water of Gatun lake will flow. The Spillway is provided with gates to regulate the flow of the water. A culvert near the Spillway leads to the power-house on the level ground below, where electricity will be generated to supply power for operating the Spillway—and lock-gates, for hauling ships through the locks and for lighting the numerous light-houses along the route.
Culebra Cut is an immense trench, nine miles long, cut through the back-bone of the Isthmus, and has a minimum width of three hundred feet at the bottom and an average depth of one hundred and twenty feet. Its greatest depth is about three hundred and seventy-five feet at the water shed between the two oceans. Immense slides have frequently occurred in the cut, due to the peculiarly unstable nature of the soil, which is of volcanic origin. Also, some of the lower layers are so soft that they have been squeezed out by the weight above. These slides have not only greatly interfered with the construction work, but, it is feared, may seriously embarrass the operation of the Canal.
Beyond Culebra are three double locks, as before mentioned, and also two dams forming a small artificial lake. Further on, near the Pacific end of the Canal, is the American town of Balboa, where wharves, piers, warehouses and sheds for merchandise and extensive railway yards will be located.
These, in brief, are the most vital parts of the Canal, scattered along a route of about fifty miles from deep water to deep water. The pertinent question of this discussion is, can any or all of them be destroyed from the air? To which the writer unhesitatingly replies in the affirmative, all of them. The means already exist— powerful aeroplanes, accurate range-finding instruments, high explosives that can be handled safely, audacious pilots—to effect such destruction, but, for argument's sake, let us allow five years for the application and improvement of these means.
Suppose that war has been declared between the United States and one or more first-class European powers and that the American fleet is divided on the two oceans. Such a war would, in the first stages, at least, be a naval war and it would surely be the policy of the enemy to keep our fleet divided and to strike each division separately. In order to do that, the enemy would quickly mass his naval strength in the Caribbean and attempt to destroy the Canal.
Granting that the fortifications in process of construction are sufficient to keep any probable combination of fleets at bay, we will suppose that the enemy decides to bombard the Canal from the air. Maneuvering just outside of the range of the big guns of the forts, the bomb-carrying aeroplanes are assembled and launched, each machine carrying, say, five hundred pounds of high explosive. Each aviator is given a particular target, whose location and elevation above sea-level are known.
Suppose that there are twenty aeroplanes and that it is decided to concentrate the fire on the upper Gatun lock. The distance from the fleet to the locks would be some thirty miles, a half hour's flight. Circling around the fleet until a height of a mile or over is reached, each aviator, in turn, speeds toward the locks and places his charge more or less accurately upon the target. Assuming that half of the bombs are accurately placed, is it not reasonable to suppose that two and one-half tons of high explosive would play havoc with the double gates, emergency dams and floating caissons, not to speak of the outer and middle walls of the locks?
In the meantime, other machines have been taken from the holds and assembled and are ready to take the places of the units that have gone down in the fight. Within three or four hours, the air fleet, re-assembled and re-inforced, is again on its way, with the power-house and the Spillway gates as objectives. A few well placed bombs would undoubtedly wreck the power house and, the writer believes, put the Spillway-gates out of commission and seriously injure the weir itself.
Supposing that the enemy's fleet arrived during the night and that the first attack is made at daybreak, a single day would be sufficient to attack all vital points as far as the western locks. Culebra Cut would undoubtedly make a good target, providing the enemy had information concerning the points where slides were most likely to occur, which he probably would. By placing several tons of explosives where the walls are weakest, it is quite probable that a serious slide would be produced. If the slide were at all bad, it would stop traffic
