THE PANAMA CANAL 
By William Joseph Showalter 
WHEN the British Ambassador, 
Mr. Bryce, at the recent an- 
nual dinner of the National 
Geographic Society, stated that the 
American people are carrying to a suc- 
cessful conclusion the greatest engineer- 
ing achievement of history or of pros- 
pect, he spoke in terms of truth and 
not of poetic license. That it is being 
carried to a successful conclusion ap- 
pears when it is related how near to 
completion the big waterway is ; that it 
will live through all the ages as the 
greatest single monument to human 
energy seems evident when the magni- 
tude of the task is put into comprehen- 
sible terms. 
An excellent idea of the magnitude of 
the work will appear from a statement 
of what has been accomplished in the 
five years of Col. George W. Goethals' 
directorship of the work, which ends in 
April. By that, time the material re- 
moved under his direction will have 
amounted to the enormous total of i6o 
million cubic yards. If all this material 
could be placed in a solid shaft of the 
shape of the Washington Monument, 
with a base as large as an average city 
block, it would tower more than six 
miles skyward, overtopping the earth's 
loftiest mountain peak by more than a 
mile. Again, if it were to be loaded 
onto the big lidgerwood dirt cars used 
on the canal, it would make a string of 
them reaching over two and a half times 
around the earth and requiring a string 
of engines reaching from A'ew York to 
San Francisco to move them. And yet 
this will be increased by more than one- 
fifth before the last carload of spoil is 
hauled away. 
No less impressive is the story of the 
magnificent manner in which the work 
is being carried forward. When Con- 
gress asked for information as to the 
number of yards of material to be re- 
moved and the length of time it would 
take to remove it, the engineers, in a 
report characterized by optimism rather 
than pessimism, declared there were 103 
million cubic yards of material to be 
removed, and that it would take nine 
years to do it. Since then enlargements 
in the bottom width of Culebra Cut, 
slides, and other conditions have forced 
the total amount of material to be exca- 
vated up to 195 million cubic yards. 
Under those original estimates it would 
take 17 years to complete the work. Yet 
the canal army, under the leadership of 
Colonel Goethals, will complete it in a 
little more than six years of actual, full- 
swing work. 
In other words, the amount of mate- 
rial to be removed has been increased 
by about 90 per cent, while the time of 
removal has been cut down about 30 per 
cent. 
In 1908 it was estimated that the total 
amount of material to be removed, as 
the project was then laid out, would 
amount to 135 million cubic yards, and 
that the total cost of the completed canal 
would be 375 million dollars. Since that 
time 60 million yards more have been 
added to the total excavations, and yet 
the prospect is that enough money will 
be left on this estimate, as a result of 
unexampled efficiency and economy, to 
build a new breakwater and perhaps to 
make a giant new storage reservoir at 
Alleluja. 
Under what difficulties all of this has 
been done the world never will fully 
understand. Think of a farm of 147 
acres slipping foot by foot into the canal, 
and yet being taken out as a mere inci- 
dent in canal construction ! This is the 
aggregate acreage of the slides that have 
been slipping in and are being steam- 
shoveled out. Think of a rainy season 
where ten feet of water falls in ten 
months, and still the work goes for- 
ward with only slightly slacked speed ! 
Think of having to dispose of nearly 
two million carloads of spoil annually, 
much of it upon dirt trains which have 
to be backed into seas of mud otherwise 
known as dumps ! Then you will begin 
