The Hydroelectric Station
The hydroelectric station uses water from Gatun Lake for driving three turbo-generators of 2,000-kilowatt capacity each, which supply electricity for the operation of the lock and spillway machinery, the terminal shops and adjacent facilities, and for the lighting of the locks and the canal villages and fortifications. Transmission over the Zone is effected through four substations and a connecting high voltage transmission line which follows the main line of the Panama Railroad.
Copyright, C. H. Graves Co.
Gatun Locks
A. Sea-level section of canal, seven miles long, from Atlantic Ocean to Gatun Locks, where by a series of three locks vessels are raised to Gatun Lake, eighty-five feet above sea level. B. Small area of land dredged away as soon as Gatun Locks were completed. C. Electric towing motor, four of which tow each vessel entirely through the locks. They run on cog rail along the lock walls. D. Lock gate under construction. E. Floor of first lock from Atlantic side. Note holes in floor for admitting the water. F. Lock for vessels coming from Pacific side. G. Base on which concrete posts were erected for electric lights. A row of lights on all sides of the locks making operation at night as safe as day. H. Incline from locks of different levels up and down which the towing motors run on cog rails.
Cucaracha Slide Attacked by a Fleet of Dredges
This great slide was the source of much trouble to the engineers. At one time it entirely blocked the canal at the narrow point shown in this photograph, but the seven dredges of the ladder, suction and dipper type, made short work of cutting the 150-foot channel shown here, and then proceeded with the work of entirely clearing the cut. The view looks north from the slide past Gold and Contractor’s Hills.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Gatun Lake, impounded by Gatun Dam, has an area of 164 square miles when its surface is at the normal elevation of eighty-five feet above sea level, and is the largest artificially-formed lake in the world. The area of the water-shed tributary to the lake is 1,320 square miles. During the rainy season, from April to the latter part of December, the run-off from this basin exceeds considerably the consumption of water, and the surplus is discharged through the spillway of Gatun Dam. Toward the end of the rainy season the surface of the lake is raised to about eighty-seven feet above sea level, in order to afford a surplus or reserve supply to keep the channel full to operating depth during the dry season, in part of which the consumption and evaporation are in excess of the supply. It is calculated that when this level has been attained at the beginning of the dry season the reserve is sufficient to assure a surface elevation of at least seventy-nine feet at the end of the dry season in spite of the consumption at the hydroelectric station, and allowing forty-one passages of vessels through the locks each day with the use of the full length of the chambers, or fifty-eight lockages a day when the shorter sections of the chambers are used and cross filling is employed, which would usually be the case. This is a greater number of lockages than can be made in one day.