A workforce of 40,000 men moved more than 70 million cubic feet (2 million cubic meters) of rock per month, while an equally large effort went into providing living accommodation and draining the mosquito-infested swamps.

Negotiated and signed in Washington, D.C. by American Secretary of State John Clayton and the British Minister to the United States, Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, the treaty was a compromise between competing Anglo-American imperial ambitions in Central America. Both powers refused exclusive control over any transisthmian interoceanic canal project, but agreed to cooperate in its development and ensure its neutrality, guaranteeing to neither fortify nor exercise dominion over the route.

Can you imagine how long it would take for goods to reach their destination if the Panama and Suez canals were not built?