none of the fills had been made, on the theory-which is correctthat the fills should be made from the waste from Culebra cut. But the difficulty came here, that we had no equipment that we could run over the Panama Railroad without blocking the entire railroad. These engines, and particularly the small cars-I made several very sorrow ful experiments with them are not capable of being run over four or five miles an hour with safety on account of these rigid trucks. They will not keep on the tracks, so that I had very largely, as brought out a few moments ago, to dispose of this material, which I was absolutely obliged to take out; and then, to get these tracks in, I had to take it out the shortest haul I could and dump it in these old French dumps. There was nothing else to do with it. In fact, we got so hard up for equipment on the Panama Railroad during what is called the congestion that I made the experiment of using some of these old French dumpcars. I was desperate; I had nothing else to do-to haul coal from Colon to Panama. The result was that I laid out every passenger train that I had on the road, and practically blocked the road all up for 47 miles.

It took from 7 o'clock in the morning to 4.30 in the afternoon to haul 16 cars across the Isthmus and keep them on the track. In fact, I did not keep them on the track; they went off the track nearly all the time. I have told you that to illustrate the impossibility of going on with the double tracking where we have to use the Panama road and get out of the way of regular trains.

What I want to emphasize is this: If I had had all the steam shovels in the world, all the money in the world, and all the men in the world, or anybody else there, they could not have gone on with the excavation of Culebra cut without the plant to haul the material away, because that is a transportation proposition.

Senator TALIAFERRO. What is the present condition of that railroad construction for canal purposes?

Mr. STEVENS. It is going on in very good shape. We have been short of force for the last thirty or forty days to a certain extent; but it is going on all the time, steadily, looking to a definite plan for taking out the cut.

Senator GORMAN. How have you progressed in the delivery of this new equipment of cars?

Mr. STEVENS. There have been ordered for the Panama Railroad 24 engines; Mr. Wallace ordered them. I have not the exact figures as to the amount of business-the comparative business, the tonnage that the Panama Railroad is handling, excluding the Commission's supplies and material, and equipment. But they are handling a great deal more than they did ten or fifteen years ago, and they have not 10 cents worth more equipment than they had in those days, when it was all they could do then. That statement is broad, but it is comprehensive, and absolutely correct.

Senator TALIAFERRO. Except these flat cars?

Mr. STEVENS. Except these flat cars, which were delivered along last summer.

Senator KNOX. Mr. Stevens, in order that I may get definitely in my mind what you mean by this reference to the railroad and railroad system, do you contemplate, when your track system is completed, for the purpose of hauling off the spoil of the excavation, that the Panama Railroad itself will be utilized in that connection?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir.

Senator KNOX. Or will it be done independently?

Mr. STEVENS. Oh, no; it can not; it must be handled over the Panama Railroad.

Senator KNOX. Then this system of roads which you are building into the Culebra cut is auxiliary to the main road?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir.

Senator KNOX. And that makes the necessity for a perfected equipment all the greater?

Mr. STEVENS. That is it.

Senator KNOX. Because the main line must be used to carry this other spoil?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir. You may say, to illustrate, that here is the main line of the Panama Railroad. Now, at different points tracks come out of the cut. Here is the big cut; tracks come out of that cut-spur tracks, leading this way and that way. Then we have the tracks that the steam shovels work on that we are now putting in.

Senator KNOX. The Panama Railroad is the trunk line?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir; and the double tracking I refer to is simply making another main line to handle that enormous traffic.

Senator SIMMONS. Clear across the Isthmus?

Mr. STEVENS. I do not know whether we will go clear across the Isthmus or not. We may or may not. That depends, again, on the type of the canal.

Senator SIMMONS. It is not necessary for that purpose?

Mr. STEVENS. I do not think so; no, sir.

Senator KNOX. These lateral lines are temporary?

Mr. STEVENS. They are temporary.

Senator KNOX. And may be taken up and moved to other places as the work progresses, as I understand?

Mr. STEVENS. Exactly. The probabilities are, though no mortal man can make an estimate now, that there will have to be 250 or 300 miles of tracks laid during the completion of that cut, particularly if it is a sea-level canal.

Senator KNOX. That would not necessarily mean, though, new rails?

Mr. STEVENS. Oh, no.

Senator KNOX. But the substitution, the taking up of old rails in one place and putting them down where they are needed?

Mr. STEVENS. That is it, exactly; what we call, in railroad construction, throwing tracks, moving them from one place to another. Senator KNOX. Yes.

Mr. STEVENS. Another thing that I had to consider immediately was the fact of equipment. As I say, nothing has been ordered except these 300 cars. There had been ordered a couple of dozen of two or three different kinds of dump cars, merely as a matter of experiment; and out of those two or three small orders there have been, up to the present time, twenty-four delivered of certain kinds of dump cars. I think Mr. Wallace's idea was in fact I know it was that he would get these cars there, and then he would experiment over a long period of time before he made up his mind what kind of cars he wanted.

Of course that meant a very long time in getting the cars delivered, and a still longer time before the experiments could be tried; and

after considering the matter thoroughly I made up my mind that during the wet season, the only car that could be used, the only car that wet material could be unloaded from, was a flat car with a plow; and I ordered 800 of them. I also ordered 120 first-class modern engines, none of which have been delivered; and none of the cars have been delivered. I also ordered plows, steam unloaders, and minor equipment of that description.

Senator TALIAFERRO. You ordered 120 engines, did you say?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir; and the delivery was all arranged by contract. I say I ordered these-you understand, of course, that I request Mr. Shonts and the Commission to purchase them, which they do. As to those 120 engines, the purchasing agent told me yesterday that he expected a few of them to be delivered in January, and that the delivery would close in June. That is about according to contract; but you understand that when an engine is delivered on the Isthmus it is delivered in pieces. We have to take it in our little shops and put it together, which means that it will probably be February before I will have the use of one of those engines. As to the 800 flat cars, we expect the delivery to commence in February and to be closed in June.

Senator HOPKINS. Where do you get these engines and cars?

Mr. STEVENS. The engines are being built at the works of the American Locomotive Company, some at Schnectady, some at Paterson, and, I presume, some at Richmond. I do not know about the cars-I think they are being built in St. Louis, by the American Car and Foundry Company. Meanwhile the balance of the first order of 500 flat cars is going forward, and a shipload of them (I think 135 or 145) is now being unloaded at Colon, which is the northern terminus of the line. Of course then we will have to have them set up. Senator TALIAFERRO. How many locomotives were ordered by Mr. Wallace, Mr. Stevens?

Mr. STEVENS. Twenty-four.

Senator TALIAFERRO. And have they ever been delivered?

Mr. STEVENS. Twelve of them have been delivered, and the balance are between-I think they were built at Schenectady; between there and New York, on the road.

Senator TALIAFERRO. How many did I understand you to say the Panama Company had ordered?

Mr. STEVENS. Those are the ones I mean; 24 were ordered previous to my connection with the road.

Senator TALIA FERRO. And you have ordered 120?

Mr. STEVENS. One hundred and twenty; yes, sir. The balance, as I say, of the 500 flats are now going forward. Probably by the middle of February we will have them all set up and have the use of them.

Senator SIMMONS. How did you say you unloaded those flat cars? Mr. STEVENS. With a plow. We have a big plow, you know, with side stakes on the flats, stakes about 3 feet high, and then we have a great big plow on the plow car. A cable is fastened to that and runs through to the forward end of the train, where there is what we call an unloader, which is simply a hoisting engine, a steam engine, with a drum that this cable runs on. The engineer stops his train at the point where it is to be unloaded, throws the steam on, simply pull

his plow right through the train of flat cars, and unloads the whole of it.

Senator HOPKINS. That is for the wet season. Would it work in the dry season just as well?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes; it will work better than that in the dry season, but it can be absolutely depended upon when it is wet too. Now, that is one thing that I have been criticised for, and I will be still more, I presume; but that is a plan that will take care of that material. It is an open question yet among construction men-men who handle heavy construction-whether the flat car or the dump car is the more economical. But I do know this, that no dump car that I have yet ever seen would handle that material while it was wet.

It was absolutely necessary, therefore, to adopt some such plan as that, unless we were to subject ourselves to nine months a year more delay. I knew that the flat cars could be used. I knew that they could be used economically-probably as much so as any other car. I knew that it was a grave question whether the other cars could be or not. Therefore I took the chance of getting the flat cars, knowing that they could be relied on.

Senator MORGAN. Mr. Stevens, I want to ask you a question. In regard to the remaining work to be done through Culebra and Emperador, for instance, nine or ten or twelve miles, do you rely upon the steam shovel as being the most efficient of the agencies at your command?

Mr. STEVENS. I think so, for dry work.

Senator MORGAN. How about wet work?

Mr. STEVENS. Do you mean below the sea level?

Senator MORGAN. No; I mean work that is made wet by the rainy

season.

Mr. STEVENS. Oh, the steam shovel will handle that all right.
Senator MORGAN. It will handle it all right?

Mr. STEVENS. And the side drains that come in can all be controlled. Senator MORGAN. How about rock that has to be blasted out? Mr. STEVENS. That is all right. I have handled pieces measuring as high as 5 yards with those shovels; I have picked them up with the teeth and laid them on the cars.

Senator MORGAN. The steam shovel, then, is an efficient tool?

Mr. STEVENS. I think it is the best tool that has ever been built up to date to handle that class of material.

Senator MORGAN. And you rely upon it more than any other agency, or tool, or power?

Mr. STEVENS. Oh, yes; altogether. You understand that the Culebra cut is what we call a blasting cut. It is rock of different degrees of hardness, from very soft rock through all the medium grades to extremely hard rock, with a certain amount of earth. The earth was very largely on top, and has been removed to a great extent by the old French company; and probably ninety per cent of everything that there is left to move-no matter what type of canal is adopted-is rock, and must be blasted before it can be moved by anything. Senator MORGAN. Down to what level?

Mr. STEVENS. They have drilled to forty feet below sea level, and the same conditions obtain.

Senator MORGAN. Is the rock down to sea level from where you are working now?

Mr. STEVENS. Oh, yes; the same class of material.

Senator MORGAN. So that from your present workings down to sea level you would expect to encounter rock?

Mr. STEVENS. With the exception of certain places where we will find a thin skin, 8 or 10 or 15 or 20 feet thick in some places, of red clay, and in some places in the stratification of the rock we will find little seams of clay. But it must be drilled, all of it, excepting possibly a pocket here and there. As I say, over ninety per cent of it is. rock.

Senator MORGAN. So that the work from the point you are at now down to sea level is what the engineers class as rock work?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir; that is, it must be shot-blasted. Senator TALIAFERRO. Down as low as it goes below the sea level. Senator MORGAN. I know, but I am talking about the sea level, because if it is that way to the sea-level, it is that way below, unless you happen to cut through it.

Mr. STEVENS. Yes; we know that, because we have drilled and taken cores out.

Senator MORGAN. It makes it more difficult to handle as you go down from sea-level to the depths.

Mr. STEVENS. There is some other equipment that has been ordered for the Panama Railroad in the shape of box cars and new coaches, caboose cars, but they do not cut any figure as far as Culebra is concerned.

I think I have made plain the situation with regard to equipment. Senator ANKENY. Before you leave that, what do you do with that spoil-dump it?

Mr. STEVENS. We have been hauling it out to the nearest point we could over the old tracks, and dumping it on the old French dumps alongside of the mountain, until within the last

Senator HOPKINS. How far do you have to go from the canal proper?

Mr. STEVENS. In a direct line, from the nearest point of the canal, I presume from 500 to 1,500 feet away. We have to go to make our grade, from half to three-quarters of a mile.

Senator ANKENY. Have you ample space there?

Mr. STEVENS. No; we have not.

Senator ANKENY. How are you going to provide for it?

Mr. STEVENS. I am going to haul it over the Panama Railroad. Senator MORGAN. Let me ask you one more question about the working of the steam shovel-I never saw one.

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Is its most efficient work done above or below the level of the railway on which it is operated?

Mr. STEVENS. Ordinarily it is done above the elevation of the rails that the car it is filling stands on; although the modern shovel will dig eight or nine feet below the base of the rail and still load into the car, thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen feet above.

Senator MORGAN. But not deeper than 8 or 9 feet lower?

Mr. STEVENS. About 9 feet below the rails; that would be about 13 feet below the flat car.

Senator MORGAN. So that in laying your tracks with a view of economy you would have reference to work that could be done above rather than below?