These powerful steam drills are capable of sinking holes in the solid
rock at the rate of seven feet per hour.]
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.
[Illustration: SUBMARINES USED IN DEFENDING THE PANAMA CANAL
The vessels here shown are used in defense of the Pacific side of the
canal. They appear as anchored in the new concrete docks at Colon,
preparatory to their passage through the canal, after having made the
longest sea voyage then on record for submarines.
_Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._]
[Illustration: _Copyright by the International News Service._