Essay On Panama Canal

Ashton Aker

Professor Edith Macdonald

AMH2020

28 March 2014

The Panama Canal

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Panama Canal is one of the seven wonders of the modern world. (Seven Wonders). Before the Panama Canal existed, ships wanting to travel from the east coast of the United States to the west coast had to sail around the south side of South America, while ships passing through the canal could make the same trip in less than half the time. The Panama Canal used today is a political and engineering miracle. It required interactions and treaties between four different countries and the creation of a fifth. It is able to lift ships that weigh hundreds of thousands of tons up 85 ft. without using massive amounts of power.

King Charles I of Spain first introduced the idea of a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in 1534, but the local Spanish Governor dismissed the idea. Americans then became interested in a more rapid travel route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the early 1800s. Unfortunately the United States and Great Britain signed the Clayton-Bulwar Treaty in 1850, which prevented both countries from controlling any canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through Central America. During the Spanish American War the United States realized that it needed a faster way to get its naval forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific. When the war was over, the United States decided to find a way to start construction on a canal. The first thing that needed to happen was that the Clayton-Bulwar Treaty had to be repealed. The United States and Great Britain repealed the Clayton-Bulwar Treaty in 1901 with the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which gave the United States “the sole r...

... middle of paper ...

...the second flight, and the gates are then closed. Water is then allowed to flow from the third and final flight of the Gaton locks to the second, until they equalize. The ship then enters the Gaton Lake and proceeds to do the same process in reverse through the Pedro Miguel lock gate, and the Miraflores lock gates. The genius behind the design is that the whole process uses gravity acting on elevated water to lift ships without actually having to exert a force.

To sum it up, completion of the Panama Canal is an epic political and engineering accomplishment. It took interactions between four different countries, and the creation of a fifth to start construction on the canal. Then it took around thousands and thousands of men ten years to build it. Finally, any mechanism that can lift ships that weigh nearly 100,000 tons up 85 ft. is an engineering miracle.