Jeanette Davidson, age 13, of Marion, Ohio, for her question:

HOW MANY SHIPS USE THE PANAMA CANAL DAILY?

Crossing Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is the Panama Canal. About 14,000 ocean going ships travel through the waterway each year. This total averages out to about 39 ships each day.

About one tenth of the ships moving through the Panama Canal belong to the United States or to some of her citizens. Great Britain, Greece, Japan, Liberia and Panama are other leading users of the Canal. Close

to 200 million tons of cargo pass through the famous waterway annually.

The Panama Canal is just over 50 miles long. But it saves ships thousands of travel miles.

Before the Panama Canal was built, a ship sailing from New York City to San Francisco had to travel more than 13,000 miles around the tip of South America. The Canal shortened the voyage to about 5,200 miles.

The United States built the Canal in the early 1900s at a coat of about $380 million.

The Panama Canal has three sets of locks, or water filled chambers, that raise and lower shiops from one level to another. The locks were built in pairs to allow ships to pass through in both directions at the same time.