sumption that intermediate gates will be used eight-tenths of the time, is 22.13 cubic feet per second, and the quantity per lockage at Gatun 29.77 cubic feet per second, making a total of 51.90 feet per second. The net available quantity of water is, as already stated, 1,350 cubic feet per second, and will therefore provide for 26 lockages per day at each lock in the driest

season."

It is expected and hoped that the traffic will, at no great distance of time, demand a greater number of lockages than the maximum provided for. The present Engineer in Chief is of the opinion that this will come about so soon as to justify the inclusion of an extension of the water supply in the operations now in progress, more especially as a great saving in cost would be effected thereby. He favors the Alhajuela dam and reservoir, which was proposed by the Comité Technique, and which will supply enough water for about thirty additional lockages.

The surface of the Canal, at 85 feet elevation, is the summit level, which is maintained beyond it through the Culebra Cut, a total distance of about 32 miles. The plan of the Board provided for a triple flight of locks in duplicate at

Gatun, by means of which vessels would rise from the channel at sea level to the lake. These locks would permit of two ships passing through them at the same time, and would have the additional advantage that, in case of one set being put into temporary disuse, traffic could be continued through the other. The dimensions of the locks throughout the Canal were to be 900 feet clear length, 95 feet usable width, and 40 feet depth over the miter sill.

Of the total length of the land channel, about 41 miles, more than half lies within the lake, where a broad and deep way is available. The greater part of the Canal course is along straight lines. There are no sharp curves and where changes of direction occur, the outer lines of converging courses are carried to an intersection and the point of the inner angle dredged off, so that a curve of 8,000 or more feet radius can be laid down wholly within the channel. The channel will be nowhere less than 300 feet at the approach to a curve, nor less than 600 feet within it.

The Board's dimensions gave a channel in the Culebra Cut as narrow as 200 feet in places. On the farther side of the Cut the greatest changes that have been made from the plan of

the Board of Consulting Engineers occur and it is not necessary to give further details of their project.

The following description of the Canal is the latest issued by the Isthmian Canal Commission. There is hardly a possibility of its being changed, except perhaps in minor details, so that it may be accepted as descriptive of the waterway which will be finished and opened to the traffic of the world in the year 1915, if not earlier.

The entire length of the Canal from deep water in the Atlantic to deep water in the Pacific is about 502 miles. Its length on land is about 4011⁄2 miles.

In passing through it from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a vessel will enter a channel with a bottom width of 500 feet in Limon Bay, follow this for about seven miles to Gatun, where it will enter a series of three locks in flight and be lifted 85 feet to the level of Gatun Lake. It will steam at full ocean speed through this lake, in a channel varying from 1,000 to 500 feet in width, for a distance of about 24 miles, to Bas Obispo, where it will enter the Culebra Cut. It will pass through the Cut, a distance of about nine miles, in a channel with a bottom width of