“Cribs on firm bottom, or fender piles, when piles can be driven, have been provided at the approaches to the locks for the protection and better guidance of ships into the locks. Provision has also been made for making ships fast to the lock walls, so that the lines will, by means of floats, rise or fall with the ship, thus preserving the same tension on the lines while the vessel is kept in the axis of the lock. Each lock will be filled or emptied by conduits extending from the upper to the lower reach of the canal, and branch culverts connecting the main conduit with the lock chamber. The only operation required for either filling or emptying the lock will be, irrespective of the movements of the lock gate, the opening and closing of the upper and lower main culvert-gates. The time required to fill or empty lock No. 3, of 53 feet lift, will be fifteen minutes, and for the other locks an average of eleven minutes. The question of the best style of gates for these locks has been a subject of much consideration. It is desirable to combine strength, economy in construction, rapid and simple movements, facilities for repairs or for renewing the gates, and the least danger of accident by vessels entering or leaving the locks. The necessary machinery for moving the locks and culvert-gates, for hauling ships in and out of the locks, for electric lights, and other purposes, will be worked by hydraulic power furnished by the locks themselves.” The chamber width of the locks will be 80 feet, so that these structures will contain almost any merchant vessel afloat. In the plans proposed for the canal, not only have enlarged prisms been provided for, but large basins are proposed at the extremities of the locks. These basins, the enlargement of the canal at each end, with the lake, the river and the San Francisco basin, will permit vessels to pass each other without delay at almost every point on the route. Mr. Menocal states that—