The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-11-26
BATES'S PLAN FOR
 BUILDING PANAMA. CANAL
How One Engineer Proposes to Remove the Climatic Difficulties and Meet the
 Engineering Problems.

advantage of this plan, MT. Bates points out, Is that 1t secures both a salt water and fresh water harbor at each termi- nus of the canal. It is a well known fact among navigators that vessel whose hull Is covered with barnacles and whose speed is thereby very great ly curtailed becomes clear of these after short stay in fresh water Thus a fresh water harbor which w9lld be in the nature of secluded naval sta- tion at each terminus of the canal would also serve the purpose of cleaning dry dock.
 After going across Lake Chagres, few miles inland the ship will pass through another gap near Gatun, crevice in the second of Panama's four hill ridges. Now the vessel will emerge either directly, or through a lock (pro- posed under an alternative plan) upoh an extension of the lake. Under an al- ternative plan. lock at Gatun and an- other at Pedro Miguel-the Pacific end of the Culebra cut-would raise the i'm tervening passage to height of 625 feet above sea level. An additional lock at Bohio and a second lock at Pedro Miguel may raise the summit
 How to Deal With the ChaEres.
 From the Gatun lock the vessel would cross the big scentral lake, app preaching the narrow Gamboa Gap near Obispo. where the torrent of the Chagres have for centuries poured down baffiing engineers and every body else.- There where the Chagres is most forbidding. Mir. Bates proposes to throw a great sluice dam, quite similar to the dam at Assuan. When the prob lem of the Chagres was first attacked a great many years ago. the Assuan Dam had not been built. Sir William Will cocks, the designer of the great Egyp- a h2~ IA KA. Dam was successful, it would mark an epoch Tn dam building. He stated that provided with it's enormous flood open- ings. 1t (the dam) may be looked upon as a weir capable of controlling the mightiest rivers in flood, just as ordi- nary weirs control them in times of low supply. It may be thus utilized for the regulation of the flood supplies of rivers and for other employments in basins of inundation irrigation" The purpose of the Assuan Dam was to im- pound a large volume of Nile water and to let it out gradually during the irrigation season, after allowing the early silt bearing floods to pass
 A reversal of this duty is proposed by MT. Bates for the Panama sluice dams What is here required. he says, "is to catch and hold the high floods, and by manoeuvring the sluices let them run off gradually and harmlessly." Mir. Bates proposes to divide the waters of the chagres, send a part of it to the Pacific and part to the Atlantic Ocean. The watershed will thus create the lakes ,submerging the swamps near the coast, as well as provide the water for the canal through the great Culebra Cut.
 As still further protection against tpe terrors of the Chagres, Mir. Bates Teans series of sliuce dams behind 1N tn1S r. 4. "a the flow of the river at various points. The sluice gates he says. twill allow the proper amount only to go into the canal. When a sudden torrent comes down from the upper Chagres water shed, two extra basins with 4 capacity of far more than the maxif4tim excess recorded willN be ready to receive it. Then az the flood abates, the surplus waters will be suffered to pass out gradually. leaving the basins again empty"
 From Obispo Basin, Mir. Bates's plan leads one through the Culebra Cut. He would make this part of the passage a canalized river, with a deep, splendid, slow-moving current Going down through the Culebra to Panama as the ship approaches the coast 1t emerges in to Lake Panama, which again will sub merge the swamps of the district. Mir Bates estimates that less than one mile of impounding structure would be re- quired in constructing Lake Panama. Electrically Operated Locks. Under this plan. barrages and locks would be at each terminus of the canal HThe ruling depth of the water" Mir. Bates declares, "can be increased to some forty-ive feet without a cubic yard of dredging He says also that 1t will be extremely easy to operate the locks and sluices. A superintendent in his office at Panama by moving a con- trol switch could regulate the level of the lakes and of the entire canal. By | electrically manipulating their sluices. | the levels of Lake ChagTes and Panama could be raised and lowered
 Nil. Bates says that the canal should not adjust itself to the little villages | which has already been built on the Isthmus. but should dictate the location | of the settlements along the way. He thinks that the inhabitants should be taken out of the lowlands and onto the | hilly shores of the new lakes. He would reconstruct the harbor of Fan anna, so that 1t would be healthy. we'll | built city. He says that the deposit ground which could be here established l besides adding to the domain of the Panama Republic, would supply. as well, the docks and United States naval station, which are so supremely desir- | able at this point
 According to this plan. the total land width of the Isthmus requiring excava- tion would stretch only about nine miles To build a sea-level canal 1t | would be necessary to dredge and ex- cavate the entire thirty-eight miles of the Isthmus It is estimated that such canal would cost about $230, 1000, 900.
 To spend this amount of money, ac- | cording to Mir. Bates's idea, would be
 spending nearly 00,00o.0O0 too much to get canal which would be more diff
 ficult of navigation after 1t was com
 pleted. Mir. Bates estimates that a ca-
 nal could be completed under his plan
 for less than $145, ,000, ,000 authorized by l Congress-and that the entire task
 would not require more than ten years.
 He assumes, fin this estimate, however,
 that the actual work would be done un-
 der private contract and that the Gov-
 ernment engineers would merely over
 see the character of the work that was
 being done. This would involve the | construction of the canal upon very
 much the same principle as that upon f which the New York subway was built. I