To raise or lower ships passing through the Panama Canal (a similar process is applied to any kind of ships passing through any canal) we use "locks". You've seen diagrams of an "air lock" in a spacecraft; a chamber that the astronauts can enter, and air is added or removed, and then go through the other door. The original "locks" do the same thing, only with water.
A vessel enters the lock through the gate at one end. The gate is closed, and water is pumped into the lock. As the water level is raised, the ship is lifted. When the water in the lock matches the water level in the next leg of the canal, the other gate is opened, and the vessel exits the lock.
Locks are only needed when the ships need to be raised and lowered in altitude because of the terrain the canal crosses.
The main channels that cross the mountains of Panama are well above sea level. Ships are raised to reach them, then lowered back down at the other end. To dig a sea-level canal would have required the removal of an impossibly large amount of rock.
The Panama Canal allows ships to pass through south America to Central America or vice versa.
Panama. It moves ships across Panama.
Panama Canal Locks which facilitates the crossing of the canal itself by ships .
The Panama Canal opened in 1914.
Panama
The Panama canal made it so ships did not have to go all they around South America to get to the targeted area.
penis
The country is Panama and the canal is the Panama Canal.
U.S. ships were tired of taking the long way to get to a certain place so they decided to build the panama canal :)
The Panama Canal cuts across the isthmus in Central America, providing a shortcut for ships traveling between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.