The Congrès International d’Études du Canal Interocéanique, as it was formally titled, convened in Paris at two in the afternoon, Thursday, May 15, 1879. After centuries of dreams and talk, of hit-or-miss explorations and hollow promises, of little scientific knowledge, little or no cooperation among nations, leading authorities from every part of the world—engineers, naval officers, economists, explorers—were gathering under one roof “in the impartial serenity of science” to inaugurate La grande entreprise, greatest of the age. Or so it was being said.
