PANAMA CANAL
The Panama Canal is a ship canal that cuts through Panama. The United States lost 5,600 people while making the Panama canal. It runs 48 miles long. Since its been finished in 1914, 815,000 vessels have gone through it. The American Society of Civil Engineers named it on of the Seven Wonders of the World.
The canal cut the shipping distance from New York to San Francisco in half. Before the canal was built ships had to either go through The Straight of Magellan or Cape Horn. The distance around Cape Horn from New York to San Francisco is 13,000 miles. The distance using the Panama Canal is only 5,200 miles.The French attempted to build a canal through Panama in 1880 but quit after 21,900 people died.
It works because dams and locks pumping water in and out of each other to even out the water level to rise and lower the elevation of the vessel. Madden Dam was built in 1935 to form a lake for a water supply for the canal. The lake was called Madden Lake but is now changed to Alajuela Lake.
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