from level to level, and then pull the ship through after them. In like manner will she pass through the two upper locks, and out on the wide waters of Gatun Lake, eighty-five feet above the level of the sea.
The average time of filling and emptying a lock will be about fifteen minutes, without opening the valves so suddenly as to create disturbing currents in the locks or approaches. The time required to pass a vessel through all the locks is estimated at three hours; one hour and a half in the three locks at Gatun, and about the same time in the three locks on the Pacific side. The time of passage of a vessel through the entire canal (about fifty miles from deep water in one ocean to deep water in the other; forty from beach to beach), is estimated as ranging from ten to twelve hours, according to the size of the ship, and the rate of speed at which it can travel."[1]
The time spent by a ship in the locks at Panama will be more than made up by the much greater ease and speed with which she will be able to navigate the rest of the Canal there, as compared with that at Suez, where steamers must crawl at a snail's pace, or the wash from their propellors will bring down the sandy banks; and two large liners cannot meet and pass without one of them having to stop and tie up to the shore. At no place on the Panama Canal will this be necessary, for even at its narrowest part—the nine miles through the Gaillard Cut—the channel will be three hundred feet wide at the bottom, giving plenty of elbow-room for the largest ships, and lined with concrete where it is not hewn out of solid rock. The under-water and sea-level sections
- ↑ Official Handbook.
