Part 7 (1/2)
”Yes, so I heard; but I didn't suppose they'd be open so early in the ”
”They weren't I had to wait, and I was the first custo studious!” laughed Joe ”Great Scott! Look at what he's reading!” he went on as he caught a glimpse of the title of the book ”'History of the Pana book!” declared Blake ”You'll like it”
”Perhaps--if I read it,” said Joe, drily
”Oh, I fancy you'll want to read it,” went on Blake, significantly
”Say!” cried Joe, struck with a sudden idea ”You've o to Panaan his chum slowly, ”I haven't fully decided--”
”Oh, piffle!” cried Joe with a laugh ”Excuse , but I know just how it is,” he proceeded ”You'veall the advance infor it on o without me; will you?”
”You know I'd never do that,” was the answer, spoken ratherwords deserved ”You knoe proether e ca picture business, and we have stuck I don't want to break the coo to Panao too!”
”I haven't actually made up my mind,” went on Blake, as, perhaps, a little more serious, and probably a deeper thinker than his chuht, and I didn't just see hoe could refuse Mr Hadley's request
”You know he started us in this business, and, only for hio to Panaiant slides, volcanic eruptions, and so on, I, for one, think we ought to go”
”So do I--for two!” chimed in Joe ”But are there really volcanic eruptions down there?”
”Well, there have been, in tiain
Anyhow, the slides are alwaysabout them in this book
”Culebra Cut! That's where the really stupendous work of the Pana, with an average depth of 120 feet, and at soo up 500 feet above the bed of the channel Why the Suez Canal is a farside of it!”
”Whehistled Joe ”You're there with the facts already, Blake”
”They're so interesting I couldn't help but remember them,” said Blake with a s landslides At first they were terribly discouraging to the workers They practically put the French engineers, who started the Canal, out of the running, and even when the United States engineers started figuring they didn't allow enough leeway for the Culebra slides
”At first they decided that a ditch about eight hundred feet ould be enough to keep the top soil fro down But they finally had to hteen hundred feet at the top, so as to h”
”And yet slides occur even now,” remarked Joe, dubiously
”Yes, because the work isn't quite finished”
”And we're going to get one of those slides on our filo, yes; and I don't see but e'd better go”
”Then I'm with you, Blake, oldhis chuy that the book flew out of the other's hands