Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1913-07-11
ID IRST THROUGH
$1e PANAMA. CANAL
I'd Rr cTDNcKAPD M
IL BY En- NCKARD -.m

\-~ ss-s.A rs ~
Colon, G. IL am going to take you
through the completed Panama canal
on he irst vessel to pass across the
tsthmus from the Atlantic ocean to
the Pacific. True, the canal is not yet
completed, and will not be for a year
or SO, but that shall not prevent our
making the trip now-on paper.
Let us imagine ourselves, then, on
an ocean iner approaching the Allan
tic or northern entrance of the great
canal, prepared to enjoy this initial
trip and to wonder at the sights in
store for us. In that word northern"
lies the first surprise for many Of the
passengers who did not know that
the canal runs not from east to west.
but from northwest to southeast. This
seeming anomaly Is due to the fact
that the Isthmus of Panama here
trends almost east and west.
1t Is still early morning when a
watchful passenger shouts Land
and all who are up rush to the port
rail to gaze pom the billy, jungly
coast of the isthmus between Porto
Bello and Colon. AS the steamship
p!ows swiftly through the waters as
blue as ever were those OF the Medi-
terranean a cheer goes up from the
deck, for we nave caught a glimpse OF
the Stars and Stripes 1uttering above
. fringe of cocoanut palms. That
marks the location Of one Of the big
forts built to protect the canal in time
of war and is IN Margarita island.
virtually a part of the mainland.
Colon, fiat and un~picturesque, now
comes n view, and directly ahead
Of US an immense breakwater
stretches a mile out from the shore
on the right. At its land end, on
Toro point, is another fort whose
great guns are masked by the tropical
Foliage.
Now we nave virtually entered the
canal, for the 500-foot channel extends
far out from the shore line. At re
duced speed we enter Colon harbor
and the Bay of Limon and steam past
The p~retentious Washington hotel, I'm
Gle Sam, proprietor; the docks OF
Colon, crowded with shipping from
the United States. Europe and many
a port of Latin America. and the
American town of Cristobal on whose
water front stands the statue OF Co
lumbus sent owe long years by
the Empress Eugene. Skipping about
the bay. looking like long. black water
beetles. are the cayukas or native dug
outs, and moving lazily before the sea
breeze are the little sailing craft in
which the queer San Bias Indians are
bringing their products to market.
On the immense concrete piers OF
Cristobal, built by the canal commits.
sion. are throngs of cheering people,
white, black and of all intermediate
shades. But we do not stop, for the
ten-hour passage must be made in
daylight and already the sun is high
over Mount Hope, once Monkey Hill
the scene of many a bloody fight in
the old insurrectionary days, now the
last resting place of hundreds who
laid down their lives in the work OF
digging the canal under both the
French and the American regimes.
-Four miles and a half we steam
through Limon bay and the shores
narrow in on our 50O-foot channel
still at tide level. Now look ahead
three miles and get a glimpse of the
Gatun locks, that tremendous fight OF
three water steps up which we are to
be lifted. In a lev minutes we reach
the towering dividing wall Of concrete,
our own power Is shut off and the
electric locomotives on the lock walls
take us in tow. Four of these
full machines attach their hawsers to
our ship, two in front to pull it and two
astern to keep it steady an. to bring
1t to a stop when entirely within the
lock chamber. The immense gates
close silently behind us and at once
the water begins to flow into the
chamber through culverts that have
their openings in the concrete floor.
Slowly the vessel rises until it is on
a level with the second chamber,
20 1-3 feet above sea level, when the
gate ahead is opened and the electric
mules move forward, this time up a
heavy grade by means of the center
racks in h tracks. Twice his opera.
ton is repeated, and now we are at
the summit, IS feet above the sea.
The last gate opens and the locomo.
tives pull us into Gatun lake.
AS our propellers begin to turn
again and we steam out into this i'm.
mense artificial lake, a m~arvelously
beautiful landscape is spread before
us. The surface of the lake is dotted
with islets, once the SUBMITS of Tiger
hill, Lion hill and a dozen other emf.
nences; on both sides are steep pro.
montories, lovely little p%eninsulas and
deep bays and inlets where the water
has spread n the once jungle-filled
valleys.
Before we get too far from the
locks, let us step to the starboard rail
and have a look at the Gatun dam,
enormous stretch Of rock, sand and
clay that has formed Gatun lake by
impounding the waters OF the Chagres
river. It is in reality a low ridge, one
and a half miles long, built across the
valley, and when WI are told that it
fs nearly half a mile wide al it's base,
400 feet wide at the water surface and
100 feet wide at its crest, which is
twenty feet above the level of the
lake, how utterly ridiculous seem the
fears of those alarmfsts who predicted
the dam would be pushed over by the
Chagres in time Of food!
Nearly in the center Of the dam we
can . the famous spillway through
which pass the surplus waters Of the