The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1912-04-02
CARPENTER AT PANAMA
End If Uncle Sans Great All About the Atlantic
Waterway
Rv FRANK G. CARPENTER.
Waterway
Rv FRANK G. CARPENTER.

completed, and beyond them the dam
where the waters of the Chagres are
rising. There Is now only ABOUT
twenty feet of water in the lake. but
it is a beautiful sheet, with many
islands spottine the surface. Later
on it Will be seventy feet higher. and
will cover such q vest extent that
sitting on the steamers some parts OF
it extend beyond the range of the
eye.
The Locks at Gatun.
Now take a rapid view of the locks.
They lie below us in three pairs or
gigantic stone chambers. one above
the other. covering a distance OF
more than half q mile. and contain
ing material enough to build a little
city of s~kyscrapers. The material is
concrete and it looks like stone. Con-
nected with that in the dam It's
amount is altogether more than two
million cubic yards. or more than
enough to make a wall SIX 1eet vide
and six feet high of solid concrete
from New York to Washington. The
dam alone contains more thar
100000 cubic yards Of material,
and enough earth has been put there
to build a roadway a foot thick and
nine feet wide. il earth and rock
could be laid on the water, from
Shanghai in nina across the Pacific
ocean to the United States. and across
the United States and me Atlantic
to Europe. and a thousand miles far
Their on into h heart of that CONT
nent.
Looking at the dam and the locks
from here. you get a faint conception
Of their immensely n cost. This
impression will be even less when the
water is turned in. Then everything
will be hiddor. and it will be hard to
realize that forty or fifty million dol
lars have been spent in making the
construction now lying below US.
The two million cubic yards Of
concrete alone. SO Colonel Sibert tells
me, cost something like 81 per yard.
or $14,O0O,00O while the excavation
cost upward of $1,000. 900 more. The
gates to all the locks Of the canal are
to cost over $5,O00.00O. This is a
pretty penny, and it is only when you
eight-story house. made in hundreds
Of thousands Of pieces, fitted together
like a watch, hat you realize where
that money has gone.
A Look at the Dam.
But let me give you a loo at the
dam. It is more like the side hills
of a great field pillow ed by the gods
than like any kind OF masonry con
Struction. It is. in fact. a mountain
"AAN AONN' NAANI liz 0lb CS
of Uncle Sans Aladdin lamp have
lifted up bodily and dropped down
between two other little Mountains,
} shutting in the valley Of the Chagres
and making a lake which will be 1874
square miles in extent. 1t is a dan
f; OF earth and rock. a mighty mound
, Of excavated material a mile and q
half long and a half mile wide at the
l base. 1t will be less than 100 feet
4 high. The ground SLOPES up grad,
S uaIly from the lake and slopes grad
4 ually down on the other side. It i:
more like a hill than anything else
9 like a barrier created by nature rather
than man. AT the top it will be onl,
100 feet wide, and the water will
n come within perhaps thirty feet Of it
e At the back. or facing the Atlantic
G it will probably be smoothed of ant
e odded and as Colonel Sibert face
e tiously says. it might be turned int
f a golf link. using the spillway for
h hazard.
And now. lust a word about tn
# spillWay. This is the overflow Of tn
/ dam. 1t is right in the center, an,
n 1t consists Of a cOncrete-lined open
ing, a little more than a quarter Of
e mile long and 800 feet wide, whic
Is runs down through the dam to
point about ten feet above sea leve
The crest of the dam will be 11o fee
above that level. The spillway dar
" will be fitted with gates, and the ma
n, chinery which will regulate the waite
d level of the lake. This masonry
G, all in place. 1t is semi-circula i
n shape and it looks as if it were mad
Of OF Berrea sandstone.
to Making q Mountain.
as In my trip today l vas shown no
e. the dam was constructed. BY a sue
at cesSiOn Of Us the railroad tracksleaG
ID to its top and we rode here and ther
n all over it. There are two gres
walls of e~xcaVated material made u
OF the mighty masses Of rock ar
other spoil from the Culebra Gu
ne These form a reservoir. as it wer
op which is being filled with clay an
sand and other stuff dredged frol
or the lake and also from the land gu
OF side. 1t is carried into the basin {
core OF the am between piles
as lOOSA rock orI i, ', a,t H., -