Through the cutting the bottom width of the canal is 300 feet. Having accomplished the eight or nine mile passage through the deep gorge, the vessel reaches the end of the high-level section at the Pedro Miguel locks. Here she is gently lowered 30 feet down to the bosom of little Miraflores Lake, held at 55 feet above sea-level. The length of this subsection is about a mile and a half, and it ends at the Miraflores locks, where the ship is lowered by two steps to the level of the Pacific. Then follows the last stage of this eventful transit--the eight-mile tidal section along which the vessel glides between low swamps to her own element of deep sea-water beyond the new port of Balboa, west of Panama, whose wharves are being constructed from the waste material of the inland excavations. The new breakwater which runs out from Balboa to Naos Island suggests wind and storm. But eternal calm reigns along these shores, and the object of the breakwater is to protect the line of the canal, not from heavy seas, but from the silt-bearing currents from the east which set at right angles to the channel. Constant dredging was necessary to prevent the bed of the canal becoming filled with this sediment. The dyke has proved very effectual for this purpose. Such is the Panama Canal which has for so many centuries been the desire of the nations, and which is now one of the permanent geographical features of the globe. It is so well and truly constructed that nothing short of an earthquake could ever seriously damage it. The question naturally arises whether this ultimate danger needs to be seriously considered. Panama is rather suspiciously close to a region where geological conditions are not remarkable for stability. The earthquake at Kingston a few years ago was as destructive a calamity as those of Messina and San Francisco. Costa Rica, too, almost an isthmian country, enjoys a very bad reputation for this kind of friskiness. Panama, however, seems happily to lie outside the zone of such disturbances. Slight earthquake shocks have been felt, probably only the reflections of severer shocks elsewhere. But there is no record or tradition of a really serious convulsion. There is, indeed, one visible and reassuring evidence of the self-possession of the earth's surface in this region. To the east of the modern city of Panama is the site of old Panama, of which the lofty tower of the old cathedral--a pathetic and picturesque object--is still standing. This shows that there has been no serious earthquake here for the greater part of four centuries. Still, the danger--great or small--does exist, and it threatens a high-level canal, with its elaborate lock-machinery and masonry, far more than it would have affected a canal at sea-level. No very severe convulsion might be necessary to throw one of these locks out of gear, and the entire canal, therefore, out of operation for a considerable time. But against such