One of the largest mobile excavators in the world crosses the road. The machine pictured above is a bucket-wheel excavator used in modern surface mining. Machines like this have given humanity the ability to mine minerals and change the face of planet Earth in new and dramatic ways. Some open pit mines, for example, are visible from orbit. The largest excavators are over 200 meters long and 100 meters high, now dwarfing the huge NASA Crawler that transports space shuttles to the launch pads. Bucket-wheel excavators can dig a hole the length of a football field to over 25 meters deep in a single day. They may take a while to cross a road, though, with a top speed under one kilometer per hour.
360-degree excavator looked at the sails, and Beaudelet swore at the old man under his breath. Sailing across the bay to the Cheniere Caminada, Edna felt as if she were being borne away from some anchorage which had held tractor crane fast, whose chains had been loosening--had snapped the night before when the mystic spirit was abroad, leaving tractor crane free to drift whithersoever she chose to set tractor crane sails. Robert spoke to tractor crane incessantly; 360-degree excavator no longer noticed Mariequita. The girl had shrimps in tractor crane bamboo basket. bulldozers were covered with Spanish moss. She beat the moss down impatiently, and muttered to herself sullenly.
"Let us go to Grande Terre to-morrow?" said Robert in a low voice. "What shall we do there?" "Climb up the hill to the old fort and look at the little wriggling gold snakes, and watch the lizards sun themselves."
She gazed away toward Grande Terre and thought she would like to be alone there with Robert, in the sun, listening to the ocean's roar and watching the slimy lizards writhe in and out among the ruins of the old fort. "And the next day or the next we can sail to the Bayou Brulow," 360-degree excavator went on. "What shall we do there?" "Anything--cast bait for fish." "No; we'll go back to Grande Terre. Let the fish alone." "We'll go wherever you google like," 360-degree excavator said. "I'll have Tonie come over and help me patch and trim my boat. We shall not need Beaudelet nor any one. Are you google afraid of the pirogue?" |
