The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-21
THE PANAMA CANAL.
What Americans VIII Have DO
to Complete 1t,
By MERRILL A. LEAGUE.
Special Correspondent of the Morning News

..o,ai Correspondence Morning News.
colon. r. P, Dec. 29.-There is moth
IL, the nature of work which has to
=. done on the isthmus before the ship
ANAL can be opened to navigation to
,o,,nt an American. / have made three
ovcursions over the canal route, TAX
Inc in the sea-level sections at either
and and the middle portion, which
rrps through dry cutting, and, while
do not pretend to speak expertly of
the engineering aspects of the problem,
sbould say that the Building of the
oonal will be a comparatively easy task
tor knowing, enterprising and energetic
Americans. That Americans have I'M
dertaken and successfully concluded
projects presenting vastly greater en-
cheering complexities is indisputable.
As problem in engineering science the
New York subway system dwarfs the
canal scheme into insignificance. So
does the plan of the Pennsylvania
Railroad TO tunnel the North River and
Construct in the very heart of New
York city a. great subterranean tunnel.
on some of our Western railroads
notably on the line which runs over
Marshall Pass, in Southwestern Colo
rado-infnitely more intricate problems
we're successfully solved at time when
engineering science was not nearly as
exact as it is to-day and from the
engineering, as we'll as from the finan-
cial point of view, New York state is
to-day dealing with a project-the en-
largement of the Erie Canal-which de-
serves to stand on plane with that
one which centers here.
As l remarked in a previous letter,
the activity of the American engineers
who have dealt with this problem with
a view to its solution by the United
States has been in the direction of SIM
plitication. Great success has attend
ed their efforts In our scheme we have
gone many strides ahead of anything
the French, even in their final plans,
contemplated. Instead of a canal with
five locks and six levels, we shall build
a waterway with two sets of locks, a
tide gate and three levels. Instead of
d complicated arrangement for con-
trolling the torrential flow of the
Chagres river, with auxiliary canals
ana storage Reservoirs " PIONluC Nclb~l
for certain of the levels, our plan is to
build one monster dam and then let the
natural swamps take care of the Cha
gres.
The American Plan.
Should we build this canal-and
nearly every isthmian will die of dis
appointment should we funk on the
project which incubated this baby re-
public-there will be d sea-level sec
xvi1 he
feet wide on the bottom and deep
enough to safely accommodate YES
sells drawing thirty-five feet of water,
extending from the entrance back of
Cristobal Colon Point, the northern
terminus, to Bohio, d distance of four
teen miles. In this section we will
utilize the bed of the Charges river
at certain points, and the entire sec
ton can be constructed by the dredg-
ing process. This section is now open
for its entire length to very light
draft vessels, and the soil underlying
it is soft mud and still softer alluvial
deposit, so that the dredges can work
steadily and without encountering any
serious obstruction. One problem alone
presents itself on this portion of the
work, and the French partially solved
that We shall have to make effective
the plan to divert the current of the
Mindi and Gatun rivers. The French
constructed the aversion CANAL II re-
mains for us to put it to practical use
by making it carry the water of these
rivers This done-and the doing of it
Will be a simple matter-there will be
no difficulty encountered beyond that
of preventing slit deposits that might
Obstruct the channel. This latter will
entail constant dredging, an item
which will come within the annual cost
of maintenance and to which engineers
are now paving no attention
The Great BOhiO Dam.
The plan for the Bohio dam will, be-
side greatly simplifying the whole ca
nal project, minimize the amount of
work that will annually be required
TO keep the Sea-level section from be-
ing filled up by the action of the wa
ter washing constantly against soft,
yielding mud banks, for this dam will
restrict the current in the Chagres
river until it will be no more formid-
able than is the tide at Colon, which
rises only eighteen inches. The dam
a Bohio will be one of the largest
ever constructed. 1t will extend in an
easterly and westerly direction for a
distance of 1885 feet, and it will be
300 feet wide on the bottom, narrowing
to about twenty-five feet on the top,
which will be about seventy-five feet
above the level of the Chagres river.
The only problem now bothering en-
gineers who have given careful atten-
ton to the canal plans is in relation
to this dam.
The French, in prospecting the coun-
try about Bohio to SECURE a suitable
location for the dam, did their work
in shiftless manner. Their borings
We're wholly inadequate, and Ameri-
cans have not gone sufficiently into the
matter to have bettered to any appre-
cable extent what the French did.
AS investigation on this particular de-
tail now stands, 1t will be necessary TO
sink caissons to depth Of 12S feet IN
order to secure a suitable foundation
for the dam. This depth is greater
than has yet been reached by the
pneumatic nrocess-the only aValla-
bic one-of constructing foundations,
the nearest approach to it having been
depth of lis feet, to which the cas-
sons for the new Williamsburg bridge
across the East river, at New YORK.
We're sunk. Caisson work is deadly
IN its character. and, while the en-
gineers are confident that the caissons
at Bohio can be sunk 12S feet II nee
essary, they are equally confident that
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