The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-12

The plans for prosecuting the work of digging the Panama Canal during the next fiscal year have been com
 pleted, Colonel Goethals and some or for several weeks. during which time the plans were prepared and submitted to the Secretary of War. They cali for the expenditure of s35.000.O0O dur ing the year, as compared with $sl,- 000.00 this year. The work in Culebra Cut Is to be pressed forward ana -t5a-
 tun Dam Is to rise skyward. Have you
 looked at the seeming chaos existing when the foundations of a big sky
 scraper are being laid. and then
 watched the great building take shape with the passing weeks? The founda- tions at Panama have been laid. The upbuilding work on the super-struc- ture has begun, and what seemed to
 be chaos Is being converted into sys-
 tenn that even the impractical eye can
 understand.
 Heretofore Gatun Dam existed only in the minds of those great engineers who conceived it. The traveller across the Isthmus was puzzled to know now they would impound the waters Of the
 chagres on the site where it Is to be
 built. It required the explanations of
 the engineers to make 1t clear. The
 work hitherto done was largely pre- Iiminary. Of course, the Spillway was excavated. and the lock sites cut through the hill, but they meant noth- ing more to the passing traveller. NOW
 however. the preliminaries have been completed, the last imaginable doubt has been removed by experiments of unprecedented exhaustiveness, and hereafter he who passes Gatun on the
 Panama Railroad may see mountain in the making-a mountain of imper- vious mud a mile and quarter long and half mile wide at the base. That is Gatun Dam, a dam strong enough to withstand double the pressure that
 will be brought against it. and which
 will successfully pass through any earthquake such as has occurred In
 Panama within historical times. It will be a dam so big as to make the Pyramid of Cheops look like a pfgmy
 undertaking so far as cubical con
 tents are concerned.
 The beginning of the work of up- building the Gatun Dam during the
 next dry season spells disappointment to the rank and file on the Isthmus. It
 was their ambition to make 4.0o0 900 yards of dirt fly in one month. -Four million a month was their slogan for the coming dry season. But the work on Gatun Dam will require the trans
 fer of a considerable number of the excevating force to that point, so that
  lished last March will remain the high | est record for Panama-and that
 means the highest record for the whole world. Nowhere>else on earth, in all
 It's history has there been as much
 material moved in single month on a
 single job as was moved at Panama | last March.
 But while the -four million a month"
 notch will never be reached, and even
 the record of last March may never be equalled again, there will be no let
 up in the enthusiasm of the workers
 nor in the results accomplished. Dur
 ing the present rainy season, Colonel
 Goethals has completely reorganized
 his force. Every piece of dead timber
 in the old organization has been elim- mated, and every man on the Isthmus has been placed where he will accom- plish the maximum of results. The | reorganiza ton makes a compact work l ing unit on the Isthmus such as has
 never before been possible. and there
 will be a greater display of team work | than ever before. Therefore, meas pred by the standard of things accom- plished. 1t Is expected that the next
 dry season will surpass the record of 1 the last one. It will not show in the
 amount of material excavated, but in the degree that Gatun Dam hears com pletion,
 The first session of the Congress
 elected last week will be called upon
 to make the largest appropriation in
 the history of the Canal. So well is
 the work progressing that the Canal officials are getting ready for the pur- chase of the big lock gates year after next. Upon the ones at the mouths of the upper end of the Gatun and Pedro Miguel locks will rest the tremendous burden of holding in check the waters nP the hfcr af1tv, Fyif ffr vii four square miles of water area. They must be big enough and strong enough to resist the ramming force of bat tleship. or a giant cargo boat, in case they were accidentally struck by such vessel Imagine a heavy railroad bridge, boarded up with sheet steel so as to make 1t tight, being wheel ed back and forth across the mouth of these locks, and you will be getting a layman's idea of how they propose to restrain the water of Gatun Lake from forcing its way out through the locks. and at the same time to prevent the locks from being put out of commits sion through possible rsmming by ships.
 The building of the locks at Gatun, Pedro Miguel, and Miralores will be a feature of the work for the next year. Immense preparations have been made for this work. It will require the largest te-Enixing plant in the world. Also a warehouse with storage capacity of 100000 barrels of cement. A special receiving dock. 800 feet long will be built. and the materi- als will be lowed up the Canal to Gatun from Cristobal. a distance of some seven miles. In order that the work may go on night and day. big light ing plant is being installed at Gatun. which provides for 1000 lights on the works
 When things begin to go up at Gatun they will also begin to go down more rapidly at Cufebra Cut.l At the sur face. the cut Is 430 feet wide The deeper Is goes the narrower 1t becomes. The shovels are now down to a point where 1t is approximately 36O feet wide. At a point approximately nine- ty-flve feet below the surface. the cut will he narrowed ninety feet, by a horizontal offset of forty-five feet on either side. The remaining hfty-ive feet of the cut will be approximately
 200 feet wide. Therefore the deeper down the work Is carried. the more
 rapidly 1t will seem to proceed. Here
 tofore the Americans have gone but
 little below the lowest point reached
 by the French. But they have dug
 the whole cut down to that point, and
 hereafter every time a steam shovel
 eats it's way through Culebra Cut 1t will be one notch nearer the bottom A0OFaxirna balF oF tnA afarfal b.od