THE PANAMA CANAL.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 694, 15 August 1914, Page 3

THE PANAMA CANAL.

ITS STORY IN A NUTSHELL. The Panama Canal will be 50 miles long from chop water in the Pacific to deep water in the Atlantic. From shore line to chore line, the length is 40 miles. In going through it the vessels enter Limon Bay, a 'magnificent harbour, and steam thence through the first Atlantic stretch, which is over seven. miles long, to Gatun.. The ship is still on the level cf the Caribbean when it gets to Gatrn, but there it meets the great lo:ks whkh, filled by the Cha-res, lift it 85 feet into Gatua Lake. I will tell .you later ho ,v it goes through these locks and what the locks are like.

In Hid' lake itself the steamer may pass at full speed, to'the entrance to the Culebra Gut, and the same level is maintained until you reacn the other end of that cut at Pedro Miguel, llure the vessel enters a ] 9 ck and dross about the height of a thrje-storey house into a small lake which is about 55 feet above sea lsvel. That lake is yet to be made, but it will be a mile and a half long and 55 feet above the sea. At th 3 end of the lake there are more locks, one above the other, v.hich successively drop it down from the height of a five-storey fiat to the channel and on the level of the Pacific Ocean. Our ship is now only eight and a half miles from the ocean itself, and is ready to steam off to China, Japan, Australia, or anywhere else in the Pacific. That is the story of the canal in a nutshell, but it is one which many do not understand. We hear a great deal, for example, about the .bringing of the waters of the Atlantic and: Pacific Oceans together. They do not come together, and if they dad they would have to flow uphill to a height of 85 feet. The salt waters have" but little . to do with moving ships from ocean to ocean. It is the fresh water of the Chagres River that does the work. Many of the tourists, and even some of the writers about the canal who have made their way to Colon, show an ignarance which is colossal. The other day a lady correspondent from the Middle West of the United States was sent down to spend a week and write a dozen newspaper letters. She .interviewed every one, including the secretary, of the Commission, who, during the talk, happened to mention De Lcsseps. "De Lesseps ?" said the girl. ''Who was De Lesseps anyhow? Everyone is talking about De Lesseps., Oh, I remember now ! He was the man who discovered the Isthmus of Panama."—"Boston Globe."