Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is one of the very few modern endeavors that has changed the Face of the planet on which we live. The Panama Canal should be known as the eighth wonder of the world. It split a continent and connected the world as no other man made creation ever had. Despite previous failures by other country's, the US was able to conquer the many dangers of the canal area and build what still is one of the greatest engineering marvels of the world.The US was not the first country to try to create a passage through the Panama area. People as far back as Columbus have searched for a such passage. French Emperor Napoleon III had toyed with the idea of building a canal on France's land across the sea but never really started a major push for it.The first major attempt to build a canal came from a Frenchman named Ferdinand de Lesseps. He was very confident he could accomplish in making the passage from previous canal projects. He sold stock in his company the Compagnie Universalle du Canal Interoceanique to finance the endeavor. However he only netted eight percent of what he was going to need to finance the canal project. He ended up with 40 million francs instead of the 400 million that he hoped for. Work began in 1882 along th
He was used to working within the framework of the government so he knew how to get what he needed quickly. The width at the bottom of the canal was to be 300 feet. Wallace started the excavation of Culebra Cut. The company was plagued with financial problems basically from the day it started. Water was to flow into or out of the locks through gigantic culverts in the walls of the locks. Initial traffic on the canal was about 2 thousand ships a year. The most difficult area of excavation was at Culebra Mountain. However this was not an easy task because of drainage ditches dug by the French that were in essence mosquito hotels. He organized many things like a complaint board where every Sunday workers could come tell their grievances to Goethal and many workers came to respect him very much. Wallace was fed up with the time it took to get the simplest supplies to reach the zone so he went back to the US and talked with Roosevelt. The US government was not going to allow the deaths rates to continue as they did when the French were trying to build the canal. the width of the canal was changed to 300 feet up from the earlier 200 feet. He got rid of them by covering all standing and slow moving body's of water with a combination of oil and insecticide. Then Panama wanted to sell the land to the US but Colombia refused. Before any work could begin, the biggest problems of the canal zone had to be overcome, disease.
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