a of
seventy-five acres. Think of a seventy-five acre field all sliding in at
once, every foot of which had to be dug out!

The worst trouble was when the bottom bulged up from below. Some little
time before my visit a large tree came up from the bottom. It had been
rolled in by one of those fearful slides and long afterwards came up
from the bottom. Somebody has figured out that if all the dirt that has
been taken from Culebra Cut was loaded on railroad cars they would, if
coupled together, make a train that would reach around the world four
times.

The canal cost about four hundred million dollars. The tolls now amount
to almost a million dollars a month so it is more than paying expenses.
The ship upon which I passed through paid seven thousand dollars toll,
but it was one of the largest ships that pass through. Now that the
danger from slides is practically over and trade routes are being
established it ought to be a paying investment.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD

A few years ago the editor of one of the great magazines of America sent
out a thousand letters to as many scientists and great men scattered
among all civilized nations in an effort to get the consensus of opinion
as to what might be called the seven wonders of the modern world. A
ballot was prepared containing fifty-six subjects of scientific and
mechanical achievement and blank spaces in which other subjects might be
written. Each man was asked to designate the seven he felt were entitled
to a place on the list. He, of course, was not confined to the printed
list and could write in others that were better entitled to a place than
those on the printed list.

About seventy per cent of these ballots were returned properly marked
and the result was most interesting indeed. At once it was discovered
that a complete change in human intelligence or judgment has taken place
since the ancient Greeks made their list of the seven wonders of the
world. Today the standard of measurement as to what should be classed in
such a list is _service to humanity_, while in the old days the standard
of measurement was or at least had largely to do with brute force.

It is not surprising, therefore, that wireless telegraphy should have
the highest place on the list. Guglielmo Marconi is far more worthy to
be remembered than the king who built the great Pyramid in Egypt. This
brilliant Italian, when but fifteen years of age was reveling in the