Panama Canal, _____-type canal, owned and administered by the _____ of Panama, that connects the _____ and _____ oceans through the narrow _____ of Panama. The length of the Panama Canal from shoreline to shoreline is about 40 miles (65 km) and from deep water in the  Atlantic (more specifically, the _____ Sea) 

to deep water in the _____ about 50 miles (82 km). The canal, which was completed in August 1914, is one of the two most strategic artificial waterways in the world, the other being the _____ Canal. Ships sailing between the east and west coasts of the _____, which otherwise would be obliged to round Cape Horn in South America, shorten their voyage by about_______ nautical miles (15,000 km) by using the canal. Savings of up to 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km) are also made on _________ between one coast of North America and ports on the other side of South America. Ships sailing between _____ and East Asia or Australia can save as much as 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) by using the canal.

From its opening in ______ until 1979, the Panama Canal was controlled solely by the _____, which built it. In 1979, however, control of the canal passed to the _____ Canal Commission, a joint agency of the United States and the Republic of Panama, and complete control passed to Panama at noon on _____ 31, 1999. Administration of the canal is the responsibility of the Panama Canal _____ (Spanish: ________ del Canal de Panamá [ACP]), which answers solely to the government of Panama.

As early as the 16th century, the _____ recognized the advantages of a canal across the _____ American isthmus. Eventually two _____ came to be considered, one through _____ and the other through _____. Impetus for selecting the route through Panama increased with the construction (by the _____) of the Panama Railroad in the mid-19th century. The eventual route of the canal closely followed that of the railroad.

The first attempt to build a canal across the _____ of Panama began in 1881 after the _________ government granted a concession to the privately owned _____ du Canal Interocéanique. The company, under the leadership of _____ de Lesseps, was financed by French capital from countless small investors. Because of Lesseps’s recent triumph building the _____ Canal, he was able to attract public support for building a sea-level canal across Panama. That proposal was protested strongly by _____ Godin de Lépinay, baron de Brusly, an engineer who had studied the isthmus.

Lépinay knew the surface features at Panama: the _____ Divide 9 miles (15 km) from the Pacific, the torrential _____ River flowing into the Atlantic, and the smaller Río Grande flowing into the Pacific—both rivers suitable for creating artificial lakes. In 1879 he proposed a “practical” plan for building a canal, calling for a dam at _____ and another at _____ (or as close to the seas as the land would permit), letting the waters rise to form two lakes about 80 feet (25 meters) high, joining the lakes by cutting across the _____   _______, and connecting them to the oceans through locks.