any carelessness or inattention to work calls for instant dismissal.

Another of the remarkable contrivances which calls for special mentionis the way the cars of dirt are dumped or emptied. After the débris has been loaded by the huge steam shovels on to the wagons, as previously described, the train of wagons is run down from Culebra in trains of twenty, or a total length of about 200 yards long, carrying their 400 tons of stone. The guard of the train travels on the rear wagon. He carries with him a short length of brake hose-pipe and a valve, which he attaches to the rear brake pipe of the train, and should by any chance a rock become dislodged and throw a wagon off the road, he can instantly stop the train. On arriving at the dump-yard the engine is uncoupled, and picks up a wagon on which has been left a onesided plough. This is placed on the front of the train, and the engine then returns to pick up a train of empties, and returns for another train of loaded wagons. Another engine, with a very powerful winch on a separate wagon, then comes to the rear of the train and fastens the capstan rope of the winch to an overhead cat gallows. When this is done the loco pulls the train through under the gallows, allowing the capstan rope to pay itself out over the tops of the wagons of dirt. When the last wagon which carries the plough is reached the rope is disconnected and attached to an eye-bolt in the plough. The train is then shunted to the position at which the dirt has to be unloaded. When this is reached the capstan is set to work, dragging slowly the one-sided plough over the tops of the wagons, causing the dirt to fall close alongside of the train. The plough is thus drawn from one end of the train to the other, when it reaches the last wagon nearest the engine the rope is uncoupled, and this particular wagon with the plough in position is

ready to be attached to the front end of another train. The train of empty wagons is drawn out, leaving all the dirt close alongside the railway, sometimes to a depth of four feet. This, of course, has to be removed before another train can deposit its load. A huge engine, attached to what is termed a spreader, next comes on the scene. This spreader has a ploughshare about 52 feet long and 5 feet deep. It can be adjusted for its depth of cut as required. The first ride on one of these wonderful tools calls for plenty of nerve. One sees a vast pile of débris, containing great rocks about seven or eight tons in weight, lying alongside of the track, and the ploughshare down in a position where it cannot possibly get through. With a snort and a whistle speed is commenced till about 30 miles an hour is obtained, and at this speed the plough is forced into the débris, making it fly over the face of the embankment like mud from under a motor-car tire. The strain may, however, be too severe, in which case the engine comes to a stand, and another run is taken, till finally the whole of the excavated material is shot over the embankment. which leaves the rails and sleepers in a perfectly level road-bed. After the dirt-spreader has gone as far as it can reach on account of the length of its ploughshare, it becomes necessary to move the railway nearer to the edge of the bank. For this purpose what is known as a track-shifter is brought along. This is a crane with another fixed arm about four feet above ground-level height and boomed out away to the side to which it is desired to move the rails. Clips are fixed to the rails and the track lifted up bodily with its sleepers about three feet high. A second rope is then hooked over one of the rails from the boom and the track thus pulled across, when it is lowered in its new position.

It

only takes about twenty-five minutes to shift a track half a mile long into its new position. These three machines will do the work of at least 500 men, but even with this number of men the saving of time is enormous. Most of the dumping is now being done at the Panama end of the Canal seawards, enclosing thousands of acres of water and forming breakwaters to protect vessels desirous of entering the Canal. The bottom of the sea is, however, very peculiar here. Under a soft rock which lies next to the water is a bed of very soft clay, and when the dirt has been deposited to a greater extent than this rock can carry, it breaks through without any warning, lowering the surface maybe 10 or 12 feet, and very often causing the track to fall into the sea. At the same time the bottom of the sea rises up ahead of the bank to the surface of the water. It should be mentioned, however, that these breaks generally occur at low water, when the pressure on the bottom is greatest. At the Panama end a breakwater is being constructed over two miles long to two islands in the bay. On these islands will be fixed the fortifications for the Pacific end of the Canal, and on two other islands which lie in the bay the Leper Colony and Fever Hospital are installed. A considerable quantity of dredging still re

mains to be done, as the bay is quite shallow and unsuitable for vessels with a deep draught of water.

The two Canal approaches call for particular notice. Colon stands in the Bay of Limon. In the Bay of Limon jetties are being run out from each side of the Bay to protect shipping from the severe northerly winds that blow at certain seasons of the year, and on Point Toro a large battery will be constructed for the defence of the Canal. The buoys in the Canal and inland lake will be acetylene, and as the sun shines every day of the year advantage of this has been taken to control automatically the lighting and dousing of these burners-i.e., as soon as the sun rises the lamps in the buoys go out; when the sun goes down they relight themselves. An island a few miles away forms a quarantine station. At Colon a hotel is being constructed holding 300 beds. Steam fire-engines, horse ladders, etc., are constantly ready, as nearly all the houses are built of wood. The towns of Panama and Colon are under the direct control of the Panama Government, but the United States keeps a very watchful and energetic eye over the sanitation and police arrangements of the two towns.

The following table shows the General Canal Statistics:

our British engineers not to commit themselves too deeply without long and prolonged trials, and the late Sir Benjamin Baker, the greatest civil engineer we have had in this country during the past fifty years, was always somewhat timid about the use of concrete in foundations subjected to large variations of temperature. In buried foundations

there has never been the slightest hesItation in adopting this form of construction, but where considerable variations of temperature obtain, from extreme cold to great heat, so far our leading engineers have refrained from committing themselves to any large extent to the use of reinforced concrete in their designs. The reason is that simple iron or steel is extremely susceptible to variations of temperature: stone and cement are not. The relative degrees of expansion are not nearly alike. We have, therefore, the following conditions: The iron will expand, while the concrete is unable to move in the same ratio; therefore the initial stresses that are set up cause the two materials to dissociate themselves. The iron can expand and contract an indefinite number of times; not so concrete, the consequence being a crack which grows bigger and bigger year by year. The walls of the Canal locks are considerably cut away for the accommodation of the necessary machinery for manipulating the gates and valves, and in the event of the wall cracking or the foundations sinking, most serious trouble might result. It must be remembered that the lock walls extend over 3000 feet, the locks being 1000 feet long, and provision is being made for the reception of two other boats, 1000 feet long, to await an entrance and departure. Those responsible for the general design are to be commended for the conviction of their opinions on such a gigantic scale. Concrete is universally employed on the Canal works: no masonry or brickwork is to be found anywhere. It must, however, be borne in mind that the thermometer never goes below 85°

Blackwood's Magazine.

Fahr., whilst at day it may go up as high in the sun as 140°, a total of 55 degrees variation. In this country we have to provide for a range of temperature varying from zero to 120°, or over twice as much, so it is difficult for a British engineer to express an actual and reliable opinion derived from authentic experience over a period of years as to the wisdom of the course pursued at Panama. But it is to be sincerely hoped that the courage and enterprise that have caused this particular form of construction to be adopted in preference to our old and proved practice may result in success. It certainly has the great advantage of doing away with all masons and bricklayers, with their attendant satellites, as concrete mixing and placing in position can be done by unskilled labor with the minimum of supervision and direction.

The total of concrete to be used represents a wall 2000 yards long, 50 yards wide, and 40 yards high-truly a stupendous work.

Any sketch of this great undertaking is necessarily incomplete, and the economic and political consequences which must result from the opening of the Canal to the world's traffic are weighty questions which lie beyond the scope of these pages. But British engineers can only look on with sympathy and goodwill at the great task accomplished by their American kinsmen at Panama in the teeth of almost superhuman difficulty, and feel that the successful completion of the Canal will be yet another triumph won by Anglo-Saxon skill, grit, and perse

verance.

Charles Paxton Markham.

The Collected Poems of Edmund Gosse, which have just been published in a single volume, form perhaps the most completely representative work of one of the most interesting periods in our modern literature. They are the chief product of a distinct poetic "school," as the word is understood in modern French literature, rather than in our own; and although Mr. Gosse suggests in his preface that fashions have altered in poetry since these poems were written, they are as fresh to-day as ever. For it is not the originators of the fashion that are deciduous. It is only the imitators that fall-and not even the imitators if they develop and create in imitating, and so take their place in that organic evolution of literature of which Mr. Gosse in this country is the chief critical exponent. At a time when all traditions and standards are being attacked, it is well that those who guard the flame in Art and Life should have a clear consciousness of the scientific basis of their creed. Such a consciousness in literature, at any rate, is our sole barrier against a relapse into formless chaos and barbarism. And it is this consciousness which makes the poetry of Mr. Gosse so particularly valuable.

We hear a great deal at the present day about the possibility of breaking away from our heritage, of snapping the links that bind us to Milton, to Wordsworth, to Browning, to Tennyson, and now, at last-as the present writer pointed out some six years ago would inevitably happen-to Swinburne. Six years hence it will not be at all the thing to admire Ibsen. And undoubtedly it is easier, infinitely easier, to run down the steep ascents which these great poets labored to win for us; far easier than to accept our heritage and labor to develop it.

Their perfection in many aspects is a challenge that it requires courage to take up. The only wonder is that in renouncing so much our barbarians have not renounced rhyme, rhythm, nay, language itself, altogether. For all these things have been used before. And, indeed, this happy consummation has almost been reached in one or two fantastic instances. But when our "Futurist" tendencies have reduced themselves to an absurdity, there is only one thing possible, and that is a return to growth and development.

Of course, I am not speaking here of the value that may lie in throwing off or destroying out-worn conventionalities. That is a part of development and growth; and the meanest understanding must be alive to it, or cease to have any importance to literature. But the great words of Shelley in his preface to Prometheus Unbound are of the very greatest importance at the present day to all who are concerned in the guarding of the flame: "Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, in another, the creations of their age. From this subjection the loftiest do not escape. There is a similarity between Homer and Hesiod, between Eschylus and Euripides, between Virgil and Horace, between Dante and Petrarch, between Shakespeare and Fletcher, between Dryden and Pope; each has a generic resemblance under which their specific distinctions are arranged. If this similarity be the result of imitation, I am willing to confess that I have imitated." I quote these words because at the present day there is undoubtedly a false idea of originality abroad, a false idea of the necessity of an artificial originality which no student of our literature-of Milton, for instance

-can possibly accept. The generic resemblance between all the Elizabethan poets is so great that all their works might easily be taken for the greater and lesser productions of one Titanic pen. At the present day there are far wider differences between our leading writers-between Mr. Kipling, for instance, and Mr. Barrie-than at any period in the history of literature; and there is certainly no need to throw everything into the melting-pot in order to secure some new and startling sea-change. There is less need than ever in the history of the world to "placard remove and to let on the heights of our snowy Parnassus." Stevenson recognized the danger, and foretold it, long ago, when he wrote to a young poet: "You are young, and may live to do much. The little artificial popularity of style in England tends, I think, to die out. The British pig returns to his true love, the love of the styleless, of the shapeless, of the slap-dash, of the disorderly. There is trouble coming, I think, and you may have to hold the fort for us in evil days." It is the clear recognition of this in the work of Mr. Gosse that gives it an artistic passion of its own.

His poems represent a school which has now a permanent place in the history of English verse. Incidentally it is, of course, to this school that we owe most of those modern experiments with French verse-forms which have wearied us, perhaps, in the hands of those who have imitated without developing. But those verse-forms have, nevertheless, permanently raised the standard of technique in English verse, and have made life impossible for all future Robert Montgomeries.

But the poetry of Mr. Gosse has much more than this value. It has one very weighty quality which one associates more with the work of such poets as Leconte de Lisle than with the lighter and more airy work of

all there is that scientific consciousness, a more organic form of what Rossetti called "fundamental brain work." The lines are loaded with the golden logic of beauty.

Some sentences in Mr. Gosse's preface are interesting on this point. "If I am a poet at all," he says, "I belong to the age of the Franco-German War, of the introduction of Japanese art into Europe, of the discoveries of Huxley and Häckel, and of the Oxford lectures of Matthew Arnold. . . ."

Such certainly is the "intellectual topography" of poems like Palingenesis and Monad and Multitude:

Last night along this huge expanse
I saw a crooked lightning dance;
The thunder roared in hollow fit,
And all the forest moaned with it.
If from the vault in darkness steeped
A shaft of angry lightning leaped,
And tipped one pine in elfin mirth,
And scored and blasted it to earth,
Fed on its spices, burned within,
And shrivelled up its satin skin,
Where is that stricken pine to-day,
In all the forests' plumed array?
What tho' the single life be broken,
The broad sweet woodland gives no
token;

Its oneness left no wounded sense
On the undisturbed circumference,
Nor can the eye, though searching well,
Deplore that vanished miracle.

Such is the wonder of man's soul,
God-guarded, an essential whole;
Yet, in life's broad and mighty scheme,
God-unregarded, and a dream.

One may believe that this is not absolutely the last word on the problem, and believe it with the whole force of one's nature; but one is no less bound to recognize that these poems go straight to the heart of the problems that chiefly trouble the present day. Again and again in reading this volume we realize that the intellectual method of true poetry is a weapon of precision and of an edge not to be