The Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a 48 mile waterway located in the country of Panama that joins the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic. The conduit, essential to international trade as a bypass to the hazardous trade routes around South America, has been called one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the American Society of Civil Engineers.It routinely has tens of thousands of ships pass through it every year, carrying over 300 million tons of cargo. The canal has shaved nearly 8,000 sailing miles off a trip between New York and San Francisco, even though traveling the canal itself can take between 8 to 10 hours. A canal that connects the east to the west, it ironically has a path that finds it travelers moving north and south, as well.In this book, James K. Wheaton looks at the history of the engineering marvels, and problems it faces to this day.