The Panama and Suez Canals essays

The Panama and Suez Canals essays The Panama and Suez Canals may be two of the biggest achievements in ocean history within the past couple of centuries, but which one was more important globally? The Panama Canal, a waterway that cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and links the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, is about 51 miles long (The World Book Encyclopedia, Panama Canal). The Suez Canal, a narrow artificial waterway that joins the Mediterranean and Red seas, is about 118 miles long (The World Book Encyclopedia, Suez Canal). Although both canals have obviously impacted our world, the Suez Canal stands out in my mind as the canal that has the bigger impact. The Suez Canal brings in more boats each year than Panama, and it doesn't have locks, water-filled chambers that lift boats from one level of water to another. Another reason why I chose the Suez Canal as the more global one was that the finished canal, which was longer than the Panama Canal, cost about 280 million dollars less. This brings us to our first statemen t. The Suez Canal is about 118 miles long. The Panama Canal is about 51 miles long. Why would the Suez Canal cost less than the Panama Canal? The Suez cost only about 100 million dollars. (The World Book Encyclopedia, Suez Canal) The Panama Canal cost the United States about 380 million dollars. 40 million was paid to the French for the Canal, 10 million to Panama for the land, and 20 million to sanitize the area of diseases and plagues (The World Book Encyclopedia, Panama Canal). The Suez Canal never had the problem of money because the person who started the canal finished it. The Panama Canal had problems due to the French starting the project, the diseases, the land, etc. The Suez was much more cost-efficient in comparison to the Panama Canal. The cost of locks was a burden to the Panama Canal, which leads me to my next theme. The Panama Canal has locks, water-filled chambers that raise and lower ships from one level of land to another. The Suez, on ...