"And I can't give you much information here. We'll want to get aboard an inspection car and run right through. That'll be a job for to-morrow. We'll have the inspector's car, and run along to the other side. But, see here, this canal's the biggest thing in canals that's ever been thought of. The Suez Canal don't hold a candle to it. The Kiel Canal is an infant when compared with what this will be when it's finished. There's fifty miles, or thereabouts, of solid dirt between Colon and Panama, and America has decided to get to at that dirt and cut a way clear through it, a way not only big enough to take ships of to-day, but to take ships of to-morrow, ships that'll make the world open its eyes and exclaim." The very mention of the work made Jim gasp. He asked for particulars promptly. "It'll take a heap of time, I expect," he said. "Reckon a canal a mile long and fifty feet wide by thirty deep isn't dug in a day." "Nor hardly in a year. But we're not digging all the way," explained Phineas. "America has selected what is known as the high-level canal; that is, she's not just digging a track clear through from Atlantic to Pacific, a tide-level canal as you might call it, for there are difficulties against such a scheme. To begin with, there's a tide to be reckoned with at Panama, while this Atlantic end has none; which means your water level at the Pacific side is different from that at the Atlantic. Then there's river water to be contended with. This isthmus gets a full share of rain, particularly near the Atlantic, and the rivers get packed with water in a matter of a few hours. Well, you've got to do something, or that flood will swamp your canal, wash away your works, and do other damage." "Then the high level has fewer difficulties?" asked Jim.