THE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE: SEPTEMBER 1, 1912. 7-D Workings of the Great Locks of Panama Canal (Copyright, 1912. by Frank G. Carpenter.) IRA FLO RES, Canal Zone, Pan- m j -a ma. i am writing mese nuies jVI I tn' bright Sunday morning In I am within eight miles of Wd water in the racfflo ocean and at the two first great steps up which the. steamers will cUmb on their way across the the Atlantic Beyond this Is Miraflores lake and at Its end the lock of Pedro Miguel, which, with its boost of thirty feet, shoves the vessels to the level of the Culebra cut, where the canal will be eighty-five feet above tae surface of the sea below. It Is quiet here today, for Uncle Bam keeps the Sabbath. The men have stopped work, the mighty cranes loaded with spoil stand on the tracks. That steam shovel down there to the right is black 1 and dirty and It gives no indication of the work It has done the last week. ( Sow hot the awn is and how'daaxllng! The concrete which walls, the lock Is toade of white sand and where It catch.es the rays It Is blinding. How high the walls aref I am In a mighty chamber in which you could drop tw-o city blocks of six-story houses and there would, be till room to spare. '.I walk over to one side and look up jwlth my chin touching the concrete wall. (The whole earth is shut off and the wall teaches the sky. It looks like a smooth white sandstone put together in blocks bigger than those of the pyramids, but far smoother and more closely laid. It Is solid wall and was molded as such, the appearance of blocks coming from the Joints in the molds. Midway in the wall Is an iron ladder about two feet in width. I taborously climb to the top and it seems as though the ladder would never end. The Locks of the Canal. "Tbee locks are about the most interest lag features of Uncle Barn's mighty Pan ama works. The ditch Itself Is wonder fill, but its construction has been merely K matter of blasting out earth and rock and carrying them into the hollows or Sown to the Wa, The locks are remark able creations in that here man tries to imitate nature and he has built these gl gantlo rock masres, molding sand, ce ment and rock Into stone. There are six great locks on the canal. Jl doe not sound big as I writ It, but these locks contain content-by the mil lions of barrels. They have; shiploads of sand which has been brought from the Atlantlo and Pacific, and mountains of ock have been blasted out and crushed 'to form their concrete. The materials are now so united that they are one solid 'atone. Let me give you some Idea of Je extent of the concrete alone. They contain over 4.000.CO0 cubic yards, or enough of this artificial rock to make a solid ' wall fifty feet high, ten feet (thick and over fifty miles long. Such a wall would reach from Washington to Baltimore and have ten miles to spare. "Each of these locks has a twin. The jwhole consists of two mighty chant hers, the side walls of whloh are about Iflfty feet wide at the bottom and grow Narrower and narrower as they come to 'the top, where the width Is eight feet hey are about eighty feet hlgli. There another wall In the middle which Is felxty feet wld, and within these walls 'are the two mighty chambers which are jelosed at each end by the gates. .' Salt Water In the Canal. So much for the outlines of the struc ture. The foundations of the looks are as complicated as a catacomb. They have tunnels and galleries running this way and that, and In their floors are many great holes as big as a Hour barrel where the water comes into the chamber so jfaat that they can be filled or emptied In ! the space of eight minutes. The .water Is admitted by mighty culverts lor conduits which run along the. side. fThese are tunnels through the concrete construction and they will carry river trcnt Lake Gatun to lift and lower the Vessels. ' Tou often hear it said that we are bringing the waters of the Atlantlo and the( Paclflo together. This Is so only figuratively speaking. There will be no Walt water In the canal except at the jenAs. The locks will be filled with fresh water from Lake Qatun and It will b jthe Chagres which we shall harness and "mske pull up and let down the steamers ; 'from ocean to ocean. But let me tell you more about these ', jblg tunnels. Into which the water first 'flows. They are so huge that you could (drive a caravan of elephants and giraffes through them, and the elephants might jwalk four abreast and not touch the .sides, while a monkey seated on the head jf one of the giraffes would not reach the jcelllng. They would easily hold a Pull iman train, ind a brakeman might stand Ton top and not ruffle his hair, jt These great tunnels or culverts are con nected by pipes which run down to the 4bed or floor of the look chamber, and whlch are so arranged that when the prater Is let In It rushes up through the Openings and fills the chamber, the water .being held In by the gate. There are only two locks here at Mlra Iflores. The steamer cornea straight In .it. -a fPaii Erery woman ' heart respond! to - the cfeirm and sweetness of a baby's voice, because nature Intended her for motherhood. But even the loving: nature of a mother shrinks from the ordeal because such a time is usually period of suffering and dangor. Women who nse Mother's Friend are aved much discomfort and suffering; end their systems, being thoroughly prepared by this great remedy, are In a healthy condition to meet the "lime with the least possible suffering and danger. Mother's Friend is recommended only for the relief and comfort of expectant mothers; it is in no sense a remedy for various Ills, tui Its -many years of success, and '.the thousands of endorsements re ceived from women who bare wed It are a guarantee of the benefit to be , derived from its nse. This remedy does not accomplish wonders but sim ply assists aature to perfect its work. Uother's Friend allays nausea, pre vents caking of In erery way Zxrr t contributes, to ffOKBillaIl strong, healthy motherhood. Mother's Friend is aold at drug stores. Write for our free book for expectant mothers. ElASnSLO XXC131AT0& CO., jUIaaU, U w ft a W pHfc i ft: $rt r 1 ass ink i m wwfx:-. J.--MrSlKJ )mt Ww) fw rfefii THIJ HOLE WILL CAVtY I IlK izhmW , , - vA' " sk 1 m ? f . . ; ' x5 . jit t - yQR from the Pacific when the water in the lock Is at sea level. This water is salt. Then the gate at the Pacific end is closed, and In from the tunnel comes the water from the Qatun lake, having passed through the Culebra cut end Miraflores lake. It fills the lock, raising as It does so the ship to the level of the water In the lock above. The vessel then passes Into that lock, through the gatet facing the Pacific, and It Is raised to the level of the Miraflores lake and steams through It untll It reaches the lock of Pedro Miguel. Here in the same way It Is boosted thirty feet higher to the eighty-five-foot level of the Culebra cut. The ship now has a dean, clear steaming way of thirty-one miles, Including the cut and the Qatun lake, before It comes to the Qatun dam and to the three series of locks which drop it down to the level of the Atlantic. The matter Is simple enough. It Is merely like putting a block of wood in a tub and pouring in water to meke it rise to the top, or like opening a spigot In the bottom and letting it drop as the water runs out. .The only difference Is that the block Is small and it weighs but a few pounds, while the ship which will go through, these gigantic lock tubs may be as long as waa the Titanic or longer and It may weigh tens of thou sands of tons. The Olympic, for in stance, has a gross tonnage of 60,000, and, I am told, It could easily pass through. The actual dimensions of each of the chambers are 1,000 feet long, 110 feet wide and more than eighty feet high. Gates Which Cost Five Million.,, ; The gates to these chambers are even more wonderful than the chambers them selves. The chambers are of concrete. The gates are of steel, and that In thou sands, yes, millions of pieces, put to gether so tightly that they will hold these huge vats of water and raise and lower within them vessels worth millions of dollars. ' But first as to the cost. I have said 15,000,000. The actual sum is more than that. The contract for making them was let by competitive bids in which the United States Steel trust and four others of the chief steel manufacturing com panies of the Untted States submitted of fers. Each had to put up checks for sev eral hundred thousand dollars as a guar antee that It would carry out Its bids. but these sums were returned to those who failed. The lowest bidder was the McCUntic-Marshall Construction company of Pittsburgh and Ha offer was $5,375,000, This was for the making of forty-six gates, being on an average almost of $117,000 apleoe. The sum seems great until one realises just what It covers. It Includes alto gether something like 68.000 tons of steel made up of tens of thousands of pieces, some so big that It takes a mighty steam crane to handle thera and others as small as a pin or a needle. For Instance, there are more than 400,000 pounds of steel bolts and pins and 50O,vO0 pounds of nickel steel pins. ; There are millions of pounds of riveted structural steel, over 8,000,000 pounds of carbon steel castings and hundreds of thousands of pounds of Vanadium steel, made up in an infinite variety of parts. , '( Soma Interesting Items. . I have before me the Items whloh formed a part of the bid. They Include twenty gates for the Qatun locks, twelve for the locks at Pedro Miguel, and four teen for those here -at Miraflores. Gome of the gates are seventy-seven feet high and some as lew as forty-seven feet four Inches. Each la made in two leaves or doors which swing back and forth. Think of a door as tall as an eight- story house. Make It about fifty-five feet In width and you may get some idea of these mighty doors, each containing Its myriad parts of steed, put together like a watch, which have been made at Pitts burgh and shipped In pieces down to the canal. The weight of the biggest leaves Is something like 600 tons, or . enough to form a good load for a dosen freight ears. Think of hanging gates of that kind in such a way that they can swing back and forth at a speed that will not affect the waters which flow In and out, and at the same time quickly enoufh to allow ships to go through these locks within eight or ten minutes, and you havo some Idea of the difficulties of their construc tion. The Locks la Mlnlntnra. The government has made a working model of these gates In the shops at Qor gona, and It will be on exhibition at the great fair at San Francisco. It Is made on a scale of a half Inch to a foot, and It shows not only the construction of the lock chambers, but the method of operat ing the gates and other machinery. This ERfCTlNG THE MKrHTf GATES CrATUN model la only six feet, four inches long and eight and one-half feet In width. It look exactly like a lock In miniature with the gates at the end.. The gates are perfect Imitations, having pins for every rivet and in all about 110,000 pins on the sheet copper which covers them. They are operated, by a one-fifteenth horse power motor and are equipped with such devices that the operation Is automatic ally controlled just as It will be In the great locks here at Miraflores and else where. , How the Ships Go Through. The vessels are not allowed to move from one lock to another by steam. They are towed by electric locomotives, and there are a number of protective devices to see that they do not injure the locks or themselves on their way through. There are four towing locomotives, which run upon tracks on each side of the lock. Two of them are fastened to the front of a vessel, moving It onward, and the other two are on the tracks at the rear holding It back so that it can go only so fast. The rate fixed Is to be two miles an hour and the locomo tives will prevent it being more or less than this. These locomotives will run on a level excepting where they pass from one lock to another, where they will climb up or down heavy grades. Between the lower and intermediate locks at Gatun, for ex ample, the difference in elevation is over twenty-nine feet There are to be two systems of tracks, one for towing and the other for the re turn of the locomotives when not towing. The towing tracks will have a center rack and the locomotives will always op erate on this rack. On the return track there will bo also a rack on the Incline between the locks, but elsewhere the cars will run by friction. The motive power for running these lo comotives will be electricity, generated by the spillway of the Qatun dam. This, It Is believed, will furnish enough elec tricity not only for all the machinery of the canal, but possibly enough to run the trains of the Panama railroad. Chains to Hold the Ships Back. In addition to the locomotives, the locks have other means of keeping the steam ers from striking the gates or going too fast. Among these are chains which run across the lock chambers from one side to the other. These chains' are so powerful that they could stop a 10,000-ton vessel going at a rate of four miles an hour within a distance of sixty feet without injuring either the ship or the chain. The chains run across from lock wall to lock wall and from the approaches passing down Into holes In the walls in such a way that they play out gradually when struck by the ves sels, retarding them and bringing them to a stop. The chains are also so arranged that they can be lowered and dropped down Into a groove in the bottom of the lock floor so that the vessel steams out over their tops. These chains are enormous. Bach link will be oval In shape. Its longest diam eter will be as big as the largest dinner plate, and the steel of the link will be about as thick as your wrist. In addition the gates will be double, the upper gate acting as a protection to the lower, so that both would have to break before any damage could come to the lock. In addition to all these there are to be emergency dams at the upper end of each set of locks which will work some thing like a drawbridge and thus protect the locks. The Water for the Canal. One of the live questions In connection with the locks is whether the Chagres river can furnish enough water to keep them full and still accommodate all the traffic that will pass through the canal. The engineers say that it can. The Gatun lake is now filling and when the canal Is completed we will have 164 square miles of water held back by the dam, and this in addition to the regular flow of the Chagres. We shall also have something like two square miles of water In the Miraflores lake. Engineer Roufscau says tl"at the water supply will amount to more than SO.Ott), OCO tons per annum,, and Colonel Goethals says that there will be plenty to accom modate fifty-eight vessels a day, going through the canal, and that this wouid be more than could pass through in tho space of twenty-four hours. It is' doubt ful whether such a traffic will ever arise. Even forty vessels a day on the average for 300 days of the year would mean 12,000 vessels, and this is about threa times the number which Is now going through the Suez canal. The number there amounts to something like 4,0)0 and the tonnage is in the neighborhood of 20,00 per annum, which is just about haif the gross tonnage pass'ng through our canal at Sault Ste. Marie. L'ncle Sam's Ntn Lake. And just here I would like to say something about Uncle Sam's new lake which is now rising out of the jungle. The Gatun dam will soon be finished and it will hold back the Chagres, formins one of the most beautiful Bheets of water on earth; The steamers will enter it from the yeidure-clad mountains at Culebra cut, or from the mai-sive locks at Gatun and will move for twenty -odd miles through scenery as beautiful as that of the inland sea of Japan, or of the Thou sand Islands of the St. Lawrence. The canal channel runs in and out among islands covered with tropical plants ani trees which will then be the home of monkeys, birds, deer and other wild game, for the idea is to drive man from the canal zone and make it one great game preserve. These Islands are well fitted for that as far as aquatic creatures are concerned. Wild ducks are already beginning to come, and we shall have parrots and paroquets and possibly the gorgeously plumed macaw of the Ama zon, The Gatun lake will drain a baein big ger than Rhode Island. It will have an area equal to 500 quarter-section farms, and over this the water is fast rising. Much of the bed is still covered with vegetation and with forests half sunken In the waters. - Uncle Sam Plnyingi Nosh. One of the Interesting features of mak ing this lake is Uncle Sam's attempt to play Noah. He has warned the inhabi tants of the basin to come out, and has asked them to get on his ark, by which he means .the highlands outside. The natives, however, refuse to believe in the deluge. They say that the French threatened them with the same fate, and that nothing came. Some of them havt; stayed in their homes until the. steam shovels have lifted their front door steps, and, others until the water has covered their floors. Now they all have boats tied to their houses and there will be no loss of life as the flood comes. ,. The government has already torn down and carried away all the heavy canal structures out of the lake bed. A num ber of the towns have disappeared, and masses of ruins He along what was once the main railroad track. Old Bohlo ha been swallowed, and the same is true of other towns. In tearing down the houses one was found which was built of solid mahogany. The lumber of this has been saved and remade into furniture. FRANK G. CARPENTER. Gains 30 Pounds in 30 Days Remarkable Besult of the New Tissue Builder, Protone, in Many Cases of Bon -Down Ken and Women. Prove It Yourself by Sending Coupon Below for a 60o Package, Free. ; ; "I Wouldn't Look Like That Again foi All the World." "By George, I never saw anything like the effects of that new treatment Pro tone, for building up the weight and lost nerve force. It acted more like a miracle than a medicine," said a well known gen tleman, in speaking of the revolution that had taken place In bis condition. "I began to think t!:at there was nothing on earth that could make me fat. 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