What Extent Did John Frank Stevens To Build The Panama Canal

In 1906, after the failure by the French government to build a sea level canal, John Frank Stevens proposed to build a canal using lock system to raise and lower ships from a large reservoir 85 ft. above sea level. This project would be both the largest dam and largest man made lake in the World at that time. The Panama Canal project was very challenging as it involves cutting through the mountain ridge at Culebra, building a huge dam at Gatun to trap the Rio Chagres and forming an artificial lake. Another challenging part of the project was the building of three double sets of locks (Gatun locks, Pedro Miguel Locks and Miraflores Locks) in order to raise chips to a height of 26m above sea level or lower them as appropriate.

The project required the excavation of approximately 268,000,000 cubic yards of materials where the French had already excavated about 30,000,000 cubic yards. By July 1,1914, a total of 238,845,587 cubic yards was excavated during the US construction period. Ferdinand de Lessep had estimated 4 times less the excavation volume for a sea level canal and 3 times less the volume of the Suez Canal. The disposal of

In order to make sure everything goes as planned, Goethals divided the engineering and excavation work into three divisions: Atlantic, Central, and Pacific. The Atlantic division was responsible for the construction of the massive breakwater at the entrance to Limon Bay, the Gatun locks, the 3.5 mi approach and the immense Gatun Dam. The Pacific division was in charge of the Pacific 3 mi breakwater in Panama Bay, the approach channel to the locks, and the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks. That left the central with the most difficult tasks, which consisted of excavating the Culebra Cut to connect the Pacific Panama Canal and building the Gatun Lake