The US was not the first country to try to create a passage through the Panama area. People as far back as Columbus have searched for a such passage. French Emperor Napoleon III had toyed with the idea of building a canal on France's land across the sea but never really started a major push for it.

The first major attempt to build a canal came from a Frenchman named Ferdinand de Lesseps. He was very confident he could accomplish in making the passage from previous canal projects. He sold stock in his company the Compagnie Universalle du Canal Interoceanique to finance the endeavor. However he only netted eight percent of what he was going to need to finance the canal project. He ended up with 40 million francs instead of the 400 million that he hoped for. Work began in 1882 along th

Soon after Roosevelt returned to the US Stevens began to dislike working on the project. He never officially resigned but like Wallace, Roosevelt accepted his resignation and appointed Army Lieutenant George Washington Goethals. From this point on the army was in control of the canal and was not going to relingquish control of it.

The basic design of the canal had a dam being built at Gatun, a series of 3 locks at Gatun, each of the locks would raise and lower the ships 85 feet vertically. Another set of 2 locks at Pedro Miguel and a single one at Miraflores. The width at the bottom of the canal was to be 300 feet. Water was to flow into or out of the locks through gigantic culverts in the walls of the locks.

Goethals was probably the best engineer of them all. He was used to working within the framework of the government so he knew how to get what he needed quickly. He organized many things like a complaint board where every Sunday workers could come tell their grievances to Goethal and many workers came to respect him very much.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1340
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)