945 



so that they may be used simultaneously by ships in opposite directions, and, as there 

 has been delay in installing machinery, work has been pushed in each case on one of 

 the pair so that one flight may be ready for use at the earliest possible moment. 



Specifications for a hydro-electric station near the Gatun spillway were issued on 

 September 9, 1911, calling for three 2,ooo-kilowatt units. Electric towing engines are 

 to run on tracks on side walls of the locks and no ships are to go through locks under their 

 own power. 1 The maximum amount of water diverted for hydro-electric development 

 will be about 7% of the minimum water supply, being the excess not required for 

 lockages, evaporation and seepage. To supply the electric current to operate the 

 lock machinery there are to be 16 transformer rooms at Gatun, 8 at Pedro Miguel 

 and 12 at Miraflores, all transforming from 2,200 volts to 220. 



Terminals were actually planned before they were authorised, so that the delay in 

 starting work on them was reduced to the minimum. On either side there are to be 

 docks 1,000 ft. long and 200 ft. wide (209 on the Atlantic side); piers covered with fire- 

 proof steel sheds; fuel oil storage (80,000 bbls. capacity) and coaling plants (200,000 

 tons capacity on Atlantic side and 100,000 on the Pacific side); and dry docks, the one 

 now at Cristobal (300 ft. long, 50 ft. wide and 13 ft. deep) to be retained on the Atlantic 

 side, and two to be built on the Pacific side, one 1,000 ft. long, no ft. wide and 35 ft. 

 deep, and the other (auxiliary), 350 ft. long, 71 ft. wide and 13^ ft. deep. At Balboa 

 on the Pacific side a great naval depot is planned, and to make land and build break- 

 waters here much of the spoil from the Culebra cut has been used. 



To make it possible for pilots to keep the course up to turning points concrete 

 "range" light-houses have been built and trocas cut through brush and timber so 

 that these can be sighted. The candle-power of these range lights varies from 2,500 to 

 15,000 (at ocean entrances). They will be equipped with electricity where they are 

 readily accessible. Compressed acetylene dissolved in acetone will be used for the 

 more inaccessible beacons and towers and for floating buoys. 



Canal fortifications were authorised by act of March 4, 1911, with an appropriation 

 of $2,000,000 for gun and mortar batteries. Forts at either end of the canal are to be 

 fitted each with four i4-in. rifles, six 6-in. guns and twelve i2-in. mortars; and 12 

 companies of coast artillery, i battery of field artillery, 4 regiments of infantry and i 

 squadron of cavalry are to be stationed here. 



There are other items in the administration of the Canal Zone as interesting as the 

 engineering features. Under William Crawford Gorgas (b. 1854) of the U.S. Army, 

 who was made colonel by special act of Congress for his work in Havana on yellow fever 

 (see E. B. xxviii, 91 id), and who became (March 4, 1907) a member of the Isthmian 

 Canal Commission, as sanitary officer, the part of the Zone actually occupied has been 

 cleared of yellow fever and of malaria and made one of the healthiest places in the world. 

 In notable contrast with the French 2 service, which attempted no sewage disposal or 

 water supply, and was curative instead of preventive, actually spreading yellow fever 

 and malaria by having hospitals with unscreened windows and patients' cots set in 

 water-jars (to prevent the approach of ants), were the methods of the American army 

 doctors, who not merely benefitted by the lessons learned in Havana as to malaria and 

 yellow-fever infection from the Anopheles and Stegomyia mosquitoes, but took other 

 preventive measures, installing a pipe-borne water supply and a modern sewage system. 

 A division of municipal engineering (abolished in August 1908) spent nearly $6,000,000 

 on such improvements, about $3,500,000 for work in the Zone proper and $2,250,000 

 for sewers and pavements in Panama and Colon. A strict quarantine was enforced and 

 a station built on Culebra Island in Panama Bay at the Pacific entrance. There are 

 main hospitals at Colon and Ancon, about 25 minor hospitals or dispensaries elsewhere, 

 and a sanitorium for convalescents on Taboga Island in the Pacific, 10 m. off the coast. 



1 Lock-gates are protected besides by double chains from damage by ramming. 



1 See "The French at Panama" in Scribner's, January 1913. Some machinery brought 

 over by the French and discarded has been recovered and used by the American engineers 

 notably dredges built in Scotland. 



