Correspondence

The Floors of Panama Locks

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To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: I notice in your last week's issue an interesting description of a plan for anchoring down floors of locks in the Panama Canal, to prevent lifting and injury by upward pressure of seepage water. As an unbiased bystander, "watching the game," I venture to suggest that any possible pressure of the kind feared could be easily relieved by providing small openings at intervals in the floors of locks, with steel tubes extending vertically from upper to lower surfaces, .with valves which could be opened to allow seepage water to flow into locks freely during inspection. Such safety valves could be inserted with very much less expense than anchorages proposed. Would some oLyour readers interested in hydrostatics kindly point out any practical objections there might be to such a procedure? R. ARMSTRONG. Rock Park, Ramona, Cal.

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