THE PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PANAMA CANAL. 739 



Canal Company as well as of the former Isthmian Canal Commission. 

 This is an important featnre of the project, especially in considering 

 iiltimateh^ whether a sea -level canal or canal with locks shall be built, 

 for it indicates that in any event a little more than one-half of the 

 canal will be a sea-level waterway. Will it, then, be advisable to give 

 to the remainder (less than half the length) the same freedom from 

 restriction of locks to navigation ? 



The intermediate 24 miles of canal line cover the higher portions 

 of the low saddle in the Cordillera at the Panama crossing. The 

 highest point in this saddle before any excavation was made at 

 Culebra was about 330' feet above mean sea level. The length of 

 this deepest canal cutting through Culebra Hill is scarcely 3,000 feet. 

 Strictly speaking, the heavy part of the summit cut, comprising 

 what is ordinarily known as the Emperador and Culebra cuts, is not 

 more than 6 miles in length, and its original surface elevation, with 

 the exception of the Culebra portion, averages about 175 feet above 

 mean sea level. The natural slope from the Culebra Cut toward the 

 Pacific is relatively abrupt, it being but 4 miles from the cut to Mira- 

 flores, at which both the former Commission and the New Panama 

 Canal Company located their first lock on the Pacific side of the 

 Isthmus. The slope from the northerly end of the summit cut at 

 Emperador toward the Caribbean is relatively gentle, the distance 

 from Emperador to Bohio, where the New Panama Canal Company 

 and the former Commission located the first lock on the Caribbean 

 side of the Isthmus, being 1(\ miles. No well-developed plans for 

 either of the terminal harbors have been made up to this time, but 

 such plans are now being thoroughly considered by the present 

 Commission. 



The Old Panama Canal Company, which began its operations in 

 1881, planned a sea-level canal having a depth of water of 29.5 feet, 

 and bottom width of 72 feet. It carried on work actively until 1889, 

 when it suspended operations and went into bankruptcy, its exca- 

 vations amounting to a total of about 72,000,000 cubic yards. The 

 New Panama Canal Company has excavated about 8,000,000 cubic 

 yards since that time. The work of excavation of the old company 

 was distributed over parts of the entire line, although there were 

 considerable portions of the line on which no excavation at all was 

 made. Over some other portions of the location relatively small 

 quantities of material only were taken out. The largest parts of 

 this work were performed within about 12 miles of Colon, within 

 about 5 miles of Panama, and within a distance of about 7 miles, 

 including the great Culebra and Emperador cuts. The excavation 

 along the sea-level portions of the canal at either end was all made 

 in soft ground, but in the excavation in the Emperador and Culebra 

 cuts, as well as at Obispo, near the point where the Chagres River 



