The Panama Canal

The history of the Panama Canal goes back to 16th century. After realizing the riches of Peru, Ecuador, and Asia, and counting the time it took the gold to reach the ports of Spain, it was suggested to Charles V, that by cutting out a piece of land somewhere in Panama, the trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean would be a great deal shorter. A survey of the isthmus was ordered and subsequently a working plan for a canal was drawn up in 1529, but the wars in Europe put the project on permanent hold. In the 19th century interest was revived in the enterprise. In 1876 an international company was organized; two years later it obtained a concession from the Colombian government to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The international company failed, and in 1880, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal, organized a French company. Work began a year later on a sea-level canal, like the one at Suez. The French company encountered terrible financial, organizational and human resources problems and eventually ceased work in 1888. They had excavated a total of 59.75 million cubic metres.

The Americans took over the construction in 1904, spending the first years on surveys, building facilities and improving healthcare for the workers. It was in June of 1906 that they decided to build a lock canal. The canal was opened on August 15, 1914. The total cost was $336,650,000, and 184 million cu m of earth had been excavated. There were subsequent modifications . Today, he canal runs from Limón Bay at Colón on the Atlantic to the Bay of Panama at Balboa on the Pacific. From Limón Bay a ship is raised by Gatún Locks (a set of three) to an elevation 25.9 m above sea level, traverses Gatún Lake, then crosses the Continental Divide through Gaillard (formerly Culebra) Cut and is lowered by Pedro Miguel Lock to Miraflores Lake and then by the Miraflores Locks (a set of two) to sea level. The average tidal range on the Atlantic side is less than a foot (.3 m); that on the Pacific side is 12.6 ft (3.8 m). The Panama Canal is 64 km long from shore to shore and 82 km long between channel entrances. The Pacific terminus is 27 mi (43 km) east of the Caribbean terminus. The minimum depth is 41 ft (12.5 m).

What makes the Panama Canal remarkable is its self-sufficiency. The dam at Gatun, is able to generate the electricity to run all the motors which operate the canal as well as the locomotives in charge of towing the ships through the canal. No force is required to adjust the water level between the locks except gravity. As the lock operates, the water simply flows into the locks from the lakes or flows out to the sea level channels. Despite the limit in ship size, the largest modern merchant and fighting ships, however, cannot pass through, the canal is still one of the most highly travelled waterways in the world, handling over 12,000 ships per year. The crossing takes about nine hours to complete, an immense time saving when compared with rounding the tip of South America.