OCR Text |
Show CANAL COMMISSION MAY DO SOMETHING SOME TIME Hopes to Reach Conclusion as to Type of Waterway . Within a Few Months. WASHINGTON, Jan. 1L C. E. G run-sky, run-sky, a member of the Panama Canal commission, in a paper read before a meeting of the resident members of the Society of Civil Engineers told about the conditions at Panama and the work In hand. He said it was hoped that within a few months data would be at hand to enable the commission to reach a conclusion as to the type of canal to be constructed. That the element of riskjs not all in favor of the canal which is free from locks, he said, will be realized by every engineer who visits the points of maximum cut, noting the shattered and unstable formation, where landslides, if occurring, might seriously and for long periods of time impede traffic, and where the magnitude magni-tude and seriousness of such an obstruction, ob-struction, and consequent interruption of traffic should it ever occur, must be aasumed to grow with the depth of the cut. The borings which the commission haa made at Gamboa, he said, indicate there will be no difficulty in securing a good foundation for a dam across the Chagres river at that point and It is quite probable that the commission will see its way clear to the erection of an earth dam of huge dimensions at this point. Erection of this dam would create above It a lake with a surface extent of thirty square miles, the rise and fall of which would prove a great equalizer of the flow of the Chagres river and make the diversion of a portion por-tion of this river's flood flow to the Pacific Pa-cific slope feasible. This, he said, would go far toward reducing re-ducing the amount of water to be handled han-dled In the canal, so that its flow would not seriously Impede the passage of vessels in a sea level canal. During the period of organization and the study of the canal project the commission's com-mission's work, Mr. Grunsky said, had been mainly at Washington. Its duties in a measure have ben subdivided, questions of importance being referred to six standing committees. It is proposed, pro-posed, he said, as far as practicable to I bave the commissioners follow each other to the isthmus, thereby keeping three members of the commission in close touch with its executive offices in charge of construction, sanitation, and the government of the canal zone. . He said that laborers in large numbers num-bers have not been sent to the isthmus because the time for any considerable Increase of force haa not come. |