The courses on the lock canal are straight, giving a clear view ahead, and the vessels can pass without being forced to tie up. The great Gatun Lake will permit of full speed and in all ordinary cases in the passage from ocean to ocean enough time can be saved by reason of the wider and straighter channels of the lock canal to compensate for the time lost in passing through the locks. While the question of flood control is solved by Gatun Lake the question of water supply is not. This lake must, under the present plans, furnish the water necessary for lockages. Experts have carefully studied this subject, and while most of them agree that there is water sufficient for immediate needs they also recognize the possibility of a scarcity in the future. General L. Abbot, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the lock plan, states that there will be water for but 26 daily transits during the dry season which would accommodate from 30 to 40 million tons of annual traffic. Other prominent engineers are not so sanguine and some go so far as to say the supply will be totally inadequate even for the first years of canal operation. At any rate there is a considerable element of uncertainty in the matter which actual trial alone will settle. No such trouble, of course, would exist in the operation of the sea-level canal. Much has been said about the relative vulnerability of the two types. The arguments are decidedly at variance and approach the ridiculous when placed side by side. Common sense dictates that both types are open to injury by earthquakes or the hand of man; neither is invulnerable. It also seems evident that a lock canal with its many artificial devices is more open to serious injury by earthquake than a sea-level canal. In fact it is easy to believe that a shock severe enough to put a lock out of commission would scarcely affect a sea-level canal at all, and all who say otherwise are prejudiced. In fairness be it said that the danger from this source is exaggerated and probably should not occupy as large a place in the discussion of canal problems as has been given to it.