THE WORLD'S GREAT CROSSROAD--PANAMA CANAL
Perhaps the greatest achievement of history, both in length of time of
construction and in service to humanity, stands to the credit of the
United States. The Panama Canal was dug in less time than it took to
build the causeway in Egypt to get the stone from the quarries to where
it was wanted for the big pyramid. This canal, too, is wholly an
American achievement. It was planned by American brains, constructed by
American engineers and with American machinery, and paid for with
American gold, and every American has great reason to be proud of it.
We paid the Republic of Panama ten million dollars for the lease on the
zone through which the canal passes, and are now paying the same
government two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year to keep them
in a good humor. We bought the ground again from individual owners and
have agreed to pay Colombia twenty-five million dollars to keep her from
raising a racket. We paid the French forty million dollars for the work
they did and the machinery they left so the whole thing, lock, stock and
barrel, ought to be ours without any question.
It was published on supposedly good authority that some of the machinery
we used was purchased from Belgium, that we could not make it in
America. While visiting Mr. P. B. Banton, the chief office engineer,
some time ago I asked him about this and he said the only machinery
Belgium furnished was to the French. We tried to repair and use part of
this but it had to be discarded entirely.
We purchased two gigantic cranes to use in the work from Germany, but
one of them collapsed and both had to be rebuilt by American machinists
before they would do the work they were guaranteed to do. The only parts
used in the canal that were not made in America, according to Mr.
Banton, are some gigantic screws which were made in Sweden. It so
happened at that time that Sweden was the only country that had
machinery to make such screws, and while we could have easily
constructed such machinery, it was cheaper to get them from Sweden and
this was done. After making this statement, Mr. Banton got the drawings
and explained them, and later on I saw some of them in the Gatun-Locks.
If I remember correctly they are about eight inches in diameter and
forty or fifty feet long.
Speaking of drawings and blue prints this official said: "There are more
than eighty thousand drawings in this one room." Of course, the original
blue prints and complicated drawings of the canal are sealed up in a
great bomb-proof vault, kept dry by electricity. Although I had passed
through the canal on a ship and rode up and down it on the train it was
only after talking an hour with this engineer and then going into the
control station tower and watching boats taken through the Gatun lock
system, going into the tunnels below and watching the gigantic cog
wheels and wonderful machinery, that I began to appreciate the real
ingenuity and brain work of this colossal achievement.
On his last voyage to the new world Columbus visited Panama and was told
by the Indians that beyond a narrow strip of land was the "Big Water."
He sailed up the Chagres river a distance, failed to find it, and died
believing that they were mistaken. About ten years later Balboa climbed
to the top of a tree not far from where Culebra Cut is located and saw
the "Big Water." Four hundred years later almost to the day the water
was turned into the canal and thus America united the world's greatest
oceans.
After completing the Suez Canal and thus uniting the world's greatest
seas, the French people believed they could dig across the Isthmus of
Panama, but digging through Culebra Cut thousands of miles from home was
much different from digging across the level plain of Suez only a few
hundred miles away. A canal without locks is entirely different from one
where great ocean liners must be lifted eighty-five feet above sea
level.
Then Panama was a jungle, where disease-carrying mosquitoes were
swarming in districts where heat was almost unbearable. True, their
medical skill was the best and their hospitals of the latest design, but
where they cured hundreds thousands died like flies. Added to all these
disadvantages was extravagance and waste, greed and graft, mismanagement
and misappropriation of funds to say nothing of palaces and princely
salaries for officials.
The result was that after spending more than two hundred million dollars
of the people's money, the whole scheme collapsed, and the work stopped.
De Lesseps himself was arrested, disgraced, and imprisoned and died with
a broken heart a little later in an insane asylum. The French had worked
seven years, and now for four years not a wheel turned. Then they
organized a new company and worked at intervals ten years more until
1903, when we bought them out. During these years a half dozen nations
developed projects and made surveys but no digging was done except by
the French until we took charge in 1904.
The Canal Zone is a strip of land ten miles wide across the Isthmus of
Panama, the distance being about forty miles from shore to shore. It is
less than this, however, in a straight line. The canal runs from
northwest to southeast, the Atlantic end at the north being about
twenty-two miles west of the Pacific end at the south. This seems rather
strange but we must remember that the Isthmus is in the shape of the
letter S and it so happens that the shortest point runs in the direction
named.
Of course it would have been impossible for us to have dug the canal
without a tremendous loss of life had it not been for the advance of
medical science. Until we took charge this was one of the worst
fever-infested districts on the globe. But just about this time it was
discovered that the mosquito carries the germ of yellow fever and other
contagious diseases. These pests breed in stagnant water and it was
discovered that kerosene on the water forms a film on the surface that
means death to the newborn mosquito. Then began one of the greatest
battles of all history, the fight to eradicate the mosquito pest.
Colonel Gorgas had charge of the forces and he was determined to do the
job well. Tracts of the jungle were burned over, ditches to drain
stagnant pools were dug, and every barrel was looked after. Hundreds of
Negroes with oil cans sprayed almost every nook and corner of the Zone
with kerosene. Houses were screened, every case of sickness was looked
after, and the result was soon manifest. A mighty victory was won by
Gorgas and today the Canal Zone is as healthful as any tropical country
on earth. Of course, people criticized and joked about the mosquito
brigade, but the colonel went ahead pouring oil upon the water, cleaning
up filth, and compelling sanitary measures, paying not the slightest
attention to the harping critics.
At the north end of the Zone are the cities of Cristobal and Colon, the
latter in Panama. The fact is they are practically one city, the
railroad being the dividing line. While Cristobal is clean and beautiful
much of Colon is dirty and rum soaked. Somebody said to me: "Colon is
that part of the city where you can buy a drink," and it sure looks it.
While it is only about forty miles across the isthmus yet the canal is
fifty miles long. The fact is they had to dredge out to deep water which
is about five miles at each end. Entering the channel at the north it is
about seven miles to the Gatun locks. There are three pairs of these
locks and they lift the vessel to Gatun Lake, which is eighty-five feet
above sea level. It is twenty-four miles across this lake to Culebra
Cut, which extends about nine miles through the hills, and to the first
lock on the Pacific side. This lock lowers the ship about thirty feet to
Miraflores Lake, which is a little more than a mile in length. Here are
two pairs of locks which lowers the ship to sea level and then it is
about eight miles or a little more to deep water. Counting all the
distance occupied by the locks we have the fifty miles.
Gatun Lake was made by a great dam across the Chagres river. This dam is
a stupendous piece of work, being a half mile wide at the bottom, a mile
and a half long, and more than one hundred feet high. A gigantic
spillway allows the surface water to run over. During the dry season,
about four months, the river does not supply enough water to run the
locks so Gatun Lake must furnish the supply. This lake at present covers
one hundred and sixty-four square miles, and last year it was lowered
five feet during the dry season. The land has been purchased for the
extension of the lake and the great spillway can be raised twenty feet
higher if necessary so that a shortage of water is practically
impossible.
Each lock in the canal is a thousand feet long, one hundred and ten feet
wide, and the average height about thirty feet, so they hold a
tremendous amount of water. Every ship passing through empties two lock
chambers full of water into the ocean at each end. It is an interesting
fact that at the Atlantic the tide only makes a difference of two and a
half feet, at the Pacific side the difference is more than twenty feet.
While the low lock gates at the Atlantic side are sixty-four feet high
the low lock gates at the Pacific side are eighty-two feet high.
I was permitted to go into the control station tower at the Gatun lock
system and see three ships taken through, also into the tunnels below to
see the machinery in operation and it is a sight never to be forgotten.
To take a ship through these locks the operator sets in motion twice
ninety-eight gigantic electric motors and it is all done without an
audible word being spoken. Every possible emergency has been provided
for. Could an enemy ship by any manner of means get into the canal and
undertake to ram the gates it would be helpless as far as any damage is
concerned. Mighty chains guard the gates and it is impossible to get
the gates closed without these chains being raised to their places.
Emergency gates are provided so the water can all be shut off, the locks
emptied and repairs made in the bottoms of the lock chambers, if
necessary.
At the continental divide the Culebra Cut is almost five hundred feet
deep and more than a half mile wide at the top. The channel itself is
three hundred feet wide and forty-five feet deep. There have been half a
hundred slides and a single one of them brought down an area of
seventy-five acres. Think of a seventy-five acre field all sliding in at
once, every foot of which had to be dug out!
The worst trouble was when the bottom bulged up from below. Some little
time before my visit a large tree came up from the bottom. It had been
rolled in by one of those fearful slides and long afterwards came up
from the bottom. Somebody has figured out that if all the dirt that has
been taken from Culebra Cut was loaded on railroad cars they would, if
coupled together, make a train that would reach around the world four
times.
The canal cost about four hundred million dollars. The tolls now amount
to almost a million dollars a month so it is more than paying expenses.
The ship upon which I passed through paid seven thousand dollars toll,
but it was one of the largest ships that pass through. Now that the
danger from slides is practically over and trade routes are being
established it ought to be a paying investment.