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

The second Panama Canal Chief Engineer was Josh Steven's. He started by building labor housing and seriously considerd of what type of canal to build. Stevens wanted a lock canal, and this in turn got Roosevelt to decide on the lock canal. Soon after the decision of what type of canal the mapping of the Chagres river was accomplished, and locations to block the river and put the locks were completed. Roosevelt visited the canal for the first time.

e route of the 1855 Panama Railroad. The company was plagued with financial problems basically from the day it started. Lesseps was forced to go back to France several times to get funds. Other major problems included disease, which killed or made many of the workers deathly ill, and the rocky terrain which proved to be too much for the French steam shovels to handle. In 1889 Lesseps' company liquidated to pay back investors and banks.

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 most difficult area of excavation was at Culebra Mountain. The canal had to be dug out of the largest mountain in the path. All told 96 million cubic yards of dirt were removed from the Cut. Dynamite was the tool of choice for loosening the ground as over 19 million pounds of explosives were used in the Cut alone. Amazingly only 8 fatalities occurred from the heavy explosives.

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)