to the United States.

After Columbus had discovered America and it was known that the Indies
had not been reached, but that a new continent barred the way, the early
discoverers sought a short route past this continent. Hudson, Baffin,
and others sought this route in the North, and others tried every
available opening in both North and South America, but of course
unsuccessfully, as it was soon known that no such route existed.

It must be remembered that the expeditions sailing to the new continent
had no knowledge of it geographically. It is hard to understand now,
maps are so familiar to all of us now, and we can in a moment call up
the shape of the continents, that then they had no knowledge of the
Western hemisphere except what could be obtained by their ships slowly
crawling along the coasts.

It was not unnatural, therefore, when they sailed into what we now call
the Gulf of Mexico and observed how far west they went before coming to
land, that they should expect to find the passage there.

When you look at the map that we print herewith, you will see that it is
but a short step--for the mind--from the strait that was not found to
the idea of connecting the two oceans by a manufactured strait or canal.
Much more than a century ago the suggestion was made, and ever since
efforts have been made to build such a canal.

[Illustration]

The Panama Railroad, a regular steam railroad for passengers and
freight, was built across the narrow part of the Isthmus, as indicated
in the map, in 1850 to 1855, and at that time negotiations were
definitely entered into looking toward the construction of a canal.

Ferdinand de Lesseps, a Frenchman, who made himself famous by building
the Suez Canal, organized a company in France, and work was commenced on
the Panama route. His plan was to construct what is known as a sea-level
canal across the very narrow part of the Isthmus (see map). "Sea level"
means that it was to be merely a cut in which the water would be all the
way at the same level--an open clear waterway from one ocean to the
other. This proved impracticable on account of engineering difficulties
and the crossing of the Chagres River, and in 1887 it was decided that
it could only be built with locks.

The system of using locks allows the water in different parts of the
canal to be at different levels. This is done by closing both ends of
each section of the canal with gates; a second pair of gates is placed a
s