ll the
distance occupied by the locks we have the fifty miles.

Gatun Lake was made by a great dam across the Chagres river. This dam is
a stupendous piece of work, being a half mile wide at the bottom, a mile
and a half long, and more than one hundred feet high. A gigantic
spillway allows the surface water to run over. During the dry season,
about four months, the river does not supply enough water to run the
locks so Gatun Lake must furnish the supply. This lake at present covers
one hundred and sixty-four square miles, and last year it was lowered
five feet during the dry season. The land has been purchased for the
extension of the lake and the great spillway can be raised twenty feet
higher if necessary so that a shortage of water is practically
impossible.

Each lock in the canal is a thousand feet long, one hundred and ten feet
wide, and the average height about thirty feet, so they hold a
tremendous amount of water. Every ship passing through empties two lock
chambers full of water into the ocean at each end. It is an interesting
fact that at the Atlantic the tide only makes a difference of two and a
half feet, at the Pacific side the difference is more than twenty feet.
While the low lock gates at the Atlantic side are sixty-four feet high
the low lock gates at the Pacific side are eighty-two feet high.

I was permitted to go into the control station tower at the Gatun lock
system and see three ships taken through, also into the tunnels below to
see the machinery in operation and it is a sight never to be forgotten.
To take a ship through these locks the operator sets in motion twice
ninety-eight gigantic electric motors and it is all done without an
audible word being spoken. Every possible emergency has been provided
for. Could an enemy ship by any manner of means get into the canal and
undertake to ram the gates it would be helpless as far as any damage is
concerned. Mighty chains guard the gates and it is impossible to get
the gates closed without these chains being raised to their places.
Emergency gates are provided so the water can all be shut off, the locks
emptied and repairs made in the bottoms of the lock chambers, if
necessary.

At the continental divide the Culebra Cut is almost five hundred feet
deep and more than a half mile wide at the top. The channel itself is
three hundred feet wide and forty-five feet deep. There have been half a
hundred slides and a single one of them brought down an are