The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-07-16
THE PANAMA CANAL V---TTfE CATUN DAM
By Fredric J. Haskin.

subjected this to all degrees of water pressure up to fifty pounds to the square inch. Yet even with this Ire. mendous weight of water against 1,
 the amount that seeps through is only an occasional drop. Of course, it nat urally follows. so plainly that even the layman cannot fail to see 1t. that jt only an occasional drop seeps through three feet of material with a pressure equivalent to a head of 115 feet of wa
 ter there can be no danger of seepage through 2.o00 feet of material under the pressure of only eighty-five feet oi water. The imperviousness of the ma terial which is to be used in the dam has proven in so many ways that nc man who has seen these proofs car doubt it.
 The critics of the dam. most ot whom. by the way, have never been which is to constitute the foundation of the dam is filled with innumerabIs underground springs. and that il bears so much water as to make it un- fit fora dam site of such proportionB. I Here again facts are made to anSweS
 opinions. The site has been delved in-
 to by dozens and dozens of deep wells
 dug by the engineers. These wells have
 been so located that if there were un-
 derground wells, streams and springs
 they would have been discovered. But
 they have never come to light. The
 water which the engineers find is, Q
 negligible, quantity. A. hundred dama
 have been built in the United Statea
 where there was five times as much
 underground water and no one thought
 of questioning the sites.
 If the Culebra Cut is the backbone
 of the canal. the Gatun Dam is it's most
 vital organ. Without that dam the
 canal would be out of commission foF
 thEee-fourths of It's length. and for the
 most part 1t would be high and dry. Sc
 they are taking every possible precau-
 ton to make every detail of the work
 perfect Not content with digging dog ] ems of wells several hundred feet to aa-
 certain just what there Is below, they
 are now beginning to dig a vast pit
 This pit is twenty feet square, and
 Colonel Goethals has planned to send
 1t down to solid rock some 240 feel
 his associates may get right down
 into 1t and see for themselves just
 what Is down there
 The Gatun Dam will cover 2ss acres
 at its base and will be 135 feet high.
 or fifty feet higher than the surface of
 the water it will be called upon to
 hold in check. It will contain some
 20.000,000 cubic yards of material, or
 enough to make a mound of earth one
 yard high and one yard across and nearly 12,000 miles long. The concrete
 which will be required to build the
 concrete work of the canal would be
 enough to build as many houses aa
 would give shelter to the entire pop
 ulation of city the size of Mlnneap- oils. It would be large enough to build a solid string of houses from New York to Richmond, Va, by way 0, Washington. The spilIway of the Ga, tun Dam will carry off 140,0O0 cubic feet of water a second, or more thar | eO,000.000 gallons a minute. The bis water gates or the Gatun Dam will have an aggregate weight of nearly 1s.00l l tons. The ones at the head of the up l per lock will be sort of steel bridg | on wheels, the track for 1t being O
 twenty six foot gauge. Each poun, of water pressure on the dam woul( have to push aside sixty-three poundl of earth before it could escape.
 The dam will make the Gatun Lak' afford deep water enough to furnisl | a safe riding place for half the ship ping of the world. All the sea-fight CTS of the oceans might gather there as perhaps hundreds of them will a that eventful time, some eight or tel years hence when, with Uncle Sam a master of ceremonies, the Atlantic anC Pacific shall have their wedding day. | (Copyright, 1908, by Frederick J. Has kIn.)
 TOm0rrOw-The Panama Canal. VI--Labor Situation.