THIRD INDUSTRIAL WONDER
Panama Canal is a waterway that cuts across Panama to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
It is one of the greatest engineering achievements in the world.
In 1846 Colombia signed a treaty with the U. S. to guard all trade routes across Panama and to preserve Panama's neutrality.
In 1850, Colombia let a U.S. company to build a railway across Panama, and it was completed in 1855 linking Colon on the Atlantic side and Panama City on the Pacific side.
In 1878, Colombia granted a French adventurer named Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse the right to build a canal across Panama.
He sold the right to a French company headed by Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, who had directed the construction of the Suez Canal.
The French also bought control of the Panama Railroad.
PANAMA CANAL
International law requires that the U.S. allow commercial and military vessels of all nations to pass through the canal in peacetime.
A treaty signed by the U.S. and Panama in 1977 guarantees that the canal will remain open to all nations even in time of war.
The agreement gives the U.S. the right to use military force if necessary to protect the canal's neutrality.
The Canal is nearly 82 kilometres long from Limon Bay on the Atlantic Ocean in a northwest to southeast direction to the Bay of Panama on the Pacific Ocean.
The canal has three sets of locks, (waterfilled chambers) which raise and lower ships from one level to another.
The locks were built in pairs to allow ships to pass through in both directions at the same time.
Each lock has a usable length of 300 metres, a width of 34 metres, and a depth of about 20 metres.
The dimensions of the locks limit the size of ships that can use the canal, supertankers and large Aircraft carriers cannot pass through it.
PANAMA-CANAL-CRUISES
A ship sailing from the Atlantic Ocean enters the canal by way of Limon Bay, near the city of Colon.
A canal pilot comes on board from a small boat.
The pilot has complete charge of the ship during its trip through the canal.
The Gatun Locks are like giant steps.
Three pairs of concrete chambers that lift ship about 26 metres from sea level to Gatun Lake.
Small electric locomotives called mules run on rails along both sides of the locks.
They help to position, stabilise, pull and guide the ship in the locks.
Canal workers fasten the ends of the locomotives' towing cables to the vessel.
The locomotives then help to pull the ship, into the first chamber.
Huge steel gates close behind the vessel.
Valves open to allow water from Gatun Lake to flow into the lock.
In the next 8 to 15 minutes, the rising water slowly raises the ship.
AERIAL RENDERING OF THE PACIFIC ACCESS
When the water level is the same in both chambers, the gates in front of the ship swing outward and the locomotives help to pull the vessel into the second chamber.
This process is repeated until the third chamber raises the ship to the level of Gatun Lake.
Once in the lake the cables get released and the ship sails on under its own power.
On the south side of Gatun Lake, is the huge Gatun Dam, this 18-million-cubic-metre earth dam is only second to the Hoover Dam.
Gatun Dam created the 422 square kilometre Gatun Lake from the waters of the Chagres River.
As ships reach the south-eastern end of Gatun Lake they enter the 13 kilometres long and 150 metres wide Gaillard Cut, with a minimum depth of 13 metres.
It is an engineering term for an artificially created passageway or channel and runs between Gold Hill on the east and Contractor's Hill on the west.
In 1913, it was named in honour of David DuBose Gaillard, the engineer in charge of digging between the hills.
Dredgers work constantly to keep the channel clear of earth-slides.
The Gaillard Cut is only wide enough for one-way traffic, but work began to widen it to accommodate two-way traffic.
After the Gaillard Cut, electric locomotives help to pull, the ships into the Pedro Miguel Locks, which lower the vessels 9 metres in one step to the Miraflores Lake.
Than the ships sails about two and half kilometres to the Miraflores Locks, where two chambers lower them to the level of the Pacific Ocean.
The distances these chambers must lower the ship depend on the height of the tide in the Pacific, which about 4 metres a day.
Tides on the Atlantic side change only about 60 centimetres daily.
After the locks, the ships head down a 13 kilometres long channel, passing the towns of Balboa, and La Boca and the Thatcher Ferry Bridge, an important link in the Pan American Highway.
In the Bay of Panama the pilot leaves, the vessels as they head toward the open sea.
The ships have travelled about 80 kilometres from the Atlantic to the Pacific in about eight hours.
More 12,000 ocean-going vessels travel through it yearly, an average of about 34 per day.
PAMANA CITY FROM PPWK
The Panama Canal Commission is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the waterway.
In addition, the commission operates public utilities and provides community, sanitation, security, and transportation services.
The Panama Canal Commission collects tolls from ships that use the canal.
The amount of the toll paid by a merchant ship is determined by the ship's cargo space.
Military ships must pay a toll based on their weight.
PANAMA_CANAL_GATUN_LOCKS
Ships traveling between New York and San Francisco save 7,872 miles by using the Panama Canal instead of going around Cape Horn.
The Atlantic entrance to the Canal is 22-1/2 miles west of the Pacific entrance.
More than four and half million cubic yards of concrete went in to the construction of the locks and dams.
Material originally excavated to build the Canal were put on to a train of flat cars, it would encircle the world four times.
The lock of the Panama Canal are seven feet thick.
Due to the reclining "S" shape of the Isthmus of Panama the sun rises from the Pacific and sets in the Atlantic Ocean.
More than 60,000,000 pounds of dynamite was used to excavate and construct the Panama Canal.
The dam constructed across the Chagres River in Gatun created Gatun Lake , the largest man-made lake in the world at that time.
The rock and soil excavated from Culebra cut was used to build the shell of the dam at Gatun on the Atlantic side.
The cruise ship Rhapsody of the Sea establish a toll record on 1997 when it paid 153,662.66 to cross the water-way.
The Panama Canal in 1974 raises the toll rates for the first time since they were not braking even. Excavation of the Canal was equal to digging a 10 feet trench deep by 55 wide from California to New York.
The construction involved three major engineering projects.
The Gaillard Cut had to be excavated, a dam across the Chagres River had to be built to create Gatun Lake, and the canal's locks had to be constructed.
The hardest task was digging the Gaillard Cut through hills of soft volcanic material. It was much like digging into a pile of grain as soon as workers dug a hole, more rock and earth would slide into the space, or push up from below.
Instead of the estimated 73 million cubic metres of earth and rock the builders had to move more than 160 million cubic metres.
At times more than 43,400 people worked on the Panama Canal.
In 1914 the first ship to make the first complete trip through the canal was the Panama Railroad Company's S.S. Ancon sailing from the Atlantic to the Pacific and made the canal slogan a reality "The Land Divided, the World United." The two great oceans were united.
Building the canal cost the U.S. about 380 million U.S. dollars, which included the 40 million dollars to the French company, the 10 million dollars paid to Panama, and 20 million dollars for sanitation and 310 million dollars was spent on the actual construction.
In 1935 the Madden Dam was completed, the first major improvement on the canal. The Madden Lake stores water for use in Gatun Lake. The dam also holds back the floodwaters of the Chagres River during the rainy season.
In 1936, the United States agreed to raise its annual payments to Panama to 430,000 U.S. dollars.
In 1955, the payments were increased to about 2 million U.S. dollars a year.
In the 1950's, engineers began to widen the Gaillard Cut from about 90 to 150 metres.
A ship travelling from New York to San Francisco can save more than 12,500 kilometres or 7872 miles going through the Panama Canal instead of going around South America.
The highest Canal toll was US $ 141,344.91 paid by the Crown Princess, passenger superliner.
The lowest toll ever paid was 36 cents by Richard Halliburton for swimming the Canal in 1928.
The average time spent in crossing from ocean to ocean is approx. 8 - 10 hours.
Until the finishing of the Hoover Dam to form Lake Mead, Gatun Lake was the largest artificial body of water in the world.
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