PANAMA CANAL.


so low that the transition is much less striking than where the canal
leaves Limon Bay.
 The Culebra Cut section, extending 8 miles from this point to
Pedro Miguel Locks, is uniformly 300 feet wide, in a series of straight
reaches with slight angles between. The raw banks rise very irregu-
larly both as to height and as to rate of slope. Rarely clifflike, they
will generally become covered with vegetation, and look not very
strikingly different from natural steep hillsides. Altogether the
boldest and most striking feature immediately along the line of the
canal is at the point of deepest cut, through the continental divide,
where the rocks on both sides happen to be a hard trap which stands
very steep, and is safe from the breaks and slides which occur else-
where along the cut. The highest point of the cut, begun by the
French, is on the left side some 447 feet above the water of the canal.
 At Pedro Miguel there is one pair of locks essentially similar to
those at Gatun. From this point the 2 miles to Miraflores Locks are
through another lake, much smaller than Gatun but of the same
landscape character, with irregular shores not at all canal-like in ap-
pearance. Two pairs of locks at Miraflores connect with the sea-
level canal on the Pacific side, which runs through flat land to the new
port of Balboa, now under construction. There are striking hills on
both sides at some distance from the canal. At Balboa, on the left
as one approaches the Pacific, a hill called Sosa comes close to the
canal with just a margin of navy-yard shops and docks between.
These shops promise to be rather ugly, but are so far advanced that no
material changes could be made in the plan. Turning to the left
around Sosa HIill the canal passes out through the bay among very
interesting islands, with bold headlands to the right.
 There is no point on the Pacific side at which there is so distinct
at beginning of the visible canal as at the head of Limon Bay on the
Atlantic side.
 SPECIFIC SUGGESTIONS.

 The following specific comments and suggestions were, at the re-
quest of the chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, submitted
informally to him by our committee either while on the Isthmus or
by subsequent correspondence, in order that they might be made
directly effective so far as they commended themselves to the respon-
sible authorities.
 1. ATLANTIC END OF THE CANAL.

 The lighthouse at the end of the breakwater, the first structure that
will be seen by one approaching from the sea and the most conspic-
uous structure north of the Gatun Locks, if carried out as shown in
plans accompanying the report of the canal commission for 1912,
would not make as favorable or striking an impression as would be
desirable. (See plan and section for light and fog signal from report
for 1912 of Isthmian Canal Commission, Exhibit No. 6.)
 It was recommended to Col. Goethals that the design of this light-
house should be restudied, and the architect of the Canal Commis-
sion has developed a design which meets the approval of this com-
mission. (See Exhibit No. 7.)