Soon after passing Gorgona and Matachin the high bridge by which the railroad crosses the Chagres at Gamboa, with its seven stone piers will be visible over the starboard side. This point is of some interest as being the spot at which the water was kept out of the long trench at Culebra. A dyke, partly artificial, here obstructed the canal cut and carried the railroad across to Las Cascadas, Empire, Culebra and other considerable towns all abandoned, together with that branch of the road, upon the completion of the canal.
THE Y. M. C. A. CLUB HOUSE AT GATUN
Now the ship passes into the most spectacular part of the voyage—the Culebra Cut. During the process of construction this stretch of the work vied with the great dam at Gatun for the distinction of being the most interesting and picturesque part of the work. Something of the spectacular effect then presented will be lost when the ships begin to pass. The sense of the magnitude of the work will not so greatly impress the traveler standing on the deck of a ship, floating on the surface of the canal which is here 45 feet deep, as it would were he standing at the bottom of the cut. He will lose about 75 feet of the actual height, as commanded by the earlier traveler who looked up at the towering height of Contractors Hill from the very floor of the colossal excavation. He will lose, too, much of the almost barbaric coloring of the newly opened cut where bright red vied with chrome yellow in startling the eye, and almost every shade of the chromatic scale had its representative in the freshly uncovered strata of earth.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood
WORKING IN CULEBRA CUT
The picture is taken at a comparatively quiet time, only two dirt trains being visible
The tropical foliage grows swiftly, and long before the new waterway will have become an accustomed path to the ships of all nations the sloping banks will be thickly covered with vegetation. It is indeed the purpose of the Commission to encourage the growth of such vegetation by planting, in the belief that the roots will tie the soil together and lessen the danger of slides and washouts. The hills that here tower aloft on either side of the canal form part of the great continental divide that, all the way from Alaska to the Straits of Magellan divides the Pacific from the Atlantic watershed. This is its lowest point. Gold Hill, its greatest eminence, rises 495 feet above the bottom of the canal, which in turn is 40 feet above sea level. The story of the gigantic task of cutting through this ridge, of the new problems which arose in almost every week’s work, and of the ways in which they were met and overcome will necessitate a chapter to itself. Those who float swiftly along in well-appointed steamships through the almost straight channel 300 feet wide at the bottom, between towering hills, will find the sensation the more memorable if they will study somewhat the figures showing the proportions of the work, the full fruition of which they are enjoying.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood