Book Description

Excerpt from Official Handbook of the Panama Canal: 1915 Since the golden age of discovery inaugurated by Columbus the quest for an all-water way from Europe to the Far East, across Atlantic and Pacific, has been a world obsession. The idea has possessed the minds of navigators, shippers, business men, admirals, and Governments. Dozens of projects for the forcing of the passage have been advanced; thousands of lives have been lost in the efforts. On May 4, 1904, the Government of the United States took possession of a strip of land 10 miles wide running across the Isthmus of Panama and called the Canal Zone. On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal was opened to commerce. This began the era of operation. This is the time of realization of the actual condition to which we have been looking forward so long. To tell something of the canal in operation, how it is managed, the distances it saves, with the resulting economy in operation of vessels using the canal, and the ways the trade is moving, are some of the purposes of this handbook. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.