f 

 i 



THE PANAMA CANAL 



341 



*. 1 



GREAT BLAST IN PROGRESS 

 25 holes; 19.5 tons dynamite; material displaced, 70,769 cubic yards 



tions of these dams not only worse than 

 at Gatun, but in nowise comparable. In 

 the former a covering of ooze and silt, 

 in the latter firm ground with a few soft 

 or marshy spots. 



the locks originally planned for la 

 boca were withdrawn for 

 military reasons 



I know that the La Boca dams could 

 be built to safely withstand the heads of 

 water in the resulting lake by adopting 

 either the method of dredging out the 

 ooze or by giving massive dimensions to 

 the superimposed structure. The engi- 

 neering committee and the majority of 

 the commission preferred the former 

 method. In either case the cost would 

 exceed the original estimates, and in ad- 



dition it is a military blunder to push the 

 locks to and beyond the proper line of 

 defense, especially when the canal is a 

 military necessity to this country. That 

 the dams could be built is evidenced by 

 the fact that the west toe of the Sosa- 

 Corozal dam was carried across the val- 

 ley on the ooze as an embankment for 

 a railroad to be utilized in transporting 

 stone for the Pacific locks. The charge, 

 therefore, that the dams could not be con- 

 structed is not true, and the analogy at 

 Gatun does not follow. Nor is there 

 any truth in the statement that the mili- 

 tary necessity was an afterthought, as has 

 been insinuated. 



I visited the Isthmus in 1905 with a 

 committee of the Board of National 

 Coast Defenses, with which I was as- 



