The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1913-10-24

the Pacific, having made the whole
journey from deep water in the At
Iantic to deep water In the Pacific.
fifty miles. in ten hours.
At both ends the locks are built In
pairs or twins. so that ships going
in opposite directions may pass
through them simultaneously A wall
sixty feet thick separates the locks.
and if one set should become disabled
the adjoining set still would be avail
able for passage. The time required
for a ship to mount the three locks on
one side aud descend the three locks on
the other side Is three hours.
On the Atlantic side the locks at
Gatun are connected and constitute
one solid piece of masonry, On the
Pacific side the lock at Pedro Miguel
Is separated from the two locks Mt Mi
raflOres by small lake mile and a
half long This lake, like the great
Gatun lake. is formed by damming riv-
ers A dam at the Pedro Miguel lock
which is the first lock encountered go
ing toward the Pacific. holds the wa
tiers of Gatun lake from spilling down
the Pacific slope.
Chief Engineer Stevens began tho
excavations in the Gatun and Pedro
Miguel lock sites In 1906 shortly after
the decision was made for lock type
canal. hut most Of the excavation and
ell of the concrete laying have been
Al M, IL
necessary to remove about 50O000H
cubic yards of rock and earth from
! the site Of the three locks at Gatun to
prepare foundation for the tremen.
dously heavy structure. Careful Dor
ings had been made to ascertain If Il
suitable foundation could be found
there.
On Aug. "a. 1909. the first concrete
was laid in the Gatun lock site. Rock
of a desirable kind for use in making
the concrete as well as sand could not
be found in the canal zone. and expert
ments along the coast showed that al
Porto Bello, twenty miles east of
Colon, good rock could be quarried
and sand was discovered in suitable
quantities and quality ut Nombre de
Dios, forty miles east of Colon. These
two places are the oldest ON the 18th
mus, Columbus having been there in
1902.
Rock crushing began at Porto Bello
ON March 2, 1909. If all the rock and
sand removed from Porto Bello and
Nombre de Dios We're placed In barges
separated by the usual distances In a
tow they would reach from Colon to
New Orleans, or 1900 miles. This ma
terial was lowed to Colon and thence
Gatun Here it was unloaded by ma
chinery and stored conveniently for
the concrete mixing plant.
All the machinery and equipment for
building the locks were designed on a
scale commensurate with the unprece
dented size of the structures. Eight
giant mixers were fed with rock sand
and cement by cars operated by cleo
tricity, the finished product coming
from each of the mixers at the rate of
siXty-four cubic feet for each complete
operation.
To get the concrete into place four
cabewayS suspended across the lock
site on towers eighty-ive feet high
were installed. Electrically operated
cars brought the concrete to these
towers. where great buckets were Gil
ed These buckets then were run up
to the cables and out on the cables to
a given point, where they were lower
ed and the concrete dumped into the
proper position.
After the floors of the locks had been
laid the walls We're built in the usual
manner of erecting steel forms, which
were removed when the concrete had
hardened At Gatun the walls of the
locks were built in sections thirty six
feet long and Joined together, on the
idea that such construction would have
less tendency to settle and crack than
If 1t were built in one solid, continuous
wall. This may be appreciated when 1t
is understood that at Gatun the locks
form concrete wall about $500 feet
long. or considerably more than half a
mile The disable part of each lock is |
1000 feet long. and there are three In
flight
In each of the outside walls and In |
the center wall tunnels eighteen feet |
in diameter were constructed for use |
in filling and emptying the locks with
water during the processes of raising |
and lowering ships Smaller tunnels |
run out from these main longitudinal
tunnels, under the floors of the locks,
with openings through which the water |
is turned into or withdrawn from the
lock chamber by gravitation. Valves
operated by electricity regulate the
flow of the water The water for
the locks starts from the
Gatun bake and flows through the tun-
nels down grade through the three locks
until II finally is used in the lowest
lock when It is spilled into the sea
level channel
The first concrete for the Pacific side
locks was laid at Pedro Miguel on
Sept I. lD0D, seven days after the be-
of operations at Gatun. II
was in February, 1910. that concrete I