A WORLD-WIDE WONDER

Patea Mail, Volume XLIII, 16 July 1919, Page 4

A WORLD-WIDE WONDER

THE PANAMA CANAL A very vivid word-picture of the Panama Canal is given by a Patea boy who passed through it recently. The huge project, he states, was first mooted as far back as 1534 when studies were made of a canal to fallow the Eio Grande and Chagres valleys very much on the present canal route. Potwecn 1850 and 18S5 surveys were made of various routes and a railway completed across the isthmus in the following year. la IS7G a French company was granted a concession for a canal and work wr.j begun five years later, but after go' :.•_■• ahead for seven years the venture failed for lack of funds. A receiver was put in and kept a certain amount of work going so that the concession might not lapse, and in 1904 the whole show, equipment and everything was sold to the American Government for forty million dollars. The French company had spent over 255 million dollars, which were not altogether wasted as much of their work was utilised in the present canal. The Americans carried the work through to a successful issue, huge steam shovels and dredges making the excavations, and the latest and most up-to-date plant procurable being utilised for the immense amount of concrete work required for the construction of the locks. The Americans forged ahead with their customary thoroughness, that the canal was able to be opened for navigation on August 14th, 1914, a feedays after the Great War began. Since then it has been a God-send to the Allies in enabling troops and munitions to be conveyed more speedily to the front. The working force in connection with the construction of the canal consisted of some 5000 Americans, 5000 European labourers (mostly Spaniards) and 28,000 Central American and West Indian negroes. This wonderful work was under the charge of a truly wonderful man, Colonel Goethals, who saw that the employees laboured under the very best conditions. They had good quarters provided, good food, excellent sanitary and hospital arrangements, good pay and many luxuries hitherio unknown. As a consequence fever and sickness were reduced to a minimum and the work proceeded apace. Approximately 375 million dollars were spent on the canal by the American authorities including the forty million purchase price to the French Com pany and ten million to the Republic of Panama for sovereign rights over the canal zone.

The canal is about 50 miles in length from deep water to deep water, and 500 feet wide. Its least depth is JO feet, and any ship in the world yet built is able to pass through. (Striking features of the canal are the locks, which enable the largest vessel to be lifted from sea level to lake level, a distance of 85 feet. Part of: the surplus water from the Oatuii lake is used for a huge hydro-electric scheme which provides the current for all the machinery used in opening and closing fhe locks, in the manufacturing plants, in the thousands of lights used profusely from one end of the canal (o the other. The lake itself is one of the wonders of the canal. It has an area of 1(1-1-square miles, and a least depth of -15 feet in the ship channel. As one passes through on a ship it looks as if it had been there for all time, when as a matter of fact, it i.s as artificial as a fishpond and only from four to six years old. The thing that amazes one perhaps more than anything is the great "Culebra Cut", which, as the name implies is a cutting clean through the ridge of hills that form the backbone of the isthmus, lien worked on this from ISBI to 1914 with only three years' in-terruption—lSSS-IS9I. From .1007 to 1004 over half the American builders were concentrated here and along the banks at two-mile internals were substantial villages.

The excavation work was carried out as follows : Holes were first drilled in the earth and rock and dynamite charges exploded. 'The spoil thus loosened was dug out with steam shovels and dumped into trucks, and these were hauled to the islands in Panama Bay where a very tine breakwater was built up with the spoil ; -15 steam shovels, ll; - ) large locomotives and ■ L'ooo cars were engaged in the excavation. The cut is 7.07 miles long, 1500 feet wide at the bottom. At the point where the hills tower highest above the water the excavation is 4!)j3 feet below the original surface, which will give some idea of the magnitude of the work. At the Pacific terminus of the canal there are large repair shops, docks and coaling plants, the latter with a capacity of .100,000 and a loading capacity of 1000 tons an hour. These plants arc on so big a scale that it is stated that any vessel can coal, re-victual, repair, and buy necessary cordage and chandlery as well at the Panama Canal as at London or New York.

The population of the canal zone is estimated at .°>2oo Americans and about 20',000 AVest Indians. They are looked after by a. beneficent Government who treats them well. They, as a matter of fact, live in Government houses, buy food and clothes at Government stores, eat at Government hotels, find recreation at club-houses or on play-grounds provided by the Government, send their children to Government schools, attend churches aided by the Government, ride on a. Government railway and Government motor cars, and travel to and from the United .States on Government ships. The sick are attended at Government hospitals, whilst the Government attends to the burying of the dead and administers their estates. Altogether, the whole Government is in the hands of one individual, the Governor of the Panama Canal, avlio is described as a "benevolent despot". The creature comforts of the people are w-cll provided for and the whole zone, which was once a fever-stricken area, can now be described as a "White Plan's Paradise.