The Path Between the Seas

by David McCullough

What he was proposing was not really a canal at all in the conventional sense. His lakes would be created by building two huge dams, one at the Chagres near the Atlantic, the other on the Rio Grande, which flows into the Pacific. The dams would be built as near to the two oceans as the configuration of the land permitted. The Chagres dam, the largest, should be built, he said, at the confluence of the Chagres and the Gatun rivers, at a point called Gatun, and it would hold the largest of the lakes. The surface of the lakes would be eighty feet above sea level and the lakes would be joined by a channel cut through the mountain spine at Culebra, this being the only heavy excavation required. The virtues of the plan were enormous. To begin with, it greatly reduced the amount of digging to be done. Further, it eliminated all danger of Chagres floods, since the river would feed directly into the lakes. The dams would control the river; the river would serve as an unlimited water supply for the lakes—for the canal. Thus the river would become the life blood of the system, rather than its mortal enemy. The resulting passage, furthermore, would be a broad lake, rather than a narrow channel. Ships would be able to move at greater speeds and they would be able to pass one another without shunting into sidings, or tying up, as was necessary at Suez. Passage through such a canal would take no more than twelve hours, even if one were to figure the time in each lock at half an hour, whe...