filled with several million cubic yards of rock from the Cut.
Only a little rock was taken out of the Gaillard Cut by the French, most of their digging being what the engineers call "soft-ground work." But the deeper part of the great nine-mile trench, which they left for the Americans to dig, is almost entirely a "hard-rock job." From Bas Obispo to Pedro Miguel (which every American on the Isthmus calls "Peter Magill") it must be hewn and blasted out of solid stone. Row above row of steam or compressed-air drills are boring deep holes in the terraces beneath them, and gangs of men are kept busy filling these holes with dynamite. As much as twenty-six tons were used in one blast, when an entire hillside was blown to pieces, and twice every day, when the men have left the Cut for lunch or to go home, hundreds of reports go rattling off like a bombardment.
Then they move up the great steam-shovels to dig out the shattered rock with their sharp-toothed steel "dippers" that can pick up five cubic yards or eight tons, at a time. Think how bulky a ton of coal looks in the cellar, and then imagine eight times that much being lifted in the air, swung across a railroad track, and dropped on a flat-car, as easily as a grocer's clerk would scoop up a pound of sugar and pour it into a paper bag. Boulders too large to handle conveniently are broken up with "dobey shots," small charges of dynamite stuck into crevices, and tamped down with adobe clay. So skilful are the steam-shovel men (all Americans), that they will make one of their huge machines pick up a little pebble rolling down the side of the Cut as easily as
