The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-08-12

First digging lby Americans, May 4, 1904-taking over the rights and. property of the French Canal com pany. and obtaining necessary con cession from the Republic of Panama-
 First Union of Atlantic and Pacific waters. blowing up of the Ganhoa. Dike, when President Wilson touched an electric button in Washington, Oc-
 tober 10. 1913.
 First boat of any kind to make transisthmian passage: A name1ess
 nludscow of the Panama railroad,
 which passed from the Pacific entranc ct Culebra cut il, November 1913, and was sent to the Atlantic entrance in December, 1913.
 Fir st vessel to steam through canal: The crane boat Alexander LaVaI1esy.
 ap old French boat of 1.20o tons whichSpassed from the Atlantic to the Pacific on Jan. T. 1914.
 First man to swim through the canal was Alfred Brown, an Ameri- can, who swam from Gatun Locks
 to Balboa, a distance of thirty miles, on November 24~1ast, in 1 6 hours, 35 minutes actual swimming time.
 First vessel to pass completely around South America 'by way of the Canal was the tug Reliance, Captain R. c. Thompson, which sailed from
 500 miles around South America and returned to the Atlantic Ocean through Gatun locks, February first. last
 Washington. Aug. 12.-More than when the board of consulting engi- neers in 1906 estimated that it would take until January, 1915 to complete the Panama canal along the nnes then underway, the United States gov ernment finds itself ready to begin business next Saturday in selling tick cts of passage to chips of all nations through the new gateway.
 It is just ten years since the gov ernnient advertised it's purpose to con- meet the oceans. It is nearly 400 years since a Spanish engineer first sug- lsgested such a project.
 For a time the epoch which this triumph of engineering marks will pass unnoticed so far as celebrations
 go. for it is not until next spring that the great demonstrations will be ! made. but from next Saturday on, the Panama canal will be an accomplished
 fact. and the worlds commerce will gradually accustom itself to this new groove.
 | What it will mean to the world at large, and ito particular nations. and especially to the United States, is a question around which great deal of controversy has been waged. now to be answered by the Canal itself. After the passage of a governm ent steamer next Saturday. probably the Cristoba1, any ship up to 10000 tons register, applying for admission to the Pacific from the Atlantic or vice versa may be conducted through the | 50 miles waterway upon payment of
 sI25 for every tone (net) of cargo.
 Crew and passengers, will not be
 At tI,is nominal Iexnense sorna tuo mouths sailing time, on a 10000 miles voyage around the South Amer1can continent may be saved, or the ex- pense of gtranshfpment by railroad done away with, if desired. The canal has cost the United
 States nearly $400.000, 1000. That is approximately what DeLesseps, the French engineer, figured it would cost when he undertook the job in 1889, but he spent that and more. in n7ak- l ing only a slight impression. and end 1 ed in utter failure and financial dis grace.
 l A year from this time it is figured ! the government will have to show re- iceipts of some SIS, 900, poo to pay the 1 operating cost of the canal, which will
 be about s4.ooe.o GOO yearly. and the | interest on its huge investment. l year or for many years is a mooi
 question.
 Traffic experts have estimated. thad t10,000,000 tons of freight will be car ried through the canal every year for the first few years. and that later il l will be nearly doubled. This, roughly has been the experience at the Suez
 canal Last year nearly 5000 ships passed through the Suez. with nei 4 tonnage of over 2O.0O0,00O. The l growth in tonnage in 10 years had I been more than 70 per cent.