Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose

by Willis J. Abbot

So with the Panama Canal approaching completion we can see that its effects are to be manifold—domestic as well as foreign, moral as well as material, political as well as economic. If it be properly conducted in its completed state, managed and directed upon the broad principle that, though paid for wholly by the United States, it is to exist for the general good of all mankind, it should be, in the ages to come, the greatest glory attached to the American flag. In abolishing human slavery we only followed last in the train of all civilized nations. But in tearing away the most difficult barrier that nature has placed in the way of world-wide trade, acquaintance, friendship and peace, we have done a service to the cause of universal progress and civilization the worth of which the passage of time will never dim.

Early in the afternoon of October 10, 1913, President Wilson, standing in the executive offices of the White House, pressed a telegrapher’s key. Straightway a spark sped along the wires to Galveston, Tex., thence by cable to the Canal Zone and, in an instant, with a roar and a quaking of the earth a section of the Gamboa Dyke, which from the beginning has barred the waters of Gatun Lake from the Culebra Cut, was blown away. The water gushed through, though not in such a torrent as sightseers had hoped for, since pumps, started on Oct. 1st, had already filled the cut to within six feet of the level of the lake. But presently thereafter a native cayuca, and then a few light power boats sped through the narrow opening, and there remained no obstacle to the passage of the canal by such light craft from ocean to ocean.

By the destruction of the Gamboa Dyke on the date fixed Colonel Goethals carried out a promise he had made long before to himself and to the people. It was on the 10th of October, 1513, that Balboa strode thigh-deep into the Pacific Ocean, and, raising on high the standard of Spain, claimed that sea and all countries abutting upon it for his sovereign. The United States just four centuries later celebrated one of the final steps in opening to the commerce of all the world the water-way between the oceans.

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.

THE CONTINENT’S BACKBONE BROKEN
The blast that destroyed Gamboa Dyke completed water connection between the Atlantic and Pacific.

The demolition of Gamboa Dyke was the culmination of a series of steps forward toward the completion of the canal during the first week in October. On the 26th of September the first vessel was raised from the Atlantic level through the three steps of the Gatun locks to Gatun Lake. There was no particular pomp or ceremony observed. The craft was merely an humble tug employed regularly in canal work. Indeed it is said that it was not at “the colonel’s” initiative that the ceremony of having Gamboa Dyke blown up by wire from the White House was observed. That quiet but efficient army engineer signalized his service on the canal rather by doing things than by celebrating them when done.

From the Pacific end the first lockage was effected on October 14, when the tug Miraflores with two barges was put through the Miraflores locks, and floated on Lake Miraflores. The locks at Pedro Miguel were in condition to elevate the boats to the level of Culebra Cut, but there was not at he moment enough water in the cut to receive and float them.

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.