226 REPORT OF BOARD OF CONSULTING ENGINEERS, PANAMA CANAL.


 After the suppression of the upper lock we place in a' b' c' the former upper gate of the upper lock a b c. This gate being placed the gate A B C becomes superfluous, and may be displaced and put in A' B3' C'. This new gate being in place the lower gate of the lower lock becomes useless and is removed. The new gates, a' b' c' aud A' 1' C', being in place, the lower lock becomes entirely independent of the summit level again, and its extremity, wich is the wall C D, is at a distance of 70 feet from the upper gate. It can therefore be excavated as it has been explained before, with the same treatment as the rest of the summit level, ex6ept for the necessary precautions due to the proximity of the upper gate of the lock.
 This arrangement is perfectly simple, perfectly feasible, does not require the building of abnormal gates, and is limited to a single precaution in the drawing of the plans~ of the locks and to the surplus expense resulting from a prolongation of the inferior lock by 70 feet.

 ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS OF THE TRANSFORMATION.

 Having thus established the basic principle which allows the transformation f rom lock canal to sea level to be prosecuted without interruption to the international navigation, I have now to establish that it meets three essential conditions required for it to be above any criticism. I have to establish that the process does not touch the three essential elements of such navigation.
 1. The width of the canal.
 2. The locks of international navigation.
 3. The water stored for feeding the summit level.

NOT ONE INCH OF THE CHANNEL DEVOTED TO INTERNATIONAL NAVIGATION WILL BE U5ED BY THE WORKS OF TRANSFORMATION.

 We shall establish this first proposition under the admission that tlfe width of the sea-level canal will be fixed at 300 feet instead of 150 feet.
 I have explained before that if the increase of width is 100 feet instead of 150 feet, we must understand the proposition in that sense that the channel of international navigation will be limited to a minimum of 125 feet during the period of transformation from level 25 to sea level, and that if no increase of width at all is admitted, there will be a gradual contraction of the channel devoted to international navigation from 150 width to 75 width during the period attending the lowering of the summit level from the altitude 75 to the sea level.
 The same demonstration we are going to give upon the hypothesis of a channel bottom increased from 150 to 300 feet can be repeated exactly for any other dimensions admitted between 150 feet and 300 feet, but will lead in every case to contraction of the channel during a part of the process.












 The excavation to be executed when the prosecution of the sea-level plan is adopted would consist naturally of the ground ab ove the 130-foot level and of the ground below.
 Nobody can see any reasonable diff erence, for the ground above, between the conditions Of excavation which are to-day existing and those which would exist then. The same steam shovels would be employed, the same tracks would be laid, the same locomotives would pull the, same


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