Building the Panama Canal
By: Joseph Liebreich
Tags: Canal, Panama Canal, Excavation, Engineering, Construction

Building the Panama Canal

Via istockphoto.com

The French Connection

The Panama Canal was a Spanish idea. It was conceived by King Charles V of Spain in the early 1500’s as a way to reduce the sailing time from Spain to Peru. Today a bust of Charles V stands in Panama City commemorating his vision.

The first developer of the Panama Canal was a Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps. He cut his teeth on canal building in Egypt where he successfully built the Suez Canal. In 1854 he convinced the ruler of Egypt, Said Pasha, to authorize him to construct a canal that would directly link the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, substantially reducing the travel time between Europe and East Asia.

A plan by civil engineers was adopted in 1856 and Lessep proceeded full speed ahead. He refused to allow anything to stop him. He ignored negative opinions from England and France which claimed: (1) that the sea in front of Port Said (on the Mediterranean side of the proposed canal) was full of mud and would make excavating impossible, and (2) that the sands from the desert would fill in the trench as the digging progressed.

Despite a multitude of technical and diplomatic difficulties, the canal was finally completed and inaugurated in November 1869.

Building the Panama Canal — first attempt

After his triumph in Egypt, starting in 1881, Ferdinand de Lessep tried to repeat his success with an effort to build a canal across the isthmus of Panama. He failed dramatically due to a number of problems.

The Suez Canal was built entirely at sea level — no locks. The techniques developed at Suez wouldn’t work connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans because the change in ocean levels was too great. Lessup refused to build the canal with locks.

Panama’s climate was totally different from arid Egypt. Panama does have a dry season, but it also has a rainy season. The French would dig out swaths of land and put the dirt on the banks of the trench. Every rainy season, torrential rain would wash all the soil they’d dug out right back into the canal.

Malaria and yellow fever ran rampant in Panama in an uncontrolled epidemic. It is estimated more than 20,000 French workers died. Jules Dingler, Director General of the French canal company, arrived in Panama with his wife, son, daughter and her fiancé in 1883. Within a few months, his daughter died of yellow fever, followed by his son, his daughter’s fiancé and, finally, his wife. Broken in mind and spirit, Dingler returned to France. Within a month of their arrival in Panama in 1886, thirteen of thirty engineers died, presumably of yellow fever (more on the medical problems later).

Numerous political and financial scandals plagued the project. After $287 million in expenditures the French canal company liquidated in 1889.

Building the Panama Canal — second attempt

The United States bought out the project in 1904 paying $40 million, and, after extensive engineering studies, decided on building a canal with locks.

Engineers designed and built a railroad alongside the ditch. Excavated dirt was loaded into rail cars and trucked far away from the site and dumped so the rains wouldn’t wash it back into the canal.

Dr. Walter Reed and others attacked the medical problems. After putting screens on some of the workers’ quarters and not others, Reed noticed the workers housed with screening were much less likely to contract malaria or yellow fever. He concluded mosquitoes were transmitting the diseases. He appointed a chief sanitation officer who took measures to minimize the spread of the two deadly diseases, After two years of extensive work, the diseases were almost entirely eliminated. In spite of these efforts about 5,600 workers died of disease and accidents during the US construction phase. The canal was completed in 1914. In 1999 the US turned over control of the canal to Panama.

Three interesting facts

(1) Most people think the “mules” (little trains) on each side of the canal pull ships through the canal. Not true. Ships go through under their own power. The function of the mules is to keep the ships from hitting the sides of the locks by keeping ropes tied to the ships taut. (2) It costs about $250,000 for a 1000-passenge cruise ship to go through the canal and much much more for a fully loaded cargo ship. (3) Due to the curvature of the isthmus (it runs east/west), one must travel north to get to the Atlantic Ocean and south to get to the Pacific.