THE FIRST BOAT THROUGH. II.
The Gatun is in the lock, but the gates are not yet closed. They can be seen folded flush with the wall. When closed water will be admitted from the sides and bottom of the lock, raising the boat 281⁄3 feet to the next lock.
Not long before the first lockages to the level of Gatun Lake there occurred very great activity of the Cucaracha slide, filling the canal bed from side to side. As a result no actual passage of the entire canal was then possible for boats of commercial size. The material thus blocking the cut is mainly soft earth, and suction dredges were speedily installed by which it was pumped out and deposited behind the hills bordering the canal and nearly two miles away.
When the Gamboa Dyke was blown away the villages on the south side of the canal became wholly inaccessible. Culebra, Matachin, Empire, Gorgona,—all stirring towns during the busy days of canal construction,—could no longer be reached by railroad, and their abandonment, determined upon long before, became final. The houses which had been the admiration of all visitors to the Zone were taken down in sections and removed to sites of the new towns which the commission intends shall be permanent. Culebra lasted longest, as it could still be reached by shuttle trains crossing the canal on a precarious bridge near the Pedro Miguel locks; but it in the end vanished with the rest.
There remain no epoch-making events to be celebrated in the progress of the canal to completion. As the dredges make further inroads upon the Cucaracha slide, larger and larger vessels will pass through, without ceremony, until the canal is open to all. The final celebration, January 1, 1915, will not precede but follow long after the actual employment of the canal by the commerce of all nations.
List of Syndicate Publications
AT SPECIAL NEWSPAPER PRICES
For the past few years leading newspapers throughout the country have distributed to their readers millions upon millions of educational works issued by the Syndicate Publishing Co. Such an enormous output has called for facilities which enable this company to produce high-grade publications at less than the usual cost of paper and binding. This great undertaking could not be accomplished without the co-operation of the leading daily papers in both the United States and Canada, and to these enterprising newspapers all credit is due.
THE BOOKS LISTED HEREIN ARE NOT SOLD AT STORES
Genuine Limp Leather Dictionary
THE $4.00 NEW MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY
ILLUSTRATED