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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The cream of the crop of 19th-century French engineers are trained at what two institutions (the most brilliant at the former, and only its top graduates at the latter)?
(a) Ycole des Ponts et Paris and Ycole Polytechnic et Chausyes.
(b) Universite Polytechnique et Paris and Ycole des Ponts et Chausyes.
(c) Ycole des Ponts et Chausyes and Ycole Polytechnique.
(d) Ycole Polytechnique and Ycole des Ponts et Chausyes.

2. A. G. Menocal tells the 1879 Congris International d'Ytudes du Canal Interocyanique he had been in Panama in 1875 planning a sea-level canal, but abandoned that idea when he grasped what?
(a) The full impact of the Chagres River.
(b) The time it would take to complete a sea-level canal in Panama as it would elsewhere.
(c) The engineering complexities of a sea-level canal through Panama.
(d) The relief of the terrain.

3. In late 1879, a large entourage sails to Panama arriving in what season?
(a) Rainy.
(b) Dry.
(c) Typhoon.
(d) Hurricane.

4. Who offers a solution letting Ferdinand de Lesseps extract himself honorably and gain income from tolls coming in?
(a) Philippe Banau-Varilla.
(b) Pierre Tirard.
(c) Charles de Lesseps.
(d) H. B. Slaven.

5. Back in Paris, in mid-1885, Ferdinand de Lesseps stipulates his Panama project ranks how in comparison to Suez?
(a) Less difficult than Suez, just longer.
(b) Equally difficult to Suez.
(c) Twice as difficult as Suez.
(d) Ten times more difficult than Suez.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which survivors enjoy lifelong immunity from the disease that comes and goes in waves?

2. For what purpose does Navy Secretary George M. Robeson direct Commander Thomas O. Selfridge to the Isthmus of Darien at Caledonia Bay, some 150 miles to the east of the Panama Canal Railroad on January 10, 1870?

3. Ferdinand de Lesseps lost a son and a wife to cholera in Egypt and invests $7.1 million in hospitals that a Canadian doctor declares the best in the tropics, and an American, decades later, places where?

4. What other term or phrase describes Phillippe Banau-Varilla besides bold, vain, personable, energetic, practical, and brilliant?

5. While dredging predominates in the lowlands, steam shovels, picks, shovels, and what else are key in the uplands?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who are the three prominent directors of the Turr Syndicate and what are their backgrounds?

2. How is the work organized under the French?

3. How can the early years of the Companie Universele be described?

4. What is the result of Gaston Blanchet's proposal for a 400' wide swath to ease surveying?

5. What does the swindler Cornelius Herz do before he flees to France?

6. The chances against Panama being selected as the location for a canal over Nicaragua are reportedly 100 to 1, until what two events occur?

7. Who is Rear Adm. John Grimes Walker?

8. What is the situation like in Panama when Phillippe Banau-Varilla is appointed acting director of the French project?

9. As hard as they work, what are some of the problems the French engineers encounter?

10. What critical things transpire in regard to the French canal project in July 1886?

(see the answer keys)

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