Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1893 — THE CORINTH CANAL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE CORINTH CANAL.

A Work of Vast Importance to Greece and to Commerce. The Corinth Canal between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf,, will not only be of vast benefit to the coast trade of Greece and to the trade of Athens, the capital of the kingdom of the Hellenes, but it shortens by 250 miles the voyage from the Adriatic Sea, from Sicily or from Malta to Constantinople and the Black Sea, avoiding the passage round Cape Matapan, which is generally very stormy in winter and feared by mariners almost as much as Cape Horn. Eighteen centuries ago the Roman Emperor Nero began work on a canal, the very line of which the present one follows, but political disturbances at home caused au abandonment of the project. The canal, now opened to navigation, is less than four miles long. In some places the cutting had to he made in sandstone rock through high land, 250 feet above the sea level,

and required a great outlay and enormous labor. The canal is quite straight, in a northwest direction, and a sea current runs through it at the rate, varying with the wind, of from half a knot to three knots an hour. The width at the bottom is 72 feet, and the depth of water will be uniformly 27 feet, but at present there are two places where it is only 19 feet; this, however, will be corrected in a month or two. The sides of the canal for two miles and onehaif are faced with solid masonry, and a path runs along each side. For the entire length the canal is lighted by electricity. Long-distance telephone service is becoming common ip this country, and a growing demand for it causes a gradual extension. vThe longest continuous line now operated is from Boston to Milwaukee, a distance, as the line is run, of 1,300 milles. Five minutes is the unit of time upon which prices are based. Between New York and Washington the service costs $2 for each five minuses’ use, and betw'een New York and Chi cago it Is $9 for the same service. It is claimed that conversation may be

as distinctly heard at 1,000 miles as at one mile, and that in these long-dis-tance communications the disagreeable buzzing so often heard in local service is not experienced.

THE CORINTH CANAL.