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so today we're gonna ask ourselves a nice easy question. how do we build a

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giant water highway that stretches hundreds of miles? easy! when we hire [woman holds note pad]

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someone else and take a nap. right? but just in case you actually need

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to know well here are the basic steps to building a canal. we will owe us a nap.

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don't think we'll forget. step one dig a big long hole. duh this is where

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immigrant laborers came in during the 1820s and 1830s [backhoes pictured]

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it was slow hard work and a bulldozer free world. what a way to say you know

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welcome to America. the next step is waterproofing the hole. canal Builders

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had to convince tons of waters to stay in a big ditch and not you know seep

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away underneath. otherwise the canals would have become giant mud wrestling [locks pictured]

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pits. which may have been fun but not too much good for trade. to solve this

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problem they used a strategy called puddling, which is more than just a

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really cute sounding word, but puddling is basically smooshing natural

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play along the bottom and sides of the ditch. all that time playing in the dirt [men smile with shovels]

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his children really paid off, but last but not least they added water. probably

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piping it in from some nearby river otherwise they would have needed a large bucket line. well of course

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there's no current in a canal, but most canals had wide paths on either side

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where horses could tow the barges along. a single horse could tow 30 tons of

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stuff on a barge . 30 tons each! mister Edie have you been working out. [horse drawn carriage on a bridge]

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there and found and what if they couldn't find a perfectly flat route for

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their canals well easy. they built locks. out not to lock folks

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out but to let them sail on the higher elevations. how to locks work? little

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tricky to explain but here goes. a boat sailing down a canal at a certain

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elevation glides into a steel and concrete structure called a lock. big [boats in canal]

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gates then closed on either side of the ship and the Box steadily fills with

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water. if the boat is going to a higher elevation

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or if it's going to a lower elevation water to slowly drain from the lock so

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that the boat sinks to that lower level. the locks were totally essential in

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making canals a practical and profitable means of transportation. we'll take the

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Panama Canal for example this massive feat of Engineering cuts through the [map of panama shown]

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skinny Central American country of Panama providing a convenient sea route

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between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Oh Panama's skinniness made it a

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great choice for building the canal but it had the trouble of not being totally

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flat. so the engineers that designed the canal created huge locks some nearly

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eight stories tall and only 12,000 or so workers had to die of yellow fever and

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malaria to make it all happen. and some might call that a bargain. I might call [contract papers pictured]

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those who call that a bargain terrible people! well there were definitely other

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problems with canal engineering as well. like the ones in the north tended to

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know freeze in the winter. but in a world without trains could they really

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complain? plus frozen locks provide some of the world's longest ice skating rinks.

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pretty cool well sales in bedazzled spandex outfits [figure skaters pictured]

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and cheesy soundtracks went through the roof.

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