On the other hand an editorial in the Engineering News of February 25, 1909, says, “We can testify from actual personal observation and study of the dam site and of the borings and pits that the Gatun dam will be as safe and permanent as any structure ever reared by man”. In the President’s message of February 17, 1909 there is this statement, “As to the Gatun dam itself, they (the board of engineers) show that not only is the dam safe, but that on the whole the plan already adopted would make it needlessly high and strong, and accordingly they recommend that its height be reduced by 20 feet, which change I have accordingly directed”. In the Engineering News of April 1, 1909 is the following statement, “If a private corporation, not subject to the clamor of public criticism were confronted with the task of throwing a dam across the Chagres Valley at Gatun, they would build a structure which would be not more than one-fifth the size of that which is now being built there”. Farther on in the same article a comparison of the Gatun dam with alluvial dams of India and the levees along the Mississippi is summed up with these words, “Compared with any and all of these the conditions for safe and permanent dam construction at Gatun may be considered ideal”. Is it any wonder that people are confused and disgusted when they attempt to obtain the truth? The length of the dam is to be 7,700 feet, but the natural surface reaches or exceeds the dam elevation in three places for about 700 feet in all. At the level of 21 feet above the sea it will be about 2,600 feet long in two sections, separated by Spillway Hill. According to the engineer’s report the dam will rest upon brown or blue clay and silt. Under the dam there are two geologic gorges, one 185 feet deep (below sea level) and the other 255 feet deep. These are filled with river alluvium and other deposits, consisting, according to official reports, of silt, soil, brown and blue clay, rotten wood, sand, and gravel--the most, if not all of it water bearing. The cross-sectional area of the shallower gorge is 205,000 square feet and of the deeper one 120,000 square feet. (For profile, cross-section, and plan see the following page.) The dam is to consist of two piles of rock 1,200 feet apart and carried up to 60 feet above mean tide with the space between them and up to 115 feet above sea-level filled by selected material deposited in place by the hydraulic process. A slip occurred at one of these rock toes during November, 1908, and caused considerable alarm throughout the country, so much, in fact, that the President sent W. H. Taft with a group of 7 noted engineers to investigate. They reported that “A full study of all the data and of the material, and of the plans that are proposed leaves no doubt in our minds as to the safe, tight, and durable character of the Gatun dam”.