Panama Canal





By N2H

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November 6th, 2009 by Travel

A Major shipping channel that runs across the country of Panama, the Panama Canal is a major shipping route that cut the distance of travel from going all the way around South America to going through the middle, saving 14 thousand miles of travel and time. The first attempt by the French cost them twenty thousand lives and never lived up to the effort in the late nineteenth century.

Panama Canal

However the United States of America stepped in under President Theodore Roosevelt and in 1904 and took over construction, completing it just a decade later with only 200 American deaths. Through a series of locks the water level is either lowered or raised for the ships as they pass through, thereby equalizing the water levels along the way since they are never the same in both oceans. Because the original capacity was 80 million tons a year and it currently serves 278 million tons per year, along with growing ship sizes, plans are being made to upgrade the canal in the future so that shipping can continue.

Panama Canal