THE PANAMA CANAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12814, 13 July 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE PANAMA CANAL.

ITS STORY IN A NUTSHELL,

Ihe Panama Canal will be fifty miles long from deep, water m the Pacific to deep water m : the Atlantic. From shore line to shore line the length is forty miles. In going through it the vessels enter Limon Bay, a magnificent harbor, and steam thence through the first Atlantic stretch, which is over seven miles long, to Gatun. The ship is still on the level of the Garribbean when it gets to Gatun, but there it meets tho great locks, which, filled by the Ohagres, lift it 85ft into Gatun Lake. In the lake itself the steamer may pass at full speed to the entrance to the Culebra cut, and the same level is maintained until you reach the other end of that cut at Pedro- *Miguele. There the vessel enters a lock, and drops about the height of a three-storey house into a. small lake, which is about 55ft above sea level. That lake is yet to be made, but it will be a mile arid a half long and 55ft above the sea. At the end of the lake there are two more locks, one above the. other, ■ winch successively drop it down from the height of a. fivestorey flat to -the channel and on the level of the Pacific Ocean. Our ship is now only eight miles and a half from the ocean itself, and is ready to- steam off to China, Japan, Australia, or anywhere else m the Pacific.

That is the story of the canal m a nutshell, but it is one which many do not understand. We hear, a great deal, for example, about the bringing of the waters of the Atlantic' and Pacific Oteeans together. They do not come together, and if they did they would have to flow uphill to a height of 85ft. The salt waters have but little to do with moving the ships from ocean to ocean. It is the fresh water of the ' Chagres river that does the work,