PANAMA CANAL.


 In approaching from the Atlantic the first land to be seen is a
 stretch of mountainous shore at the left of the steamer's course;
 this is skirted at a distance of several miles for a few hours before
 the low shore near the canal entrance comes into view ahead. The
 first sign of the canal work to catch the eye will be a low lighthouse
 just behind the left-hand end of a riprap breakwater 2 miles long,
 which reaches out diagonally from the flat wooded shore of Toro
 Point on the right. (See Exhibit No. 2, map from report for 1911
 of Isthmian Canal Commission showing project for lighting and
 buoying Panama Canal and approaches, and Exhibit No. 1.) It is
 possible that an additional breakwater, also having a terminal light-
 ouse, may be built at the left of the harbor entrance, which would
 provide a nearly symmetrical and effective entrance. The course of
 vessels in approaching is not far from the axis of the straight chan-
 nel which extends from the end of the Toro Point breakwater up the
 5-mile length of Limon Bay and is continued into the flat land at its
 head as a visible canal. Through the bay this channel is to be
 marked by pairs of buoys. (See Exhibit No. 2.) On the right the low
 wooded bay shore is about 2 miles distant. On the left, a mile and
 a half inside the breakwater light, a point occupied by the towns of
 Colon and Cristobal projects within three-fourths of a mile of the
 straight channel. The end of this point facing the ocean is con-
 spicuously occupied by the rather long three-story mass of the new
 hotel. (See photograph, Exhibit No. 3.) To the left is palm foliage
 with a brownstone church and wooden hospital buildings and quar-
 ters for railroad employees. Behind is the uninteresting wooden
 town of Colon, and farther to the right is Cristobal, which together
 present to the bay a utilitarian water front, part shabbiness, part
 aggressive commercialism.
 At the head of Limon Bay (see photograph, Exhibit No. 4) the
 canal as a visible object begins. The bank on the left is somewhat
 in advance of that on the right; both are very low and occupied by
 a scrubby jungle rising into larger trees behind and at a distance
 into wooded hills. The canal is 500 feet wide, with a few feet of
 cleared ground on either side to be kept open for surveying and main-
 tenance work. For a distance of a mile the line is straight and in
 direct continuation of the buoyed channel through the bay; then it
 bends slightly to the right and disappears from view. The vista
 along the first reach of the canal terminates 2 miles beyond the bend
 in the wooden houses of the town of Gatun, occupying hills some 150
 feet high, crowned by a large black steel water tank on stilts silhou-
 etted against Ihe sky. This tank, which is nearly on the axis of the
 canal, should be incased in concrete, so as to form a solid tower,
 permanent in appearance and in fact. The exact axis is marked by
 two range lights on concrete lighthouse towers, one right in the town
 of Gatun. These are not at present very conspicuous, but will prob-
 ably be so painted as to bring them out sharply as an aid to naviga-
 tion, thus further emphasizing the long, straight vista.
 The first bend in the canal takes place just where it makes a long,
 diagonal crossing with the narrower old French canal, and where
 also the cut enters the higher ground of the Mindi Hills. These are
"hummocks from 10 to 50 feet in height. The deepest cuts are about
opposite each other at a point about one-third of a mile beyond the