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FEBRUARY 1969
VV. P. Leber. Governor-President

R. S. H\ktline, Lieutenant-Governor

Fhank A. Baldwin

Panama Ganal Information Officer

4Hk fiu-fea

Official Panama Canal Publication Published quarterly at Balboa Heights, C.Z.

Morgan E. Goodwin, Press Offieei Publications Editors Louis R. Granger, Tomas A. Cupas

News Writers Eunice Richard, Tobi Bittel, Fannie P. Hernandez, Jose T. Tunon, and

Luis C. Noli

Printed at the Printing Plant, La Boca, C.Z. Review articles may be reprinted in full or part without

further clearance. Credit to the Review will be appreciated. Distributed free of charge to all Panama Canal Employees.

Subscriptions, $1 a year; airmail $2 a year: mail and back copies (regular mail), 25 cents each. money orders made payable to the Panama Canal Company should be mailed to Box M. Balboa Heights. C.Z.

Editorial Offices are located in the Administration Building. Balboa Heights, C.Z.

orai

A yellow grunt searches for food in a bed of brain coral and fire coral. Thousands of fish inhabit the stone-like formations in the sea.

2 February 1969
CORAL

LURES

THEM

UNDER

THE

SEA

Sndex

Coral Collectors

Canal Zone ROTC

Learning Espariol

Anniversaries

Abacus vs. Adding Machine

Shipping, Statistics. _

Panama's Horatio Alger

Shipping Notes

Canal History

3

6

9

12

13

16

18

21

23

A TROPICAL sun cast golden shadows

on the gentle rolling waves as the swim- mer suddenly broke the surface of the

clear, placid sea off a small island of the San Bias Archipelago in the Carib- bean. Triumphant, she held up a greyish

lettuce-like stony formation she had

robbed from the fringing coral reef. Carefully, she placed it in the boat beside the machete she had used to pr\ loose the flower-like coral from its parent attached to the rockhard reef. The swimmer, wearing mask and

snorkel, fins and sturdy gloves, calls herself a timid member of the Canal Zone

diving family. She is petite and comely

Mrs. Lois Harrison, Clerk of Court, U.S.

District Court. She had just acquired

another specimen to add to her already

spectacular collection of corals, perhaps

the most beautiful of tropical sea animals. Mrs. Harrison. Mr. and Mrs. Anthony

Mann, well-known divers and skilled underwater photographers, Mr. and

Mrs. Ted Williams and geologist Robert Stew art, one of the first coral collectors. are among the Canal Zone residents who

(See p. 4)

Cover Story

OUR COYER shows a collection of treasures of the

marine world, most of which are found in the waters that

bathe the Isthmus. Decorative, graceful, lacy seafans,

lettuce coral, staghorns, and fire coral, exquisite stonelike blooms from the coral gardens on the fringing reefs found locally in the warm waters of the Atlantic and

Pacific Oceans, dominate the display.

Like porcelain sculpted by the expert hand of nature,

the sea shells' delicate colors and variety of shapes and

designs add to the grandeur found in the sea. The conchs

shown are abundant in the area. Frequently, rare speci- mens are found by coral divers in the crevices of coral

beds. The spiral shaped chambered nautilis is a native

ot South Pacific waters and belongs to U.S. District Judge

Guthrie F. Crowe.

A crystal clear fishnet float, sea urchins, starfish, sea

horses/and beautifully barnacled old bottles, not usually

denizens of the sea. complete the composition which is

actually table-top photographv created by Cleve Soper.

chief of the Laboratory Section of the Panama Canal

Graphic Branch.

Photographers may be interested to know that the

photograph was taken with a 4 x 5 Super Graphic on

Ektachrome Film, type R. using 2 color corrected 3200 K

lamps. The exposure was 3 seconds at f.5.6. The displav is part of a collection of marine life owned

bv Mrs. Lois Harrison. Clerk of Court. Ancon District.

The Panama Canal Review
Brain coral and staghorns with a background of gorgonian shown here are all common corals found in Isthmian waters.

(Continued from p. 3)

have been attracted by the two oceans

that bathe the Isthmus. On weekends, these divers head for the coral reefs in the areas of San Bias, Bocas del Toro, Las Perlas, Taboga

Island, and near Fort Sherman to pur- sue their hobby. Skin diving or snorkeling, they explore the grandeur of the world below the sun-washed seas off the

coasts of Panama. These diving excursions have yielded scores of shells, sea

horses, starfish, a multitude of fishes and a myriad of marine crustaceans as

fragile and beautiful as old porcelain,

and a variety of corals of breathtaking

beauty.

From time to time they come up with

unusual objects—large green glass fish- ing floats that have broken loose from

Japanese fishing nets in the Pacific or small multicolored ones that have

slipped Portuguese nets in the Atlantic, a case of crystal champagne glasses

(most of them in perfect condition) , exquisitely barnacled hand-blown bottles, and other articles which may have come

from the remains of Morgan's pirating

ships. Br1 ; t is corals that beckon them.

TkeOcean s

1 reasures

Corals, which are living animals and

not plants as manv would believe,

belong to the most primitive of multicellular and tissue-carrying creatures. They live in warm moving waters which

bring them food. The algae living in the coral beds supplv them oxvgen. A living coral is a colony of simple

animals called polyps. The skin covering

the lower part of the polyp forms into

a stony layer much as the shell grown

by an oyster. The animals build skel- etons around themselves, producing new

polyps. The skeleton of the polyp

is built by cells that extract calcium

carbonate from the sea and deposit it as limestone, building from the bottom

upward. As the polyps grow, they construct their own limestone partitions,

multiplying and forming branches up

and out, or growing sideways into lobes and eventually flower-shaped, or rounded as in the case of the brain

coral. Polyps grow in complex ways

forming corals that vary greatly in appearance and nature. Corals forming living reefs must have

sunlight and they grow beautifully within 90 feet of the surface. They are not found below 150 feet where light is too weak to reach them. Low temperatures also kill corals. Though corals are found in all the world's oceans, coral

reefs exist only in tropical waters. Reef corals are divided into a great

number of different species, divisions and sub-divisions. There are soft corals,

like the graceful seafans and seawhips.

Seafans have the shape of a large laoelike leaf, consisting of numerous short branches interlaced and fused together

to form a filigree network. They may be

lavender, blue, or yellowish in color. The

seawhip has skeletal arched branches

whose surface is covered with polyps

that are barely visible. These may reach enormous heights, forming a virtual jungle in the sea. One specie known as the "black coral

of the Caribbean area," usually found

in depths below 100 meters, according

to an expert of the Smithsonian Institution, has been discovered by skin divers

February 1969
in the Atlantic near Cristobal at a depth

of 70 feet. The hard corals include varieties such

as the finger coral, like stubby fingers;

leaf coral; staghorns and elkhoms, so named because they resemble antlers;

star coral, closed up tight during the day with its polyps opening up at night;

and brain coral, which gets its name

from its amazing resemblance to the

surface of the human brain. Each species has within its polyp the inherent ability to develop in a given manner.

Isthmian divers collect corals at

Resembling a flower burst, a spiny sea worm nestles in a cluster of finger coral. Sea worms are among most common of marine

organisms found near coral.

depths from a few feet to approximately

40 feet from the surface, encountering

greater growths on the landward side

of the outer reef. More varieties are found in the quieter lagoons behind the

reef.Large coral reefs found on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus are the result of a small tidal variation and a nearly constant high water temperature. On

the Pacific side, the growth of reef-type

corals is inhibited because of the yearly

upwelling of the water in the bay that brings cold deep water to the surface,

and the high tide differential.

Solitary-type corals, much more re- sistant to cold water, are abundant

in the Pacific. Geologist diver Robert

The Panama Canal Review 5

Canal Zone divers select coral specimens.

Stewart has found at least five types

of these solitarv corals attached to lock gates at Miraflores Locks. He has

labeled more than 40 species of coral from the Atlantic—many of which are not described in scientific literature and

half as many from the Pacific Ocean. Among his favorites is a beautiful magenta coral found only in the inside of the mouth of caves or on coral overhangs. Stewart has given a large coral

collection to the La Salle High School

Museum in Panama City. Petrified corals, which are prized by

the local rockhounds for making jewelrv, book ends and table tops may be

found in such areas as Rio Gatuncillo,

Madden Lake, Farfan beach, Monte

Lirio, Nuevo San Juan (near Cemento

(See p. 22)

Stone-white jewels from the gardens in the sea are these staghorns, fire corals and Atlantic and Pacific finger corals brought up from the deep by Mrs. Lois Harrison holding sea urchins.
%!•# ; ¥/

4

Band commander Cadet Lt. Alfred L. Huish III, leads the ROTC band during "sound off" at the New Year Review.

CANAL ZONE ROTC BUILDS

OUTSTANDING TRADITION

A TRADITION of outstanding per- formance already marks the Reserve

Officers Training Corps (ROTC) pro- gram in the U.S. high schools in the Canal Zone. Now in its 20th vear, the Balboa

High School ROTC Unit has won the Honor Unit designation awarded bv

the Department of the Army for 19 consecutive years. The Cristobal High

School Unit, which is in its 18th year, has failed to win it only once—and that because its enrollment was under the required minimum strength of 100

cadets.

Inspection

The Honor Unit designation is not easy to attain. It is awarded on the

basis of a full-fledged inspection carried out bv a U.S. Army team of officers and noncommissioned officers who specialize in inspecting regular military

units. It covers students' records, train- ing schedules and equipment, and an

inspection of the cadets, usually by the Commanding General of U.S. Army

Forces Southern Command.

Behind the record of the two Canal

Zone ROTC Units—outstanding among

all— is a spirit of competition and

achievement that has been passed from

class to class, something akin to the

tradition that inspires cadets at the U.S.

Military Academy, according to Maj.

Hugh M. Fisher, U.S. Army, professor

of military science in the Canal Zone

Schools. That spirit has been fostered by the ROTC program itself for the cadets advance only by volunteering or by

competing. Joining the ROTC is voluntary—it's a regular elective course with one credit per semester—but the cadetto-be has to meet age and physical standards set by the Army. Promotion

is competitive, and even in the cases where ranks have to be filled by appointment (particularly at the start of the

school vear), the cadets keep them

only if they stay at the top of their respective groups. Two Flags

A good example of the extent to which competition pervades ROTC

activities is the daily raising and lower- ing of the Panamanian and U.S. flags

displayed in front of the two schools. This is a verv rigid and formal cere- mony conducted bv a uniformed cadet guard detail of six privates and one commander immediately before the

start of classes and just after the school- day ends. Two battalion staff officers— the duty officer and his assistant—ob- serve the ceremony and grade the detail performing it. The guard details are assigned from the company which has

the duty for the week. The grades are posted and the detail with the highest

score wins the Honor Guard Ribbon.

Basic Goal

The ROTC record in the Canal Zone

is all the more impressive because the student cadets run themselves, so to speak. True, a cadre of two officers and five noncommissioned officers of the U.S. Army provides instruction and

guidance and reviews important decisions. But the initiative is left larger)

in the hands of the cadets, for a basic

goal of the program is character building. The student cadets themselves

solve their problems of personnel, of

6 February 1969
organization, of conduct, and of planning. Thus the leaders emerge.

Established at the request of the Schools Division, the ROTC program

began at Balboa High School in 1948.

It proved so successful, that 2 years

later it was extended to Cristobal High

School. Each unit constitutes a battalion, the

1st at Balboa with 353 cadets and the 2d at Cristobal with 115. The respective strengths of the two battalions are

in proportion to the total enrollment

at each school and represent over 50

percent of the total number of eligible

boys.

incidentally, both battalions have

tuition students, including non-U. S. citizens in their ranks—31 at Balboa and

11 at Cristobal. And at times special

education students have been accepted

as cadets and have benefited greatly

from the program.

Merits, Demerits

With its larger strength, the 1st Battalion is organized into four companies, as compared with two for the 2d Battalion. Each battalion has its own command and staff. The Army instructors grade the cadets in class and inspection, assisted bv the cadet chain of command. The grading for drill per- formance and the merit-demerit svstem

are administered by the cadet non- commissioned and commissioned offi- cers. Merits or demerits can affect a cadet's final mark by one letter grade

in either direction. The system includes

a review board to hear appeals. As a regular course, ROTC training—

which is offered for 3 years—has a weekly schedule of one period every daydevoted to drilling, instruction in basic military subjects, physical training, or

to inspection (every Friday). As with

any other course, there are quizzes and

examinations.

Special Training

A unique feature of the ROTC pro- gram in the Canal Zone is the availability of training facilities of all the components of the U.S. Southern Command. Such opportunity is not generally

available to ROTC units in the United

States. Canal Zone cadets, for example,

have received tactical training at the U.S. Army's camp at Rio Hato, in Pan- ama; have gone through a shortened

course at the Jungle Operations Training Center, and have attended orientation sessions at the Parachute Jump

School. The support provided by the U.S. Armed Forces to the ROTC program

in the Canal Zone has played an imCadet Pfc. Eric Runnestrand, representing the newly organized Balboa High School ROTC

Theodore Roosevelt Cavalry Troop (Rough Riders), demonstrates a jump for Maj. Hugh M.

Fisher, PMS, left, and Maj. Gen. Chester L. Johnson, at the New Year Review.

Balboa High School ROTC cadet S/Sgt. Ronald Romo cleans his rifle making sure

the job is done to perfection.

portant part in making it strong and

active over the years.

Incidentally, not too many ROTC

units—even in the United States—have

the distinction of being reviewed by a

four-star general as have the Canal

Zone units. The reviews—there are four of them

in the school year—provide the cadets with the opportunity of showing themselves in public in full splendor. At two

of these, in December and in March,

the two battalions participate jointly as a brigade. Highlight of the December

review is the presentation of the Army

and Navy Legion of Valor—the highest

award that can be earned in the ROTC

program. The award is sponsored by

the Army and Navy Legion of Valor of the United States, Inc., an organization

composed of winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Distin- guished Service Cross. A U.S. Armyboard selects the winner from among the two Canal Zone battalions.

Field Night

The March review is the annual Field Night, which is the climax of the competitive phase. It features competition

at all levels—individual, squad, platoon,

company and, the most impressive of all. the head-on contest between the two

battalions' drill teams. The teams, one in each battalion,

actually are separate companies made

up of successful volunteers from the

leadership school conducted in late

July. Sixteen cadets are chosen for the marching drills and are backed up by

eight to ten alternates. The drill team

(See p. 8)

The Panama Canal Review
Maj. Gen. Chester L. Johnson congratulates Cadet S/Sgt. Brett Patton, outstanding NCO for the first semester, during the New Year Review. From left beside Patton are: Cadet S/Sgt. Gregory Gillis, outstanding NCO for the second 9 weeks; Cadet Cpl. Edwin Murdock, outstanding first year cadet for second 9 weeks; Cadet S/Sgt. Harland V. Howard III, squad leader of the Honor Guard Squad for the second 9 weeks. At extreme left is Cadet Sgt. Maj. Donald St. John. Maj. Hugh M. Fisher, PMS for Canal Zone Schools, is standing next to General Johnson.

(Continued from p. 7)

members average some 12 hours of

extra practice every week to sharpen

their spectacular precision marching.

This is the night also when the drill teams, the pretty battalion and company

sponsors and the band and its majorettes

shine. There is a girl sponsor for each battalion and each company. They are chosen by vote by the second-year

cadets from among volunteers for service in the following school vear. Their

duties are not limited to strutting in reviews, for thev handle all the secretarial duties of their respective outfits throughout the school vear—and are graded on it.

Cadet Band

Only the 1st Battalion has its own

band—understandably so because of its large strength. A cadet with experience

in instrument playing is automatically

assigned to the band, which has an

authorized strength of 28 members. The

Balboa High School ROTC band plays

at battalion and brigade reviews. The

cadet musicians practice during the

drill and phvsical training periods, held

for the rest of the cadets, but are required to pass inspection on Fridays.

Not too long ago, the cadet band filled

in for the 79th U.S. Army Band at a graduation ceremony at the U.S. Army Forces Southern Command's

Noncommissioned Officers Academv.

It also has serenaded the Governor of the Canal Zone and the U.S. Southern

Command component commanders on

special occasions. Last Christmas it provided a surprise carol concert at the Governor's reception.

Cavalry

The Balboa battalion has added

something new—a cavalry troop which

still is in the training stage. Composed

of five cadets and their mounts, it has been designated appropriately the Theodore Roosevelt Cavalry Troop

(See p. 22)

8 February 1969
Sau It in Spanljn:f

HAS IT EVER occurred to you why so many Americans in the Canal Zone are

able to converse in Spanish?

One of the main reasons is the Spoken

Spanish Program carried on within the Panama Canal organization by the Personnel Bureau. It is set up to guide

the student from a basic course through

intermediate and advanced stages utiliz- ing a streamlined method of language

instruction developed by one of the

instructors.

- The student is able to assimilate a greater quantity of instruction in a shorter period of time, as his progress

is noted throughout all phases of the program. Assurance is made that he

has grasped the mechanics of the lan- guage while developing basic vocabularv, along with personal confidence

in his ability to carry on a conversation

in Spanish.

Started in 1957

The program was started in 1957

by the then Gov. William E. Potter and Panama Canal Personnel Director

Edward A. Doolan. Doolan has taken an active interest in developing the pro- gram over the years, from its modest

beginning as an eight-member class

to its present level of some 100 students. These make up several classes daily.

When the Spoken Spanish Program was initiated, the original class consisted of key executive personnel whose

positions required frequent contact with

persons who spoke little or no English.

It was taught by Carlos Garcia de

Paredes, who todav is chief of the Spanish language program. Among the members of his first class were Governor

Porter and Paul Runnestrand, Executive

Secretary of the Canal Zone. Through

the years, as the success of the program

became more evident, it was expanded

to include middle management and top

•nipervisory personnel. The curriculum

's patterned after the "guided imitation" method developed by the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State

in 1953. The use of textbooks is mini- mized and the student must rely on

acquiring knowledge through the use

of sound patterns by imitating the spoken words of the instructor.

The differences in the sounds of certain letters is pointed out by Carlos Garcia de Paredes,

who has been instructing in the Spoken Spanish Program since its inception in 1957.

"By-Ear" System

This method was recendy modified

bv Garcia de Paredes. He compares

the change to the "by-ear" system

of teaching music: "In music, a student who learns to play an instrument by

reading notes can later develop his skill so he can play any sheet music but

usually he cannot adapt to playing by

ear. With mv modification of the FSI

language training program, the student

learns Spanish through association of sounds, along with basic oral skills, in much the same way that an aspiring

musician may learn to play an instru- ment by ear," he says. This student, although unable to read

music, can later develop his musical

ability to a degree whereby he is able

to play almost any composition by ear

alone. Similarly, the language student

is better able to adapt and is much more

flexible in this "by ear" method of learn- ing than the student who has learned

strictly by reading.

On the Pacific side, classes are held

at the Administration Building, the Training Center, and Gorgas Hospital.

On the Atlantic side they are conducted

at the Industrial Division and the

Civil Affairs Room. Assisting full-time instructors Carlos Garcia de Paredes

and Mrs. Frances Enyart at Balboa,

and Rolando Linares at Cristobal, are part-time instructors Antonio Linares (Balboa) and Dolores Suarez

(Cristobal).

Three Categories

The Spoken Spanish Program is divid- ed into three categories, depending on

several factors, the need for Spanish-onthe-job being foremost. The level of

training for each student depends on

his progress in the program. The categories are Spoken Spanish Management

Trainee Program, Special Groups (for

those requiring Spanish for job utilization, such as hospital interns and residents, admeasurers, and policemen ) and

Special Management Program.

In the Special Groups category, hospital personnel participate in a program

(See p. 10)

The Panama Canal Review 9
The Accents on Spanish

(Continued from p. 9)

which early in the course introduces medical terms used in day-to-day contact with Spanish speaking patients. Phrases such as. "Where does it hurt?" and "How long have you been feeling

this way?" would be some ot their first phrases.

The third category, Special Management Program, is designed for key personnel. This course, in three phases, allows the student to train quite rapidly while losing little of the basic knowledge acquired in the pre- liminary stages of instruction. Students

begin with a preparator) course ot about 3 weeks duration in which thev

receive personal instruction in Spanish.

English is spoken onlv when neeessan

in this first phase of training.

Phase II

Phase II consists of a 2-week total immersion course in Spoken Spanish at the Berlitz School in Guadalajara.

Mexico. There, the student is lectured throughout the day by several instructors, in Spanish only. He must order

his meals, ask directions and, even after school is out, relv on his knowledge

of conversational Spanish to see him

through the 2-week stay in that city. The Guadalajara school has a definite advantage over similar schools in the United States, since in Miami. New

York or Washington the student would

revert to English to get along when he was out ot school lor the da\ . In Mexico,

it becomes a case of sink or swim. Happily, PanCanal students have been able

to swim and quite well at that.

Phase III Upon returning to the Isthmus, Phase

III begins—consisting of a follow-up

refresher course in which the instructor evaluates the degree of proficiency at- tained In' the student and polishes up

any rough edges in the Litter's conversation. Thereafter, the student continues

to receive further advanced instruction

until the desired degree of fluency is attained. The Special Management Program is limited because ot the great expense in- volved. Expense, however, is one of the tew limiting factors. Rank is not always

a determinant in whether or not an employee receives training in a partic- ular category. The needs of the employee tor language capability in job

utilization, and the particular level of proficiency of each student deterIllustrating a point in pronunciation is Mrs. Frances Enyart, instructor in the Spanish language program at Balboa Heights. The students

are, left to right, Carroll B. Robertson and Willard Percy.

10 February 1969
Recitations nre an important part of learning any language. Here instructor Garcia de Paredes listens as Paul Ficzeri, 2d from right, recites from a lesson. Other students are, left to right, Henry Makibbin and Larry Corrigan.

mine where he will be placed. In addition, personnel from each of the three

categories form some groups in order

to utilize more effectively available vacancies in each class.

Largest Group

The largest single group of employees

enrolled in the Spoken Spanish Program

is in the Management Trainee Program,

designed primarily for middle management personnel and employees who

have direct contact with employees on

the job who speak little or no English.

English-speaking personnel unable to attend day classes, because of job

requirements such as shift-work, are encouraged to take evening courses at the Canal Zone College or the Florida

State University Extension Branch under the Personnel Bureau's Tuition Refund Plan for Job-Related Courses. A large number of those eligible for

this training take advantage of it and

acquire a working knowledge of Spanish. Similarly, Spanish-speaking personnel in this category who obviously do

not need Spanish instruction, take advantage of the Tuition Refund Plan and enroll in English courses at local institutions of higher learning.

Spanish is taught also in the Canal

Zone's U.S. grade schools and high

schools.

Bilingualism Increase Thus, bilingualism in normal operations of PanCanal is on the increase. An awareness of the need for better communication, foreseen by top management, is what led to the start of the program. It undoubtedly has been one of the most rewarding for employees

in the Canal organization. During the almost 11 years since it was started, more than 1,500 Canal employees

requiring Spanish in their jobs and all of the organization's key management

personnel have been exposed to this program—with gratifying results. Classes meet for an hour, 5 days a week, on both sides of the Isthmus,

and the original 3-year course of in- struction has been modified to cover

the same material in 1 year. This modification has increased the effectiveness

and reduced the overall cost of the program in terms of man-hours. Also,

it has stimulated greater interest in the program on the part of the students.

Program A Success Perhaps the best yardstick for measuring the success of the program is contained in the words of one of the students currently enrolled in the Spoken Spanish Program, who says: "Now that I can get along in Spanish.

I've found many things I can do with

my friends in Panama that I was too shv to attempt when I couldn't communicate very well with them. Being

able to carry on a conversation has opened main doors for me, and per- mitted me to participate in several

activities I greatly enjoy. And what I consider to be the greatest compliment

paid me occurred recently at a party

when I was introduced to a fellow, who.

immediately started talking to me in English. My friends laughed, and told him. 'Don't talk to him in English. He

speaks better Spanish than you do.'

"

The Panama Canal Review 11
^ANNIVERSARIES^

(On the basis of total Federal Service)

OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER

Kenneth R. A. Booth

Supervisory Rates Analyst

MARINE BUREAU

Irwin S. Small Time and Leave Clerk

Alfredo E. Gamett

Lead Foreman (Operations-Lock Wall)

Leonard V. McLeod

Motor Launch Operator

Constant H. Claveau

Teletypist

George Williams Linehandler (Deckhand)

William Davis Motor Launch Operator

TRANSPORTATION AND TERMINALS

^JREAIL,

Leroy Chajj

Cargo

Simonf

Leal

Alloric Earle Cargo Ch

SUPPLY AND COMMUNITY

SERVICE BUREAU

Edward L. Inniss

Retail Complex Manager

William A. Thorns Lead Foreman High Lift Truck Operator

Wilfred C. Adams

Supervisory Supply Clerk ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION

BUREAU

Lee Redman

OilerCIVIL AFFAIRS BUREAU

Roy M. Walther

Finance Branch Superintendent

PANAMA CANAL INFORMATION

OFFICE

Robert J. Byrne

Supervisory Canal Zone Guide

(Interpreter) OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER

Winston V. Bell Supervisory Accounting Technician PERSONNEL BUREAU

Harold Gibbs

Service Tracer MARINE BUREAU

Clement Jackson Helper Lock Operator

Leopoldo Shepherd

Carpenter James A. Jones Leader Painter Ruben G. Cox

Carpenter

Clement C. Bell Motor Launch Operator

Calvin E. Bourne

Carpenter

Clarence S. Spence

Lead Foreman (Operations-Lock Wall) Arthur L. Shanyfelt

Towing Locomotive Operator—Locks Conrado V. Brown

Carpenter, Marine

Kenneth N. Sullivan Lead Foreman (Operations-Lock Wall) Hercules E. Searles Seaman

Gilbert S. Kirkaldy

Oiler (Floating Plant) Joseph F. S. Ford

Seaman

Francis P. Washabaugh

Admeasurer

Rudy M. Wieland

Leader Lock Operator (Electrician) Wilfred A. Alleyne

Leader Linehandler ( Deckhand

Boatswain)

Fitzgerald Holder

Helper Machinist (Marine) Charles Small Leader Painter Edward A. Cole Towing Locomotive

(Locks-Limited)

Andrew Jackson Seaman

TRANSPORTATION AND T

BU

Herman G. Edwards

Time and Leave CI

Eliot Howell

Automotive Mechanic Dunstan C. McCourty

Truck Driver (Heavy)

Jasper A. McLeod

Chauffeur Herman Providence Truck Driver

Eric Malcolm

Lead Foreman Dock Stevedoring

Leopold Douglas Truck Driver Clyde D. Lashley

Guard

Lionel Thorne

Motor Vehicle Dispatcher Hubert Brands

Linehandler

Albert B. Collins Lead Foreman Electrician

Philip A. Hale, Jr. Assistant Freight Agent James S. Williams

Stevedore Miguel W. Oruitiner Supervisory Cargo Checker

Benjamin P. Soley Chauffeur Oscar W. Layne

Truck Driver (Heavy Trailer)

SUPPLY AND COMMUNITY

SERVICE BUREAU

George M. Standard Laborer (Heavy)

Edward Rodvin

High Lift Truck Operator

Seabert Haynes

Commissary Store Department Manager

Livingston W. White

Clerk

Alfred L. Bullen Laborer (Cleaner) Vivian E. Brooks

Extractor and Tumblerman

Norbert M. Schommer

Supervisory Operating Accountant

Adelaide U. Niceolls Sales Store Clerk Rose W. Parker

Clerk-Typist Dora M. Lozano

Presser (Garment)

ENGINERING AND

CONSTRUCTION BUREAU

Edmund R. MacVittie

Supervisory Architect Edostido Andrades

aintenanceman

Wood

ating Plant) er man

urns Operator Sanchez

Electrician (Lineman)

George S. Rachel

Electrician (Lineman)

Joseph A. Husband

Leader Carpenter

Charles B. Springer Laborer (Heavy)

Wesley II. Bailey

Lead Foreman Pipefitter Charles S. Howe

Construction and Maintenance

Superintendent

Lionel A. Perry Leader Seaman

Emelio Archbold

Oiler (Floating Plant) Elbert A. Belgrave

Helper Armature Winder

Elwin C. W. Conliffe Seaman

Isaac D. Clinton

Painter Joslyn C. Duncan

Leader Painter Albert T. Smith

Boiler Tender

Lubin L. Theresia Carpenter

(See p. 23)

12 February 1969
AncieriT ABACUS IS

Hey to moD6Rn mATH

MAN-MADE SATELLITES are rocketing into space, carrying astronauts beyond the earth and to the moon—in large measure because of mathematics.

We live in a mathematized culture

today. There are uses for mathematics

that were unheard of or even thought

possible a few year ago. Chemists and physicists have found new uses and interpretations for mathematics; biologists are applying mathematics to the study of genetics;

businessmen are using mathematics to project production and sales. Today's technological advances have

opened up numerous opportunities for the girl or boy with mathematical ability. Today's children talk about sets, the binary number system, structural patterns and inverse operations—all part

of the mathematics taught in their schools.

It's different, indeed, from the memorizations their parents knew.

But even with all this modernity, an

ancient device known as the abacus,

that was familiar to school children in Rome 1,500 year ago, is becoming well- known to Canal Zone sixth graders. It has returned to use in today's classroom. Described as one of the first "digital

computers," the abacus is a simple

instrument for performing rapid arith- metical calculation. It consists of an

oblong wooden frame or board holding

a number of vertically arranged rods on which wooden beads, balls, or counters slide up and down. A beam running

across the board divides the rods into two sections: upper and lower. The imperfect numerical notation and

the scarcity of suitable writing materials

in ancient times are presumed to have

given rise to the need of devices of mechanical calculation. The first abacus

probably was a slab or board on which

a Babvlonian spread sand so he could

trace letters. The word is believed

derived from the Phoenician "abak"

describing sand strewn on a surface for writing. As the abacus came to be used

solelv for counting and computing, its form was changed and improved. Waxcovered boards were introduced, and

later a counter abacus was devised in

which loose counters of bone, glass or

metallic disks or rods were placed on a ruled table drawn on the board. There are several references to the abacus in Roman literature. Cicero

speaks of the counters as aera (bronzes)

but the common name was calculi- pebbles—or abaculi.

Fifteen hundred years ago, when

little Caius of Rome was learning to add: CCL VII and CCCL XIX (257+

369) he drew lines on a bronze or wood

board. Grooves were cut in the board

and small round pebbles, or calculi, were placed in these grooves to represent units, 10's and so on to get his answer: DC XXVI (626). At the same time, in another part of the world, a Chinese boy was employing a similar system, but instead of

pebbles he used rods of bamboo. More

than a thousand vears after bamboo

rods were used, the Chinese adopted

the old Roman idea of having the cal- culi fastened to an abacus, known in China as suan pan. The rod-and-bead

variety of abacus, is in use in schools,

banks and shops throughout China to

this day. A dividing bar separates sets of two beads and five beads on each

bar. Each bead above the bar has asso- ciated with it a value five times that of the bead below the bar on the same rod. The active position for the beads is toward the dividing bar. Some 300 vears ago, the Japanese improved on the Chinese abacus and this instrument, known as the soroban, is still

in use in modern Japan. The soroban

(See p. 14)

A member of the sixth generation in his family to use the abacus, W. T. Lum of Casa Lum

in Panama Citv savs he finds the instrument practical for business use. "There s no need

for paper, pens, or pencils. And there's no breakage or maintenance expense, he says. As

nimble and effortless as the fingers of a pianist, his fingers swiftly fly over the beads of the abacus as he tackles adding, subtracting or dividing problems. Great-great-great grandson

of a Viceroy of China, he has been a resident of Panama since 1906.

The Panama Canal Review 13
ABACUS

(Continued from p. 13)

is very similar to the Chinese abacus

except that instead of five-two bead

arrangement on each rod, the Japanese

model is generally of the four-one or

five-one bead arrangement.

About 400 years ago Robert Record was bom in England. When he went

to school he was taught to use Roman

numerals, and added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided numbers very much

as Caius had learned to compute with

the aid of calculi about 1,500 years

earlier. Two important changes had

been made in that length of time. In- stead of having places on the computing

table for only units, 10's, 100's, and so

on, the spaces between the lines were

used for 5's, 50's, 500's and similarly for

all other 5's, and the lines were now

horizontal. These changes came in what

are called the Dark Ages.

Record wrote several books to in- fluence the English people to give up

the Roman numerals. An expert in the use of the abacus

can compute with speed and accuracy

that compares favorably with results obtained by an experienced operator of an electric calculating machine. This

fact was proved in numerous tests and is well-documented by Takashi Kojima,

author of The Japanese Abacus, Its Use and Theory.

An interesting contest between the Japanese abacus and the electric cal- culating machine was held in Tokyo on November 12, 1946, under the sponsorship of the U.S. Army newspaper The

Stars and Stripes, which remarked: "The

machine age took a step backward

yesterday at the Ernie Pvle Theatre as the abacus, centuries old, dealt defeat

to the most up-to-date electric machine now being used by the U.S. Government

. . . the abacus victory was decisive." The Nippon Times reported the contest as follows: "Civilization, on the

threshold of the atomic age, tottered Monday afternoon as the 2,000-yearold abacus beat the electric calculating machine in adding, subtracting,

dividing, and a problem including all three with multiplication thrown in, according to the United Press. Onlv

in multiplication did the machine

triumph. . . ." The abacus is generally associated with the Orient. Actually, the abacus

in one form or another was used

Discovering patterns is a key activity in a modern program of arithmetic. The value of a symbol depends on the place it occupies, says Don K. Miskovsky of the Diablo Elementary

School faculty, who finds the abacus helpful in developing Sixth Graders' concept of place

value. At left is Jeff F'iser, son of Major and Mrs. John Fiser of Albrook and at right is Shawn

Daniell, son of Senior M/Sgt. William James Daniell of Howard Air Force Base.

A mathematical race between abacus-wielding Joby Vanya, left, and Janet Howard at the blackboard was easily won by Joby. Both girls are pupils in the Sixth Grade at Diablo Elementary School. Joby is the daughter of Lt. Col. and Mrs. Joseph J. Vanya of Albrook.

Janet's parents are Col. and Mrs. Hubert C. Howard of Fort Amador.

14 February 1969
th€ winneR

throughout Europe and Asia until people came to know and aeeepted the Hindu-Arabic system of 9 figures and

zero and associated methods of computation. The abacus was last generally

used in Spain and Italy in the 15th

century, in France in the 16th century.

and in England and Germany in the 17th century.

Changes didn't take place rapidl)

There were those who favored the use

of other systems of numeration and the use of the abacus in computation. These were called the "abacists." Opposed to these were the advocates of the HinduArabic system with its algorithms, or procedures, for computations. They

were called the "algorists." The algorists

campaigned for approximately 500

years to gain general acceptance of techniques in computation. By the year

1,600 thev achieved their goal and

established the arithmetic techniques

which have remained in general use up

to the present time.

Teaching Aid

The abacus was then placed in a semi-retired status, but this ancient device is finding its way back into the classrooms of todav. Teachers are find- ing it a real aid in the teaching of place

value, addition, and subtraction. A significant goal of contemporary

programs is to help children develop a wholesome attitude toward mathematics. Traditionally, main' students regard

mathematics with considerable distaste, but this is changing as children are

learning that this subject can be exciting

and interesting. They are given opportunities to be creative and develop

original solutions to problems . They

learn they can solve problems through

their own efforts, instead of relying on

rigid techniques or memorized rules. More new mathematics has been

created in the 20th century than in all previousl) recorded history. Entire fields of mathematics that used to be the

exclusive domain of a few experts just

a half a century or so ago are now being

taught in high school; some are even

beginning to enter the junior high

school classrooms, thus making room at the upper end of the curriculum for some of the newer, contemporary mathematics that modern society demands

of its productive citizens. Aware that the people in tomorrow's

society will have to compete with auto- mation as well as with other people,

the school programs of today endeavor

to see that creative imagination and

productive thinking are developed in each of the students to the limits of

his capacities.

The modern mathematics program

helps pupils learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide through the study of numbers and relationships that exist among numbers. Discovering patterns

is a key activity in a modern program

in arithmetic. A characteristic of the decimal numeral system that must be

understood by the pupil is place value,

and he must know that in our HinduArabic system the value of a symbol

depends upon the place it occupies.

This is where the age-old abacus comes

into the modern-day' school picture. The

operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division must be ex- perienced before they can be understood. The abacus board allows children

to handle and see the processes for themselves.

Abacus Advantages

Advantages of the abacus are hards

construction, portability, and ease of operational methods, the latter a simplification of the four processes of arithmetic. A peculiar advantage of the abacus

is that a problem in addition and subtraction is worked from left to right, instead of right to left, as in the case with written arithmetic, and so har- monizes with the normal way of reading and writing numbers. One disad- vantage is that the instrument produces

only a final result without preserving

a record of the intermediate steps. If an error is made, the whole calculation must be done again from beginning

to end. Don K. Miskovskv, teacher at Diablo

Elementary School, has been giving his Sixth Grade pupils some pointers on how to use the abacus since he returned from military duty in Korea. It is used

widely there and Miskovskv became

fascinated with its use. His students have become so profi- cient in using the oriental adding machine that thev held a junior version of the Tokyo contest. The result was the same now as then: The abacus won.

The Panama Canal Review- It
CANAL COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC BY NATIONALITY OF VESSELS
Central and the Santa Fe of the United

States, have made proposals on the land-bridge movement of cargo across the United States and Canada and so

far the results remain somewhat uncertain. Details of the proposed land-bridge

train between California ports and New

York were revealed by John Reed, Pres- ident of the Santa Fe Railroad. They

called for an 80-car train capable of carrying 160 40-foot or 320 20-foot

containers between New York and California ports on a schedule of approximately 5 davs in each direction. Reed

said that a similar service could be

offered between California ports and

Texas ports. The Santa Fe would operate the train between California and Chicago and

the Penn-Central between Chicago and

New York. The Canadian National Railroad said the extremely low transcontinental rail

rate required to promote land-bridge

traffic could be obtained only by using

all -container trains. The traffic required to justify all-con- tainer trains, however, need onlv be a volume sufficient to utilize one set of

rail equipment. As the round-trip cycle

time between Halifax and Vancouver,

for example, would be approximately

2 weeks, 200 to 220 20-foot containers every 2 weeks could initiate the land- bridge scheme immediately.

A preliminary analysis made by the Federal Maritime Commission did showthat this type of proposal, if used

between ports in the United States from

Japan through the west coast to the

east coast consignee or from the United

Kingdom through the east coast to the west coast consignee, might result in lower landed costs. The report said "The savings in transit time in these movements to and from

the east and west coast as compared to

a movement via the Panama Canal are

significant. A land-bridge movement

from the west coast to the United Kingdom via the land-bridge takes 11 days.

This represents a saving of 13 days

over the all-water route with resultant economies such as those of a smaller inventory and lower warehousing and

insurance charges."

In any case the future of containeri- zation and the movement of cargo over- land bears watching especially in view

of the possibilitv that there may be an

early end to the hostilities in Southeast

Asia. This would add to overcapacity

and would push the containerships now

engaged in the Far East traffic into other trade routes.

PRINCIPAL COMMODITIES SHIPPED THROUGH THE CANAL

(All cargo figures in long tons) Pacific to Atlantic

Commodity

Ores, various Boards and planks

Iron and steel plates, sheets and coils Sugar

Fishmeal

Metals, various

Iron and steel manufactures,

miscellaneous Food in refrigeration

(excluding bananas)

Pulpwood

Bananas- Plywood and veneers Potash Canned food products __ Petroleum and products

Wire, bars and rods

All others

First half, fiscal year—

TotaL

1969
FROM WATERBOY TO

SUPERMARKET KING

MENTION THE name Tagaropulos in Panama and most people immediately

will think of supermarkets. The reason

is simple: For 57 years it has been

associated with the business of selling food. Today the Tagaropulos enterprises

have expanded to other fields, but super- markets still are a substantial part of

their business. The man who made the Tagaropulos name a household word in the country's two terminal cities—Don Antonio Tagaropulos—still keeps busy at 76, oversee- ing the varied operations of the business organization he created from one small grocery store in Colon. Employ 1,500

Seven separate firms with holdings

valued at $6.5 million comprise the Tagaropulos organization today. Three are

in the grocery business. Empresa Tagaropulos, S.A., Colon-Panama, handles

the wholesale end, supplying the chain

of 10 supermarkets in Panama City and

one in Colon operated by La Economia.

S.A. and Internacional Tagaropulos

S.A., in the Colon Free Zone, which is the ship chandlering company. Then

there are Industrias Tagaropulos, S.A., which operates a plant in Colon for the manufacture of products such as vanilla concentrate, cleaning solutions and soy- sauce, Inmobiliaria Tagaropulos, S.A.,

in the real estate field; Urbanizacion

Tagaropulos, S.A. which is developing

a housing project in Sabanitas, near

Colon, and Fabrica Panameria de

Productos Sanitarios, S.A., which manufactures sanitary products.

The seven companies emplov a total of 1,500 persons.

Other Interests In addition to founding the Tagaropulos organization, Don Antonio also has played a leading role in the development

of the bottling industry in Panama.

Compaiiia Panamericana de Orange

Crush, S.A., bottles Orange Crush,

Pepsi Cola, Old Colony, and Squirt in

its modern plant in Panama City.

He also was among the first to envision a free trade zone in Colon and as

far back as 1938, when he was president

of the Colon Chamber of Commerce,

became one of its prime advocates. The

Colon Free Zone is today a mainstay of economic activity in the country. At one time he operated a fleet of 14

coastwise schooners that picked up

native products along the Atlantic coast

for export. There were "tagua," a hard

nut used for the manufacture of buttons, tortoise shell and, of course, bananas. The advent of synthetics

finished the "tagua" and tortoise shell exports; the banana business—which at

its peak reached a volume of 150,000

stems a week—eventually died out on

the Atlantic coast. While his boats operated, Don Antonio was dubbed the "commodore of the mosquito fleet" in the local press.

While Don Antonio won't even think

of moving from Colon, the center of operations of the Tagaropulos organization inevitably has shifted to Panama

City. Just last year, Empresa Tagaropulos, S.A., Colon-Panama, moved into

its spacious new headquarters in La

Loceria, just off the Trans-Isthmian

Highway opposite the National Brewery. The most impressive section is a cavernous warehouse with approximately 100,000 square feet of floor area. It includes five cold storage rooms for perishables of all kinds in which temperatures are maintained at precise

levels. The warehouse, praised by State- side visitors as one of the most modern

in Latin America, has a capacity for 3,400 tons of goods.

Modest Start

All this had modest beginnings.

In a manner of speaking, the Tagaropulos enterprises owe their start to the Panama Canal. For Don Antonio,

then a lad of 15, came to the Isthmus

because in his native Greece he saw

evidence of the wealth flowing on the Isthmus during Canal construction days.

It was the year 1908. Young Antonio

and two cousins, then living in Chalkis, were impressed by the fact that an aunt always was supplied with money to buy

them goodies. Thev knew her husband was in Panama and they suspected he was the source of her wealth. Their

suspicions were confirmed bv a letter which the trio managed to purloin from

her.From that moment they did not stop

Don Antonio Tagaropulos

until they obtained parental consentgiven reluctantly—for the trip to Panama.

That year the three cousins landed in what was to become the city of Colon,

each with 7 napoleons—$3.5—in their pockets.

Young Antonio went to work with

the Isthmian Canal Commission as a waterboy—hauling drinking water to the ditch diggers. His pay: 21 cents an

hour.

Stays On

His cousins left the Isthmus for the United States within a few months, but young Antonio stuck it out. He had

vowed to succeed or bust. Nine months

after his arrival, he quit his job as water- boy and went to work in a bakery in Colon owned by a countryman. Another

9 months went by before he had managed to save $900—enough to open his own grocery shop.

18 February 1969
This is part of the cavernous warehouse of Empresa Tagaropulos, S.A., Colon-Panama, just off the Transisthmian Highway opposite the National Brewery- in Panama City. It has 100,000 square feet of floor area, five cold storage rooms and a capacity of 3,400 tons of goods.

"I've always liked food," he says by

way of explanation for his choice of business. The shop was located in the present

Colon Post Office building, then the public market. It had two employees

besides young Antonio, the proprietor.

"Business was so good," Don Antonio

recalls with a hearty laugh, "that we

didn't count the money—we weighed

it."Then the first of three conflagrations

in Colon wiped him out—"lock, stock and barrel"—in 1915. But the day after the fire voung Antonio was at what was

left of his place of business, selling

hard-boiled eggs, burnt salt and every- thing else he could salvage from his

stock. With the help of businessmen friends,

he opened a new and larger grocery

store, this time on Sixth Street. "This was a much better one," he

recalls fondly. "We didn't wrap things

in old newspapers like we used to; wc

had decent paper."

That store, too. was wiped out by

Tagaropulos, center, founder of the Tagaropulos enterprises in Panama, reviews plans for a gre aboUt iq years later. But Don An- new supermarket with Alexander Psvchovos, right, president of Empresa Tagaropulos, S.A., j . „,„i.„ „„„tu„, .....

<- i t> j » i tt j' 1 r .i_ l j r j- i \. ,u tonio managed to make another start Colon-Panama, and Azael Hernando, secretary of the board of directors, at the company 6

headquarters in Panama City. \ !>ee V- M)

The Panama Canal Review 19
"Ambition,

Faith in God,

Love of Work"

(Continued from p. 19)

and by 1940, when the third conflagration swept the Atlantic side city, he had

a chain of nine grocery stores going in Colon. By that time, it was Tagaropulos,

S.A., with two brothers and several brothers-in-law as the company officers and major stockholders. The 1940 fire caught the firm in the process of readjusting its insurance coverage, so that

its losses were not covered. Practically the entire chain of stores went up in smoke. It took a while for the Tagaropulos organization to recover from that heavy blow, but recover it did to become the flourishing business complex

it is today. Don Antonio went to Greece

and returned with "fresh blood"—his three brothers-in-law—to reorganize the company, which then became Tagaropulos, S.A. As he rose in business, Don Antonio

extended his hand to the less fortunate. "One must help his fellow beings," is his terse comment on his philanthropic

activities. He is known to be among the

principal supporters of the Asilo Santa

Luisa, a home for the aged, and of projects for blind children. He is reticent about this aspect of his activities.

Official Honors

Nevertheless, he has received official recognition, from both his native and

his adopted countries, for his achieve- ments and contributions. Among others,

he holds the Order of Vasco Nunez de

Balboa, of Panama; Greece's Order of King Paul, which was personally pre- sented by the sovereign, and the

Christian Stewardship of the Greek

Orthodox Archdiocese of North and

South America.

At 76, a grandfather six times, Don

Antonio remains active in the business. - He goes every morning to his office in Colon and periodically travels to Pan- ama City to keep in touch with operations of the Tagaropulos firms in the

capital. Whenever possible, he spends - the afternoons on his farm near Colon

where he is raising both beef and dairy

cattle.

Surprise

Twice since 1908 he has returned

to his native Greece on extended visits. On his second hip, he discovered a savings account in his name in a Greek

bank. It had been started by his father with $25,000 Don Antonio had sent him earlier as a gift. The account had

grown to $35,000 because of the ac- cumulated interest.

Sixty years after his arrival in Pan- ama, Don Antonio abides firmly bv ! the creed that kept him going in mis- fortune and drove him to become a ! captain of industry in Panama—"ambition, faith in God, and love of work."

The Tagaropulos enterprises employ 1,500 persons in Panama City and Colon. This is part of the office staff at the organization's

headquarters. Tagaropulos, standing left, who resides in Colon where he started in business, periodically visits the Panama City office.

20 February 1969
SHIPPING

Super Tanker

ANOTHER MONSTER ship that will be unable to use either the Panama

or Suez Canal was completed in Japan

recently and christened the Universe

Ireland by Gulf Oil Corp. The 312,000-

ton ship will be the first of six which

will carry crude oil from Kuwait,

the tiny Middle East country with the big oil reserves, to new refineries in Ireland and Okinawa.

The Universe Ireland is 1,135 feet long and 174 feet wide. She is 10 stories high and on each trip will haul 2.3

million barrels of oil. Gulf is chartering

the big vessel on a long-term basis from

Bantry Transportation Co., a Bermuda

subsidiary of National Bulk Carriers

Inc., an American firm. Caronia on New Service

THE FORMER Cunard luxury liner Caronia, which was' sold recently to Greek interests under the management

of A. Constantinides, has been fitted out for Caribbean cruising. She started her new service in December, sailing on

a regular schedule from New York to the Caribbean on high-class pleasure

cruises. The crew is Italian and Greek

and the commanding officer is a former

British admiral. Under Cunard ownership the Caronia was one of the first of the luxury cruise

liners. She was built for round-the- world cruising and made regular trips

through the Panama Canal for many

years.

Swedish Ships Converted

BY MAY 1969 all five of the Swedish

Johnson Line vessels of the Rio de

Janeiro class which transit the Panama

Canal on an average of one a month,

will be lengthened to provide special

facilities for transportation of containers. The vessels are in trade between

European ports and the west coast of the United States and Canada. The

conversion is being carried out in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Each of the five 490-foot vessels is

VNAMA CANAL TRAFFIC

STATISTICS FOR FIRST HALF

OF FISCAL YEAR 1969

TRANSITS (Oceangoing Vessels)

J 969 1968

Commercial 6,706 6,506

U.S. Government 709 700

Free _. 33 55

Total 7,448 7,261

TOLLS'

Commercial $44,262,476 $41,098,630

U.S. Government. 4,471,272 4,339,125

Total—
foreground, brain coral, right, sea fans and a cluster of staghoms make up this underwater garden.

Coral is Jewel of the Sea

(Continued from p. 5)

Panama) and the dredge dumps near

the Canal. Corals have been living in this area

for the past 50 or 60 million years. The

The natural bridge on the Rio Puente, one of the tributaries of Madden Lake,

is formed by an Eocene coral reef approximately 43 million years old. Additional reefs of early Miocene age

(approximately 25 million years ago) were formed along the banks of the present Canal and can be seen in the

sides of the new cuts at Las Cascadas

Hill, site of the present cut-widening

project. Different species of coral adapt to different sections of the reef and the conglomeration of the many varieties creates a seascape of spectacular beaut}'.

The combination of soft and hard

corals and their helter-skelter positioning, plus the seaweed, sand and rock,

produces a multitude of coves, crevices, gaps, nooks and corners providing a haven for thousands of tiny brightly colored fishes and some not so tiny,

like 30 and 40-pound red snappers.

groupers, jewfish, amberjack, and tuna.

Marine Community

Oners are sure to find at least one

\ icious-looking moras eel lurking among

the rocks. Turtles, shrimp, snails, crabs

and hundreds of other marine organisms, in red, orange, purple, green —bright and muted—inhabit this glorious

coral limestone community in the aqua

sea. Sharks and barracudas may swish

by in search of prey. The mere possibility of their presence in the vicinity of the coral reef is reason enough for the

diver to keep a sharp lookout for the boat above. Reef corals, most of which are sharp

as a knife, are firmly attached to the formation and collectors are required

to use a strong prving or hacking tool

to break them off. Some Isthmian coral

collectors, like Mrs. Harrison, find that

a machete does the job quite well.

Bad Odor

While still in the water, corals are

greyish, brown, green or yellowish in color and have a rather disagreeable

odor. The polvps die soon after the

coral is taken from the water. About

1 month of good, strong sun is required

to get rid of the offensive odor after the corals have been washed in fresh clean water and dried. Some collectors prefer to first keep the corals in a solution of commercial laundry bleach for 24 hours. Bv either method the result is beautiful white corals— jewels from the flower garden in the sea.

ROTC RAT6S

HIGH in

eirmusiflsm

(Continued from p. 8)

(Rough Riders). It made its first public appearance at the December 13, 1968,

brigade review which honored Gen.

Robert W. Porter, Jr., Commander-inChief, U.S. Southern Command. If the troop becomes permanent, it will present

equestrian demonstrations at the cadet

reviews. ROTC cadets also appear at community functions, acting as ushers at

official receptions, at athletic events, and participating in observances such

as Memorial Dav and Veterans Dav.

Main Reasons "The thing that makes my job easv," says Major Fisher, a two-tour veteran of Vietnam, "is the very high enthusiasm

of the students themselves. Their atti- tude and performance are the primary

reasons why the ROTC program has been so very successful here." Right now, cadets of both battalions have their eves set on April 17. That's

the date for the 1969 inspection that

will determine whether thev will add

another Honor Unit designation to their ahead) distinguished record.

22
CANAL HISTORY

50 IfearJ cngo

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, in whose

presidential administration the United

States began work on the Panama

Canal, died at his home at Oyster Bay,

Long Island, 50 years ago in January

1919. The employees of the Panama

Canal sent the family their deep sympathy. Memorial services were held on

both sides of the Isthmus attended by

Acting Governor W. J. Douglas, Frank

Feuille, Special Attorney for the Pan- ama Canal, and William J. Price, U.S.

Minister to Panama.

As World War I came to an end

50 years ago, the complete text of Gov. Chester Harding's report to the

Secretary of War on the part played

by the Panama Canal in the conflict was published in the Panama Canal

Record. The Governor reported the Canal was operated and maintained

during the period of the war without

mishap or delay to vessels using its

facilities; that no acts of injury or destruction were committed and that there were no strikes or other significant labor

troubles.

25 yeard cAgo

SELECTIVE SERVICE registration in the Canal Zone and in Panama of U.S.

citizens 18 to 44 years old was completed. The number of C.Z. registrants

as of December 1, 1943, totaled 2,744

according to the Executive Secretary's

report. Black days were ahead for Canal

Zone motorists 25 years ago unless the

tires on their cars could be recapped

since the chance of obtaining new tires was very remote, said E. C. Lombard,

then Chairman of the Canal Zone

Rationing Board. The quota of new tires alloted to the Canal Zone had been cut by two-thirds. Allied victories and the changing

fronts of World War II made themselves

felt on the Isthmus. The Canal, the most

vital link in U.S. communications, gradually moved into the background in the

overall war picture. In December 1941,

the Isthmian situation had been de- scribed as precarious. For the first few

davs, no one knew whether an attack on the Canal would follow the raid on

Pearl Harbor. At the end of 194.3, no

sirens had sounded in the Zone for the

whole \ear although there was a full scale serious alert October 29 after reports of possible trouble along the Central American coast. Only one seri- ous situation arose to menace the security of the Canal as a line of communication. This was increased activity of enemy submarines in the Caribbean. At the end of the year a Colombian

schooner and two U.S. vessels were sunk

and a Panamanian ship was reported overdue. A storm described as a norther closed the new Transisthmian Highway to

traffic 15 miles east of Madden Dam.

At one time more than 200 cars lined up waiting for the road to be cleared. During the storm a U.S. merchant shin ran aground off Cristobal.

10 XjearA cAgo

THE BIGGEST single excavation job

in the Canal Zone since the Canal was

opened was read}' to start 10 years ago

in January. The job was the widening

of the channel in the Paraiso and Cucaracha Reaches in Gaillard Cut from 300

feet to 500 feet. It was one of the

principal projects of the Short Range

Improvement Plan developed and ap- proved by the Board of Directors the previous year. Bids for the remodeling of three large

former Navy barracks into a first-class modem school plant were advertised

in mid-December 1958. The school became the new Cristobal Junior-Senior High School. The largest single job in the project

to place all frequency-sensitive equipment in the Canal Zone on 60-cycle

power—the conversion of the Canal

locks machinery—was started in December 1958. The work was done

bv Consolidated International Electric Company of New York at a cost of S2

million. Construction of the half-mile-long

approach to join the proposed high level bridge over the Canal with Thatcher

Highway, began during the dry season months 10 years ago. The official com- mencement of actual construction of the bridge took place the last of December

when former President Ernesto de la Guardia and Former Governor W. E.

Potter lifted the first spadesful of earth

for the west approach. Members of the

President's cabinet and other distin- guished guests from Panama and the Canal Zone attended.

One ljtear tao

LOCKS OVERHAUL in progress at Gatun Locks 1 year ago moved into the second phase the last of February

with the east lane being flooded to permit the floating crane Hercules to enter and replace miter gates \os. 13 and 14 on which overhaul had been

completed. Miter gates 5 and 6 were removed the following week and set on keel blocks within the locks chambers

for overhaul. The Panama Canal asked residents to cut use of electricity. Continuing dry

weather had reduced water inflow into Gatun Lake to a record low in January

and by February, it was imperative that water conservation policies be continued. Canal residents helped by using

large electric appliances prior to 10 a.m. and after 2 p.m. thus reducing the midday peak load. New 10-cent and 25-cent airmail and

6-cent ordinary postage stamps were

placed on sale at the Balboa Post Office

last year.

ANNIVERSARIES

(Continued from p. 12)

Eloy Arrocha

Oiler Carlos Hinojozo

Maintenanceman (Boats) Albert E. Johnson Motor Launch Operator

Juan D. Lopez

Seaman

Samuel B. Goode

Painter Alsibades Escobar Seaman

CTVIL AFFAIRS BUREAU

Louis A. Austin

Distribution and Window Clerk William W. E. Hoyle

Supervisory Customs Inspector Ben B. Gupton

Customs Enforcement Officer

Alfhild Maedl

Teacher, Elementary U.S. Schools

Carl F. Maedl

Principal, Senior High Schools

Glinton L. Parris Recreation Assistant, Sports HEALTH BUREAU

Cynthia S. Soberanis Nursing Assistant Ruby E. Radel

Supervisory Clinical Nurse

The Panama Canal Review 23
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