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BBC Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World

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Ever since the time of Columbus men
had dreamed of carving

a sea passage through
the jungles of Panama.

By dividing the land
we will unit the world.

For four centuries this remained a dream
then one man said it could be done.

We must continue, the
canal must be built.

The Panama canal was to be one of
the great wonders of the modern age.

But thousands would die,
reputations would be shattered

and governments fall before
its mighty lock gates swung open.

Every man on the workforce wants to see
the first ship pass through the canal.

l mean he has a meeting with destiny.

The great oceans of the world dividing
peoples and continents untameable,

unfathomed beyond their control.

Or so it seemed, until in 1 869
one man shrank the globe by ploughing

through the deserts of Arabia
to build the Suez canal.

The Frenchman Ferdinand
de Lesseps ignored everyone

who said a canal in
Suez was impossible.

His success made him a legend.

But this seventy three year old

impresario wanted to redraw
the map of the world one final time.

Gentlemen, we are going
to build an even greater canal

and link the Pacific
and Atlantic oceans.

And you can see for yourselves
that Panama is the ideal place for it.

De Lesseps dreamed of a canal
cutting through central America

at its narrowest point Panama.

A canal slashing eight thousand miles
off the journey from east to west

and avoiding the perilous journey
around South America.

Our great nation of France
will link both those men of cheese.

A canal allowing giant ships to sail
straight from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

This bold undertaking will bring credit
and honour to the name of France.

This is a man whose vision
shapes the world we live in.

lf anyone can conquer
Panama de Lesseps can.

De Lesseps raised sixty million dollars
to establish a canal company.

ln the tropics history would be made.

De Lesseps` engineers sailed across the
Atlantic eager to win glory for France.

Jules Dingler was head
of operations in Panama.

Philippe Bunau-Vanilla only twenty six
years old would run the Pacific division.

Welcome.

Monsieur Dingler.

My wife.

Madame.

l am very glad to see you here.

The most expensive engineering
enterprise in history had begun.

l am in some ways daunted by
er the scale of the excavations.

We will be creating a sea level path,
er like at Suez, we want to er,

to er cut right down to sea level,
and we will achieve this.

The Panama canal would begin
at Limon bay on the Atlantic.

Half the route followed
the course of a river valley.

But then they would be confronted by
something they never faced at Suez.

A mighty mountain range
blocking their path to the Pacific.

Le Corieras which ran down
the spine of Panama.

Some people might say
this is impossible.

lt is not impossible.

l am sure that back in the time
of er the great pyramids

there were people saying this is
impossible, but it was done, ingenuity.

The French planned to cut right

through the mountains
at their lowest point, Culebra.

Culebra means snake in Spanish.

The Culebra Cut would soon
prove even more deadly.

So far we have surveyed
the entire canal route,

er we know we will have to remove

er more than one hundred and
twenty million tonnes of earth.

That`s er, that`s a
lot of dirt to shift.

lt is true to say our progress
is slower than we had hoped.

Here at Culebra our progress
is frequently thrown in to chaos

by er mud and rock slides.

We are battling against this land.

We are doing everything we can
but er the geology here,

it make it very difficult for us
to make the banks of earth stable.

We have to make the cut shallower
than we first anticipate,

which means of course
we`re moving much more earth.

Widening the cut would take
time and money.

Critics said de Lesseps should rethink

and build locks to raise ships
over the mountains.

But isolated in his French chateau
he dismissed the sceptics.

The problems of creating a series
of locks would be enormous.

lt is true l am not an engineer
no er but l have...

...already supervised one rather
large engineering project,

a few years ago,
in joining Europe to Asia.

De Lesseps charmed his investors
to quadruple the budget.

With this support he believed
nothing could stand in his way.

But deep in the jungles of Panama
there was a hidden enemy.

A mysterious tropical disease
was wiping out the workforce.

With no cure the death toll mounted,
the cause was a mystery.

People suspected miasma,
poisonous marsh gasses.

They are scared, they are nervous.

There are rumours that
the something is in the air.

They say people get it
because they go out at night.

l have seen a family that dies
and l will not let my son to die.

The victims turned yellow and
brought up mouthfuls of black vomit

while waiting for the inevitable death.

Six thousand died in
the first five years.

Panama became known as the fever coast.

One has to be prepared

that er things will not quite work out
as quickly as, as one hope.

Our engineers will win through.

The history of mankind
is one of triumph

over adversity and
there will be a solution.

De Lesseps` faith was
about to be shaken.

Snaking alongside the canal route
was the Chagres river.

When Ferdinand de Lesseps first saw
this river it was on a day like today,

er the dry season, perfect weather
with the river only a few feet deep.

lf we were not building a canal it would
be a lovely day out, some food, some wine,

but er in the rainy season this river
becomes er a savage beast.

Torrential downpours could cause

the Chagres to rise over three metres in
a single hour and flood the excavations.

The rain is causing us many problems,

we remove the earth,
the rain washes it back again.

We remove the earth, the rain washes
it back again, and not only washes the,

the dirt back again but often
machinery and sometimes our men too.

We have had to cope with many floods.

But we will battle on.

This kind of problem
creates a real man.

A weak man he run
away from the battle...

...a good man he stay,
l am staying here.

The French were in crisis,

the canal was going to take fifteen
years longer to build than first promised.

De Lesseps concealed
the truth from his investors.

Monsieur de Lesseps is a great man

but er he may have underestimated the
power of nature and the battle before us.

He had a great success with
Suez and Panama is not Suez.

The death toll from
disease was soaring.

Three hundred and fifty workers
were dying every month.

The mystery killer had been identified.

Every tropical disease known
to man lurked in Panama,

the most feared was yellow fever.

There`s a smell of death.

l was chosen by God to be here and
to help the people and at least

when they die they don`t die alone.

Some people they come in the morning
and then at night they are dead.

So they just die like that and,
just die like that.

ln Panama only the grave
diggers are getting rich.

No one was safe.

Yellow fever wiped out
Jules Dingler`s entire family.

By the end of 1885
only a tenth of the canal had been dug.

The hero of Suez pleaded for
a National Lottery to fund his dream.

Gentlemen your engineers are already
triumphing against adversity.

We shall finish the work,
the canal will be built.

l know there is some talk of
financial difficulties and yes l,

l`m a little concerned that the stress
that is facing my husband and er.

But l am sure the public
will keep their faith in him.

A huge storm was brewing.

Talk of financial scandal in the air.

Newspapers were asking is Monsieur de
Lesseps a canal digger or a grave digger.

l am tired of these mud slides.

We have already been forced to excavate
millions of extra tonnes of soil and rock

and now Culebra defies us again.

l think that er unless we change
our approach here at er Culebra,

er we er will not win this battle.

Bunau-Vanilla argued for
an audacious new approach.

Building colossal locks
to raise ships over Culebra.

But the ailing de Lesseps

refused to consider anything
other than a sea level canal.

l can never accepted that l am close
to failure, l will never accept that no.

You know me better than that.

The idea of a lock canal was shelved.

The two men resigned from the company.

The lottery to raise new funds
for the canal was a disaster.

ln December 1 888
the canal company went bankrupt,

triggering the biggest financial
crash in human history.

My dear Ferdinand never had
the slightest interest in profit

for himself or his family,
yet he was destroyed.

Both in reputation and in health,
by the Panama affair.

De Lesseps died a ruined man
charged with bribing the press

and parliament to conceal
the scale of the crisis in Panama.

The scandal that followed
brought down the government.

Over twenty thousand men had perished,

millions of dollars had been squandered
to create a muddy ditch in the tropics.

ln France for years

afterwards the word Panama was
synonymous with corruption and disgrace.

Seventeen years elapsed before
another man stepped forward

to take on the Herculean
task of building the canal.

President Theodore Roosevelt handpicked

the railroad engineer
John Stevens for the job.

l`ve built over a thousand miles
of railroad in my day

and l`ve been most of the way
around the world doing so.

l`ve encountered most of the conditions
that any engineer would ever have to.

So l expect that`s
what qualifies me for this job.

First Stevens inspected
the abandoned French workings.

Little could be
salvaged from the ruins.

l`m not afraid, l`m not nervous,
l`m keen to dig through that mountain

and see ships sail from
the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Roosevelt wanted to build the canal so
the US Navy could dominate the oceans.

America seized the route in 1 903
for a mere ten million dollars.

lt was now down to Stevens to turn
this muddy ditch in to an ocean highway.

lt will be hard, but
we will win through.

We`ll deal with the problems
as they come up,

that`s what l`ve done all my working life
l`m going to continue to do the same.

Been through bigger mountains than this,
l`m not going to let this one beat me.

As a railroad man Stevens
had a completely new approach.

He built a train system to act
as a giant conveyor belt,

removing excavator rock quickly from
the cut before it could slide back in.

We`ve got a system of
steam shovels on tracks,

we`ve made a railroad for them as well.

They`re going to dig,
they`re going to lift that dirt

and they`re going to put it
on to the dirt trains

which are going to
take it out of the cut.

So we need track here
for the steam shovel

and track above parallel
for the dirt train.

We`ve got track lifters that are going to
move the tracks so the men don`t have to.

We`ve got dirt trains
and a plough system

that will remove the dirt faster
than six hundred men could do it.

We can now get the dirt out of here.

So when it rains it`s not going
to go back in to the trench.

We not only speed up the work,
we reduce the risk of mudslides.

Thousands of labourers flocked to Panama
attracted by the high wages on offer.

The Americans were now excavating more
in a day than the French did in a month.

Work on the canal had
been industrialised.

Stevens had barely begun when the
great scare descended on Panama.

Terrified workers fled from the most
virulent outbreak yet of yellow fever.

American hopes rested
on Dr William Gorgas.

lt is one thing to lose the life
of a human being in battle.

A soldier is prepared
to give his life for a cause.

But when one has the ability
to defeat the enemy

and prevent the loss of life
every death is a waste.

While many believed tropical
diseases were spread on the air,

or even caused by immoral behaviour,
Gorgas had a striking new idea.

l knew that my challenge was not
to clean up the filth from the cities,

but rather to defeat an enemy here.

Where millions of predators were simply
waiting for a human feast to arrive.

Gorgas believed the real culprit...
was the mosquito.

A friend said to me, how do you stop
the propagation of the mosquito

when the whole country
is the breeding ground.

Panama was a mosquito paradise.

The heat and humidity
allowed constant breeding.

Gorgas would need an army of workers
to combat this tiny enemy.

But the authorities
in Washington refused

to divert resources from
digging to fly swatting.

Gorgas turned to John Stevens
who faced a dilemma.

A third of his men were sick

but the instructions from Washington
were to make the dirt fly.

According to Gorgas the hospital

itself was making things worse by acting
like an incubator for yellow fever.

You see once the mosquitoes
are inside the hospital

they have ample opportunity to bite these
patients already stricken with disease

and draw their blood.

We need the materials to build isolation
cages around each of our fever sufferers.

Mosquitoes are persistent little devils

that simply go from an infected
patient to a new healthy victim

and pass on the disease
with their blood.

lsolation cages such as this one stop
the transmission of the disease.

Mosquitoes may be tiny

but they are just as dangerous and
as allusive as any beast of the jungle.

Gorgas needed help from
his new boss John Stevens.

But to overrule Washington Stevens
would have to put his job on the line.

l`m willing to try anything
Dr Gorgas recommends,

certainly in the past belief
that miasma`s caused yellow fever

and malaria hasn`t done
the men any good at all.

He is my medical expert and
l trust him to do the job.

l am beginning to find
my way around Washington,

you tell me what you need and l will
see to it that you get the materials.

That would be much appreciated.

There will be brooms,
buckets for cleaning.

We`ll need to fumigate the town.

We need to put screens up
on every single window and door,

and screen porches around
where the workers live.

Everything would depend on whether
Gorgas was right about the insect.

Stevens wrote Gorgas a blank cheque

and allocated four thousand men
to wage war on the mosquito.

lt was the most sustained assault
on the mosquito in history.

Every town and city was fumigated.

All standing water was sprayed
to prevent mosquitoes breeding.

There would be no hiding place.

What a transformation, life in
the tropics will never be the same.

All over Panama houses are being built,
cool and comfortable houses.

For the engineers and their wives

because their wives and children
have begun to settle here.

And all over, springing up
all over we have stores,

post offices and tennis clubs
and bridge nights, l entertain.

After six months of battling

against the mosquito Gorgas could
announce an astonishing success.

Gentlemen, this is
indeed a great moment.

l believe that yellow fever has been
completely eradicated from the isthmus,

while malaria and other diseases
are also beginning to decline.

Please take a good look at this man,

if l`m not mistaken this is the very last
yellow fever cadaver that you will see.

We are privileged indeed to be able
to relieve such terrible suffering.

Stevens could now make the kind of
inroad de Lesseps never achieved.

He used four hundred thousand
pounds of dynamite a month

to blast his way through Panama.

The workforce tripled,
all excavation records were broken.

Straight line, ok, over here.

Finally success was in sight.

But then the rains came,

an old enemy of the canal returned to
haunt John Stevens, the Chagres river.

l have never in all my born days
seen rain like this.

We`ve got mudslides, flooding,

hell the floods are washing
the track right down the hill.

ln May 1 906 the nightmare of flooding
and landslides recurred.

Stevens` new methods and massive machinery
were no match for the Chagres river.

l`m afraid we don`t have a choice.

We will not dig successfully through
Culebra Cut to create a sea level canal.

The dream was dead.

Just like the French before them it
seemed Culebra had defeated the Americans.

All looked lost until Stevens revived
a long forgotten plan,

so bold it had always been
rejected as impossible.

l want to damn the Chagres river

and harness its power
to create a system of locks

that will carry the boats up
and over the mountain.

Stevens` vision was to damn the river
where it met the Atlantic.

This would flood a huge
section of the country

and create the largest
artificial lake on earth.

A giant set of locks would
raise ships on to the lake,

then they would sail
half way across Panama

before passing through
the Culebra Cut and on to the Pacific.

This is the only practical solution
in order to build the canal.

Critics said it would be a disaster.

They claimed the concrete would
never set in the tropical climate.

Worst still Panama was
an earthquake hotspot.

Any tremor could destroy
the damn at the locks.

But then an unexpected visitor
arrived in Panama.

President Roosevelt came to give personal
backing to Stevens and his lock canal.

This is one of the great
works of the world.

lt`s a greater work than you
yourselves at the moment realise.

lt fills me with pride to see the energy
you are all bringing to your work

and with Mr John Stevens in charge l know
that we can not fail to reach our goal.

Just when he had won the support
of the President word spread

that Stevens would quit.

Well the rumours are running
the length and breadth of Panama.

Some say Mr Stevens
is unwell, some say...

He`s angered by interference
from Washington, my wager.

Or perhaps he`s taken a lucrative
railroad job back home.

We just don`t know,
we can only surmise.

Without a word of explanation

the enigmatic Stevens walked off
the project in March 1 907.

Roosevelt was furious,
he turned to the army.

He wanted the canal`s new leader
to be a man who couldn`t resign.

Colonel George Goethals was a military
engineer expert in building locks.

l am told that army men
are never successful

as executive heads
of large enterprises.

However l now consider
l am commending the army of Panama.

And the enemy we are going
to combat is the Culebra Cut.

Any man working here who does his duty
will have no cause for complaint.

Everything about the canal
would be revolutionary.

The locks would be the largest
concrete structures on earth.

A huge system of cranes and
cables delivered the cement,

six tonnes of it in a single bucket.

The Americans threw vast sums of money and
forty eight thousand men at the project.

The size of the project is monstrous,
there`s no question of that.

We`re tackling something that is
probably one of the largest engineering

feats ever undertaken by humanity.

Sixty one million pounds of dynamite
were used on the canal.

ln a hundred and twenty degree
heat was highly volatile.

The Culebra Cut became
known as Hell`s Gorge.

But nothing would
stand in Goethals way.

Every great enterprise
involves great risk.

And if you`re not willing to take

that risk and seize
it then you shouldn`t be here.

We are going to win
and we`re going to win

and we are going to work
and we`re going to succeed.

Goethals wanted to devote
all resources to construction.

He slashed the medical budget failing
to acknowledge a hidden enemy.

Colonel Goethals is an admirably
efficient and capable manager.

lt is just that he doesn`t believe

that by controlling the mosquito
we are controlling the disease.

lf we try and cut back
on budgets too much now

we could have an epidemic on our hands.

And l can not accept that.

For six months the doctor
and the army man fought it out.

Even the President heard
of the conflict in the ranks.

We all have our ideas about
how things should be done.

l like the fact that
Doctor Gorgas fights his corner,

but it doesn`t mean that
l won`t fight my corner.

Terrified of the return of yellow fever
Marie Gorgas went public

with her condemnation of the Colonel.

Colonel Goethals constantly undermines
him in a way that threatens disaster,

because he wants complete control,

and l believe he wants that
control to secure his legacy.

And the canal will be
a monument to his greatness,

oh we`re in Egypt don`t you know.

And the Colonel is the Pharaoh,
and the pyramids the canal.

Oh l`m, l`m certain he has this
fantasy, absolutely certain of it.

President Roosevelt knew
from past experience

that a tiny insect could derail
this massive enterprise.

He forced Goethals to back down.

Vindication, at last.

And now with
the President`s full confidence

my husband will
unquestionably win for us

the greatest triumph in the
history of preventative medicine,

the destruction of
the infecting mosquito.

But what that really means is
that the canal can now be built.

For six long years
the army of Panama blasted

its way through
eighty million tonnes of rock.

Goethals shattered
all excavation records.

Machine shops forged components
for the colossal steel lock gates

which would stand six storeys high.

Each lock chamber would be
bigger than the Titanic.

Work built towards
the first tests in June 1 930.

Tomorrow we`ll do a dry lock test
at the gates at Gathan.

This is the most demanding test to
which we can put the apparatus.

The gates were hollow,
designed to float on water.

Opening them in the empty chambers
would put a huge stress on their hinges.

Crowds gathered for the test.

Nothing as big had been powered
before by electricity.

The flick of a switch should cause
the gates to swing in to action.

This has been a task of super human
organisation and super human effort.

Now that we`re so close to finishing
every man in the workforce

wants to see the first ship
pass through the canal.

The damn was complete.

The valley was vast and
took three years to fill.

The wild Chagres river
had been tamed forever.

Soon the only barrier between
the two mighty oceans

was a small earth dyke
in the middle of the Culebra Cut.

Then on October 10th 1913
Culebra was finally conquered.

The extravagant dream had stolen the
lives of twenty eight thousand people

and cost over
three hundred million dollars.

The world had changed forever.

The Atlantic and the
Pacific were joined.

The vessel chosen for the maiden voyage

through the mighty canal
was the humble tug boat.

lt`s been an amazing
journey for all of us.

Some of us didn`t make it.

Some of us did.

Our long years of labour are at an end.

The oceans are united at last.

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