Next is the Gaillard Cut, named for the engineer in
charge of construction of this section. The narrowest section of the canal is
now 500 feet wide having been widened from its original 300-foot width. The
nine-mile-long cut is 40-feet deep. A
bronze monument depicting two men with shovels sits up on the hill commemorating
all the men who worked on the canal construction. The cut here crosses the
International Date Line.
The Gaillard Cut,
originally called Culebra (snake) because of
its many curves, was the greatest challenge when building the canal. Deadly mud
slides were fatal if one got caught in one. Over 6000 men worked on the cut
using 60-million pounds of dynamite. The nearly 8 mile cut connects Pedro San
Miguel Locks to Lake Gatun.
Gatun Lake
The huge lake is 87-feet above sea level, and
contains many islands within its 164 square miles. The lake accounts for
20-miles of the canal transit. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Center is
located on Barrocaro Island, one of the largest islands. There are 140 miles of
trails on that island! There is a three to four month wait to obtain permission
to land on the island.
In 1914 a mile-long dam
was built at the north end of Lake Gatun. The concrete spillway is clearly
visible. The dam is a half-mile wide at the base tapering to one hundred feet
at the crest. It is 105-feet above sea level and 20-feet above the normal level
of the lake. Until Lake Meade, in the US was dammed up, Gatun Lake was the
largest man-made lake in the world. The lake covers the fertile Charges valley.
The lake itself is a wildlife refuge and home to
crocodiles—forgo swimming here—manatees, and peacock bass, a species
introduced from South America and popular with fishermen. Surrounding the canal
and lakes are protected parkland, beautiful lodges, monkeys and rare tropical
birds,
The cost to build the
Panama Canal was $400 million. The Atlantic entrance is 22 ½ miles west of the
Pacific entrance. Because of the snake like direction of the canal the sun
rises in the Pacific and sets in the Atlantic. The Pacific is south and the
Atlantic is north.
The
Chargres River, in central Panama, is the largest river in the Panama
Canal’s watershed. The river is dammed twice, and the resulting reservoirs —Gatun
Lake and Lake Alajuela—form an integral part of the canal and its water system.
Although the river's natural course runs northwest into the Caribbean Sea, its
waters also flow, via the canal’s locks into both the Caribbean Sea to the
north and the Gulf of Panama to the south, entitling the Chagres to the unusual
claim of drainage into two oceans. The
upper Chargres River, its watershed, and the watershed of several tributaries
lie within the Chargres National Park, created in 1985 to preserve the flow of
water into the canal. The terrain of the upper Chargres watershed is rugged,
with mountain slopes exceeding 45 degrees in 90 percent of its territory. Some
98 percent of the park consists of old-growth tropical forest.
The upper Chargres and its seven tributaries
flow into Lake Alajuela, the reservoir created by the Madden
Dam. As these rivers contribute 45
percent of the total water for the canal,
the lake is an essential part of the watershed of the Canal Zone. The lake has
a maximum level of 250 ft above sea level, and can store one third of the
canal's annual water requirements for the operation of the locks. Unlike Gatun
Lake, Lake Alajuela is not part of the navigational route, so there are fewer
restrictions on its water level. Water from the reservoir is also used to
generate hydroelectric power and to supply Panama City's fresh water.
