414 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1947 



agree that the conditions were as "poor" as represented, and many 

 concur in that view today. 



IMPROVING THE LOCK LAY-OUT 



The Pacific terminal lake plan referred to above, advocated by sev- 

 eral engineers at the time the present canal was being planned, and 

 before that by one of the early French engineers, would increase the 

 capacity of the canal by putting Miraflores Lake between the last lock 

 lift and the entrance to Gaillard cut, thus providing an anchorage 

 area for Atlantic-bound ships above the locks in case the cut were too 

 foggy to navigate. Now ships have to wait below Pedro Miguel lock 

 or out at sea until the cut is clear. 



The theory is that in bad weather a good many ships could accomplish 

 the slow process of locking-through whereas now the locks are idle if 

 the cut is shrouded in fog. In any such improvement scheme, of course, 

 the new locks could be built of increased size and efficiency (some of 

 as much as 200 feet width, 1,500 feet length, and of two-lift design, 

 having been studied) , which would further augment the canal capacity. 

 Also, most of the schemes studied have contemplated raising the level 

 of Gatun Lake from elevation 85 to elevation 92 to increase the supply 

 of lockage water. 



As to increased security, the supposition apparently is that a con- 

 centration of all lock lifts in one place would also permit more effective 

 concentration of protective facilities and defensive measures. Addi' 

 tional security could also be achieved by separating the two lanes of 

 any new locks safe distances from one another. 



CONVERSION OF CANAL TO SEA LEVEL 



But is any type of lock canal secure in the sense that Congress used 

 the term in the request for the study? The decision of the investi- 

 gators on that point is vital. One has only to recall the movies of the 

 Bikini atomic bomb tests, where a column of water that looked to be 

 half a mile across was thrown several thousand feet in the air, to visu- 

 alize what would happen to a lock. Or look at the hole in the ground 

 caused by the explosion of a hundred pounds of dynamite and inter- 

 polate to the equivalent effect of millions of pounds of TNT. And 

 once a hole were breached in a lock or one of the impoimding dams, 

 the lake would drain out, and no amount of repairs could restore the 

 canal to service until rainfall and run-off refilled the lake. It is a 

 sobering thought, and one that cannot be ignored under the mandate 

 that Congress wrote into Public Law 280. 



One way to eliminate the danger is to eliminate the lake and the 

 locks, to convert the canal to a sea-level waterway. And there is ample 

 evidence that the investigators are studying the possibilities long and 



