7 Modern Wonders
of the World
The Panama Canal is
a ship canal which joins the Caribbean
Sea to the Pacific ocean. One of the
largest and most difficult engineering
projects ever undertaken, it had an
enormous impact on shipping between
the two oceans, replacing the long
and treacherous route via the Drake
Passage and Cape Horn at the southernmost
tip of South America. A ship sailing
from New York to San Francisco via
the canal travels 9,500 km (6,000
mi), well under half the 22,500 km
(14,000 mi) route around Cape Horn.[1]
Although the concept of a canal near
Panama dates back to the early 16th
century, the first attempt to construct
a canal began in 1880 under French
leadership. After this attempt failed
and 21,900 workers died, the project
of building a canal was attempted
and completed by the United States
in the early 1900s, with the canal
opening in 1914. The building of the
77 km (48 mi) canal was plagued by
problems, including disease (particularly
malaria and yellow fever) and landslides.
By the time the canal was completed,
a total of 27,500 workmen are estimated
to have died in the French and American
efforts.
Since opening, the canal
has been enormously successful, and
continues to be a key conduit for
international maritime trade. The
canal can accommodate vessels from
small private yachts up to large commercial
vessels. The maximum size of vessel
that can use the canal is known as
Panamax; an increasing number of modern
ships exceed this limit, and are known
as post-Panamax or super-Panamax vessels.
A typical passage through the canal
by a cargo ship takes approximately
8–10 hours. In fiscal year 2008,
14,702 vessels passed through the
waterway with a total 309.6 million
Panama Canal/Universal Measurement
System (PC/UMS) tons.
While the Pacific Ocean
is west of the isthmus and the Atlantic
to the east, the journey through the
canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic
is one from southeast to northwest.
This is a result of the isthmus's
"curving back on itself"
in the region of the canal. The Bridge
of the Americas at the Pacific end
is about a third of a degree of longitude
east of the end near Colon on the
Atlantic.
History of
the Panama Canal
Early efforts
The earliest mention of a canal across
the Isthmus of Panama dates back to
1534 when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
and King of Spain ordered a survey
for a route through Panama that would
ease the voyage for ships traveling
to and from Spain and Peru, as well
as give the Spanish a tactical military
edge over the Portuguese. During his
expedition of 1788–1793, Alessandro
Malaspina demonstrated the feasibility
of a canal and outlined plans for
its construction.
Given the strategic
situation of Panama and its narrow
isthmus separating two great oceans,
other forms of trade links were attempted
over the years. The ill-fated Darien
scheme was an attempt launched by
the Kingdom of Scotland in 1698 to
set up an overland trade route, but
was defeated by the generally inhospitable
conditions, and abandoned two years
later in 1700. Finally, the Panama
Railway was built across the isthmus,
opening in 1855. This overland link
became a vital piece of infrastructure,
greatly facilitating trade and largely
determining the later canal route.
Construction work on the Gaillard
Cut is shown in this photograph from
1907An all-water route between the
oceans was still seen as the ideal
solution, and the idea of a canal
was enhanced by the success of the
Suez Canal. The French, under Ferdinand
de Lesseps, began construction on
a sea-level canal (i.e., without locks)
through what was then Colombia's province
of Panama, on January 1, 1880. The
French began work in a rush with insufficient
prior study of the geology and hydrology
of the region. In addition, disease,
particularly malaria and yellow fever,
sickened and killed vast numbers of
employees, ranging from laborers to
top directors of the French company.
Public health measures were ineffective
because the role of the mosquito as
a disease vector was then unknown.
These conditions made it impossible
to maintain an experienced work force
as fearful technical employees quickly
returned to France. Even the hospitals
contributed to the problem, unwittingly
providing breeding places for mosquitoes
inside the unscreened wards. Actual
conditions were hushed-up in France
to avoid recruitment problems. In
1893, after a great deal of work,
the French scheme was abandoned due
to disease and the sheer difficulty
of building a sea-level canal, as
well as lack of French field experience,
such as downpours causing steel equipment
to rust. The high toll from disease
was one of the major factors in the
failure; as many as 22,000 workers
were estimated to have died during
the main period of French construction
(1881–1889).
According to Stephen
Kinzer's 2006 book Overthrow, in 1898
the chief of the French Canal Syndicate
(a group that owned large swathes
of land across Panama), Philippe Bunau-Varilla,
hired William Nelson Cromwell (of
the US law firm Sullivan & Cromwell)
to lobby the US Congress to build
a canal across Panama, and not across
Nicaragua.
Later efforts
In 1902, Cromwell noticed a 10-cent
Nicaraguan postal stamp, produced
by the United States’ American
Bank Note Company, which erroneously
depicted a fuming Momotombo volcano.
Momotombo was nearly dormant and stands
more than 160 km (100 mi) from the
proposed Nicaraguan canal path; yet
the stamp had taken advantage of a
particularly volcanic year in the
Caribbean. Cromwell planted a story
in the New York Sun reporting that
the Momotombo volcano had erupted
and caused a series of seismic shocks.
Thereafter he sent leaflets with the
above stamps pasted on them to all
U.S. Senators as witness to the volcanic
activity in Nicaragua. On June 19,
1902, three days after senators received
the stamps, they voted for the Panama
route for the canal. For his lobbying
efforts, Cromwell received the sum
of $800,000.
On January 22, 1903,
the Hay-Herran Treaty was signed by
United States Secretary of State John
M. Hay and Dr. Tomás Herrán
of Colombia. It would have granted
the United States a 99-year lease
from Colombia on the land proposed
for the canal. It was ratified by
the United States Senate on March
14, 1903, but the Senate of Colombia
did not ratify the treaty. Philippe
Bunau-Varilla, chief engineer of the
French canal company, told Roosevelt
and Hay of a possible revolt and hoped
that the U.S. would support it with
troops and money. President of the
United States Theodore Roosevelt changed
tactics, promising support for Panama's
intermittent separatist movement.
On November 2, 1903 U.S. warships
blocked sealanes for Colombian troops
from coming to put down the revolt,
also, dense jungles blocked land routes.
Panama achieved independence on November
3, 1903 when the United States sent
naval forces to encourage Colombia's
surrender of the region. The United
States quickly recognized them November
6. Also in November 1903, Phillipe
Bunau-Varilla, Panama's ambassador
to the United States, signed the Hay-Bunau
Varilla Treaty, granting rights to
the United States to build and indefinitely
administer the Panama Canal. Although
Bunau-Varilla was serving as Panama's
ambassador, he was a French citizen
and was not authorized to sign treaties
on behalf of Panama without Panamanian
review.[citation needed] This treaty
became a contentious diplomatic issue
between the two countries, culminating
in riots in which 21 Panamanians and
4 U.S. soldiers were killed on Martyr's
Day, January 9, 1964. The issues were
resolved with the signing of the Torrijos-Carter
Treaties in 1977, which returned the
former Canal Zone territories to Panama.
The United States, under
President Theodore Roosevelt (with
John Frank Stevens as Chief Engineer
from 1905–1907), bought out
the French equipment and excavations
for US$40 million and began work on
May 4, 1904. The United States paid
Colombia $25,000,000 in 1921, seven
years after completion of the canal,
for redress of President Roosevelt's
role in the creation of Panama, and
Colombia recognized Panama under the
terms of the Thomson-Urrutia Treaty.
Chief Engineer (1905–1907),
John Frank Stevens' primary achievement
in Panama was in building the infrastructure
necessary to complete the canal. He
rebuilt the Panama Railway and devised
a system for disposing of soil from
the excavations by rail. He also built
proper housing for canal workers and
oversaw extensive sanitation and mosquito-control
programmes that eliminated yellow
fever and other diseases from the
Isthmus. Stevens argued the case against
a sea level canal like the French
had tried to build. He convinced Theodore
Roosevelt of the necessity of a canal
built with dams and locks.
A significant investment
was made in eliminating disease from
the area, particularly yellow fever
and malaria, the causes of which had
originally been theorized by Cuban
physician/scientist Dr. Carlos Finlay
in 1881 who had identified the mosquito
as the vector that causes the disease.
Finlay's theory and investigative
work had recently been confirmed by
Dr. Walter Reed while in Cuba with
U.S. Army motivation during the Spanish-American
War (see Health measures during the
construction of the Panama Canal).
With the diseases under control, and
after significant work on preparing
the infrastructure, construction of
an elevated canal with locks began
in earnest and was finally possible.
The Americans also gradually replaced
the old French equipment with machinery
designed for a larger scale of work
(such as the giant hydraulic crushers
supplied by the Joshua Hendy Iron
Works), to quicken the pace of construction.
President Roosevelt had the former
French machinery minted into medals
for all workers who spent at least
two years on the construction to commemorate
their contribution to the building
of the canal. These medals featured
Roosevelt's likeness on the front,
the name of the recipient on one side,
and the worker's years of service,
as well as a picture of the Culebra
Cut on the back.
In 1907 Roosevelt appointed
George Washington Goethals as Chief
Engineer of the Panama Canal. The
building of the canal was completed
in 1914, two years ahead of the target
date of June 1, 1916. The canal was
formally opened on August 15, 1914
with the passage of the cargo ship
Ancon. Coincidentally, this was also
the same month that fighting in World
War I (the Great War) began in Europe.
The advances in hygiene resulted in
a relatively low death toll during
the American construction; still,
5,609 workers died during this period
(1904–1914). This brought the
total death toll for the construction
of the canal to around 27,500.
By the 1930s it was
seen that water supply would be an
issue for the canal; this prompted
the building of the Madden Dam across
the Chagres River above Gatun Lake.
The dam, completed in 1935, created
Madden Lake (later Alajuela Lake),
which acts as additional water storage
for the canal. In 1939, construction
began on a further major improvement:
a new set of locks for the canal,
large enough to carry the larger warships
which the United States was building
at the time and had planned to continue
building. The work proceeded for several
years, and significant excavation
was carried out on the new approach
channels, but the project was canceled
after World War II.
After the war, U.S. control of the
canal and the Canal Zone surrounding
it became contentious as relations
between Panama and the U.S. became
increasingly tense. Many Panamanians
felt that the canal zone rightfully
belonged to Panama; student protests
were met by the fencing in of the
zone and an increased military presence.
Negotiations toward a new settlement
began in 1974, and resulted in the
Torrijos-Carter Treaties. Signed by
President of the United States Jimmy
Carter and Omar Torrijos of Panama
on September 7, 1977, this mobilized
the process of granting the Panamanians
free control of the Canal so long
as Panama signed a treaty guaranteeing
the permanent neutrality of the Canal.
The treaty led to full Panamanian
control effective at noon on December
31, 1999, and the Panama Canal Authority
(ACP) assumed command of the waterway.
Before this handover,
the government of Panama held an international
bid to negotiate a 25-year contract
for operation of the container shipping
ports located at the Canal’s
Atlantic and Pacific outlets. The
contract was not affiliated with the
ACP or Panama Canal operations, was
won by the firm Hutchison Whampoa,
a Hong Kong-based shipping concern
whose owner is Li Ka Shing.[2]
I worked on a cruise
ship that went through the Panama Canal
and I got to follow the ship in a car
and record its journey.
