Those who objected to the lock type, on the ground that the locks could be destroyed, seemed to forget that even the sea-level project demanded a set of locks to regulate the tides of the Pacific. While, contrary to the usual idea, there is no difference in the mean level of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the difference in the tides at Panama is about 18 feet. This is due to the shape of the Bay of Panama. As the tide sweeps over the Pacific and into that bay, it meets a funnel-shaped shore line, which gradually contracts as the tide travels landward. The result is that the tide rises higher and higher until it reaches a maximum of 10 feet above average sea level. When it flows out it reaches a point 10 feet below average sea level, thus giving a tidal fluctuation of 20 feet. On the Atlantic side the tidal fluctuation is only 2 feet. Under these conditions the canal could not be operated during many hours of the 24 without the tidal locks, if at all, and it would be almost as great a hindrance to have the tidal locks destroyed as to have the present locks injured. Another perpetual menace in a canal with a bottom width of only 150 feet for half of its distance, would be the danger of a ship sinking and blocking the channel. When the _Cheatham_ sank in the Suez Canal it wholly blocked the waterway for nine days, and partially blocked it for a month. According to the Isthmian Canal Commission, the present canal affords greater safety for ships and less danger of interruption to traffic by reason of its wider and deeper channels; it provides for quicker passage across the Isthmus for large ships and for heavy traffic; it is in much less danger of being damaged, and of delays to ships because of the flood waters of the Chagres; it can be enlarged more easily and much more cheaply than could a sea-level canal. The lock canal has a minimum depth of 41 feet, and less than 5 miles of it has a width as narrow as 300 feet. It can take care of 80,000,000 tons of shipping a year, and, by the expenditure of less than $25,000,000 additional, can increase this capacity by at least a third. It can pass at least 48 ships a day, doing all that a sea-level canal could do, and many things that a sea-level canal could not do.