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fell at intervals, in Colon, at the rate of several inches per hour, but, as there was no rain-gauge, accurate records were unattainable. Not being sure how many inches per hour was considered first-class raining in America, I asked the United States Consul if the showers which were falling would be called "a good square rain" in his country, and he replied with emphasis, "Yes, sir, this is a good square rain."

In the immediate vicinity of Colon the line was not inundated, as the water had ready access to the sea, but damage was done directly the railway was in any degree closed in. On the 27th, at 4 miles from Colon, I found the line still covered with water. On the 28th it was nearly clear of water as far as Mindi, and I saw numerous stretches of rails, with ballast washed out, floating on the sleepers. At Mindi there was a breach in the railway about 150 feet wide, and beyond this place, it was apparent from the telegraph posts, the line was still submerged 6 feet or thereabouts. On December 1 the rails were exposed beyond Mindi, and in course of walking along I came upon a rail which had been broken by tension. It appeared that the water, running down the track in the direction of Colon, scoured out the ballast, and pressed against the sleepers with such extraordinary power as to break this rail.*

On the 4th the line was sufficiently repaired to allow the starting of a train from Colon with the overdue mails, and I accompanied them, by permission of the managers. The flood had by this time subsided, and at Gatun, where we first sighted the Chagres, the river was fully 25 feet below us, though a week previously it had covered the line with 10 feet of water. Near Buena Vista, a framed wooden house was pointed out, about 25 feet long, by 18 wide, and 15 high, which had stood a little above the railway, that had been transported bodily by the flood, and been deposited in a rather twisted condition half a mile away from its original site, on the opposite side of the line. The rest of this village was almost entirely destroyed. A little farther on, two large, iron water-tanks, which had been erected on piers of masonry, and which had stood about 12 feet above the rails, and 40 feet or so above the ordinary level of the Chagres, were lifted from their supports by the flood. One had dropped down close to the line, and the other was carried some hundreds of yards towards the Atlantic. As these tanks could not have floated off unless they had been nearly submerged, they afforded clear evidence that the river at this point rose more than 40 feet above its usual level. Proceeding onwards, a dead alligator was pointed out, lying alongside the railway, which was said to have been drowned by the violence of the "freshet." I do not depend much upon the evidence of this reptile, and therefore

* I understood the engineers of the line to say (in 1880) that this was an unprecedented occurrence, so far as they knew. Possibly the rail was faulty.

† Our transit from Colon to Panama (including nine hours' detention at the Barbacoas Bridge) occupied thirteen hours.

will not dwell upon its carcase. As there was no post-mortem, it may be alleged to have died from natural causes. The conductor of the train remarked, drily, that "it certainly takes some water to drown alligators."

*

Near the centre of the Isthmus the train could go no farther, for the Barbacoas Bridge, which crosses the Chagres, was dislocated. This is the largest structure on the Panama Railway, and is in six spans 625 feet long in all, supported by five piers of masonry. The two piers nearest to Colon had settled down, and were each about 6 feet out of the perpendicular (see Fig. 5 on the folding plate). Looking from Colon, the nearest pier A had settled up stream, and B in the contrary direction. The superstructure held well together, but the track was twisted into a double curve, and was impassable for

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The Barbacoas Bridge over the Rio Chagres (looking up the river).

trains. The line had evidently been covered right over by the flood, for it was encumbered with masses of twigs and branches, and it was further clear that the water had risen well above the rails; but, as there was no distinctly marked water-line, one could not say how much. Some of our party thought the entire structure had been submerged. The river had fallen to nearly its ordinary level, and I found (with a measuring tape) that its surface was 36 clear feet below the rails. Captain S. Griffen, who was with us (formerly of the U.S. Navy), commanding the mail steamer Colon, found with a soundingline that there was 11 to 12 feet of water at the same point.† There was distinct evidence that the river had risen 40 feet, and possibly much more, at this place.

The situation of the bridge, at a sharp bend of the Chagres, is seen in the accompanying outline view. The railway comes out of a small

* Its position on the map is indicated by the arrow between Tavernilla and S. Pablo. It is sometimes called the S. Pablo Bridge.

† According to Wagner's Geographisches Jahrbuch, 1888, Captain Griffen died at Colon, July 4, 1887.

D

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cutting from the side of the Atlantic on to the bridge, and, after crossing it, passes on to the top of a bluff, on which the village of S. Pablo is built. In order to rise to the level of the rails, the river had not only to fill its entire bed (C to D), but necessarily extended over the bluff; and the interior of the Isthmus, when the flood was at its highest, must have resembled a vast lake. The mere statement that the river rose 40 feet and upwards gives no idea whatever of the height to which the flood would have mounted had the bounding walls been sufficient to contain it. The settling of the piers is to be attributed to the scouring of their foundations, and is evidence that the water at the bottom of the river ran down with considerable velocity.

Some seven miles farther on, near Matachin, a length of 1800 feet of ballasting was washed out, and the village suffered considerably. There was abundant evidence that the rainfall which caused the "freshet" was widely distributed. The branch of the Chagres called the Obispo rose to a great height, as well as the Upper Chagres River, and it was certain that the first great and rapid rise of the river was due to a sudden and excessive rainfall over a large area, and that it was maintained by more or less torrential rain which fell intermittently in the succeeding week. While this happened on the side of the Atlantic, scarcely any rain fell on the other side of the divide, and the railway in the vicinity of Panama was uninjured.

*

Inundations of a very destructive character are rare in Great Britain. They occur more frequently on the other side of the Channel, and upon two occasions in quite recent times have caused losses estimated at four millions sterling per occasion. In 1846 Western France was devastated through a rise of the Loire of only 20 feet in one night; and in 1875 the elevation of the Garonne 26 feet above its ordinary level almost annihilated a large quarter of Toulouse, and did immense damage elsewhere. Yet, although the rise of the Chagres in 1879 considerably exceeded the above-quoted amounts, and produced unfortunate effects, it did not cause very heavy pecuniary loss, for the natives of the interior are both few in number and sensibly place their dwellings at such a height above the ordinary level of the river as they are taught by experience is safe. But if such an inundation had occurred in the valley of the Thames, most of South London would have been drowned, and a large part of the left bank of the river would have been submerged. Inundations of the character referred to above are caused by heavy rainfall which occurs over a considerable area being concentrated into a limited area of drainage, and the floods of 1879 came opportunely for the French engineers, as they indicated the maximum which would have to be dealt with. Those who have been engaged in the construction of the canal do

* Wyse, in Le Canal de Panama, Paris, 8vo, 1886, calls it "the most terrible on record."

*

not appear to appreciate the situation, and have paid little attention to the rainfall of the Isthmus. They have established rain-gauges at Colon, Gamboa, and Naos (an island about three miles to the south of Panama), and their Bulletin exults over the fact that the fall at Naos is less than at Gamboa, less at Gamboa than at Colon, and that there are more rainy places in the world than Colon. It is indeed true that there are more rainy localities than Colon. There is one very damp place in Assam which is said to have enjoyed a fall of 391 inches in one year, or more than an inch for every day in the year, and has been known to receive 40 inches in 24 hours. But two blacks do not make one white. The thing to be learnt is the rainfall at a number of points in the interior of the Isthmus, especially in the basin of the Chagres; and this, it appears, is still unknown. The annual rainfall at Gamboa and in the interior generally may be less than at Colon, and yet be much more dangerous, through the severity of individual showers.

M. de Lesseps, with the Commission technique, landed upon the Isthmus at the end of December 1879; and, after enjoying festivities, they got to business on January 5. Mdlle. de Lesseps (Tototte) gave the first blow with the pick-axe, and the Bishop of Panama blessed the undertaking. The Committee of the Commission commenced to prepare its Report on February 4, and the document as finally settled was dated February 14-just forty days after the commencement of the work. M. de Lesseps was enchanted. "I consider success assured." "I declare, on my word of honour, that our work will be much easier upon the Isthmus of Panama than in the desert of Suez.” "The

1884.

Report on the Meteorology of India in 1882. By Henry F. Blanford, F.R.S. Calcutta,

The Pioneer Mail (Allahabad), July 5, 1885.

The Bulletin makes frequent comparisons between the Isthmus of Suez and that of Panama to the advantage of the latter. To gain some idea of the relative rainfalls of the two, the following data have been brought together by the kindness of Mr. R. H. Scott, F.R.S., of the Meteorological Office :

A. Alexandria, mean annual fall (14 years)

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From the above it appears that the mean annual rainfall at Colon is 14 times greater than that of Alexandria, and 125 times greater than that of Suez.

A. Alexandria, greatest recorded amount in any one month 140 mm.

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From the above it is seen that a month's rainfall at Colon is sometimes more than 3 times greater than the mean annual rainfall at Alexandria, and nearly 30 times greater than the mean annual rainfall at Suez. If records could be produced of the greatest daily falls, the contrast would become the more striking.

B.

A. Extracted from Zeitschrift der österreichischen Gesellschaft für Meteorologie. Atlas météorologique de l'Observatoire impériale, and Annales du Bureau central météorologique de France.

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Ann. Bureau cent, météor. de France, and Smithsonian Contri-
butions to Knowledge.

Ann. Bureau cent. météor. de France.

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