Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
In all such works there is a necessity for deep excavation below low-water mark always a matter of great difficulty; the dimensions of channels for sea-going ships must be much greater than those of canals of inland navigation; the height of the masts or smokepipes of that class of vessels would often render bridging impossible, and thus a ship-canal might obstruct a communication more important than that which it was intended to promote; the securing of the entrances of marine canals and the construction of ports at their termini would in general be difficult and expensive, and the harbors and the channel which connected them would be extremely liable to fill up by deposits washed in from sea and shore.
Overtures for a convention to effect the building of a canal under the auspices of the United States are under consideration. In the meantime, the views of the Congress upon the general subject, in the light of the report of the Commission appointed to examine the comparative merits of the various trans-Isthmian ship-canal projects, may be awaited.
In my day it was proposed to cut a ship-canal through the low neck of barren sand, which bears nothing but a 'chapparal' of tamarisk. During the last twenty years, however, the isthmus has been connected with the mainland by a fine causeway, paved with concrete, and by an excellent highroad.
It could vie with Constantinople itself. Into its streets, from the yellow sand-hills of the desert, long trains of camels and countless boats brought the abundant harvests of the Nile. A ship-canal connected the harbour of Eunostos with Lake Mareotis. The harbour was a forest of masts.
I had to come away without that personal acquaintance with the great Manchester ship-canal which I almost equally desired.
By the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, the United States and Great Britain agreed to maintain free and uninterrupted passage across the Isthmus, and, further, that neither country should "obtain or maintain to itself any control over the said ship-canal," or "assume or exercise any dominion . . . over any part of Central America."
Xerxes ordered that a ship-canal should be cut through this isthmus, wide and deep enough to allow two triremes war-ships with three ranks of oars to sail abreast. This work was done by the Phoenicians, the ablest engineers at that time in the world. A canal was made through which his whole fleet could sail, and thus the stormy winds and waves which hovered about Mount Athos be avoided.
The iron plates of Pennsylvania and Maryland in strength and toughness know no superior. The iron mountain near St. Louis and the mines on Lake Champlain furnish also an article of great purity and excellence. But, choice as are these deposits of iron, they are all surpassed by the more recent discoveries on Lake Superior, now opened by the ship-canal at the Straits of St. Mary.
He had collected all the statistics of population and of trade, to show what commercial advantages the world might expect from a free South American government. And, "rising upon a wind of prophecy," he already saw in the future a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and the Nicaragua route opened. He had laid these plans before Catharine of Russia, who gave him money to help them on. Mr.
Very curious it looks as we approach Suez to see the spars and masts of big steamers moving along the ship-canal, close at hand, without seeing anything of the water. The high dumps, representing the excavations from the canal, conceal everything but the masts and the top of the funnels even when one is close by.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking