The control of this river has been the subject of much anxious thought and the experts’ opinion on it would fill volumes. The present plan entailed the building of the great dam at Gatum, about seven miles from the Atlantic terminus of the canal. This is now nearly completed and fills a gap between two ranges of hills, and much of the excavated material from the Culebra cutting (thirty miles distant) was dumped here. As the dam is about a mile and a quarter in length and half a mile in thickness, over two million cubic yards of material have been used for its construction. It has great controlling water sluices and locks, and completes the range of high ground, which will enclose an immense lake eighty-five feet above the sea level, having an area of over one hundred and seventy square miles. Towns and villages at present existing in the territory that extends from Gatum to Culebra will disappear when the great dam is finished, and the water is already being allowed to collect to form the great lake. Double sets of locks have been built at Gatum to raise ships up from the canal, a height of eighty-five feet. Vessels of one thousand feet in length and one hundred feet beam have been anticipated, and there will be accommodation for such boats when they shall be built and present themselves for entrance to the canal. The navigation channel through the great Gatum Lake will have a depth of at least forty-five feet and a width at bottom of one thousand feet until the Culebra cutting is reached, where the width will be diminished to two hundred feet. About ten miles from the Pacific terminus of the canal, at Pedro Miguel, the summit level will cease, at a series of locks which will lower vessels thirty feet, into a channel five hundred feet in width and about one mile in length. Two more locks at Miraflores will lower vessels to the Pacific sea level. The channel from Miraflores to Balboa (the Pacific terminus) will have a width of five hundred feet right to the open sea. Dredging operations are being carried on for the purpose of deepening and widening the channels at the Pacific and Atlantic entrances. Large wharves for the reception of steamers have been erected at Balboa, and dry docks for repairing have been constructed. In Panama itself, although the city does not belong to the United States Government, much money and time have been spent in putting it into a proper sanitary condition, for by treaty with the Panamanian Government the Canal Commission have jurisdiction over all matters connected with health. This ancient Spanish city has now been properly drained and a good water supply laid on, streets which were formerly quagmires in the rainy season, have been transformed by stone pavements thoroughly well laid by the Commission, but charged up to the Panamanian Government. [Illustration: THE OLD CHURCH ON THE ISLAND OF TOBAGO, OFF PANAMA.]