<P> Silver and gold from the viceroyalty of Peru were transported overland across the isthmus by Spanish Silver Train to Porto Bello, where Spanish treasure fleets shipped them to Seville and Cádiz from 1707 . Lionel Wafer spent four years between 1680 and 1684 among the Cuna Indians . Scotland tried to establish a settlement in 1698 through the Darien scheme . </P> <P> The California Gold Rush, starting in 1849, brought a large increase in the transportation of people from the Atlantic to the Pacific . Steamships brought gold diggers from eastern US ports, who trekked across the isthmus by foot, horse, and later rail . On the Pacific side, they boarded Pacific Mail Steamship Company vessels headed for San Francisco . </P> <P> Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man behind the Suez Canal, started a Panama Canal Company in 1880 that went bankrupt in 1889 in the Panama scandals . In 1902--4, the United States forced Colombia to grant independence to the Department of the Isthmus, bought the remaining assets of the Panama Canal Company, and finished the canal in 1914 . </P> <P> A significant body of water (referred to as the Central American Seaway) once separated the continents of North and South America, allowing the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to mix freely . Beneath the surface, two plates of the Earth's crust were slowly colliding, forcing the Cocos Plate to slide under the Caribbean Plate . The pressure and heat caused by this collision led to the formation of underwater volcanoes, some of which grew large enough to form islands as early as 15 million years ago . Meanwhile, movement of the two tectonic plates was also pushing up the sea floor, eventually forcing some areas above sea level . </P>

What type of landmass do the suez and panama canals cut through