Panama canal

The construction of the Panama Canal had a long and not a simple history. The first steps were undertaken in 1880 by a Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps who had built the Suez Canal. His idea was to build the Panama Canal by driving it straight through, at sea level. To carry out this plan it was necessary to deep cuts through rocky hills and mountains, which was soon found to be hard to achieve. Then another French expedition was sent out to see what could be done. Butagain the technical difficulties were too much for them. Moreover, lots of workers died from yellow fever.

In early 1900's the American government wanted to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The isthmus is the neck of land that joins North and South America and separates the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific Ocean. Building a canal across it would mean that American ships could travel quickly between the east and west coasts of the United States instead of having to make a long sea journey around South America.

The main problem was that the United States did not own the isthmus: it belonged to a Latin American country called Colombia. In 1903, when the Colombian government was slow to give the Americans permission to build the canal, President Theodore Roosevelt sent warships to Panama. The warships helped a small group of Panamanian businessmen to rebel against the Colombian government.

The rebels won victory and declared Panama a new independent state. A few days later they gave the Americans control over a ten-and-a-half-mile wide strip of land called the Canal Zone across their new country. The way was clear for the Americans to build their canal.

In 1908 Colonel Goethals - the man who turned a great engineering failure into a great victory - was appointed as a Chief Engineer in charge of the construction of the Panama Canal. The first thing he did was to organize a fight against the diseases which had been killing the workers since the canal was first begun. All swamps and lakes were covered with a film of oil to destroy the breeding places of mosquitoes; windows and doors were protected with fine wire netting.

Colonel Goethals did not follow the idea of building a canal on the same level all the way. His idea was to carry the canal at different heights by means of locks and slucies. He was successful where so many others had failed. The canal was finished in October 1913, a great achievement in modern engineering. On the 10th of October President of the United States Wilson pressed a golden button in the White House in Washington; 2000 miles away the electric current from the White House made a dynamite charge explode and blow up the last dam between the finished canal and the sea. The Atlantic and the Pacific were now connected with each other.

Unit 5