The Panama Canal

Vaco Nunez de Balboa, the Spanish explorer who discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513, first thought of such a waterway then. In the late 1800s, Frenchmen tried to build a canal and failed because they attempted to dig it out at sea level. There is an 85-foot difference between the levels of the ocean and the highest part of the land.

Why Is It Needed? A trip from San Francisco to New York, around South America, was a journey of 13,000 or more miles. Using the Panama Canal cut this journey to only 5,000 miles. This saves fuel and time. A ship could make two trips for the old price of one.

In 1904, Americans began the 10-year, $300 million construction that brought to reality a vision of raising and lowering ships in a series of closed off beds of water called locks. There are three locks spanning the canal. A ship enters a lock, metal gates close behind it, and water funnels in or out to change the water level to that of the body of water the ship will enter. Each lock fills with as much as 52 million gallons of water within 10 minutes to raise or lower a ship.

How it Works It has three sets of locks. Ships can travel in both directions because the locks were built in pairs. Except when the ships are in Lake Gatun, they are pulled by trains with tow lines attached.

Building of the Locks

The French Try The French got the first crack at digging a trench from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific in 1878 when a committee of the Geographical Society of Paris signed a treaty with Colombia (of which Panama was then a province) to build a canal from Limon Bay to Panama City, closely following the Panama Railroad.

Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal in 1869, insisted on a sea level canal requiring a massive 7,720-meter long tunnel through the Continental Divide at Culebra. The builders also had no idea how to cope with the frequent horrific outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever. Problems with the French Plan

Swampland was a breeding ground for mosquitoes that carried malaria and yellow fever.

1905 Mosquito Fumigation Car

The U.S tries to buy the rights to the canal. When Colombia refused to sell the rights, President Roosevelt threw U.S. power behind a Panamanian uprising and supported Panama's 1903 declaration of independence. The U.S. Comes into the Picture

Roosevelt instigated a treaty with Panama that gave the United States the right to build the canal and created a 10-mile wide Canal Zone of what amounted to sovereign American territory surrounding the waterway.

Workers lined up at the “Pay Car”

Inside the “Pay Car”

Construction Problems Loose rocks that caused landslides. Heavy rains that would create muddy conditions for weeks on end, cause mudslides, and flooding of the Chagres River. Mountains that had to be carved out by explosives and manual labor.

Today Today: It takes about eight hours to transit the 51 miles of the canal. There is a railroad that parallels the canal. Each day about 40 ocean vessels transit the canal.

Canal Back in Panamanian Hands On September 7, 1977, American President Jimmy Carter and Republic of Panama military leader Omar Torrijos Herrera signed an important treaty transferring control of the Canal Zone to Panama effective December 31, 1999

Costs: The American expenditures from 1904 to 1914 totaled $352,000,000.Together the French and American expenditures totaled $639,000,000. It took 34 years from the initial effort in 1880 to actually open the Canal in It is estimated that over 80,000 people took part in the construction and that over 30,000 French and American lives were lost.

Tolls Least expensive toll ever paid - 36¢, by Richard Halliburton in 1928 (He weighed 150 lbs.) who swam across the Canal in a 10-day period. The record for the most expensive toll paid was on November 2, 2004 by Radiance of the Seas – the fee was nearly $213,000.

Let’s Review Let’s Review: Who started to build the canal first? France Name some of the problems encountered by the French and the Americans in Panama. Malaria, yellow fever and design problems

Let’s Review Let’s Review: How many miles are saved by the canal in a trip from New York to San Francisco? 8,000