To Open Canal Next Fall.

New York Times 100 years ago today, September 15, 1912:
Navy Department Will Send Fleet to Make First Examination.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, Sept. 14.— The Navy Department, it was learned to-day, is making its plans on the assumption that the Panama Canal will be opon for business in about a year. In order to give naval officers an opportunity to inspect the locks and the mechanism of the canal before the water is let in, the fleet will rendezvous at Colon this Winter and special trains will be run along the canal.
    The concrete work is about 91 per cent. complete, while the great Gatun locks are about 95 per cent. finished. The excavations for August amounted to 2,443,353 cubic yards, making a total excavated to date of 268,252,405 cubic yards. Only 38,882,598 cubic yards remain to be excavated, and this work offers few obstacles.
    Secretary Meyer, on consulting with the Canal Commission, discovered that construction work had progressed so far that unless action was taken immediately there was a probability that the men of the fleet would have no opportunity to examine the connecting link between the two oceans before it was in operation.