coming. The re
sult Was that they rushed off with their
gold, leaving the machine behind.
Ho it to B?t Patentee,
puring my visit to the Gorgona shops I
went through the pattern department, in
which Uncle Sam has about 40,000 pat
ems of machinery1 and parts of machin
ery. These patterns are estimated to be
worth something like $200,600. The mod
els of all the inventions made by em
ployes are kept there, and also those of
the parts of the patented machines now in
use.
The latter are used for repairing big
machines, and that because of the great
cost of repair parts. A machine itself
may be sold at a profit of 15 tor 30 per
cent, while the repair parts for that ma
chine are often sold at a profit of 100 or
300 per "cent. - '
Now by our patent laws, If I am rightly
Informed here, a man has a right to use
a patented machine as long as a bit of
the original machine is left. He could
build up the whole Invention provided he
used a bar, bolt or a nut of the patented
article be bought and provided he did not
have a greater number of such patented
machines than he had actually purchased.
Of course It would not be possible to tear
up one machine and make a lot of new
ones In this way but one has the right to
build up old machines provided he uses
some of the original parts and does not
create a greater number of complete ma
chines than his purchases show. Uncle
Bam finds It cheaper to make these new
parts and repair the old machines rather
than buy new ones or new parts. More
over, it takes a long time to get material
from the states, and he can manufacture
his supply parts more quickly than he
could get them frdm home. The ordinary
time for the fulfillment of an order Is
ninety days, while the same machinery
can usually be manufactured here In less
than half that time.
In the Warehouse at Empire..
" But let us take the train and ride down
to Empire. We can get there in twenty
minutes, and see the shop where the
steam shovels and their parts are made
new. We shall first enter the quarter
master's warehouse. There are eighteen
of these on the isthmus, and each cov
ers acres. The one here , at Empire is
right near the shops, and Is well, worth
a visit. It Is divided up like a depart
ment store, being walled with shelves and
cut up by aisles. It has hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of materials,
embracing all the way from a nut the
Size of your little finger to'a completed
ninety-five-ton steam shovel' as tall as a
haystack.
The yards outside of it are full of car
wheels and of steam shovels being re
paired. I stand beside one of the great
shovel buckets to show you Its height. It
will hold five tons of rock.. Nearby are
rolls of wire cable and heavy machinery,
barrels of insulators for electrical use,
and great piles of ; poles, used for tamp
ing the dynamite. The steam shovels now
on hand.' are worth, something like 1400,
000 and their repair pjarts are as delicately
made as the pivots and wheels of a
watch'. They must be exact td prevent
the gTav machines from destroying
themselves. ' '
We have now on the isthmus more than
one hundred shovels and from ten to
twelve are sent In tor repairs every
month. They are mighty machines which
will take up from five . to ten tons of
DuBewdTBAiixv,
. Sanatorium
. This institution Is the only one
in the central west with .separate
buildings situated In their own
jemple grounds, yet entirely
distinct and rendering it possible
to classify cases. The one building
being fitted for and devoted to the
treatment Of noncontagious and
nonmental diseases, no others be
ing admitted. The other Re?t
Cottage, being designed for and
devoted to the exclusive treatment
of select mental cases, requiring
for a time watchful care and spe
cial nursing.
Great Tools Built at Panama
dhwriii6 heiclt- o a
earth and rock at a bite, and each rep
resents the work of 600 men. Ten steam
shovels are equal to 5,000 (roen, and you
can therefore see how - necessary It Is
that the repairs be made upon time.
Each shovel .cost many, thousands of dol
lars, and the destruction of one means
a great loss. Some have been ruined by
being caught in the slides, but never
theless have been taken out and repaired.
111 J!
llilllill!li!IHIII7
P Y
1
I
I '
imiimmimimimiMiinmiNHinimiMiiiiuimiiiim
E
steam shove2 ThzBvixe
This was so with shovel No. 223,1 which
weighed ninety-five tons. It was a com
plete wreck when It was pulled out of the
slide at Cucuracha, and the trucks were
not recovered until weeks after the main
part of the ''machine had been brought
to the shops. Nevertheless all the parts
were L brought finally together and the
whole was overhauled and rebuilt and
again put to work.
OU run no risk in trying Q-BAN
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Dandruff, dry scalp, dead hair all
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to
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direct to us for full sized package, prepaid.
Hessig-EUis Drug Co.
Memphis, Tenn.
SPECIAL.
card found
nnrlrao-o.
TTlk trated course of lectures,
nk covering care and treatment
m of hair and scalps
Among the interesting features of
Empire are the air compressors vihich are
supplying about three hundred, million
cubic feet rt pure air- every month. There
are three of these plants, one at as
Cascades, one at Rio Grande and an
other at Empire. They feed a huge pipe
which runs from ono end of th Culebra
cut to the other, and through other pipes
supplies the air for Oie drills and other
pneumatic tools, hoists and . also the
shops. They are now working 130 drills.
This compressed air is taken through
a complicated system of ptra. much
of which has to be taken up and re
laid every month. The main ptpes of
both air and water run along each side
of the cut. and they are carried across
the cut from one bank to the other on
bridge not far from Empire. It takes
about 200 men to keep the plptng and
water service in 1 order, and tho pipes
have to be watched night and , -day for
leaks and breaks.
White Ante nnd tne Canal Bridge.
And Just here I must tell yon how
near a very small tltlng came to delay
ing the canal construction, and therefty
costing Uncle Sam ; many thousanas
of dollars. You may have heard of the
white ant. It is not as long an your
finger nail, but it came within an ace
of holding back this work and laying
off for a time thousands of men. It
did this In connection with the suspen
sion bridge which crosses the gorge
from one side to the otner.: ine air
and water mains are carried t across on
this bridge, and had it fallen they
would have broken and it vaiuld have
taken weeks to have repaired the dam
age. .
Now this bridge was thought to be
strong. The piers at its siaes were
made of a combination of steel and
wood, and the parts which upheld the
cables were of oak In order that they
might be the strenger. The oak tim
bers formed, in fact, the key to the
work. Not long ago tt was thought
they had best be examined, and a man
climbed to the top. He found that the
white ants had been eating the oak, a
wood of which they are especially
fond, and that they had gotten so far
that within a tew weeks longer the
timbers would have crumbled to dust,
allowing the bridge and pipes to fall
Into the out It Is needless to say that
repairs were Immediately mads and
that in such a way as to prevent any
danger from these Insects tn the future.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.
Cruel Realism.
.thhn a Johnson, the famous lawyer
and no less famous art expert, was talk
ing at a dinner In Phiiadeipma amui
some of Sargent's cruelly realistic por
traits. "Sargent once painted a Philadelphia
woman," Mr. Johnson said, "and when
the work was finished the lady's coach
man called for it.
"As the coaohman was studying the
portrait, 8argent said to him;
" 'How do you like It?'
Tho man answered thoughtfully:
'"Well, sir, ye might have made it a
little better looking,7 mebbe, but if ye
had ved have spoilt it.'" at. touts
Globe-Democrat. k
, Plana Were All Made.
Society Reporter I hear, that you are
tnakin Plans to get marnea in mi
fv?uni' Nnarondakv Ah.' What Shall
aav? Making ze plans? No, no! I haf
had ka Diana prepared se long time. I
am now busy what you say-taking se
estimates. Judge.
sA IIIIIIII 111 II
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VR HEAR OF
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