The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1913-02-14
Edgerton's Sailor Boy Visits the Pan.
anna Canal.
BY ROY M. OGDEN.
U. S. S. VIRGINIA, Colon, PANAMA,
Ian % 1919


| had the pleasure of visiting the
Panama canal yesterday. The U. S.
government is giving excursions to the
10, 900 men of the Atlantic fleet which
is divided into four divisions and each
division remains one week here to give
It's men the outing. The present divis-
ion is composed of the Virginia flag
ship, Nebraska, Georgia. which are
here at Colon, also the Rhode Island
and New Jersey which are at our home
yard for repairs at Boston, Mass. Each
ship has its parties divided into three
sections of 300 to $50 men each. / went
with the first party yesterday. We had
an early breakfast at $50, then shifted
into uniform of white dress which is
composed of white drill with blue col
lars and cuffs and white hats. We then
fell in for muster at TOO a. m. and left
the ship in three sailing launches and a
cutter with party of $50 men and five
officers. We arrived at the dock at
Colon at 8:15 a. m. and embarked on a
special train of 13 coaches which took
the parties from the Virginia, Nebras-
ka and Georgia, little over ], 900 men.
The train left Colon at 900 a. m. and
our first stop was at Gatum, a distance
of seven miles. Here we stopped for
45 minutes and all hands had time to
go over the Gatum locks in the canal
which are the largest of all and consid-
cred the 9Th wonder of the world. 1t
is such vast feat of engineering that
one cannot imagine the greatness of it
without seeing it. The Gatum locks
are composed of three sets of double
locks, or six locks, which are each 1000
feet long, 10 feet wide and from 81 to
80 feet high. Each set has lift of 20
feet, and total lift of 81 feet. These
locks are seven miles from Limon Bay,
the Atlantic entrance of the canal.
The gates in these locks are of steel
structure, weighing 700 tons each, and
are 65 feet long, feet thick and from
AZ to 81 feet high. Everything will be
controlled by electricity and are about
SO per cent completed now.
Ten of us fellows took run over to
the Gatum dam which is II miles long.
lis feet high above the sea level, l05
feet thick at the top and about 30 feet
above the level of the lake which it
has formed which covers 210 square
miles of land. The depth of the canal
varies from As to IS feet through this
lake, which is 80 miles long.
The wonderful Culebra cut was our
next stop for 80 minutes. This cut is
4O5 feet deep from the highest point of
excavation. There are in use and at
work in this cut lis engineers Qocomo-
tive), 1000 fiat cars and they average
100 loads of run of the cut, as the rock
is called, a day. There is over 1900
miles of track in the dumping range of
33 miles from the cut, with an average
of nine tracks parallel at all points,
some places as high as 80. There is
also force of 377 compressed air drills
at work for the use of dynamiting the
rock. The estimate of one pound of
dynamite is used for every % cubic
yards of rock that is removed. There
are 81 large steam shovels at work
there also.
When we re-entered the train after
our visit to the cut, the 7. M. G. A.
served light lunch at the cost of 10c
per man, which consisted of two sand
wiches, an orange, banana and all the
lemonade one could drink, in fact, in
stead of ice water on the train the
tanks were kept filled with it all the
trip. We did not stop at the locks at
passed close by them. Our last stop
across the continent was at Panama
City. We arrived there at 1890 %. m.
and the men went about where they
wished for two hours. I took a trip
down to the shore of the Pacific ocean
and then roamed around the principal
streets of the city. The main feature
about the city is its cleanliness. There
are stores there owned or run by al
most every nationality on the globe
and you can get most anything there.
At 2:30 p. m. all hands returned to
the train and returned to Colon over a
different route. We arrived at Colon
at $50 p. m. Then as soon as the boats
came for us we returned to the ships
with our ouvenirs-some had mon
keys, parrots and goats, but the ma
jority had Panama hats and numerous
articles Of silk The natives certainly
do know thatsa bluejacket is free with
his money aud if he sees anything he
wants he will get it regardless of cost,
so they charge high prices but you can
compromise with them if you have the
time, as Panama hats they want S12
and SIS for the average you can bring
them down to So to SIS for them. They
were charging SC apiece for mangoes
which can be bought for &c per dozen
in the market; also oranges two for &c,
in the market they are 5 and 1Oc per
dozen; bananas three for SC which you
can get for Is and Zoe bunch in the
market
Our time here is limited and every
body is given a chance to make the
same trip. Only the one chance is
given to go ashore except special cases
of men having relatives living in the
vicinity of Colon.
One of the notable features of the
trip is that in going from Colon to Pan
anna you travel in a southeast direction
Or go east to the Pacific ocean and west
to the Atlantic. Also can say that /
crossed the continent twice in one day.
We leave here the 31st for Guantan-
amo bay, Cuba, to stay until March II,
then we return to the good old U. S.
and home by the 10th of April for a
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