The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-18
Waters of the Two Oceans Will Join Through the
 Great Canal
ANNUAL REPORT IS
 MADE BY GOETHALS
Land Slides and Other Things Have Delayed Contractors--Six Months or Year Later Formal Open
 ing Will Occur

next summer or fall, no exact date be- ing specified vessel will pass from tho Atlantic to the Pacific across what ia now the Isthmus of Panama, which eon- sequently must disappear from the worlds geography and by the same human agen- cy, the western hemisphere will be di- vided into two continents.
 The vessel will not be the Oregon nor any other famous ship, but will be enc of the many small water craft in daily use by the canal builders and probably the only passengers will be Col George w. Goethals and the stan of American engineers, who for the past eight years have been carrying on the greatest en- gineering work the world has ever seen. It will be later than that, anywhere from six months to a year perhaps. befors the formal opening Of the waterway will take place and a naval fleet, headed by the famous old Oregon. will pass through into the western ocean and the canal may be fairly said to be open to trade.
 Not Official
 These facts are not of official record as yet. The date of January 1. 1915, still stands for the opening predicted by Col onel Goethals. but that the opening will be anticipated to great extent has been promised by the canal builders in unofficial statements and now comes l. clear intimation Of their purpose to ad- vance the opening date in the annual report of the canal commission, just pub lished It is disclosed that while the com pletion of the great locks by January 1 next will not be possible owing to con- tract delays within six months there after the channel will be finished, while 10 insure the safe passage of the locks the contractor has been called upon to finish the gates in one flight first so that if the rest of the work Is in connection passage of ships can be permitted with out waiting for the completion of the other flights. This statement will De un- derstood when 1t is known that the great locks are being built in duplicate. sies by side, not only to add to the capacity of the canal, but to insure it's contin-l nance In operation in case of a seriVns accident to ship ins ane. 9t the locks.
 Illc iNi(ert- shvs4 most satfsfsetery i state Of progress Of the whole great work though In view of the fact that 1t is dated September 10. laat. the figures re- garding excavation. placing of concrete. erection of dams and locks and subsidiary works are not as recent as those con- tatred in the regular monthly reports, Naturally the most interesting feature ef Lac report relates to the operations in the great Culebra cut.
 Gdeat Landslides Occur
 Here great landsldes, many ranking with an Alpine avalanche in magnitude. have so Increased the amount of ma terial 10 be eXcayated that were if not fpTtuH nOaSf1lR n ufQadiIN ina cost per yard Of dredging and steam shovelling through the growing expert ness of the employees and improved en- glneering methods the total cost Of ex- oaVatlon would have been vastly greater than the estimates during the last year. Nearly l8,500,000 cubic yards of earth were taken out of this cut, leaving nearly 100000 to be displaced before the canal can be opened. The damage caused by the slides may be appreciated from the fact that nearly 6.000000 yards of earth was excavated, composing, or nearly so, 35 per cent of the total excavation.
 There is only one way to deal with these slides and that Is to dig them out as they occur though some help is gained by terraclng the upper banks. That Is because the geological formation changes so frequently and suddenly that no other effective treatment has been found. So unstable is the earth that the material Tn one part or the cut begins to move on an inclination as low as on [, owing to the mass of stratifed rock sliding over a layer of Ignite. One slide now in mo- ton near the bridge of culebra covers an area of 63 acres from which 2.7i000 yards have already been removed Icay- ing i,30o,oco still to be handled
 Another Little Slide
 There Is another little slide of no less than O acres on the opposite side of the canal. The result of these earth movements wblch are quite exceptional leave the canal in It's deepest portions with very flat slopes The encouraging feature of the heavy work at that point is found fin the statement in the report that none of the slides which occurred during the year would have interiered with the passage of ships had the canal been in operation.''
 Already the appropriations made by Congress for the canal have run into big figures the total up 10 June 30 last, being $293. 567, 4eS and since that date there have been additional appropriations, ex- elusive of those for Qualifications amount- ing to s2S.9aoO00, making the grand total $222,54i.4eS. On June 90 of all these ap- propriations the engineers had expended 60 per cent Of the total estimated cost of the canal
 Of even greater interest from an en- gineering point of view than the vast -e-------s~-~~----~