What Is The Panama Canal? (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) (What Was...?)

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Before 1914, traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast meant going by land across the entire United States. To go by sea involved a long journey around South America and north along the Pacific Coast. But then, in a dangerous and amazing feat of engineering, a 48-mile-long channel was dug through Panama, creating the world's most famous shortcut: the Panama Canal!