[158] It was expected that the _Great Eastern_ steamship would attain a speed of 25 knots an hour, and the proposition that a vessel’s speed is almost in the direct ratio to her length having once been granted, that a class of vessels would come to be built that would be too large to make use of the canal. [159] ‘Edinburgh Review,’ vol. ciii. (January 1856). [160] This seems an extraordinary assumption when we consider that the canal saves in the journey to Bombay 41 per cent. of the voyage by the Cape, and on the journey to Madras and Calcutta 32 to 35 per cent. [161] In 1887 the average duration of the passage through the canal for the whole 3137 ships that made use of it was 34 hours 3 minutes. Between 1870 and 1873 the passage was frequently effected in 12 to 15 hours. [162] The shares rose from a middle price of 306 francs in 1867 to 664 in 1877, 1021 in 1880, 2710 in 1882, and fell to 1989 in 1884, rising again to 2095 in 1886. [163] The distance from Suedia to Kalah Jabar, a small Arab settlement on the Euphrates, was put down at 100 to 150 miles, and the river journey from Kalah Jabar to Bussora at 715 miles. From Bussora to Kurrachee the distance is 1000 miles. The average time occupied in descending the Tigris was taken at seven days, and that of the ascent at twelve. [164] M. Emile Ende, in a communication to the French Academy of Sciences in 1886. CHAPTER XXI. THE PANAMA CANAL. “A little model the master wrought Which should be to the larger plan, What the child is to the man.” —_Longfellow._ If the question were asked, “What is the greatest constructive work that has yet been undertaken by man?” there would, without question, be a great many different replies. There can, however, be only one reply as to the most costly. Perhaps, also, there can be but one answer as to the most disastrous to human life. The Panama canal would almost certainly secure pre-eminence in these attributes. It might or might not rank equally high as a work of engineering genius and possible public utility. There has probably never been a project that has so challenged the admiration and the approval of the world as that of finding a waterway between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, at or near to the narrow neck of land that separates Limon from the Gulf of Panama in Central America. This enterprise has a long and a very eventful history. Many explorers, geographers, statesmen, engineers, and economists have either written on the merits and demerits of the undertaking, or have otherwise become associated with it. Some of the more notable episodes in the records of the isthmus may therefore be referred to, before proceeding to describe the various projects now either in progress or in contemplation, for opening it up for the purposes of trade, commerce, and navigation.