The copper era and Morenci leader., 1913-08-22

Nearly in the center of the dam we can see the famous spillway through which pass the surplus waters of the Chagres. It is concrete lined chan neI 2S5 feet wide cut through a hill of rock and across 1t is built curved dam of concrete on top of which h a row of regulating gates Just below the spiliway, out of our sight, is the hydroelectric station which supplies power for the operation of the entire canal and the lighting of the whole zone.
 Our channel through the Iake-for we still must follow a path indicated by range towers on the shores|as now a thousand feet wide and leads us somewhat tortuously through . maze of islands. Look down e We near some of them and you will see below the surface the tops of giant trees. For we are sailing over what but few months ago was the valley of the Chagres, dense with tropic vegetation and dotted with native viii lages surrounded by banana and CO coanut plantations. Close to the shores the stoutest of the trees still stretch their naked, dead limbs above the water, but before long these, too, will have rotted and fallen, leaving the 1uxuriant landscape unmarred.
 Passing over the. sites of Bohio, Frijo1es and Chagresito, we now come to the place where Tabernilla once stood, and here both lake and channel narrow down, the latter being first 800, then 700 and finally 500 feet wide. On the hillsides to the right stand a few abandoned houses, all that re- mains of Mamef, Juan Grande, Cor gona and Matachin, busy places while the canal was building, now covered by the spreading waters. Along the .I-Sf shore of the channel runs the re- located Panama railway ai1d h<51e at Gamboa it crosses the Chagree rivers which our vessel now leaves to enter the far famed Culebra cut, This great. gAsh- through the spine of the conti- nent is 300 feet wide at the bottom, but, because of the tremendous earth slides which cost Uncle Sam % much money and time, it's width at the top is astonishing. being half a mile just here opposite the town of Culebra. Beyond. on our left, towers Gold hill, 495 feet above the bottom of the ca nal Far up on it's rocky slope we dis cern a streak of white paint which marks the level to which the French company carried its excavations. Nearly opposite is Contractors hill, 364 feet high. AS we move between these, the loftiest hills along the route, and pass the location of that notorious "cockroach," the Cucaracha slide, the Pedro Miguel lock stands before us, white in the monday sun. This, single flight lock, is 30 feet high, the highest on the canal. Again we are taken in tow by electric mules and in less than half an hour we have been lowered those 30 feet and steam into another artificial body of water, Miraf1ores lake, only a mile long. At it's southern end we pass the town of Miraflores and enter the locks of the same name, double flight that lets us down once more to sea level.
 The exciting part of the passage Is over, but there is yet much of interest to see. Down the broad channel we look clear out onto the glittering waters of the Pacific ocean. Nearer at hand, on the left, Ancon hill raises it's verdure-clad summit, and clustered on it's slopes we see the many struc- lures of the big hospital, the new administration buildings Of the canal and the barracks of the marines. And now, steaming between filled-in swamp lands, we come to Balboa, which the government has made into a fine naval station, with an immense dry dock and extensive machine shops.
 Stretching out from Balboa into the Pacific is a breakwater, two miles long, which protects the harbor from storms At it's outer end Is cluster of little islands, Naos, Perico, Culebra and Flamenco, and here we pasR under the powerful guns that guard the Pacific end of the canal They are mounted high up on the summits of these rock islets, rifled cannon, one shot from which would sink a battle ship, and huge mortars whose shells can be dropped behind Tobago island 1z miles away in the direction or Japan.
 In ten hours we have crossed through the continent and now. hoat on the broad Pacific. As we look back the picturesque city of Panama lies bathed in the light of the wester- ing sun and on the side of Ancon hill shines the big white TivoH hotel. The sudden night of the tropics Is soon to fall. and already, as far back as we can see along our route and beside the ocean channel, are t~fnkiing the lights that Uncle Sam has set up to ke the worlds commerce through tSS most wonderful of canals which Aa has built.