# Panama, past and present/Appendix

APPENDIX
COLUMBUS AND LIMON BAY
There is no doubt that Columbus sailed into this bay, where to-day is the Atlantic entrance of the Panama Canal, on his fourth and last voyage, in 1502; or that he was the first white man to enter it. But there is no historical foundation for the generally accepted story that Columbus gave this body of water the name of "Naos" or the "Bay of Ships." Centuries afterwards, the bay was called by the Spaniards "Naos," and by the English and Americans "Navy Bay," a name gradually displaced during the last fifty years by the present one of "Limon (lemon) Bay." The earliest map on which the name "Naos" appears is Tirion's, in the middle of the eighteenth century. All the sixteenth-and seventeenth-century maps that give this bay any distinctive name, call it "Puerto de las Galeras," or "Port of the Galleys." Neither Ferdinand Columbus nor any other contemporary historian of the fourth voyage mentions it at all.
MATACHIN
The name of this village is popularly supposed to be derived from the Spanish verb "matar," to kill, and "Chino," or Chinese; and to refer to the large number of coolies that died of fever or committed suicide there, during the construction of the Panama Railroad. But the same village with the same name is marked on the seventeenth-century maps ​of the Spaniards and the bucaneers, hundreds of years before the first Chinese set foot on the Isthmus. "Matachin" is an old Spanish word meaning "Butcher." Very likely the village was so called because some one lived there who slaughtered cattle and supplied the travelers up-river with fresh meat. There is no authority for the other story.
PANAMA AND THE PAN-AMERICAN
RAILROAD
There is no way of reaching Panama by railroad from either North or South America. Some day, a line may be built through the length of the three Americas, from Alaska to Patagonia, but at present (1912) there are long stretches where even a horse could not go. Except for a rough overland trail to Costa Rica, the Canal Zone is virtually an island, surrounded on two sides by water and on the other two by the jungle. Proposals have been made for a railroad to run from Panama City to David, the capital of the Province of Chiriqui, and for another through the San Blas country to South America, but there is small probability of their being built in the immediate future. Any railroad crossing the Canal will have to build an expensive bridge between Gold Hill and Contractor's Hill, high enough to clear the masts of the tallest ships.
A story is told of a visiting Congressman, who had been seasick all the way from New York to Cristobal. When he saw " P. R. R." on the Panama Railroad freight cars on the dock, he exclaimed: "I'd never have come this way if I'd known there was a Pennsylvania Railroad station so handy!"
SPILLWAY, GATUN DAM
GATUN SPILLWAY REGULATING WORKS.
Flood-water pouring through openings.
​center of the dam, the bottom being ten feet above sea level at the up-stream end and sloping to sea level at the toe. Across the up-stream or lake opening of this channel a concrete dam has been built in the form of an arc of a circle making its length 808 feet although it closes a channel with a width of only 285 feet. The crest of the dam will be 69 feet above sea level, or 16 feet below the normal level of the lake which is 85 feet above sea level. On the top of this dam there will be 14 concrete piers rising with their tops 115 5/10 feet above sea level, and between these there will be mounted regulating gates of the Stoney type. Each gate will be of steel sheathing on a framework of girders and will move on roller trains in niches in the piers. They will be equipped with sealing devices to make them watertight. Machines for moving the gates are designed to raise or lower them in approximately ten minutes. The highest level to which it is intended to allow the lake to rise is 87 feet above sea level, and it is probable that this level will be maintained continuously during wet seasons. With the lake at that elevation, the regulation gates will permit of a discharge of water greater than the maximum known discharge of the Chagres river during a flood.
THE SPANISH MAIN
"The Spanish Main" did not mean any part of the sea, but part of the mainland of America, including the Isthmus of Panama, and the northern extremity of South America. This was what the Spanish settlers called "Terra Firma," to distinguish it from the islands of the West Indies, and what Drake and Morgan meant when they spoke of "the Spanish Main." Later, this easily became confused with the word "main," meaning the sea. Gilbert, in his poem on the sack of Old Panama, uses the word in its former sense:
"His Catholic Majesty, Philip of Spain,
Ruled over the Indies, both islands and Main."
PIECE OF EIGHT
This famous coin, familiar to all readers of "Treasure Island," was called by the Spaniards a "peso de ocho reales"; a name which the English half-translated, half-parodied into "piece of eight." It is almost impossible to give anything like an exact value for the old Spanish coins, but a "real" has usually been worth. a little more than an American nickle, so that a coin worth eight reales would be worth from forty to fifty cents. The "piece of eight" is the modern Mexican and Panamanian dollar, worth half as much as one of ours. Our dollar sign is derived from the sign used to indicate "pieces of eight" in the old account books; an eight canceled with two vertical lines (to keep it from being added up with the other figures), thus:. This sign became , because it is quicker and easier to write an S, than an 8.
VALUE OF THE $40,000,000 FRENCH PURCHASE
A careful official estimate has been made by the Canal Commission of the value to the Commission at the present time of the franchises, equipment, material, work done, and property of various kinds for which the United States paid the French Canal Company $40,000,000. It places the total value at $42,799,826, divided as follows:
CANAL WORK, MAY 1, 1912
EXCAVATION
Cubic yards.
SLIDES.
LOCKS.
Gatun: Concrete, 93 per cent completed.
Pedro Miguel: Concrete, 92 per cent completed.
​Miraflores:
Concrete 61 per cent completed.
APPROPRIATIONS AND EXPENDITURES
APPROPRIATIONS TO APRIL 1, 1912.
EXPENDITURES TO APRIL 1, 1912.
CANAL STATISTICS
NATIONAL PALACE OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA.
Built on the site of the old Colombian barracks.
The Clayton-Bulwer treaty, made between the United States and Great Britain in 1850, after the two countries had been brought to the brink of war by their conflicting claims to the control of the trade-routes across Panama and Nicaragua, and, particularly, of any canal that might be built across either isthmus, provided that neither country should have exclusive control of such a canal, nor erect fortifications along it, but that they should jointly control it, and guarantee its neutrality. This treaty barred the way to the canal for fifty-one years, for neither country was anxious to build a canal that was to be for the equal benefit of the other country, whether the other country helped or did nothing. In 1901, the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was replaced by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, in which Great Britain withdrew from the partnership, leaving the United States in full control. At first, Great Britain held out for a neutralized canal, that was to be open to the merchant ships and war ships of all nations at all times. But that meant that if a foreign country went to war with the United States, we should have to let the enemies' fleet pass unmolested through our own canal to attack our sea-ports, and the storm of popular disapproval was so great that this clause was withdrawn. No express permission was given the United States to erect fortifications, but neither was it expressly forbidden. Great Britain insisted, however, before yielding up her rights under the old treaty, that the merchant ships of all countries be guaranteed the same treatment in time of peace. This is the basis of the English protest against letting American ships in the coastwise trade pass through the canal without paying toll. The American rejoinder is that these ships are engaged in a purely domestic trade, and therefore it is a purely domestic question. It is very unlikely that the United States will withdraw from this position.
PANAMA CANAL TOLL RATES.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
I, William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the power and authority vested in me by the Act of Congress, approved August twenty-fourth, nineteen hundred and twelve, to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection and operation of the Panama Canal and the sanitation and government of the Canal Zone, do hereby prescribe and proclaim the following rates of toll to be paid by vessels using the Panama Canal.
1. On merchant vessels carrying passengers or cargo one dollar and twenty cents ($1.20) per net vessel ton—each one hundred (100) cubic feet—of actual earning capacity.
2. On vessels in ballast without passengers or cargo forty (40) per cent less than the rate of tolls for vessels with passengers or cargo.
3. Upon naval vessels, other than transports, colliers, hospital ships and supply ships, fifty (50) cents per displacement ton.
4. Upon Army and Navy transports, collier, hospital ships and supply ships one dollar and twenty cents ($1.20) per net ton, the vessels to be measured by the same rules as are employed in determining the net tonnage of merchant vessels.
The Secretary of War will prepare and prescribe such rules for the measurement of vessels and such regulations as may be necessary and proper to carry this proclamation into full force and effect.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington this thirteenth day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twelve and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and thirty-seventh.
Wm. H. Taft.
By the President:
 P.C. Knox,
 Secretary of State.