"Not to trouble you with details," replied the Doctor, "the estimate of the cost was originally six hundred millions of francs, or one hundred and twenty millions of dollars. Very few enterprises come within the original estimates, and it is probable that not less than thirty millions of dollars, and perhaps another hundred millions, must be added to these figures, and some engineers say three hundred millions will be required. The cost of the Suez Canal was about one hundred millions, and the work at Suez was very light compared with that at Panama." "I remember," said Fred, "that the Suez Canal is practically a great ditch through a sandy country, with no elevation of more than sixty feet, and but very little rock to be cut away. Nearly half the length of the canal was made by filling up depressions in the desert, which were turned into lakes by allowing the water to run into them. Is there anything of the kind here?" "Not by any means," was the reply; "the Panama Canal is being cut through a region where the difficulties are enormous by comparison with those at Suez. Instead of a waste of sand, there is a tropical forest for the greater part of the way, and in place of the depressions which were converted into lakes to form part of the Suez Canal, we have a chain of hills which are nearly three hundred feet high at the lowest points. The summit level of the Panama Railway is two hundred and sixty-three feet above the level of tide-water on the Atlantic coast, and the canal must have the enormous depth of three hundred feet, and at some points more than that." "That is quite correct," replied their host. "It will be the deepest canal cutting in the world when it is completed. On the section of Culebra, in a distance of little more than a mile, we must remove twenty-five million cubic metres of earth and pile it up elsewhere. Fortunately, our work is rendered easy in this respect, as there are many valleys close to the canal where the earth can be disposed of. Do you know how much is represented by twenty-five million cubic metres?" Fred made a calculation on a slip of paper, roughly converting metres into yards by adding one fifth. Then he reduced the yards into cubic feet, and announced that, with the earth to be removed from the Culebra section of the canal they could build a wall nine feet thick and twenty feet high for a distance of twenty-eight miles, and have a good many car-loads to spare. [Illustration: VIEW ON THE CHAGRES RIVER.] "This will give you an idea of the work to be performed here," replied Mr. Colné, "and you must remember that it is only one single section of the entire line. Then, too, there are great difficulties in the way on account of the rains, and the sudden overflows of the Chagres River, which crosses the line of the canal. Instead of being a depression to be filled with water, it is liable to pour out at any moment much more water than we want." [Illustration: BEACH NEAR ASPINWALL.]