The Daily News. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24. LINKING TWO OCEANS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 193, 24 November 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24. LINKING TWO OCEANS.

Barring earthquakes, wars, pestilence or international eomplicattions, the great canal which will connect the two Americas will be completed by January, 1915. The proposition to construct an iriteroeeanic canal arcoss the isthmus has occupied the British and United States Governments since 1850, 60 years. The Buhver-Clayton treaty of ISaO and the Hay-Paunceforte treaty of 1901 were propounded with special references to the control of such a canal when it was constructed. The question was only finally settled in 1903 by a treaty between the United States Government and the Republics of Panama. By this treaty the Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of a zone ten miles wide for the construction, maintenance, operation and sanitation of the canal. In consideration of this concession the United States has agreed to pay to the Republic a sum of ten million dollars in gold, and an annual sum of one quarter of a million dollars during the life of the convention beginning nine years after the date of its signature. Although the canal is being constructed entirely under the control of America the treaty *explicity guarantees that it shall be neutral, and open to the commerce of the world. As originally designed in 1879 by Ferdinand De Lesseps, the eminent Frenchman who built the Suez Canal, it was intended that the Panama waterway should run on the same level from ocean to ocean, but De Lesseps did not take into account the tropical floods of the Chaagres River. The world is familiar with the story of the dreadful collapse of the De Lesseps company in 1888, owing to its amazing extravagance, bribery, . corruption and blackmail. The collapse brought ruin to hundreds of thousands of French peasants, who had put their hard earned savings into this wonderful venture. The work was taken over by a new company in 1894, and a waterway with a series of locks, with a summit level of from 80 to 100 feet above the sea was substituted. But the sea-level construction was again declared for in the recommendations of the Engineering Committee in 1005, the depth of the canal to he 35 feet with a width at the bottom of 150 feet, the total cost being estimated at £47,000,000, exclusive of interest charges. De Lesseps estimate was £24,000,000., Up to 1902 sixty million pounds had been spent on the Panama Candl, and of this only one-fifth was effective from an engineering point of view. The French Panama Ca§ali Company holds a concession from tffe Government of the Colombian republic—a concession since recognised by the republic of Panama —for the construction of the canal, and this only expires this year. For the concession, the company's plans, and the work done, the United States paid £B,000,000. And so to-day, working under the most complete hygienic conditions, and with far better appliances and weapons to fight disease, there are thirty thousand people on the pay-roll of the Isthmus Canal Company. The gangs at the moment are shifting 95 million cubic yards of earth and rock to make the Culebra Cut, through the highest point of the Isthmus. More than half of this has been cleared away. The miscalculations of the great De Lesseps were useful to the engineers who took up the work where he laid it down, and the great Gatun Dam stays the waters of the Chagres River, a problem that has been solved by noting the experiences of the French engineer. The dam is nearly a mile long and its crest is elevated to 105 feet above mean tide. There is yet another dam 2700 feet long with a crest of 15 feet. Besides this there are twelve locks in duplicate. The lock gates will be stout structures 7ft thick, 65ft long, and from 47ft to 82ft high. They will weigh from 300 to 600 tons each. Nninety two leaves will be required for the entire canal, the total weighing 57,00jJ tons. Intermediate gates will be used in the locks,-in order to save water and time, if desired, in passing small vessels through, the gates being so fixed as to divide the locks into chambers 600 ft and 400 ft long respectively. Ninety-five per cent of the vessels navigating the-high seas are less than 600 ft long. In the construction of the locks, it is estimated that there will be used approximately 4,500,000 cubic yards of concrete, requiring about the same" number of barrels of cement. No vessel will be permitted to enter or pass through the locks under its own power. Electricity will be used to tov; all vessels into and through the locks, and to operate all gates and valves, power being generated by water turbines from the head created by Gatun Lake. The time required to pass a vessel through all the locks is estimated at three hours; one hour and a half in the three locks at Gatun and about the same time in the three locks on the Pacific side. The time of passage of a vessel through the entire canal is estimated as ranging from ten to twelve hours, according to the size of the ship and the rate of speed at which it can travel. The total cost of the canal (including the appropriation of 1910, viz., 33,638,000 dol.—nearly £7,000,000) will be about 42y 2 million pounds sterling. The subsistence' department, i.e., commissary and hotel, does a business of about 7,000,000 dol. per annum. It feeds, clothes and provides with necessities approximately 50.000 people and is selfsustaining. It runs eighteen hotels for "white-gold" employees, where meals are served at 30 cents; eighteen messes for European labourers, who pay 40 per cent, per ration of three meals; and seventeen kitchens for West Indian labourers, who are charged 30 cents per ration of three meals. The department operates successfully a cold storage and ice-makins plant, bakery, coffee-roaster, ice-cream factory, and similar plants at Cristobel. Every morning a supply train distributes ice and foodstuffs to the various towns along the line, the perishable goods being conveyed in refrigerating cars. No liquors

are sold by the department. Any pcvson or family needing them can procure them from Panama or Colon. It is impossible to estimate the advantages to the trade of the world the opening of the Panama Canal will give. The enterprise and determination of the United States is a matter for admiration the world over, and under the present perfect workimr conditions by which the people engaged on the canal are fed, housed, and eared for, nothing seems to be marring the steady progress of this gigantic enterprise, which when completed will be one of the world's most notable engineering feats. i, i '