The Mena weekly star., 1913-10-16
TWO OCEANS NOW MEET
 THROUGH PANAMA CANAL
President Wilson Touched Button Which Caused Electric Current to
 Flash, Exploding Dynamite.

Flash, Exploding dynamite.
 Washington, Oct. l0.-Promptly at 3 o'clock this afternoon President Wilson touched an electric button which caused electric current to flash over more than 1000 miles of land and water, exploding dynamite which blew up the great Gamboa dyke in the Panama canal, the last obstacle in the canal.
 The event was the occasion for general celebration throughout the isthmus. Much digging and clean ing out remains to be done in Gu lebra cut and along the route, but this will be accomplished my man. moth dredges floating on the sur face of the canal.
 During the period of construction the costs have steadily gone beyond the estimates, because of the in crease in the eXcavating required. In 1906 the calculation was the making of the Culebra cut would involve the removal of 53S00,O00 yards of earth. The final figures are just about double-a round one hundred million yards. In part this increase was due to a decision to widen the prism from 200 to 300 feet; in larger part the increase re- suited from the eXasperatlng move ment of the soil.
 The canal will cost-if no new trouble starts-about S400000,000. The experts make the confident prediction that before it is long in operation it will yield in tolls a reasonable return in the way of earnings on the investment.
 Nine Years of Work.
 With more work to be done, it would not be consistent, according to Colonel Goethals, to make a spectacle of the joining of the waters of the Atlantic and the Pa cific. So everything was quietly prepared and just as quietly eX- ecuted. The squirt of mud and silt thrown up by the explosion of giant blasts are so common on the canal, especially in the neighbor- hood of Culebra cut and Gatun lake, that no particular attention IS paid to them.
 This nearing of the end of nine years of toll on the part of the en- gineers and wOrkmen on the isth- mus is bringing forth a realization of what has been accomplished in building the canal. The Chagres river has been turned into a lake i6l acres in extent by impounding it's water back of the Gatun dam. This dam is a mile and a half in length and l20 feet high, and united the high hills on either side of the river. Without considering the other features of the canal. the con- struction of the dam alone was a feat of engineering to test the skill of the American technicians.
 Then the digging of the Culebra cut, a ditch nine miles in length, 300 feet to 500 feet wide at the bottom, and from a thousand feet to half mile wide at the top, through the isthmian hills, which approach mountains in size, was a task of gigantic proportions. Fully three-fourths of all the rock and soil taken out of the entire canal was removed from Culebra cut. In addition to the actual digging of the Iditch. the sides on the banks of the cut increased the amount of soil taken out about fifteen million cu- bic yards.
 Lifts Ship S7 Feet.
 A ship passing from the Atlantic to the Pacific will enter the canal through the deep waterway dredge in Limon bay, on which Colon is situated. Passing into the canal channel it will steam for seven miles at sea level until it reaches Gatun.
 Here it will enter the series of three locks and be lifted eighty seven feet to the surface of Gatun lake. Across the lake to the en- trance of Culebra cut is a distance of about twenty-four miles. At BaS Obispo the vessel will enter the cut which is really an arm of the lake and has the same surface level. The nine miles of the cut traversed, the vessel will enter the Pedro Migue lock and be lowered thirty and one- third feet 10 Miraflores lake, which has an elevation of fifty-four anC two-thirds feet about sea level al mean tide. At the other end of Mi rahores lake, one and one-hal miles distant, it will be lowered tC sea level, passing out to the Pa