THE PANAMA CANAL* 



By Lieut. Col. Geo. W. Goethals, U. S. Army 



Chairman and Chief Engineer, Isthmian Canal Commission 



The following article zvas submitted to President Taft by Colonel Goethals, 

 March i6 } as a special report on the Panama Canal situation. The report gives 

 such a complete and clear review of why the lock type of canal is being constructed 

 that we publish it in full. 



A CANAL connecting the Atlantic 

 and Pacific Oceans has occu- 

 pied public attention for up- 

 ward of four centuries, during which 

 period various routes have been proposed, 

 each having certain special or peculiar 

 advantages. It was not until the nine- 

 teenth century, however, that any definite 

 action was taken looking toward its ac- 

 complishment. 



In 1876 an organization was perfected 

 in France for making surveys and collect- 

 ing data on which to base the construc- 

 tion of a canal across the Isthmus of 

 Panama, and in 1878 a concession for 

 prosecuting the work was secured from 

 the Colombian Government. 



In May, 1879, an international congress 

 was convened, under the auspices of 

 Ferdinand de Lesseps, to consider the 

 question of the best location and plan of 

 the canal. This congress, after a two 

 weeks' session, decided in favor of the 

 Panama route and of a sea-level canal 

 without locks. De Lesseps's success with 

 the Suez Canal made him a strong ad- 

 vocate of the sea-level type, and his 

 opinion had considerable influence in the 

 final decision. 



Immediately following this action the 

 Panama Canal Company was organized 

 under the general laws of France, with 

 Ferdinand de Lesseps as its president. 

 The concession granted in 1878 by Co- 

 lombia was purchased by the company, 

 and the stock was successfully floated in 

 December, 1880. The two years follow- 

 ing were devoted largely to surveys, ex- 

 aminations, and preliminary work. In 



the first plan adopted the canal was to be 

 29.5 feet deep, with a ruling bottom width 

 of 72 feet. Leaving Colon, the canal 

 passed through low ground to the valley 

 of the Chagres River at Gatun, a distance 

 of about 6 miles ; thence through this val- 

 ley, for 21 miles, to Obispo, where, leav- 

 ing the river, it crossed the continental 

 divide at Culebra by means of a tunnel, 

 and reached the Pacific through the val- 

 ley of the Rio Grande. The difference 

 in the tides of the two oceans, 9 inches 

 in either direction from the mean in the 

 Atlantic and from 9 to 11 feet from the 

 same datum in the Pacific, was to be over- 

 come and the final currents reduced by 

 a proper sloping of the bottom of the 

 Pacific portion of the canal. No pro- 

 visions were made for the control of the 

 Chagres River. 



In the early eighties after a study of 

 the flow due to the tidal differences a 

 tidal lock near the Pacific was provided. 

 Various schemes were also proposed for 

 the control of the Chagres, the most 

 prominent being the construction of a 

 dam at Gamboa. The dam as proposed 

 afterward proved to be impracticable, 

 and this problem remained, for the time 

 being, unsolved. The tunnel through 

 the divide was also abandoned in favor of 

 an open cut. 



THE) FIRST CHANGE FROM THE SEA-LEVEL 

 TO THE LOCK TYPE 



Work was prosecuted on the sea-level 

 canal until 1887, when a change to the 

 lock type was made, in order to secure 

 the use of the canal for navigation as 



* See also "The Republic of Panama," William H. Burr, NaT. Geog. Mag., February, 1904. 

 'The Panama Canal," Admiral Colby M. Chester and Gilbert H. Grosvenor, October, 1905. 

 'The Panama Canal," Theodore P. Shonts, February, 1906. 



