The development of labor-saving machinery has been so marked since the construction of the canal was actually commenced that each month’s work has marked an increase in the amount of debris excavated from the canal prism. When the Government began operations in 1906, the engineers had before them the task of excavating 110,000,000 cubic yards. Their first month’s operations were very successful, and they reported at the end of the month an excavation of about 250,000 cubic yards. They estimated that if they could keep up this amount of work through each month they could finish the canal at a certain time; but the carping yellow newspapers and magazines of the United States and Europe were extremely skeptical of the ability of the Canal Commission to continue to turn out 250,000 cubic yards per month. The critics foretold that when the rainy season came more debris would be carried into the canal prism by floods than could be taken out by machinery in the dry season. At times this criticism grew very irksome and disagreeable to the commissioners. However, they kept their temper, and continued improving their machinery, and month by month the output grew greatly. It grew to such an enormous extent that the estimated time has been shortened to the extent that I have formerly indicated. [Illustration: CANAL ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, PANAMA.] The Work of Excavation To give a comparison by the use of figures of the remarkable progress made, I will say that about six months ago I took up the report of the Canal Commission and I found that in the previous month the amount of debris excavated for that one month exceeded 4,000,000 of cubic yards, this tremendous output being a complete answer to the criticisms of the opponents of canal construction. In order to give a mental picture of the type of canal, let us take an imaginary trip through the canal proper. It will be forty-two miles from shore to shore. In addition to this there will be an excavation out in Limon bay on the eastern side, and in Panama bay on the western side, of about four miles on either side, in order to reach deep water. Supposing that we are sailing down through Limon bay, which is a small bay at the bottom of the Caribbean sea, on one of our American battleships. We first enter the canal which leads from the bay up into the shore toward Gatun dam, and this section of the canal will be 500 feet wide and 40 feet deep at low water level. This channel penetrates through the mud banks and land about four miles, when it encounters Gatun dam. Gatun dam must be surmounted through the agency of locks, which have been previously described. Operation of the Locks