The problem was the great 12,000 mile distance to go around South America to get to from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean or vice versa. The solution was to make canal to cut the distance down significantly. Vasco Nunez de Balboa discovered the Pacific coast in the 1513. Many famous people including Benjamin Franklin suggested that a route could be made through Panama to shorten the path. However, others people disagreed that it could be done in Panama. German explorer Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt believed that Panama was too mountainous and the wrong place to build the canal. "U.S. Army Col. Charles Biddle concluded after four days of hiking in the jungle that the impracticality of building a canal in Panama ought to be clear to anyone." (Kiger)
             Designing, constructing, and implementing the Panama Canal is one of the largest macro-engineering projects in recorded history. It took a two nations and the workforce of many other nations to complete. Columbia lost a large part of its land and the Republic of Panama was created for the sole purpose of building the Canal. "Apart from wars, it represented the largest, most costly single effort ever before mounted anywhere on earth." (McCullough 11) Not only were there advances in technology, but also entire technologies were created for this macro-engineering project. "In the history of finance capitalism, in the history of medicine, it was an event of signal consequence." It marked a score of advances in engineering, government planning, labor relations." (McCullough 12)
             Even thought it took numerous people to design and finish the Panama Canal's original creator was the entrepreneur Vicomte Ferdinand De Lesseps. Ideas varied on how to complete the task.
             Vicomte Ferdinand De Lesseps was the first in charge of the Panama Canal. De Lesseps promoted the idea of the French building the canal. He believed that he would ret...