Los Angeles herald., 1910-10-31
CANAL WILL HAVE .
CATE SYSTEM TO
COST S5,500,000
Largest Steel Portals in World
Being Made at PittSburg
for Panama
WORK TO TAKE THREE YEARS
Four Hundred Experts viii Start
in December to Assemble
Massive Sections
WORK TO TAKE THREE YEARS
Associated Pressl

PITTSBURG, Oct. 3O.-The largest
gates in the world are being made in
Pittsburg for the Panama canal. Each
of the ninety-two gates will be about
as high as a six-story building, sixty
five feet wide and. seven feet thick.
The structural steel that will go
into them will weigh $4,000 tons, or
more than eight times as much as was
used to build the Eiffel tower.
The mighty portals, designed to ad-
NIT a worlds commerce from one
ocean into another, must Withstand a
tide of criticism as we'll as a tremen-
dous pressure Of water and possible
convulsions of the earth.
For years the controversy over gates
or no gates, locks or sea level, has
been the dividing issue Of the canal
problem. In the face of fear in some
quarters that the foundations on the
isthmus are not sure enough for locks,
that earthquakes or water pressure
would dislodge them, and that an en-
emy's guns or accidental explosion
might easily destroy them, the gov
ernment has begun to build the gates.
WORK WILL COST S5.5OO.OOO
The cost will be $780, 900. The build
ers are the McClintic Marshall Steel
Construction company, a half of whose
independent plant here has been given
over entirely to the gate contract.
OF the 10000 tons of steel required,
the heaviest single pieces will weigh
about eighteen tons. These will be
the base girders, which are seven feet
long, and which will be placed much
like the first floor girders of sky
scraper. The series Of girders above
them will range from three feet eight
inches apart near the bottom, 30 five
feet apart at the top, and over the
skeleton structure thus formed a
sheathing of water-tight armor Rlate
will be boIted, much after the fashion
of clapboards on house.
The thickness of the plates will range
from an inch at the base to seven-six-
teenths of an inch at the top. The
weight of a single gate will be about
600 tons and the dimensions are n to
so feet high, 60 to IS feet wide and z
feet thick.
The thousands of individual pieces,
numbered and fitted to go together
like children's blocks, will be shipped
by steamer via Baltimore, and with
Il6n Will go 4UU Sklll6u STRUCTURAL olSOA
builders from Pittsburg to set them up
THREE YEARS FOR CONTRACT
The advance guard of experts will
leave here in December and the first
work probably will begin early in 1911.
1t will take three years to complete
the job. The gates are designed to
hold back water 47.4 feet deep in
channel 110 feet wide, which means a
pressure of a million pounds.
Engineers point out that even If
tremendous explosion or earthquake
should damage or destroy one or more
sets of gates no great disaster would
ensue, for all locks are to be made
in duplicate to accommodate traffic in
both directions at once, and the wreck
age of one set of locks would only
necessitate the diversion of commerce
into another set. But violent earth
uuakes have not occurred in the Pan
anna region for more than 200 years,
and it would require a mighty siege for
an enemy to destroy the locks.
Each lock will be ample for ship
SO per cent larger than any vessel now
afoat, and it has been estimated that
as many as hundred ships could be
handled in a single day. There are no
locks approaching these in size. The
famous SueZ canal is sea level affair
and the few gate lock canals would
have to combine their gates to equal
the size and strength of the great doors
of Panama.