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96 wasted over the spillway. This hydro- electric plant will consist of three 2,500 K. V. A., three-phase, 25-cycle, 250 R. P. M., 2,200-volt, waterwheel- driven exciters with provision for three additional units. The present power station at Miraflores will be retained as an auxiliary to the Gatun plant in case of need. The intention is to drive everything. electrically that can possibly be so driven. Over 1,000 motors will be used in the operation of the canal, including the towing of ships through the locks by electric locomotives, the operation of the lock gates, fender chains and pumps, while its use will also be extended to the machine shops, dry docks, coal hand- GATUN UPPER LOCKS, WEST CHAMBER, LOOKING ling plants, dock of the canal and cranes, the lighting adjacent towns, and eventually to the electrification of the Panama railroad. This enormous elec- trical equipment is practically all be- ing supplied by the General Electric Co; The locks, massive affairs of solid concrete and seemingly over designed, greatly impress everyone. It is safe to say that no one ever saw such chambers before. They are simply tre- mendous, being 1,000 ft. long, 110 ft. wide with a depth of water of 412/3 ft. over the sill. Each lock is divided by an intermediate gate into two locks of 400 and 600 ft. each, as nearly all the vessels that will use the canal will come within these dimensions, THE MARINE REVIEW making unnecessary the filling of the whole 1,000 ft. for each lockage. The side walls are 81 ft. deep, 45 to 50 ft. wide at the floor level, tapering to 8 ft. at the top. The center wall is 60 ft. wide. Both center and side walls carry culverts, 18 ft. in diameter, along their entire length, through which teams could easily be driven, and these culverts in turn are pierced by branch lateral culverts extending up under the floors of the locks, through which the chambers will be flooded. The central culvert can fill a lock in 15 minutes and 42 seconds, or two culverts can fill it in 7 minutes and 51 seconds, and the cylindrical valves are so arranged that the water baie in one lock can be used to fill the one below it or the one alongside of it. These valves are operated by 7% H. P. motors. ihe approaches to the locks, or guide walls, as they are called, are each 1,200 ft. long on both upper and lower levels and are merely extensions of the center wall of the locks. These guide walls are liberally studded with buffers resting upon steel springs im- bedded in the concrete so that a vessel approaching the lock cannot possibly injure the wall or herself in mooring. The concrete used in the construc- tion of the locks was manufactured in great concrete mixers right at the locks. The Atlantic division obtained its stone from quarries at Puerto March, 1913 Bello, about 18 miles from Colon, anq sand from the bed of the Atlantic, The Pacific division obtained its stone from a quarry in Ancon hill, and its sand, a very fine quality, from the Pacific ocean. Cement was carried from the United States in the steam- ers Ancon and Cristobal, of the Pana- ma Steamship Co.'s line, which, with the Panama railroad, is owned by the Isthmian canal commission. The lock gates are very interesting, There are 92 of them altogether, 'con- sidering one leaf as a gate, and they contain about 60,000 tons of steel, sup- plied by the Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. In fact, 60 per cent of alk ae iron and steel used in the canal came NORTH from the Pittsburgh district. The Mc- Clintic-Marshall Construction Co., of Pittsburgh, has the contract for the erection of the gates and other miscel- laneous work and from one end of the canal to the other has 4,700 men on ite payroll. These gates vary im height from 47 to 82 ft. and weigh from 300 to 700 tons per leaf. About 43,000 rivets, aggregating 2114 tons in weight, are used in each leaf. The gates are built up of big horizontal girders, weighing from 12 to 18 tons each, with vertical framework in be- tween and sheathing plate both on the inside and outside of this frame. Each section is 7 ft. in thickness. The rivet ing of the component parts of these various sections and their assembly