America has captured the forces of Nature, harnessed the floods and made the desert bloom, builded gigantic bridges and arrogant skyscrapers and bored roadways through solid rock and beneath water, but the most spectacular of all spectacular accomplishments is the Panama Canal.

Some four centuries ago, Balboa, the intrepid, the persevering, led his little band of adventurers across the Isthmus of Darien, as it was then called, and, leaving their protection, gave rein to his impatience by going on ahead and climbing alone, slowly and painfully, the continental divide, from which vantage point he discovered the world’s largest ocean.

We are told that, later, gathering his followers, he walked out into the surf and with his sword in his right hand and the banner of Castile in his left gave the vast expanse of water its present name and claimed all the land washed by its waves the lawful property of the proud country to which he owed allegiance.

The narrowness of the Isthmus naturally suggested the cutting of a waterway through it. It interposed between Atlantic and Pacific a barrier in places less than fifty miles wide. To sail from Colon to Panama—forty-five miles as the bird flies—required a voyage around Cape Horn—some ten thousand miles. Yet it was nearly four centuries before any actual effort was made to construct such a canal.

In 1876 an organization was perfected in France for making surveys and collecting data on which to base the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and in 1878, a concession for prosecuting the work was secured from the Colombian Government. In May, 1879, an international congress was convened, under the auspices of Ferdinand de Lesseps, to consider the question of the best location and plan of the canal.

The Panama Canal Company was organized, with Ferdinand de Lesseps as its president, and the stock of this company was successfully floated in December, 1880. The two years following were devoted largely to surveys, examinations and preliminary work. In 1889 the company went into bankruptcy and operations were suspended until the new Panama Canal Company was organized in 1894.

The United States to the Rescue.

The United States, not unmindful of the advantages of an Isthmian Canal, had from time to time, made surveys of the various routes. With a view to government ownership and control, Congress directed an investigation, with the result that the Commission reported, on November 16, 1901, in favor of Panama and recommended the lock type of canal, appraising the value of the rights, franchises, concessions, lands, unfinished work, plans and other property, including the railroad of the new Panama Canal Company, at $40,000,000. An act of Congress, approved June 28, 1902, authorized the President of the United States to acquire this property at this figure, and also to secure from the Republic of Colombia perpetual control of a strip of land not less than six miles wide across the Isthmus and the right to excavate, construct and operate and protect thereon a canal of such depth and capacity as would afford convenient passage to the largest ships now in use or which might be reasonably anticipated.

Later on a treaty was made with the Republic of Panama whereby the United States was granted control of a ten-mile strip constituting the Canal Zone. This was ratified by the Republic of Panama on December 2, 1903, and by the United States on February 23, 1904. On May 4, 1904, work was begun under United States control.

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The Canal and the Navy.

The opening of the canal has greatly increased the effectiveness of the Navy of the United States. It has reduced the distance between the central points of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts from 13,000 to 5,000 miles and greatly reduced the problem of coaling on a cruise from coast to coast. It has made possible the concentration of a fleet at either entrance of the canal which, with a cruising speed of fifteen knots, could reach the center of the Pacific coast in nine days and the center of the Atlantic coast in five days.

Where, formerly, the fleets stationed opposite the middle of each coast were, from a cruising point of view, as far apart as opposite sides of the world, they are now as near as if one were off New York and the other off Buenos Aires.

With regard to the monetary saving to the United States resulting from the availability of the canal for naval use, it is apparent that the distance and time between the coasts have been reduced to less than two-fifths of the former figures. The cost of coast-to-coast movements is reduced accordingly, for though vessels of the Navy pay tolls, such payment is in effect a transfer of money from one branch of the government to another.

The strategic importance of the canal is inestimable from a monetary standpoint.

The Great Canal.

The Isthmus of Panama runs east and west and the canal traverses it from Colon on the north to Panama on the south in a general direction from northwest to southeast, the Pacific terminus being twenty-two miles east of the Atlantic entrance. The principal features of the canal are a sea-level entrance channel from the east through Limon Bay to Gatun, about seven miles long, five-hundred-foot bottom width and forty-one-foot depth at mean tide. At Gatun the eighty-five-foot lake level is obtained by a dam across the valley. The lake is confined on the Pacific side by a dam between the hills at Pedro Miguel, thirty-two miles away. The lake thus formed has an area of 164 square miles and a channel depth of not less than forty-five feet at normal stage.

At Gatun ships pass from the sea to the lake level, and vice versa, by three locks in flight. On the Pacific side there is one lowering of thirty feet at Pedro Miguel to a small lake fifty-five feet above sea level, held by dam at Miraflores, where two lowerings overcome the difference of level to the sea. The channel between the locks on the Pacific side is five hundred feet wide at the bottom and forty-five feet deep, and below the Miraflores locks the sea-level section, about eight miles in length, is five hundred feet wide at the bottom and forty-five feet deep at mean tide. Through the lake the bottom widths are not less than one thousand feet for about sixteen miles, eight hundred feet for about four miles, five hundred feet for about three miles and through the continental divide from Bas Obispo to Pedro Miguel, a distance of about nine miles, the bottom width is three hundred feet. The total length of the canal from deep water in the Caribbean, forty-one-foot depth at mean tide to deep water in the Pacific, forty-five-foot depth at mean tide, is practically fifty miles, fifteen miles of which are at sea level.

The Hydroelectric Station.

The hydroelectric station uses water from Gatun Lake for driving three turbo-generators of 2,000-kilowatt capacity each, which supply electricity for the operation of the lock and spillway machinery, the terminal shops and adjacent facilities, and for the lighting of the locks and the canal villages and fortifications. Transmission over the Zone is effected through four substations and a connecting high voltage transmission line which follows the main line of the Panama Railroad.

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Gatun Lake, impounded by Gatun Dam, has an area of 164 square miles when its surface is at the normal elevation of eighty-five feet above sea level, and is the largest artificially-formed lake in the world. The area of the water-shed tributary to the lake is 1,320 square miles. During the rainy season, from April to the latter part of December, the run-off from this basin exceeds considerably the consumption of water, and the surplus is discharged through the spillway of Gatun Dam. Toward the end of the rainy season the surface of the lake is raised to about eighty-seven feet above sea level, in order to afford a surplus or reserve supply to keep the channel full to operating depth during the dry season, in part of which the consumption and evaporation are in excess of the supply. It is calculated that when this level has been attained at the beginning of the dry season the reserve is sufficient to assure a surface elevation of at least seventy-nine feet at the end of the dry season in spite of the consumption at the hydroelectric station, and allowing forty-one passages of vessels through the locks each day with the use of the full length of the chambers, or fifty-eight lockages a day when the shorter sections of the chambers are used and cross filling is employed, which would usually be the case. This is a greater number of lockages than can be made in one day.

Gigantic Obstacles.

The greatest difficulty encountered in the excavation of the canal was due to slides and breaks which caused large masses of material to slide or move into the excavated area, closing off the drainage, upsetting steam shovels and tearing up the tracks. The greatest slide was at Cucaracha, and gave trouble when the French first began cutting in 1884. Though at first confined to a length of 800 feet, the slide extended to include the entire basin south of Gold Hill, or a length of about 3,000 feet. Some idea of the magnitude of these slides can be obtained from the fact that during the fiscal year 1910 of 14,921,750 cubic yards that were removed, 2,649,000 yards, or eighteen per cent, were from slides or breaks that had previously existed or that had developed during the year.

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The one greatest undertaking of the whole excavation was the Gaillard Cut. Work had been in progress on this since 1880, and during the French control over 20,000,000 cubic yards were removed. On May 4, 1904, when the United States took charge, it was estimated that there was left to excavate 150,000,000 cubic yards. Some idea of the size of this big cut may be formed from the fact that this division has within its jurisdiction over 200 miles of five-foot-gage track laid, about fifty-five miles of which is within the side slopes of the Gaillard Cut alone.

Gatun Dam.

The great dam at Gatun is a veritable hill—7,500 feet over all, 2,100 feet wide at the base, 398 feet through at the water surface, and 100 feet wide at the top, which is 115 feet above sea level. The dimensions of the dam are such as to assure that ample provision is made against every force which may affect its safety, and while it is made of dirt, a thing before unheard of, it is of such vast proportions that it is as strong and firm as the everlasting hills themselves.

Fluctuations in the lake due to floods are controlled by an immense spillway dam built of concrete. The front of the dam is the arc of a circle 740 feet long with fourteen openings which, when the gates are raised to the full height, permit a discharge of 140,000 cubic feet per second. The water thus discharged passes through a diversion channel in the old bed of the Chagres River, generating, by an enormous electric plant, the power necessary for operating the locks.

The locks of the canal are in pairs, so that if any lock is out of service navigation will not be interrupted, also, when all the locks are in use the passage of shipping is expedited by using one set of locks for the ascent and the other for descent. These locks are 110 feet wide and have usable lengths of 1,000 feet. The system of filling adopted consists of a culvert in each side wall feeding laterals from which are openings upward into the lock chamber. The entire lock can be filled or emptied in fifteen minutes and forty-two seconds when one culvert is used and seven minutes and fifty-one seconds, using both culverts. It requires about ten hours for a large ship to make the entire trip through the canal.

Meeting all Emergencies.

Many extraordinary feats of engineering were accomplished to overcome the difficulties presented. Special contrivances, wonderful in their operation, were invented to meet exigencies and emergencies.

The first and greatest problem attempted by the United States was to make the Canal Zone healthful. This strip of land from ocean to ocean abounded in disease-breeding swamps and filthy habitations unfit for human beings. The death-rate was appalling and the labor conditions terrible. During the first two and a half years, therefore, all energies were devoted to ridding the Isthmus of disease by sanitation, to recruiting and organizing a working force and providing for it suitable houses, hotels, messes, kitchens and an adequate food supply. This work included clearing lands, draining and filling pools and swamps for the extermination of the mosquito, the establishment of hospitals for the care of the sick and injured and the building of suitable quarantine quarters. Municipal improvements were undertaken in Panama and Colon and the various settlements in the Canal Zone, such as the construction of reservoirs, pavements and a system of modern roads. Over 2,000 buildings were constructed besides the remodeling of 1,500 buildings turned over by the French company.

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It was only after all this preliminary sanitation was accomplished that the real work of digging the canal could go forward with any hope of success. These hygienic conditions had the result of making the Canal Zone one of the most healthful spots in the world, and work on the canal became so popular that it was no longer necessary to enlist recruits from the West Indies, the good pay, fair treatment and excellent living conditions bringing thousands of laborers from Spain and Italy. The greatest number employed at any one time was 45,000, of which 5,000 were American.

A Battle Won.

The completion of this herculean task marked an epoch in the history of the world. A gigantic battle against floods and torrents, pestilence and swamps, tropical rivers, jungles and rock-ribbed mountains had been fought—and won! Well worthy a place in the halls of immortal fame are the names of the thousands of sturdy sons who, with ingenuity, pluck and perseverance never before equaled, succeeded in making a pathway for the nations of the world from ocean to ocean.

This great and daring undertaking, which had for its object the opening up of new trade routes and lines of commerce, annihilating distance and wiping out the width of two continents between New York and Yokohama and making the Atlantic seaboard and the Pacific coast close neighbors, is the climax of man’s achievement and the greatest gift to civilization. It will help in the consummation of man’s loftiest dreams of world friendship and world peace.[2] So far, in the use of the canal, over forty per cent of the vessels which have passed through it have been engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States—each of them saving about 7,800 miles on each trip. If their average speed be taken at ten knots, they have averaged a saving of over a month at sea on each voyage from coast to coast. Where formerly the round trip of a ten-knot vessel required about fifty-five days’ actual steaming, the time at sea for the same trip for the same vessel is now reduced to about twenty-two days.

The canal makes San Francisco nearer to Liverpool by 5,666 miles, a saving of two-fifths of the old journey by Magellan. The distance between San Francisco and Gibraltar has been reduced from 12,571 miles to 7,621 miles, a saving of 4,950 miles, or thirty-nine per cent of the former distance.

From San Francisco to Buenos Aires, via Valparaiso and Magellan, is approximately 7,610 miles, which is shorter than the route through the canal, by which the distance is 8,941 miles. To Rio de Janeiro, the distance via Magellan is 8,609 miles; by the canal 7,885 miles. To Pernambuco, on the eastern promontory of South America, the distance via Magellan is 9,748 miles; via the canal 6,746 miles. To Para the distances via Magellan and via the canal are 10,852 and 5,642 miles, respectively.

From San Francisco to Freetown, on the west coast of middle Africa, the distance by the most practicable route, using the Strait of Magellan, is 11,380 miles. Through the canal and by way of the island of Barbados, the distance is 7,277 miles. The new route is less than two-thirds of the former.

With reference to the trade between the Atlantic coast of the United States and the west coast of South America, New York is nearer to Valparaiso by 3,717 miles by virtue of the canal; to Iquique, one of the great nitrate ports, by 4,139 miles; and to Guayaquil by 7,405 miles. From New York to Guayaquil the present distance of 2,765 miles is approximately twenty-seven per cent of the former distance—10,270 miles.

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Forty Tons of Dynamite Destroy the Last Barrier Between the Oceans

The blowing up of Gamboa Dike, the last of the dikes in the Panama Canal. This dike separated the water in the Gatun locks from Gaillard Cut. The removal of the dike by a discharge of forty tons of dynamite, set off by President Wilson, from Washington, was the last stage in the completion of the great waterway. Dredges were put to work immediately widening the channel at Cucaracha slide in Gaillard Cut, so that within a short time the canal was ready for use throughout its entire length.

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.