Panama Canal Construction
P: Duhem Motion Picture Manufacturing. USA 1912

“The greatest difficulty of the canal project, now nearing completion, was and is the control of the Chagres River and its many tributaries. The Chagres runs a circuitous, serpentine course backward and forward across the Isthmus from its source, in the San Blas Mountains, to the Caribbean Sea, a mile or two west of Limon Bay. One of the merits claimed for the canal plan as finally adopted is that it converts what was an obstacle into the motive power of the colossal project.
The American canal consists of a sea-level entrance channel from Limon Bay to Gatun, about seven miles long, 41 feet deep at mean tide, and with a bottom width of 500 feet. At Gatun the canal become a high-level canal… Here a mammoth dam has been constructed across the valley, by which the waters of the Chagres River are impounded and a lake, which will have an area of about 164 square miles, is formed. This high level is maintained until Pedro Miguel, thirty-two miles away, is reached. Here the Pacific side of the lake is confined by a dam between the hills, and here also the descent toward a lower level begins through the locks.”
The New York Times, September 22, 1912

Panama Canal: Scenes of the Finished Canal
No credits. USA 1919 (?)
Print: Library of Congress (Theodore Roosevelt Association Collection)

Summary
“Scenes of the Panama Canal, generally in the natural order of passage, from a ship moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The ship passes by the Panamanian city of Colón on the Atlantic end, through the channel to Gatun Locks and into Gatun Lake, views of the Gatun spillway and the Chagres River. From here she passes from Gaillard Cut (Culebra Cut), into the Pedro Miguel Locks and into Miraflores Lake. Then through the Miraflores Locks and into the final portion of the canal, passing the Canal Zone towns of Ancon, Balboa, and Balboa Heights. Final views are of the Ancon Hospital (Gorgas Hospital) and the U.S. Administration Building at Balboa.”
Library of Congress

More about the Panama Canal

>>> Labour