To sail from the east of North America to its western coast was not impossible in the nineteenth century, but sailors may well have wished it was.  The voyage required ships to brave the frigid waters between South America and Antarctica, whose treacherous depths claimed as many as fifteen thousand bodies.  This abode of ninety-foot waves and buffeting gales marked only the mid-point in a circuit of the Americas, and the men who survived that reckoning still faced several more weeks at sea.Understandably, the desire for a shortcut was strong.  Previous exploration had revealed no naturally occurring waterway through Central America, but what if such a passage could be built?  These considerations were the genesis of what would become the Panama Canal.The first to attempt such a feat were the French, under the leadership of Ferdinand de Lesseps.  Having formerly engineered the Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas, Lesseps was a natural choice to head what was presumed to be a similar endeavor.  With the enthusiastic support of his country and the permission of the Colombian government (which controlled Panama at that time), Lesseps and his team began work in 1880, 11 years after the Suez Canal had been completed.However, the mountainous jungles and swamps of Panama proved a pernicious contrast to the flat sands of Egypt.  Equipment toppled down hillsides or was swallowed into the mud, while frequent rains washed excavated dirt mounds back into the pits from which they had been extracted.  More devastating was the human toll.  Living conditions were squalid and miserable, as workers were ravaged by rampant yellow fever and malaria.  Over twenty thousand lives were lost, with no end in sight to the scourge of disease or to the faltering project.  Ultimately, the construction company went bankrupt, some of its members were imprisoned, and the elderly Lesseps died.With the failure of the French, the stage was set for the United States to try its hand.  Some American engineers recommended that the canal should be built through Nicaragua instead of Panama; although the former country was much wider, the terrain was significantly more hospitable.  An additional drawback to choosing Panama was that the Colombian government would not agree to let the U.S. control the canal once it was built.  Nonetheless, the U.S. decided to build in Panama.  Shortly thereafter, Panamanian dissident Manuel Amador led a rebellion against the Colombian government, while a U.S. warship happened to be sailing off the coast.  Victory was swift; as writer Janet Pascal notes: "The entire revolution lasted only a few hours.  Only one shopkeeper and a donkey were killed."  Afterward, newly independent Panama granted construction rights and control of the future canal to the U.S.Unfortunately, the U.S. claimed the French's abandoned equipment and facilities while failing to address their logistical difficulties and incidence of disease.  After a year of futility, wiser minds devised a new course.  Acting on the uncommon but accurate belief that mosquitoes spread malaria and yellow fever, Americans exterminated those pests and thus the maladies they caused.  In conjunction with new living facilities and improved transportation, this action provided the ability to sustain a healthy workforce and build the canal based on proper planning.The project spanned the American presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, reaching completion in 1914.  Traversing the breadth of Panama and incorporating a series of locks to raise and lower ships to different elevations, the Panama Canal finally made it possible to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific without circumnavigating South America.  It remains in use to this day, more than a century after its construction.Passage Title: The Panama Canal Question 4The author does NOT provide information about Panama's:A.size.B.location.C.climate.D.borders.