The Panama Canal: An Informal History of Its Concept, Building, and Present Status. Donald Barr Chidsey

      It had carried more treasure than any other railroad. Until the first real transcontinental line was finished in Utah with the driving of a golden spike, in 1869, the Panama Railroad carried by far the greatest part of the gold bullion shipped east from California. In the short period of its glory it carried more than $750,000,000 of this, and without losing a dollar.

      Moreover, it had settled an ages-long dispute. The Pacific, men had always said, is higher than the Atlantic; but no two engineers or no two scientists could agree on how much higher. “Colonel” George M. Totten, the chief engineer of the Panama Railroad, in his final report in 1855 said that he had found the mean level of the Pacific to be between 0.14 and 0.75 feet higher than the mean level of the Atlantic. However, he attributed this to local, temporary conditions. Actually the two oceans are the same level.

      The Route of the Panama Railroad