GATUN DAM
The key to the whole Panama Canal is Gatun Dam, that great mass of
earth that impounds the waters of the Chagres River, makes of the
central portion of the canal a great navigable lake with its surface
85 feet above the level of the sea, and, in short, renders practicable
the operation of a lock type of canal across the Isthmus.
Around no other structure in the history of engineering did the fires
of controversy rage so furiously and so persistently as they raged for
several years around Gatun Dam. It was attacked on this side and that;
its foundations were pronounced bad and its superstructure not
watertight. Doubt as to the stability of such a structure led some of
the members of the Board of Consulting Engineers to recommend a
sea-level canal. Further examination of the site and experimentation
with the materials of which it was proposed to construct it, showed
the engineers that it was safe as to site and satisfactory as to
superstructure. The country had about accepted their conclusions,
when, in the fall of 1908, there was a very heavy rain on the Isthmus,
and some stone which had been deposited on the soil on the upstream
toe of the dam, sank out of sight--just as the engineers expected it
to do. A story thereupon was sent to the States announcing that the
Gatun Dam had given way and that the Chagres River was rushing
unrestrained through it to the sea. The public never stopped to recall
that the dam was not yet there to give way, or to inquire exactly what
had happened, and a wave of public distrust swept over the country.
To make absolutely certain that everything was all right, and to
restore the confidence of the people in the big project, President
Roosevelt selected the best board of engineers he could find and sent
them to the Isthmus in company with President-elect Taft to see
exactly what was the situation at Gatun.
They examined the site, they examined the material, they examined the
evidence in Colonel Goethal's hands. When they got through they
announced that they had only one serious criticism to make of the dam
as proposed. "It is not necessary to tie a horse with a log chain to
make sure he can not break away," observed one of them, "a smaller
chain would serve just as well." And so they recommended that the
crest of the dam be lowered from 135 feet to 115 feet. Still later
this was cut to 105 feet. They found that the underground river whose
existence was urged by all who opposed a lock canal, flowed nowhere
save in the fertile valleys of imagination. The engineers had known
this a long time, but out of deference to the doubters they had
decided to drive a lot of interlocking sheet piling across the Chagres
Valley. "What's the use trying to stop a river that does not exist?"
queried the engineers, and so the sheet piling was omitted.
As a matter of fact, Gatun Dam proved the happiest surprise of the
whole waterway. In every particular it more than fulfilled the most
optimistic prophecies of the engineers. They said that what little
seepage there would be would not hurt anything; the dam answered by
showing no seepage at all. They said that the hydraulic core would be
practically impervious; it proved absolutely so. Where it was once
believed that Gatun Dam would be the hardest task on the Isthmus it
proved to be the easiest. Culebra Cut exchanged places with it in that
regard.
Gatun Dam contains nearly 22,000,000 cubic yards of material. Assuming
that it takes two horses to pull a cubic yard of material it would
require twice as many horses as there are in the United States to move
the dam were it put on wheels. Loaded into ordinary two-horse dirt
wagons it would make a procession of them some 80,000 miles long. The
dam is a mile and a half long, a half mile thick at the base, 300 feet
thick at the water line, and 100 feet thick at the crest. Its height
is 105 feet.
Yet in spite of its vast dimensions it is the most inconspicuous
object in the landscape. Grown over with dense tropical vegetation it
looks little more conspicuous than a gradual rise in the surface of
the earth. Passengers passing Gatun on the Panama Railroad scarcely
recognize the dam as such when they see it, so gradual are its slopes.
An excellent idea of the gentle incline of the dam may be had by
referring to the accompanying figure, which shows the outlines of a
cross section of the dam.
The materials of which it is constructed are also shown there.
Starting on the upstream side there is a section made of solid
material from Culebra Cut. Beyond this is the upstream toe of the dam,
which is made of the best rock in the Culebra Cut. After this comes
the hydraulic fill. This material is a mixture of sand and clay which,
when it dries out thoroughly, is compact and absolutely impervious to
water. It was secured from the river channel and pumped with great
20-inch centrifugal pumps into the central portion of the dam, where a
veritable pond was formed; the heavier materials settled to the
bottom, forming layer after layer of the core, while the lighter
particles, together with the water, passed off through drain pipes. In
this way the water was not only the hod carrier of the dam
construction, but the stone mason as well. Where there was the tiniest
open space, even between two grains of sand, the water found it and
slipped in as many small particles as were necessary to stop it up.
[Illustration: A CROSS-SECTION OF THE GATUN DAM]
Above the hydraulic fill on the upstream side is a layer of solid
material, while that part of the face of the dam exposed to wave
action is covered with heavy rock. The same is true of the crest. On
the downstream half of the dam there is approximately 400 feet of
hydraulic fill, then 400 feet of solid fill, then a 30-foot toe, and
then ordinary excavated material.
The Chagres Valley is a wide one until it reaches Gatun. Here it
narrows down to a mile and a half. It is across this valley that the
Gatun Dam is thrown in opposition to the seaward journey of the
Chagres waters. At the halfway point across the valley there was a
little hill almost entirely of solid rock. It happened to be planted
exactly at the place the engineers needed it. Here they could erect
their spillway for the control of the water in the lake above.
[Illustration: GATUN LAKE PLAN OF THE GATUN DAM AND LOCKS]
The regulation of the water level in Gatun Lake is no small task, for
the Chagres is one of the world's moodiest streams. At times it is a
peaceful, leisurely stream of some 2 feet in depth, while at other
times it becomes a wild, roaring, torrential river of magnificent
proportions. Sometimes it reaches such high stages that it sends a
million gallons of water to the sea between the ticks of a clock.
In controlling the Chagres, the engineers again took what on any
private work would have been regarded as absurd precaution. In the
first place, Gatun Lake will be so big that the Chagres can break
every record it heretofore has set, both for momentary high water and
for sustained high water, and still, with no water being let out of
the lake, it can continue to flow that way for a day and a half
without disturbing things at all. It could flow for two days before
any serious damage could be done. Thus the canal force might be off
duty for some 45 hours, with the outlet closed, before any really
serious damage could be done by the rampage of the river.
But of course no one supposes that it would be humanly possible that
two such contingencies as the highest water ever known, and everybody
asleep at their posts for two days, could happen together. When the
water in the lake reached its normal level of 87 feet the spillway
gates would be opened, and, if necessary, it would begin to discharge
145,000 feet of water a second. This is 17,000 feet more than the
record for sustained flow heretofore set by the Chagres. But if it
were found that even this was inadequate the culverts in the locks
could be brought into play, and with them the full discharge would be
brought up to 194,000 feet a second, or 57,000 more than the Chagres
has ever brought down. But suppose even this would not suffice to take
care of the floods of the Chagres? The spillway is so arranged that as
the level of the water in the lake rises the discharging capacity
increases. With the spillway open, even if the Chagres were to double
its record for continued high water, it would take many days to bring
the lake level up to the danger point--92 feet. When it reached that
height the spillway would have a capacity of 222,000 feet, which, with
the aid of the big lock culverts, would bring the total discharge up
to 262,000 feet a second--only 12,000 cubic feet less than double the
highest known flow of the Chagres.
But this is only characteristic of what one sees everywhere. Whether
it be in making a spillway that would accommodate two rivers like the
Chagres instead of one, or in building dams with 63 pounds of weight
for every pound of pressure against it, or yet in building lock gates
which will bear several times the maximum weight that can ever be
brought against them, the work at Panama was done with the intent to
provide against every possible contingency.
The spillway through which the surplus waters of Gatun Lake will be
let down to the sea level, is a large semicircular concrete dam
structure with the outside curve upstream and the inside curve
downstream. Projecting above the dam are 13 piers and 2 abutments,
which divide it into 14 openings, each of them 45 feet wide. These
openings are closed by huge steel gates, 45 feet wide, 20 feet high,
and weighing 42 tons each. They are mounted on roller bearings,
suspended from above, and are operated by electricity. They work in
huge frames just as a window slides up and down in its frame. Each
gate is independent of the others, and the amount of water permitted
to go over the spillway dam thus can be regulated at will.
When a huge volume of water like a million gallons a second is to be
let down a distance of about 60 feet, it may be imagined that unless
some means are found to hold it back and let it descend easily, by the
time it would reach the bottom it would be transformed into a thousand
furies of energy. Therefore, the spillway dam has been made
semicircular, with the outside lines pointing up into the lake and the
inside lines downstream, so that as the water runs through the
openings it will converge all the currents and cause them to collide
on the apron below. This largely overcomes the madness of the water.
But still further to neutralize its force and to make it harmless as
it flows on its downward course, there are two rows of baffle piers on
the apron of the spillway. They are about 10 feet high and are built
of reinforced concrete, with huge cast-iron blocks upon their upstream
faces. When the water gets through them it has been tamed and robbed
of all its dangerous force. The spillway is so constructed that when
the water flowing over it becomes more than 6 feet deep it adheres to
the downstream face of the dam as it glides down, instead of rushing
out and falling perpendicularly.
The locks are situated against the high hills at the east side of the
valley, after which comes the east wing of the dam, then the spillway,
then the west wing of the dam, which terminates on the side of the low
mountain that skirts the western side of the valley. With the hills
bordering the valley and the dam across it, the engineers have been
able to inclose a gigantic reservoir which has a superficial surface
of 164 square miles. It is irregular in shape and might remind one of
a pressed chrysanthemum, the flower representing the lake and the
stem Culebra Cut. The surface of the water in this lake is normally 85
feet higher than the surface of the water seaward from Gatun and
Miraflores. The lake is entirely fresh water supplied by the Chagres
River. The accompanying figure shows the profile of the canal.
[Illustration: A PROFILE SECTION OF THE CANAL]
The Chagres River approaches the canal at approximately right angles
at Gamboa, some 21 miles above Gatun. The lake will be so large that
the river currents will all be absorbed, the water backing far up into
the Chagres, the river depositing its silt before it reaches the canal
proper.
With the currents thus checked, the Chagres will lose all power to
interfere with the navigation of the canal, although upon the bosom of
its water will travel for a distance of 35 miles all the ships that
pass through the big waterway from Gatun to Miraflores. This fresh
water will serve a useful purpose besides carrying ships over the
backbone of the continent. Barnacles lose their clinging power in
fresh water, and when a ship passes up through the locks from sea
level to lake level and from salt water to fresh, the barnacles that
have clung to the sides and bottom of the vessel through many a
thousand mile of "sky-hooting through the brine" will have their grip
broken and they will drop off helplessly and fall to the bed of the
lake, which, in the course of years, will become barnacle-paved. How
many times in dry-dock this will save can only be surmised, but the
ship that goes through the canal regularly will not have much bother
with barnacles.
The engineer who worked out the details of the engineering examination
of the dam in 1908 was Caleb M. Saville, who had had experience on
some of the greatest dams in the world. In the first place, the whole
foundation was honeycombed with test borings, and several shafts were
sunk so that the engineers could go down and see for themselves
exactly what was the nature of the material below. There are some
problems in engineering where a decision is so close between safety
and danger that none but an engineer can decide them. But Gatun Dam
could speak for itself and in the layman's tongue.
After investigating the site and getting such conclusive evidence that
the proverbial wayfaring man might understand it the engineers next
conducted a series of experiments to determine whether or not the
material of which they proposed to build the dam would be watertight.
They wanted to make sure whether enough water would seep through to
carry any of the dam material along with it. The maximum normal depth
of the water is 85 feet. The material it would have to seep through is
nearly a half mile thick. In order to determine how the water would
behave they took some 3 feet of the material and put it in a strong
iron cylinder with water above it and subjected it to a pressure
equivalent to a head of 185 feet of water. Only an occasional drop
came through. If only an occasional drop of clear water gets through 3
feet of material under a pressure of 185 feet of water, it does not
require a great engineer to determine that there will not be any
seepage through more than a thousand feet of the same material under a
head of only 85 feet.
And that is only a sample of their seeking after the truth. When they
had gone thus far it was then decided to build a little dam a few
yards long identical in cross section with Gatun Dam. It was built on
the scale of an inch to the foot, by the identical processes with
which it was intended to build the big dam. The result only added
confirmation to the other experiments. With a proportionate head of
water against it, it behaved exactly as they had concluded the big dam
would when completed. Every engineer who has read Saville's report
pronounces it a masterpiece of engineering investigation. It proved
conclusively that the site of the dam is stable, and the dam itself
impervious to seepage. The engineers who visited the Isthmus at the
time with President-elect Taft unanimously agreed that those
investigations removed every trace of doubt.
[Illustration: LIEUT. COL. W. L. SIBERT THE UPPER LOCKS AT GATUN]
[Illustration: TORO POINT BREAKWATER]
The Gatun Dam covers about 288 acres. The material in it weighs nearly
30,000,000 tons. The pressure of the highest part of the dam on the
foundations beneath amounts to many tons per square foot. The old
bugaboo about earthquakes throwing it down is a danger that exists
only in the minds of those who see ghosts. Some of the biggest
earth dams in the world are located in California. The Contra Costa
Water Company's dam at San Leandro is 120 feet high and not nearly so
immense in its proportions as Gatun Dam, yet it weathered the San
Francisco earthquake without difficulty. In Panama City there is an
old flat arch that once was a part of a church. It looks as though one
might throw it down with a golf stick, and yet it has stood there for
several centuries. As a matter of fact, Panama is out of the line of
earthquakes and volcanoes, but even if shocks much worse than those at
San Francisco were to come, there is no reason to fear for the safety
of the big structure.
The lack of knowledge of some of those who in years past criticized
the Gatun Dam was illustrated by an amusing incident that occurred at
a senatorial hearing on the Isthmus. Philander C. Knox, afterwards
Secretary of State, was then a Senator and a member of the committee
which went to the Isthmus. Another Senator in the party had grave
doubts about the stability of Gatun Dam, and asked Colonel Goethals to
explain how a dam could hold in check such an immense body of water.
Colonel Goethals, in his usual lucid way, explained that it was
because of that well-known principle of physics that the outward
pressure of water is determined by its depth and not by its
volume--that a column of water 10 feet high and a foot thick would
have just as much outward pressure as a lake 200 square miles in
extent and 10 feet deep. Still unconvinced, the Senator pressed his
examination further. At this juncture Senator Knox, who is a past
master at the art of answering a question with a question, interposed,
and asked his colleague: "Senator, if your theory holds good, how is
it that the dikes of Holland hold in check the Atlantic Ocean?"