Walking across the locks on the temporary bridge the chief engineer and his assistant came to a point where the concrete lamp posts for lighting the locks were being set up. "Don't you think that it would better avoid any settling if you were to place beams of railroad iron across those spaces and rest the posts on them?" he queried. A little farther on he met the engineer in charge of the work of the company erecting the gates. "When do you think you will have the gates in the west chambers completed so that we can put the dredge through?" he inquired of Mr. Wright. "Well, sir," replied Mr. Wright, "if we have good luck I hope to have them done by the first of September; if we have fair luck we ought to have them completed by the middle of September; but at the lowest calculation I can promise them to you by the first of October." "But have you taken into consideration all of the time you are likely to lose as the result of heavy rains?" queried the chief engineer. "I have made full allowance therefor, I think," responded Mr. Wright. Walking on, the watchful eye of the chief engineer fell upon a new baby railway track which was being laid through the eastern lock chambers. "What are you planning to do there?" he asked of the division engineer. "We wanted to get some additional material through the locks and Mr. Wright informed us that if we would furnish the timbers, he would make it so that we could run these little engines through there," responded the engineer. "But did you have a definite understanding with him that this should afford no excuse for any further delay in completing the gates?" queried Colonel Goethals. "We did, sir," responded the division engineer. "All right then, go ahead." At this point the party boarded the motor car again and was taken to the big dike which was to hold the Pacific Ocean from flooding the locks after a dike a mile farther down had been blown out. "How much water do you have in the stretch between the two dikes?" he asked of the division engineer. He next wanted to know how many million cubic feet they were able to pump and siphon in, and how much the Rio Grande was bringing in per day. Then he wanted to know if every possible precaution had been taken to insure the watertightness of the new dike; how many thousand pounds of dynamite had been placed under the one to be blown up; how many holes this dynamite was placed in; and a large number of other bits of information which would tell him whether every safeguard had been thrown around the plan to insure its success. Going up on the other side of the canal the party came to the earth dam joining the west lock walls with the hills, so as to impound 58 feet of water in Miraflores Lake. "How soon do you expect to get that connection made between the lock walls and the dam proper?" he queried of the engineer in immediate charge. "In four weeks, sir." "All right," answered Colonel Goethals, "you can't get that done any too soon to suit me."