Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Bohlbaum.
Speaker 1: Here in the hot jungles of Central America in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds, but thousands of workers toiled in the
Speaker 1: rain and mud trying to cleave Panama in half in
Speaker 1: order to join the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: The difficult, dirty work involved more than digging and dynamiting,
Speaker 1: though working on the Panama Canal in the early days
Speaker 1: was about simply surviving. Thousands of workers Perhaps his money
Speaker 1: is twenty two thousand died while the French first tried
Speaker 1: to dig the canal. Yellow fever was rampant, as was malaria.
Speaker 1: On the job accidents killed and maimed. Close to eighty
Speaker 1: percent of the workforce was fleeing what Americans took over
Speaker 1: the job in nineteen oh three. When famed engineer John
Speaker 1: Frank Stevens arrived in nineteen oh five, First's job was
Speaker 1: to stop the carnage, and that meant accepting the new
Speaker 1: idea that controlling mosquitoes would prevent the spread of disease.
Speaker 1: We talked about this a bit in our recent episode
Speaker 1: about Hispanic scientists who changed the world Carlos Juan Finlay
Speaker 1: had been saying since the eighteen eighties that mosquitoes were
Speaker 1: the carrier of yellow fever, but this theory was only
Speaker 1: just then around the turn of the century. Catching on
Speaker 1: for the article this episode is based on how Stuff Work.
Speaker 1: Spoke with Jay David Rogers, a professor of geological engineering
Speaker 1: at Missouri University of Science and Technology. He said, men
Speaker 1: of that era couldn't conceive of a mosquito being able
Speaker 1: to kill a strong man. They just couldn't respect that.
Speaker 1: The thing you had to conquer to make that project
Speaker 1: work was the sanitation issues. Under the guidance of US
Speaker 1: Army physician William Crawford Gorges, Stevens had the local swamplands
Speaker 1: drained and grassland's cut to control the mosquitoes. They employed inicides,
Speaker 1: screened in workers quarters, and trapped adult mosquitos wherever they could.
Speaker 1: The workers were given quinine and anti malarial. The result,
Speaker 1: yellow fever in the area was all but eradicated, and
Speaker 1: deaths from malaria in the local population were reduced by
Speaker 1: over eighty percent. The Panama Canal is considered a marvel
Speaker 1: of engineering, one of the seven Modern Wonders of the world.
Speaker 1: But it's debatable whether these medical feats were even more impressive.
Speaker 1: But okay, let's back up a bit. Oh, why were
Speaker 1: we going to all this trouble in the first place.
Speaker 1: Egypt's sUAS Canal, connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean
Speaker 1: had opened in eighteen sixty nine, revolutionizing water travel from
Speaker 1: Europe to Asia. After seeing this success, America envisioned a
Speaker 1: shortcut through Central America as a way of strengthening its
Speaker 1: global position. Before the Panama Canal opened, the ships had
Speaker 1: to travel all the way around South America to get
Speaker 1: from the US's Atlantic coast to its Pacific coast. At
Speaker 1: the time, the trip took over sixty days and some
Speaker 1: eight thousand miles. That's nearly thirteen thousand kilometers of travel,
Speaker 1: not ideal if you wanted to move goods or naval
Speaker 1: ships in any kind of a hurry. For years, the
Speaker 1: US had been considering building a canal through Nicaragua, but
Speaker 1: engineering concerns, not to mention worries about active volcanoes in
Speaker 1: the area prompted President Teddy Roosevelt to continue with the
Speaker 1: failed French site in Panama instead. In nineteen oh three,
Speaker 1: he agreed to pay the French forty million dollars to
Speaker 1: assume control of the project, worth the equivalent of about
Speaker 1: one point three billion in today's dollars. It'd take more
Speaker 1: than a decade to complete. The French had helped build
Speaker 1: the Suez Canal in Egypt, but the Panama project was
Speaker 1: a different animal, immense and complex. As the Americans took control,
Speaker 1: the building of the Panama Canal became an audacious example
Speaker 1: of American ingenuity and know how and a loose sense
Speaker 1: of physical responsibility. By the end, the US had shelled
Speaker 1: out some three hundred and seventy five million dollars, somewhere
Speaker 1: close to eleven billion today. The project came in at
Speaker 1: about four hundred and forty four percent over budget. Rogers
Speaker 1: said it was a national pride project. We'd just kept
Speaker 1: writing checks. Besides the deadly diseases that plagued the early
Speaker 1: days of the construction, there was also difficult weather to
Speaker 1: contend with tropical rains and intense heat, and there were
Speaker 1: political troubles as the United States cleared the way for
Speaker 1: the canal by deeply interfering with local governments in order
Speaker 1: to help Panama, then a province of Columbia, officially separate
Speaker 1: and become its own country. Newly sovereign Panama was willing
Speaker 1: to seed the necessary land of the US where Columbia
Speaker 1: had balked. And we haven't even really talked about engineering yet, okay.
Speaker 1: American engineers abandoned ideas about a sea level canal like
Speaker 1: the Suez. Director Stephens instead insisted upon a series of
Speaker 1: locks that would raise or lower ships as needed. But
Speaker 1: that designed necessitated construction of another big project. A dam
Speaker 1: had to be built across the sometimes raging Shagris River
Speaker 1: to ensure the proper flow of water between the Pacific
Speaker 1: Ocean and the Atlantic. Called the Gottune Dam, it was
Speaker 1: at the time the largest dam in the world. It
Speaker 1: also formed Gatune Lake, a major component of the canal's operation.
Speaker 1: More on that in a minute. And then there was
Speaker 1: the sheer scope of the project. Between the French and
Speaker 1: American builders, Some seven point two billion cubic feet of
Speaker 1: earth and rock had to be excavated two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy million cubic meters, which is three times what was
Speaker 1: removed to build the Suez Canal. Most of that muck
Speaker 1: was placed on to railcars and shipped to the coasts,
Speaker 1: dumped into huge piles in the ocean. It now forms
Speaker 1: breakwaters and the foundation for towns and a military base,
Speaker 1: and much was also dumped into the adjacent jungle. Rogers
Speaker 1: said they had to learn a lot while they were going.
Speaker 1: They used up all of the vitrified clay pipes to
Speaker 1: be produced in the United States, and all the cement
Speaker 1: produced in the United States, and all of the dynamite
Speaker 1: produced in the United States over this ten year period
Speaker 1: all diverted down to Panama. Yet despite the constant challenges,
Speaker 1: the Panama Canal opened in August of nineteen fourteen, spanning
Speaker 1: some fifty miles or eighty kilometers through the land. In
Speaker 1: its first five years, the canal was barely used due
Speaker 1: to decreased commercial traffic because of World War One and
Speaker 1: a series of landslides which closed the passage for almost
Speaker 1: all of nineteen fifteen and would continue for years. The
Speaker 1: different layers of earth and rock that made up the
Speaker 1: land interacted on predictably due to all that excavation, But
Speaker 1: by World War Two, the Panama Canal was traveled extensively
Speaker 1: by US warships and it's become a major shipping route
Speaker 1: between the Pacific and Atlantic. At one time, engineers again
Speaker 1: looked at making the passage a sea level canal, which
Speaker 1: would eliminate the need for locks and decrease travel time.
Speaker 1: That idea was scrapped, and after World War II, when
Speaker 1: military ships became too big to pass through, engineers also
Speaker 1: considered detonating a series of underground nuclear devices to excavate
Speaker 1: more earth and expand the canal. That too, was dismissed.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy seven, the signing of the Turi Host
Speaker 1: Carter Treaties returned control of the canal from the United
Speaker 1: States to Panama, effective December thirty first of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Since then, the Panama Canal has been expanded so that
Speaker 1: even larger aircraft, carriers and cargo ships can pass through.
Speaker 1: The locks used to be about one hundred feet or
Speaker 1: thirty meters wide, and are now at about one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five feet or fifty meters. Even so, there
Speaker 1: are now some ships too big for the canal. But
Speaker 1: let's talk about how the locks work. The Pacific Ocean
Speaker 1: sits at a slightly higher sea level than the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: and the rocky land in between the two through Panama
Speaker 1: rises to some three hundred and sixty feet or one
Speaker 1: hundred and ten meters above both. Rather than excavating down
Speaker 1: to the same sea level and letting the waters rip through,
Speaker 1: engineers determined that a series of massive locking gates could
Speaker 1: lower and raise ships. That's where our human made Gatun
Speaker 1: Lake comes in, which risks at about eighty five feet
Speaker 1: above sea level that's twenty six meters from either side.
Speaker 1: Once a ship enters the Panama Canal, the goal is
Speaker 1: to get them up and over the terrain across Gattun
Speaker 1: Lake and then back down again, which is the job
Speaker 1: of locking system. A ship's entering the Panama Canal from
Speaker 1: the Atlantic enter the first of three Gatoon locks, where
Speaker 1: a massive chamber fills twenty six point seven million gallons
Speaker 1: of water. To fill the chamber with water and raise
Speaker 1: the ship, the gates and lower lock valves are closed
Speaker 1: while the upper valves are opened. Water from Gatoon Lake
Speaker 1: rushes in through twenty holes in the chamber floor. It
Speaker 1: takes about eight minutes for the chamber to completely fill
Speaker 1: and raise the ship. The process is repeated two more
Speaker 1: times until the ship is level with Gatoon Lake. The
Speaker 1: ship then travels across Gatoon Lake until it reaches the
Speaker 1: Pacific Ocean side, where it enters the Pedromaguel locks and
Speaker 1: the process goes in reverse. It's lowered through one lock
Speaker 1: down to a second human made lake Miraflorus, then through
Speaker 1: a second lock back to sea level. The entire trip
Speaker 1: takes an average of eight to ten hours. Ships don't
Speaker 1: so through the Panama Canal for free. They pay a
Speaker 1: toll based on the measurements of the vessel each time
Speaker 1: they enter, and it earns Panama more than two point
Speaker 1: five billion dollars a year. There are now three lanes
Speaker 1: for ships and locks, so it's not a single file
Speaker 1: line going through. That means that there are forty six
Speaker 1: locking gates in total, and they're each massive of sixty
Speaker 1: five feet wide by seven feet deep in metric that's
Speaker 1: nine by two meters. Their heights vary from forty five
Speaker 1: to eighty feet of fourteen to twenty four meters. The
Speaker 1: mere Floris gates are the tallest because of the Pacific
Speaker 1: Ocean tides. Each gate weighs from three hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: to six hundred metric tons. The canal hosts nearly fourteen
Speaker 1: thousand trips a year, mainly by container ships and others
Speaker 1: carrying fuel, coal, grains, minerals and metals. Though other smaller
Speaker 1: ships make the Crossing two. Now more than one hundred
Speaker 1: years after its opening, you can see why it remains
Speaker 1: a modern wonderer. Today's episode is based on the article
Speaker 1: how the Panama Canal makes waterflow uphill on HowStuffWorks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production by Heart
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com, and it's produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. Before more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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