Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/318

312 water of unlimited width will produce a much higher rate of movement than the same power applied to the same ship in a restricted waterway, especially when the draft of the ship is but little less than the depth of the water. These considerations have important bearings both upon the dimensions of a ship canal and upon the time required to pass through it. They were most carefully considered by the commission, as were also such other matters as the delay incurred in passing through the locks on each line, the latter including the delay of slowing or approaching the lock and of increasing speed after passing it, the time of opening and closing the gates, and the time of emptying and filling the locks. It is also evident that ships of various sizes will require different times for their passage. After giving due weight to all these considerations it was found that what may be called an average ship would require twelve hours for passing through the Panama canal, and thirty-three hours for passing through the Nicaragua canal. Approximately speaking, therefore, it may be stated that an average passage through the former water-way will require but one third the time needed for the latter.

The time in which an isthmian canal may be completed and ready for traffic is an element of the problem of much importance. There are two features of the work to be done at Panama, each of which is of sufficient magnitude to affect to a controlling extent the time required for the construction of the canal, viz., the Bohio dam and the Culebra cut. Both of these portions of the work may, however, be prosecuted concurrently, and with entire independence of each other. There are no such features on the Nicaragua route, although the cut through the divide west of the lake is probably the largest single work on that route. In considering this feature of the matter it is well to observe that the total amount of excavation and embankment of all grades on the Nicaragua route is practially 228,000,000 cu. yds., while that remaining to be done on the Panama route is but little more than 97,000,000 cu. yds. or 43 per cent, of the former.

The commission has estimated ten years for the completion of the canal on the Panama route and eight years for the Nicaragua route, including in both cases the time required for preparation and that consumed by unforeseen delays. The writer believes that the actual circumstances attending work on the two routes would justify an exchange of these time relations. There is great concentration of work in the Culebra-Emperador cut, on the Panama route, covering about forty-five per cent, of the total excavation of all grades (43,000,000 cu. yds.), which is distributed over a distance of about seven miles with the location of greatest intensity at Culebra. This demands efficient organization and special plant so administered as to reduce the working force to an absolute minimum by the employment of machinery to the