Canal Party.Where was last New Year's "Party Central"? Maybe Central America--in Panama. On December 31, 1999, after more than 80 years of governing the Panama Canal Panama Canal, waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic (by way of the Caribbean Sea) and Pacific oceans, built by the United States (1904–14) on territory leased from the republic of Panama. , the U.S. handed the reins of authority over the canal to Panama. Panamanians wildly celebrated their new control over the country's entire territory. When the U.S. completed building the Panama Canal in 1914, the engineering marvel was touted as the "eighth wonder of the world--the largest piece of machinery on Earth," says Lesley Hendricks, a Panama Canal maintenance engineer. Construction costs exceeded $375 million; more than 5,600 workers died from disease or accidents building the canal. The canal was laid across the narrowest point of land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans--about 80 kilometers (50 miles) across. Until a water passage across the Panamanian isthmus isthmus (ĭs`məs), narrow neck of land connecting two larger land areas. Since it commands the only land route between two large areas and is on two seas, an isthmus has great strategical and commercial importance and is a favorable situation (strip of land connecting two larger land areas) linked the two oceans, ships heading from New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of to San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , for example, had to sail 12,668 km (7,872 mi) around the entire continent of South America South America, fourth largest continent (1991 est. pop. 299,150,000), c.6,880,000 sq mi (17,819,000 sq km), the southern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. ; the trek commonly took two weeks. Engineers' greatest challenge was to carve out to make or get by cutting, or as if by cutting; to cut out. - Shak. See also: Carve a canal through rugged mountain terrain. Their solution: three sets of locks (enclosures) with 2-meter (7-foot) thick steel gates at each end. The locks raise and lower a ship 26 meters (85 feet) during the 10-hour journey through the waterway (see diagram, below). "Boats don't go through Panama," says Hendricks. "They go over Panama." |
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