"What do we get when all's ended?" he cried eagerly. "Guess for that you require a map by rights, though I can tell you something from memory. To begin with, take New York as our important eastern port, and San Francisco as that on the west coast. Of course I know that we have an inter-oceanic railway. But if goods in bulk were shipped, the boat would have to steam right away south, round by Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan. The Oregon, one of our best battleships, was lying away up in the Pacific when our war with Spain began. She had to steam more than 13,000 miles to reach Key West, and guess a ship wants overhauling after such a long journey, putting aside the risks she ran of capture _en route_, owing to her isolation. Well now, this isthmian canal will knock the better part of 9000 miles off the route from New York to San Francisco. The English doing business with our firms in that port will have a journey less by 6000 miles, while New York will be closer to the ports of South America by a good 5000 miles. It'll be a shorter journey from Japan or Australia to New York than it is to-day to Liverpool, while there's scarcely a trip from east to west that won't be helped by this canal we're building. Just think of it, Jim! Where this trolley's running there'll be, one of these days, deep water, with bigger ships floating in it than you can dream of now. You and I will have helped to bring about that matter. When we're old we'll be able to tell the youngsters all about it; for America will know then that she owns something valuable. Her people will have had time to grasp its full significance, and guess then the question will not be, as now, 'Where is the Panama Canal? What are our folks doing?' but 'How was America's great triumph accomplished?' My! Ain't I been gassing? Why, there's Gorgona. Hollo, sonny! Pull her up." They descended from the car promptly, and made for the huge sheds where one portion of the engineering staff undertook the upkeep of the machinery engaged along the whole line of the canal. The friendly official was waiting for them, and very soon Jim's eyes were bulging wide with delight at the sight of the motor drill he was to manage. CHAPTER XIII Hustle the Order of the Day Never in the whole course of his short existence had Jim come upon such a busy scene as he encountered, when Phineas Barton at length contrived to drag the eager young fellow away from the engineering shops at Gorgona.