Workers from the Panama Canal Authority's (PCA) Industrial and Dredging Divisions used a heavy-duty Goliath crane to haul this mud-caked steam engine from 45-ft (14m) of water in Gatun Lake on May 16, 2000. This engine had been used by the French during the construction days of the Panama Canal and abandoned in place. It had been sitting there on tracks, along with many dirt dump cars, for nearly a century. Brief Canal History. Count Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-1894) in charge of building the Suez Canal had successfully completed that project in 1869 after a ten-year construction period. The Suez Canal is a sea-level canal that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. It eliminated the long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope and reduced cost and travel time. Crossing the isthmus of Central America had long been contemplated as early as the 16th century. After considering a number of different locations for the proposed canal it was decided to begin construction at the Panama location, then part of Colombia. De Lesseps envisioned a sea-level canal, similar to the Suez Canal. Construction began in 1881. But after five years, with setbacks due to tropical diseases, primarily malaria and yellow fever, the causes of which were not known at the time, and mudslides and cost overruns it forced the French to abandon the project amid national scandal and financial ruin. Much of the equipment used by the French was left in place. Between 1881 and 1889 about 22,000 workers lost their lives due to disease. The United States formally took control of the French property relating to the canal on May 4, 1904. The Americans had learned much from the mistakes made by the French, and instead of a sea-level canal they decided to built a series of locks. They began by building the Gatun Dam across the Chagres River, 10km (~6.2 miles) upstream of its mouth. Gatun Dam, a huge earthen dam, which is 640m (2,100-ft) thick at the base and 2,300m (7,546-ft) long along the top, impounded the waters of the Chagres River and created Lake Gatun. In 1913, when this project was completed Gatun Dam was the largest of its king in the world and Lake Gatun was the largest man-made lake at the time. The normal lake level is 26m (85-ft) above sea level and it stores 5.2 cubic kilometer (183,000,000,000 cubic feet) of water which is about as much as the Chagres River brings down in an average year. The lake carries ships that use the Panama Canal for a distance of 33km (21mi) in a marked channel. The waters of the lake inundated large tracks of tropical rain forest and much of the equipment used by the French, including this electric engines and a long line of dirt dump cars attached to this locomotive sitting on tracks. This picture was taken on 19 July 2011, Sig...